USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 1

SPECIAL REPORT

NO. 489 | N ove m b er 2020 UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE www.usip.org

Looking for Trouble: Sources of 

Violent Conflict in Central Asia

By Gavin Helf

Summary

• Central Asian states are multiethnic in their constitutions, yet 

a resurgence of nativism and nationalism are the most common 

drivers of large-scale violent conflict in the region. 

• Similarly, although all Central Asian 

states are avowedly secular, the 

region is experiencing an Islamic 

religious revival, pitting local Islamic tradition against versions of 

Islam from other parts of the world.

• Resource scarcity and climate 

change are constant sources of 

regional conflict and promise to 

become more problematic as water and other resources become 

even more scarce. 

• Labor migration, mostly to Russia, 

creates not only great economic 

opportunity but a new set of social problems. Central Asia could 

learn from other Asian countries 

that have decades of experience 

in protecting their migrant workers. 

• The hand of criminal organizations 

is often visible in mobilization to violence. Organized crime and corruption in the region exploit all of 

these other cleavages and undermine good governance.

• Russia and China see Central Asia 

as a strategic region. Whether they, 

along with the United States, share 

a vision of stability and peace in 

the region and can find ways to 

collaborate will be important in the 

coming decades.

Police wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus detain a protester during an 

unsanctioned protest in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on June 6, 2020. (Photo by Vladimir Tretyakov/AP)

Contents

Central Asia Today .......................3

Ethno-Nationalism

and Nativism................................. 5

Islam and Secularism .................. 6

Water Resources

and Climate Change ....................7

Labor Migration

and Economic Conflict.................8

Triggers: Failed Transitions, 

Crime, and Revolution ............... 10

Local Pushback

Against Great Power ................... 11

A Comprehensive Approach..... 15
2 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of 

the United States Institute of Peace. An online edition of this and related reports can be found on our website 

(www.usip.org), together with additional information on the subject.

© 2020 by the United States Institute of Peace

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Special Report No. 489. First published 2020.

ISBN: 978-1-60127-838-8 

NO. 489 | N ove m b er 2020

SPECIAL REPORT

ABOUT THE REPORT

This report examines likely sources of violent conflict in contemporary Central 

Asia and how they interconnect. Its goal is to better understand how they 

might be exploited by disruptive forces inside and outside of the region in 

the coming years. It suggests that the policy goals of the United States, Russia, and China in the region may be more compatible than is often assumed. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gavin Helf is a senior expert on Central Asia for the United States Institute of 

Peace. Previously, he worked in the Asia and Middle East bureaus of the US 

Agency for International Development on democracy promotion and countering 

violent extremism. From 1984 through 2007, he studied, lived, and worked in the 

Soviet Union and its successor states, mostly in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

CONFLICT 

ANALYSIS & 

PREVENTION
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 3

Central Asia Today

Historically a crossroads between Asia and Europe, later part of the Russian Empire, and for 

seventy years a constituent part of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian region is bordered on the 

west by the Caspian Sea, on the north by Russia, on the east by China, and on the south by Iran 

and Afghanistan. Its five states—Kazakhstan (the largest land area by far), Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, 

Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—are home to a total population of some seventy-four million and 

encompass some four million square kilometers (approximately 1.5 million square miles).

Today’s Central Asia is quite different from the orphaned administrative units that emerged as 

new states after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991. In fiction and comedy in the West, 

Central Asia is often used as a generic post-Soviet backdrop.1 But the real Central Asia has evolved 

away from its former sister Soviet republics in many ways that make it look more like the rest of 

Asia—highly dependent on foreign labor remittances, struggling with integrating a global Islamic 

revival into modern secular political systems, struggling with nativist and nationalist politics, and 

increasingly focused on China and its role in the region. The opportunities and the threats Central 

Asia now faces are dramatically different from what they were upon gaining independence thirty 

years ago. Given new grievances, new regional relationships, and changes in long-standing drivers 

of conflict, it is imperative to examine what the likely sources of conflict in Central Asia are today.

During the Soviet era, Central Asia was an exotic part of “Russia”—what the New York Times

in 1959 described as the Soviet Union’s “soft underbelly.”2 It was the launchpad for the Soviet 

Workers pick cotton in a field in the Tashkent region of Uzbekistan on October 18, 2018. Uzbekistan depends on upstream nations Tajikistan 

and Kyrgyzstan for water during the summer for agriculture. (Photo by Timur Karpov/AP)
4 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

invasion of Afghanistan and today still shares a 2,400-

kilometer border with that country. In the decade after the 

collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asia evolved as a 

prize rich in oil and gas and the object of a New Great 

Game involving Russia, the West, and China.3 Following 

the attacks on New York and Washington, DC, by

al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, analyses of Central Asia 

and its place in the world have been dominated by the 

region’s proximity and access to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After the September 11 attacks, the New Great Game was put on hold as the United States and 

