The Central Asia-Afghanistan Relationship

The Central Asia-Afghanistan Relationship

Author: Marlène Laruelle

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 9781498546560

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This collection provides a broad analysis of Afghanistan and its neighbors in recent decades and investigates the various historical and political contexts into which the region has been placed. It examines the legacy of Soviet intervention, patterns of cooperation and conflict among regional states, and recent US strategic initiatives.


The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan

Author: Thomas J. Barfield

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2014-10-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780292768383

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The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 focused international attention on this country for the first time in nearly a century. The need for reliable information has only become been greater. Because of their traditional xenophobia toward the West, successive Afghan governments have restricted the number of scholars permitted to undertake extensive fieldwork. For this reason Thomas Barfield's study of the Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan is a welcome addition to the literature, a literature which is not likely to grow in the coming years as war, domestic unrest and restrictive travel policies continue to make the research environment in Afghanistan unfavorable. The Central Asian Arabs are a little-known people of northeastern Afghanistan. This book is an account of the changes that have taken place in their way of life over the twentieth century as they switched from a form of subsistence pastoralism to a cash economy. Barfield's research constitutes a substantial revision of the standard hypothesis on the economic and social status of nomadic pastoralists, as originally posited by Fredrik Barth. One of Barfield's main purposes is to provide a case study that illustrates the wide-ranging complexity of pastoral nomadism, its integration into a regional economy, and how structural changes have occurred within the pastoral economy itself.


The Spectre of Afghanistan

The Spectre of Afghanistan

Author: Amin Saikal

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1788317661

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Aiming to connect a number of divergent perspectives on the current state of Afghanistan, this book outlines the country's past and present instability and how this impacts and is conceptualised by its neighbours as well as by international heavyweights such as Russia, China and the United States. Given Afghanistan's extensive cross-border ethnic, linguistic, sectarian and cultural ties with its neighbours – whatever transpires in the war-torn country is bound to have regional and global security implications. This study focuses on the current formal and informal defensive policies the states of Central Asia may or may not have in place in the event of the Afghan situation deteriorating further or the Taliban-led insurgency substantially widening their influence. The book also considers the positions and policy responses of three influential actors in the region: Russia, China and the United States. It assesses the convergence of interests between these great powers in stabilising Afghanistan, and their divergence of geopolitical objectives in the region. With President Donald Trump unpredictably upheaving American policy in Afghanistan, an assertive Russia continuing to expand its influence across Central Asia and China seeking to have a wider economic and security role in the region, this book offers a timely assessment of an internationally-important topic.


China and Afghanistan

China and Afghanistan

Author: Huasheng Zhao

Publisher: CSIS Reports

Published: 2012-03-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780892067077

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Because China is principally interested in preventing the destabilization of Xinjiang Province, it has broadly deferred to the United States and its Western allies who are leading military efforts, political reconciliation, and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan. Author Zhao Huasheng writes that China's interests in Afghanistan are more limited than those of the United States, and Beijing has no interest in playing a subordinate role "under the dominance of the West" either. Basically China wants the security threat contained, but is not prepared to contribute to the military effort, including opening a transit corridor on its territory. China is prepared to participate in Afghanistan's economic reconstruction, especially when it advances Chinese foreign economic interests.


Afghanistan and Central Asia

Afghanistan and Central Asia

Author: Martin Mccauley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1317869753

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The Afghan crisis has grabbed the attention of the entire world, and underlined the desperate need in the West for a better understanding of the region and its challenges in the face of increasingly militant interpretations of Islam. Carved up and fought over by the British and Tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century, and under Soviet domination for much of the twentieth, the lonely passes, deserts and peoples of the five Central Asian republics have remained shrouded in obscurity. Even Afghanistan, the site of almost constant conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1978, is little known beyond the media images of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement. Martin McCauley draws on his vast knowledge of the region and its history to provide a clear and highly readable account of Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tasikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, from their medieval pasts to the unpredictable present. Illuminating languages and landscapes, cultures and society, he examines the rise of militant Islam and its impact on the region, the push and pull of global economics and politics, and possibilities for stability in an inherently unstable part of the world.


The Rival Powers in Central Asia

The Rival Powers in Central Asia

Author: Józef Popowski

Publisher:

Published: 1893

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13:

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The Rival Powers in Central Asia is an English translation of a work originally published in Vienna in 1890 under the title Antagonismus der Englischen und Russischen Interessen in Asien: Eine Militär-Politische Studie (The antagonism between English and Russian interests in Asia: A military-political study). The study analyzes what the author sees as the threat to British India posed by an aggressive Russia. The author characterizes the Russian Empire as a "reckless, expansive force," which, having reached its natural limits on the seas to the east and the north, was now concentrating "all its energies on the South, and chiefly in the direction of Constantinople and Central Asia." While the Russian thrust into Central Asia is portrayed as a threat mainly to British interests, Russian ambitions toward Constantinople are seen as most threatening to the continental European powers, "Austria in particular," which "cannot at any cost permit Russia to take possession of Constantinople." On this basis, the author argues that it is in Great Britain's interest to join a "Central European Coalition" with Austria-Hungary and imperial Germany. Chapter four, the longest in the book, entitled "Strategical Relations of the Two States," assesses the relative strengths of Russia and Great Britain in a contest for control of Central Asia and ultimately India, with sections on land forces, naval forces, and the transport and logistical routes likely to be used by each power. The concluding chapter discusses the benefits that Great Britain would gain by allying with the Central European powers against Russia, stresses the value to those powers of a British alliance, and argues that only through such an alliance would Britain be able to retain its hold on India. Ultimately, of course, the envisioned alliance did not come about, as some two decades later Great Britain allied with Russia (and France) and against Germany and Austria-Hungary in the great European conflict that came to be known as World War I.


Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal

Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal

Author: Amin Saikal

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2016-03-04

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1498529135

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The planned reductions in NATO troop numbers in Afghanistan through 2015 and a final withdrawal at the end of 2016 brings up numerous pressing questions about the security and national interests of not just Afghanistan, but of the broader region itself. The problem of a chaotic Afghanistan—or of an outright Taliban victory—is of great concern to not only immediate neighbors such as Iran, Pakistan, and the former Soviet Central Asian republics to the north, but also to those countries in the region with Afghanistan-related security or economic concerns, such as China and India. Further abroad, Russian, American and European interests and plans for dealing with the fallout from Afghanistan must also be taken into account as these major powers have enduring interests in Afghanistan and the region. This volume puts the prospects for short- and mid-term security dynamics at the core of the analysis, with each case being placed in its proper contemporary historical, economic, and political context. The book will offer a truly comprehensive, nuanced, and timely account of the security situation in and around Afghanistan.