NATO sought a secondary route for supply in the military intervention in Afghanistan through the 

so-called Northern Distribution Network. The countries of Central Asia became important partners 

in this effort. Questions about the political order in each of these countries, their use of counterextremism as a cover for cracking down on domestic opposition, and even their relationship 

to great power rivalry became secondary to the overriding operational needs of the conflict in 

Afghanistan.4

 The large number of Central Asians who joined extremist groups in the Middle East, 

particularly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), only added to this tendency to see Central Asia 

through the lens of its role in the larger conflict between the West and “terrorism.”5 The region also 

became a major transit route for the movement of heroin from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe. 

More recently, it has become a focus of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (echoing its 

historic locus along the Silk Road trade routes). Central Asia seems geographically predetermined 

to be an important arena for great power competition, Russia’s postcolonial security interests overlapping China’s expanding economic and resource interests. As a result, many outside the region 

tend to focus on how Central Asia fits into the larger regional and global picture.

Although currently largely stable and mostly peaceful, Central Asia has seen a surprisingly 

broad spectrum of violence since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Immediate and dangerous 

sources of violence from within, though, threaten stability more than Islamic extremism does from 

the outside. Tajikistan endured a sustained civil war from 1992 to 1997. All five states have experienced significant use of security forces by their governments against the civilian population 

or nonstate armed groups.6 Several bloody clashes—Uzbekistan in 1999, Turkmenistan in 2002, 

and Tajikistan in 2015—have since been characterized as attempted coups d’état, if under oftenmurky circumstances. Three political revolutions involved significant violence and loss of life in 

Kyrgyzstan. Localized violent clashes between civilians, often backed by border troops drawn in 

from either or both sides, have repeatedly taken place in the patchwork of exclaves and enclaves 

in the Ferghana Valley, which encompasses parts of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.7

The region has also seen outbreaks of large-scale targeted ethnic violence against minorities 

with loss of life and property and outflows of refugees, most recently in Kazakhstan in February 

2020.8

 In March 2020 in Kyrgyzstan, masked men wearing traditional Kyrgyz headwear violently 

attacked an International Women’s Day demonstration protesting domestic violence.9 Sporadic 

violence has also been targeted at Chinese and other foreign economic interests in the region.

This report offers a road map for understanding the most likely sources of violent conflict 

in the new, real Central Asia—ethno-nationalism and nativism, Islam and secularism, water 

Following the attacks on New York and 

Washington by al-Qaeda on September 

11, 2001, analyses of Central Asia and its 

place in the world have been dominated 

by the region’s proximity and access to 

the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 5

resources and climate change, and labor migration and economic conflict. The analysis draws 

from emerging trends in the region and the ways in which Central Asia’s geography and cultural 

place in the world interact with those internal trends. The fault lines and triggers that could lead 

to violent conflict in the coming decades can be addressed now, working with governmental, 

academic, and civil society actors in Central Asia itself. Understanding and dealing with these 

drivers and triggers in individual states and the region well before actual outbreaks of conflict 

could make these societies more resilient. Such resilience is particularly relevant as the countries of the region become more open to working together to address regional security issues.

Ethno-Nationalism and Nativism

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a slow but distinct evolution has been evident—from initial nostalgia for the lost superpower to awkward attempts to create new secular civic identities 

to the current phase, which is marked by the development of national identities that are organic 

and more inclusive of pre-Russian, pre-Soviet identities, such as Islam. The first and most obvious 

reason for this phenomenon is suggested in UN population estimates. As of 2019, only 18 percent of the population in Central Asia was older than twenty when the Soviet Union collapsed. In 

2020, of the region’s 74.3 million people, only 46 percent were born in what was then the Soviet 

Union. The vast majority have no living memory of it. Further, with the 2019 retirement of Nursultan 

Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, the Soviet Politburo generation of political leadership in Central Asia 

has entirely left the stage. The population has also become much less Russian. Since independence, the number of ethnic Russians living in Kazakhstan has dropped dramatically, from roughly 

40 percent to 25 percent. The other states now have only very small local Russian populations.10

This demographic trend challenges the multiethnic definition that these states adopted on independence from Soviet ideology and fixed in their constitutions. The Central Asian generation 

that has grown up after the fall of the Soviet Union speaks Russian only as a second or even third 

language.11 What may have been artificial national identities in the mid-1990s are now much more 

organic among the younger generation, who are less likely to be influenced by Russian propaganda 

and are more critical of the Russian narrative about the Soviet past.12 They are more confident and 

have opened new opportunities for cooperation and discovery of commonalities between the countries that go beyond a common Soviet past. Officials, scholars, and religious leaders from across 

Central Asia can gather to celebrate a shared regional religious legacy that does not build up one 

group identity at the expense of others, but instead builds on their common pre-Russian past.

On the other hand, new national identities have been known to slip into violent nativism, 

sometimes on a large scale. Democratic politics in Kyrgyzstan have often given rise to narratives 

that appeal to and elevate the majority ethnic Kyrgyz population at the expense of minorities, 

particularly Uzbeks. In 2010, a messy democratic political transition broke out into large-scale 

violence targeting the Uzbek population in Osh.13 Most recently, in February 2020, targeted 

attacks on Dungans (ethnically Chinese Muslims) in southern Kazakhstan led to ten deaths, 

170 injuries, the flight of several thousand people across the border to Kyrgyzstan, and selective destruction of Dungan property.14 Kazakhstan’s tightly controlled politics have increasingly 
6 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

asserted the primacy of the Kazakh language and ethnic Kazakhs, most often at the expense of 

the non-Kazakh population.15 Another concern is the revival of a few “traditional” practices, such 

as bride kidnapping and underage marriage, thought to have been mostly eliminated or at least 

well controlled in the Soviet era (see box 1).16 Finally, nativist and xenophobic unrest—sometimes 

violent, often anti-Chinese—has combined with economic grievances in ways that test government capacity and break the surface calm in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.17

A regional policy dialogue could address this sensitive topic to better understand both the 

extent to which this nativism was organized and by whom, and how communities can counter 

incipient nativism and xenophobia before they lead to violence.

Islam and Secularism

All five Central Asian countries, although historically Muslim, established secular political systems 

in their constitutions in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. This generally fit with the international norms on religious tolerance and freedom that the West was recommending to them. It 

also seemed like a great improvement over the intolerant Soviet legacy of “scientific atheism,” 

which viewed religion in all forms as a historical anachronism that would fade away over time.

Yet the revival of Islamic religiosity and culture is one of the most noticeable trends in Central Asia 

over the last three decades.18 A vast increase in both religious practice and personal cultural identification with Islam is evident in homes as well as in shops, restaurants, and other public spaces all 

over Central Asia. This reflects not just a revival of local Islamic practice from before the Soviet era, 

but also the exposure of Central Asia to other, non-native forms of Islamic practice.19 Civil society and 

community organizations formed around Islamic principles and identity have appeared and address 

social problems such as labor migration and women’s rights from a self-consciously Islamic perspective. The governments of the region have had an uneven and ambiguous history with this phenomenon. They have at times reflexively cracked down on outward expressions of Islamic identity, 

Box 1.

Islam and National Tradition

Emerging religious and ethnic 

identities can play off each other 

in various ways. In some cases, 

emergent national identities 

and traditional identities might 

overlap and reinforce each other 

as they do in Catholic Poland, 

Buddhist Sri Lanka, or Muslim 

Indonesia. How do the simultaneous revival of Islamic identity and 

the creation of ethno-national

identities interact in Central 

Asia? In Kyrgyzstan, for example, 

a new progressive Islamic women’s organization, Mutakalim, 

was at the forefront of pushing 

against the reemergence of 

traditional bride kidnapping and 

underage marriage while pressing the government to allow 

hijabs in passport photos and 

then schools, challenging both 

traditional local custom and the 

secular state. Sometimes Islam 

and tradition agree in contesting 

the rise of a secular liberal capitalist system. Both seem to have 

significant potential for mobilization alongside more Westernoriented civil society.
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 7

including banning hijabs in school or in passport photos, shaving the beards off men on the street, 

and preventing celebrations of Islamic holidays. On the other hand, all of these governments and 

their presidents have slowly become patrons of Islam. They have supported the construction of 

prestige mosques, paraded their personal devotion to Islam, and subsidized the creation of institutions that celebrate and perpetuate what they see as more indigenous and tolerant forms of Islam.

Some of this ambiguity comes as a reaction to a surprisingly high mobilization of foreign fighters from the region over the last decade. Broadly, the revival of Islam on a large scale in Central 

Asia has been largely about finding personal meaning and communal solutions to persistent social problems. For small groups of the disenfranchised or alienated, however, who might already 

have been seeking pathways to violent empowerment, the pull of Islamic extremism—ISIS in 

particular—provided an opportunity to act. Noah Tucker of George Washington University calls 

this phenomenon the “Islamification of radicalism.”20

In response, governments in the region simultaneously cracked down on extremism and encouraged safe forms of religious expression. However, upon the collapse of ISIS in Syria, Central 

Asian governments unexpectedly adopted policies based on repatriation of citizens caught 

up in the Middle East conflicts and a corresponding relaxation of the securitized response inside their countries. As a regional official remarked at a recent conference in Uzbekistan, “We 

realized that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem.” In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, thousands of prisoners convicted on extremism charges were released from detention on amnesty. 

Tajikistan adopted a policy of allowing returning foreign fighters who admitted their mistake and 

repented to be pardoned. Most surprisingly, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan took the 

lead in identifying their citizens in refugee and detention camps in Iraq and Syria and, in 2019, 

began bringing them home on dedicated flights.21 Central Asia turned out to be well ahead of 

the rest of the world, including Europe and the United States, in taking on this problem.

A regional policy dialogue between civil society and governments on religious tolerance in 

the context of preventing violent extremist radicalization launched in May 2018.22 It is part of a 

now-urgent conversation on how the nominally secular character of these states is evolving to 

embrace what is becoming a more religious and specifically Muslim population.

Water Resources and Climate Change

Long-term trends affect Central Asia in ways that could exacerbate or provoke violent conflict 

in the decades ahead, including competition for scarce resources. The region has water problems. The one that has played out since independence is that the mountainous upstream states, 

which have water but do not have hydrocarbon sources of energy (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan), 

prefer to use water to generate electricity in the winter. The downstream states, which are rich 

in hydrocarbons (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), prefer to use the water during the 

summer for agriculture. Amid fits and starts and occasional misunderstandings, the downstream 

states agree to sell the upstream states natural gas in the winter for heating in exchange for 

releasing most water during the summer for irrigation. The Soviet practice of balancing water 

and electricity needs was complicated on independence by the privatization of electricity and 
8 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

disagreements about the relative value of natural resource commodities. Water has been at the 

heart of many diplomatic disputes in the region. Agricultural overuse of water has stressed the 

region’s supply and led to the precipitous shrinkage of the Aral Sea over the last few decades. 

Kazakhstan’s decision to put state resources into saving the small North Aral Sea led to damming that body of water and accelerating the decline of the larger South Aral Sea.

Climate change further compounds the water resource challenge. The glaciers in Kazakhstan, 

Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan that supply Central Asia with water are now melting rapidly.23 Water disputes are therefore taking place in an era with higher than average river flow. Although predictions 

about timing may differ, the likely scenario is that in the short term, glacial melt will increase available water for the next decade or two—until it is gone. The urban, agricultural, and energy infrastructure of the region is being built around an existing supply of water that will not be available in 

a generation. This situation is very likely to become a source of interstate and communal conflict.

Preventing conflict around resource issues, which often flare up in the context of the enclaves 

and exclaves that dot the region (see box 2), is a natural fit for a regional policy dialogue.

Central Asia also has a population problem. Unlike many of the European parts of the former 

Soviet Union, Central Asia has seen a population boom over the last three decades.24

The safety valve on this population expansion has been labor migration from Central Asia to 

Russia and, to a much lesser extent, Turkey. Upward of ten million labor migrants from Central 

Asia work abroad and send billions of dollars home, amounting to up to one-third of the gross 

domestic product of both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which are among the most remittancedependent countries in the world.25 On the plus side, this has allowed Central Asia to participate 

in the larger regional economy, which has in turn certainly contributed to economic stability and 

provided employment to growing Central Asian populations. On the negative side, some isolated 

and mistreated labor migrants have proven susceptible to extremist narratives, which fed the flow 

of foreign fighters from Central Asia to ISIS.26 Perhaps even more consequential in the long term is 

the creation of millions of “social orphans” whose parents have moved to Russia and left them in 

the care of extended family in their home countries. Another manifestation of labor migration is the 

feminization of the countryside in areas where men are the primary migrants and women are left 

behind to raise the crops as well as rear the children. This creates opportunity for malign socialization, including into criminal and extremist communities, and generally lowers the resilience of communities. The grievances that led thousands of Central Asian labor migrants to radicalize remain.

Although the International Organization for Migration has done outstanding research on labor 

migration from the region, a great deal remains to be learned about how it affects families and 

communities positively and negatively, and how it varies by country and community.27 Because 

labor migration is now a fact of life in Central Asia, a policy dialogue across the region on making 

it safer seems in order. One goal should be to learn from Asian countries that have decades of 

experience in protecting their workers abroad. Other important elements to include are the impact of labor migration on education and child welfare and promoting economic growth through 

focused investment of remittances.

Labor Migration and Economic Conflict
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 9

Box 2.

The Odd Case of Enclaves and Exclaves

Resource conflict, state sovereignty, and ethnic identity clash 

in violent flare-ups in Central Asia 

around the eight Ferghana Valley 

enclaves and exclaves that are 

vestiges of the administrative 

breakup of the Soviet Union. Small 

pockets of one country completely surrounded by a neighboring 

country are sprinkled throughout 

the Ferghana Valley. Local squabbles over access, land use, and 

resources have erupted into intercommunal violence and often 

then drawn in border guards from 

one or both sides and escalated 

to armed clashes that have to be 

controlled by intervention of the 

central authorities from each side. 

Although the uncertain nature of 

the borders between the Central 

Asian countries lead to occasionally violent clashes, they have 

been particularly prevalent around 

the enclaves and exclaves.

Note

For a good history of conflict around these areas, see T. Jack Rowe, “Problematic Puzzle Pieces: Enclaves and Conflict in the Ferghana Valley” in Central 

Asia in the Era of Sovereignty: The Return of Tamerlane, ed. Daniel L. Burghart and Theresa Sabonis-Helf (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 341–65.

CENTRAL ASIA AND ITS ENCLAVES AND EXCLAVES

Source: ArcGIS by the author (inset adapted from artwork by Rainer Lesniewski/Shutterstock).

IRAN AFGHANISTAN

CHINA

RUSSIA

TAJIKISTAN

KAZAKHSTAN

TURKMENISTAN

UZBEKISTAN

KYRGYZSTAN

Area

enlarged

UZBEKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

KYRGYZSTAN West Qalacha 

TAJIKISTAN Shahimardan

UZBEKISTAN Vorukh

TAJIKISTAN

Dzhangail

UZBEKISTAN

Sokh

UZBEKISTAN

Barak

KYRGYZSTAN

Qalacha

UZBEKISTAN

Sarvan

TAJIKISTAN

West Qalacha

TAJIKISTAN Shahimardan

UZBEKISTAN

Vorukh

TAJIKISTAN

Dzhangail

UZBEKISTAN

Sokh

UZBEKISTAN

Barak

KYRGYZSTAN

Qalacha

UZBEKISTAN

Sarvan

TAJIKISTAN

25 km

25 miles
1 0 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

Other kinds of economic conflict also intersect with the issues discussed. Economic conflict in 

Central Asia is typically driven by economic disparity, which appears both in the most economically 

vibrant and the most poverty-stricken areas. Income inequality between the regions and the capitals 

and between rich and poor have led to large-scale and sometimes violent strikes in Kazakhstan, 

primarily in the extractive industries. Labor unrest in the western Kazakh city of Zhanaozen erupted into violence between oil workers and state security forces in December 2011. More recently, 

forced expropriation of homes to accommodate economic development or road construction has 

led to protests in Uzbekistan.28 Disgruntled pensioners, teachers, and other “have-nots” frequently 

voice their dissatisfaction in relatively open Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, but even in Turkmenistan and 

Uzbekistan protests over a lack of government responsiveness to natural disaster or care for pensioners can flare up against a backdrop of a general decline in living standards.29 These events are 

exploitable by nationalists, criminal actors, or others. Watching for popular unrest across the region is 

important in the wake of the economic impact of COVID-19. The potential decrease in labor migration 

to Russia that comes with the virus makes this an important and rising source of potential conflict.

Triggers: Failed Transitions,

Crime, and Revolution

If nationalism, Islamic revival, resource scarcity, population pressure, and economic inequity are 

each fault lines in Central Asian society that could be sources of violence, problems in governance 

and political transition have been and will continue to be triggers or accelerants for such violence.

Leadership transition across Central Asia has proven difficult because no rules for it are in 

place in any of the countries. Presidents contemplating retirement or an end of term face the 

dilemma of securing physical and material security for themselves and their families while also 

attempting to secure the longevity of their political arrangements and policies. This is no small 

problem; the political legacies of former presidents, whether autocratic or democratically elected, did not endure for long. Presidents Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan, Islam Karimov of 

Uzbekistan, and Askar Akayev, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and Almazbek Atambayev of Kyrgyzstan all 

fell into disfavor after they left office; one remains in jail and two others live in exile. Their families 

and close associates have also fared poorly, either living in exile or under arrest.

Leaders’ attempts to handpick successors or orchestrate comfortable arrangements for their families have also failed.30 Nursultan Nazarbayev’s recent retirement in Kazakhstan, handing power to 

a chosen successor but retaining certain institutional safety powers for himself, is showing signs of 

strain.31 Atambayev in Kyrgyzstan, insisting on his constitutional immunity for life, was arrested after a 

pitched battle with security forces in which he is alleged to have been a sniper and killed a security 

officer. Also in Kyrgyzstan, Akayev in 2005, Bakiyev in 2010, and most recently Sooronbai Jeenbekov, 

in October 2020, were overthrown in popular revolts, which in one case spun off into ethnic violence 

that involved organized crime. (For a discussion of the crime-violence nexus, see box 3.)

Although most of the violence associated with leadership transitions has been in relatively democratic Kyrgyzstan, leadership purges (described as failed coups d’état) in Uzbekistan, 

Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan were violent and bloody. The uncertainty about succession creates 
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 11

opportunities for intrigue and violence and provides motivation for malign actors. It also creates 

uncertainty for groups with informal power, such as organized crime.

The first step for governments, civil society, and researchers in the region is to better understand 

criminal actors. Such insight would help efforts to prevent these actors both from taking advantage 

of groups such as returnees and ethnic minorities and from corroding or coopting governance in 

the region. Although the region is home to varying political arrangements, from authoritarian and 

closed to relatively democratic and open, corruption and criminal influence are universal.

Local Pushback Against Great Power

Central Asia’s problems do not exist in a vacuum. The influence of both Russia and China (as 

well as the United States) in the region is evolving, as are the responses of Central Asian governments and people. The emergence of stronger national identities and Islamic identities play 

into these responses, as do concerns over control of natural resources. Although in general great power competition does not pose a threat of interstate, intrastate, or local violence, 

Russian and Chinese actions can trigger or stress existing fault lines in the region.

RUSSIA

Russia, which once could rely on its status as the former colonial power and on the dominance of 

the Russian language in the region, now has to try. It actively supports a range of soft power instruments, including assistance to Russian ethnic and cultural groups, that help promote its interests 

and its version of the history of the twentieth century against local nationalist narratives that portray 

the Soviet Union very differently. As noted, Central Asians, especially younger ones, are less likely 

to speak Russian even as a second language and less likely than their parents or grandparents 

to accept the Russian version of reality presented in media. The governments of the region have 

Box 3.

The Crime-Violence Nexus

Organized crime, largely fueled 

by the movement of heroin and 

poppy from Afghanistan to Russia 

and Europe through Central Asia, 

has played a supporting role in 

much of the violence (and political corruption) in Central Asia. 

The echo of organized criminal 

groups resolving turf battles 

can be seen in what have been 

labeled failed coups d’état, in 

provoking the ethnic violence 

in southern Kyrgyzstan, and in 

clashes with Islamist insurgents 

in Tajikistan. Criminal actors take 

advantage of (and corrupt) democratic politics in Kyrgyzstan as 

well as the more authoritarian 

systems in the other Central 

Asian countries. The ethnic 

clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan 

in 2010 were simultaneously a 

clash between political agendas 

(democrats versus authoritarians), 

between ethnic groups (Kyrgyz 

versus Uzbeks), and between 

criminal groups for control over 

territory and economic activity. 

Criminal influence in Central Asia 

is usually slow and corrosive 

but has proven ready to exploit 

opportunities to use violence on 

any scale to its own ends.
1 2 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

been inconsistent in their attitudes about the Soviet past, often in ways that reflect their relationship with Russia today. In some cases, the past is portrayed as Russian colonialism (see box 4). In 

this narrative, the occupation of Central Asia under the tsars; the consolidation of Soviet Russian 

control after the Bolshevik Revolution; the subsequent eras of famine, purges, gulags, and misuse 

of Central Asian troops during World War II; and even the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan are 

portrayed as severe injuries to the culture and peoples of the region.

Other elements of the Soviet legacy in Central Asia also have been criticized or reassessed. The 

space program (still run out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan) has seen protests against 

Russia’s continuing “extraterritorial” use of the facility and a history of rocket debris and failed launch 

damage. The tragic legacy of atmospheric nuclear testing and the use of soldiers and Kazakh villagers as guinea pigs in the 1950s at the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site in Kazakhstan continues to 

be a source of tension and grievance. Brezhnev-era Soviet leaders in Uzbekistan (Sharof Rashidov) 

and Kazakhstan (Dinmukhamed Kunayev) have been memorialized in the modern states as defenders of their peoples against Russia and the worst offenses of the Soviet Union. The ugly manner in 

which perestroika came to Central Asia—arrests and executions in Uzbekistan and riots and suppression in Kazakhstan—is clearly memorialized in the naming of streets and squares for protestors 

who died. All of this points to a growing backlash against Russia as a friendly big brother.

But perhaps Russia’s largest impact on the region today is that it allows millions of Central 

Asians to work in Russia, addressing its own population shortfall and labor shortage. This has 

Box 4.

Whose Past Is It Anyway?

The iconography of World War II

in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was 

unsettled by the reassessment 

of the role of Major General Ivan 

Panfilov and his Central Asian 

troops on the eve of the Soviet 

counteroffensive outside Moscow 

in 1941. The underequipped 

Central Asian troops were thrown 

into the teeth of the German 

Wehrmacht advance to buy time 

for the Soviet counterattack to 

assemble. They famously held off 

the tank assaults but all perished 

in the struggle, becoming major 

heroes in the iconography of 

Soviet Central Asia.

Even as Russia issued a bigbudget feature film in 2016, 

Panfilov’s 28, celebrating the 

achievements and sacrifice of 

Panfilov’s troops, Central Asians 

began to tell a different story, not 

so much questioning the memory of their contribution in World 

War II as claiming an equal share 

in the victory, especially when 

Russia began expropriating Soviet 

World War II symbols during the 

annexation of the Crimea. The 

controversy over the St. George’s 

ribbons is a good example. The 

black-and-orange-striped ribbon 

has a long pre-Soviet history but 

served most prominently as the 

campaign ribbon for most Soviet 

veterans of the Eastern Front in 

World War II. It was ubiquitous 

at commemorations of that war 

throughout the former Soviet 

Union until adopted as a symbol 

of support for Putin and of Russian 

irredentism more broadly in the 

2010s. Central Asian countries 

modified the ribbon by replacing 

one or both colors with colors 

from their respective national 

flags, asserting their equal ownership of victory in World War II, but 

without the contemporary chauvinistic pro-Russian implications.
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 13

added an impressive 30 percent to the gross domestic products of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan 

through money transfers from migrant laborers in Russia, greatly easing the nations’ economic 

distress. At the same time, it has also exposed millions of Central Asians, as foreign workers in 

Russia, to the abusive conditions and racism prevalent there. 

CHINA

China is increasingly an important economic and political player in Central Asia. Its Belt and 

Road Initiative runs through the Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region, Central Asia, and on to 

Europe. As part of the initiative, Beijing has robustly invested in the region’s transportation and 

energy infrastructure, both to capture energy resources close to home and to cut a trade path to 

Europe. China has even surpassed Russia as the region’s largest trading partner.32 Yet partly because of historic ethnic animosity and its increasingly brutal behavior toward the Uighur Muslim 

minority in China, familiarity has mostly bred Central Asian contempt. That COVID-19 originated 

in China and that China has made meaningful efforts to assist Central Asian countries in fighting 

the pandemic will affect this dynamic, but how it will is uncertain.

Chinese investment over the last decade or so has followed a pattern known from other parts 

of the world.33 The appearance of large numbers of Chinese workers, largely keeping to themselves rather than interacting with the locals, has both led to suspicion and fueled resentment and 

fear across the region. These feelings have led to protests in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan against 

economic concessions and Chinese purchases of land and resources. One famously corrupt and 

poorly implemented project, the main power station for Kyrgyzstan’s capital city Bishkek, led to 

the collapse of a government and the arrest of a prime minister (Sapar Isakov) and, indirectly, a 

former president (Atambayev). China’s investment in Turkmenistan’s natural gas sector has been 

a catastrophe for the country, turning the golden goose of hydrocarbon wealth into more or less a 

sharecropper obligation to feed natural gas to China.34 This is a cautionary tale for the rest of the region on accepting Chinese investment without thinking through its long-term impact. Turkmenistan, 

which relies on the sale of natural gas for some 70 percent of its state revenue, now largely has 

replaced exports to Russia with exports to China. A large portion of those revenues now services 

the debt owed to China for building the pipeline that connects the two countries.

Within the Central Asian economic and power elites who benefit from Chinese investment and 

the sale of exports to China, oligarchical groups appear to have formed into something of a China 

lobby, which is reflected in the China-friendly positions of the governments of the region.35 But 

Sinophobia is growing in the region, which has led to attacks on Chinese economic interests in 

the region and protests against Chinese influence.36 Major protests across Kazakhstan erupted 

in March 2016 when a draft land reform law was erroneously interpreted as allowing Chinese to 

purchase and own land, leading then President Nazarbayev to announce a moratorium on land reform in order to calm the population.37 Most recently, street protests in the East Kazakhstan Region 

forced authorities to relocate a COVID-19 quarantine facility for Chinese crossing the border after 

demonstrators rushed the local hospital and removed all the beds.38 In recent years, China has 

stepped up its soft power game in the region to compensate, opening Confucius Institutes (education partnerships between institutions in China and those in other countries), sponsoring cultural 

events, and starting large-scale educational scholarship programs for study in China.39
1 4 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

One other growing tension sets governments interested 

in Chinese investment against public sentiment. China’s 

policies in the Uighur Autonomous Region have started to 

bleed into Central Asian politics as co-ethnics and even 

Kazakh and Kyrgyz citizens are caught up in the related 

creeping ethnic cleansing. Popular opinion in Central Asia 

is slowly growing against China’s treatment of the Uighurs. Governments in the region have made 

some concessions to this opinion but are reluctant to antagonize China. These sentiments are 

clearly exploitable both by nationalist-ethnic and Islamic political actors across the spectrum.

UNITED STATES

The United States recently adopted a new strategy for Central Asia that makes “support[ing] and 

strengthen[ing] the sovereignty and independence of the Central Asian States, individually and 

as a group” the top US policy priority. This strategy reflects the Trump administration’s policy of 

pushing back against Russia and China and positions the United States as a powerful if distant 

friend. The region welcomes the continued engagement of the United States through the C5+1 

(the five nations of Central Asia plus the United States), a process begun under the Obama administration and still a centerpiece of the new strategy.40 This is reinforced by the gradual disengagement of the United States from Afghanistan and the resulting reduced need to subordinate 

the relationship with Central Asia to the centrality of the Afghanistan conflict. 

The current goals of the US strategy in Central Asia are consistent with those dating to the 

collapse of the Soviet Union: support and strengthen the sovereignty and independence of the 

Central Asian states individually and as a group, reduce terrorist threats in Central Asia, expand 

and maintain support for stability in Afghanistan, encourage connectivity between Central Asia 

and Afghanistan, promote rule-of-law reform and respect for human rights, and promote US 

investment in and development of Central Asia.

These goals are framed within the context of great power competition with Russia and 

China, but are not inherently different from those of Russia and China for the region. Pursuing 

them need not be a unilateral effort, creating an opportunity for policy engagement that would 

help define how to manage the collaborative and competitive trends in the region’s relationship with its powerful neighbors while asking how to mitigate the potential for violent confrontation and exploitation of the relationships. One strategic approach would be to look at how 

Russia and China are perceived in different areas, across ethnic groups, and especially across 

generations and how those perceptions could be misused. It also will be important to watch 

how attitudes toward labor migration and the plight of the Uighurs in the Uighur Autonomous 

Region develop. Most important, the United States should facilitate a dialogue on the impact 

Chinese investment is having on governance (for good or ill) in the region at the national and 

local levels. China’s model of technological control has begun to make inroads, and how it 

affects Central Asian governance is critical to maintaining the region’s sovereignty and independence.41 In the more multipolar world likely to arise from the COVID-19 crisis, the United 

States should engage not only the Central Asians on these issues but also the Russians and 

the Chinese to determine how to work together to achieve them (see box 5). Although having 

The United States should facilitate a 

dialogue on the impact Chinese investment 

is having on governance (for good or ill) in 

the region at the national and local levels.
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 15

the same approach is not always likely, certainly parts of this agenda can benefit from putting 

the C5+3 in the same room.

A Comprehensive Approach

Although many of the potential sources of trouble laid out in this report are sensitive topics, addressing them in regional forums such as the C5+1 could make room for progress. The experience 

of engagement under C5+1 on preventing violent extremism and reintegrating returnees from the 

Middle East has provided grounds for some optimism in this regard, for example. US policymakers 

and Western researchers can engage the countries of the region (along with, perhaps, Russia and 

China) in policy dialogues as well as help unwrap some of the issues raised here. 

Understand nativism and nationalism. What does a multiethnic state look like when identity 

is increasingly based on nationality? What actors exploit these identities and how can communities contest these narratives? Do the region’s pervasive criminal interests or political entrepreneurs try to mobilize antiminority or antiforeign sentiment to violence? To what extent are 

outbreaks of ethnic violence indeed just “mass hooliganism,” as the Kazakh authorities claimed 

in the recent attacks on Dungans? How can the healthier manifestations of a positive national 

identity counteract the darker side? What is the role of a reformist Uzbekistan in engaging the 

substantial ethnic Uzbek minorities in the Ferghana Valley? How can the governments of the 

region balance economic growth with growing anti-Chinese activism in the region? Progressive, 

Islamic, nongovernmental organizations such as Mutakalim can help counter the more negative 

aspects of nativism and offer alternatives to it.

Examine secularism and religious tolerance in the context of Islamic religious revival.

Although preventing violent extremism is integral, the larger conversation is about the role of the 

state. What is the role of the state in relation to religion? Should the state oversee the curriculum in nonstate religious schools? How do new community and civic groups with a more overtly 

Islamic orientation engage or avoid the state in trying to resolve problems on the local level? 

How does a more tolerant embrace of Islam by these states affect politics? How can the state, 

civic organizations, and communities use moderate religious activism to prevent a repeat of Islam 

being used to mobilize to violence? Efforts by organizations such as the Imam al-Bukhari Center 

in Samarkand, with help from international organizations from around the world, to recapture a 

pre-Soviet, pre-Russian tolerant vision of Islam in the region would help determine a viable mix.

Seek to prevent conflict around resource scarcity and climate change. A discussion of enclaves in the region could be the start of a dialogue on borders and access to scarce resources. 

How might climate change and especially the retreat of the glaciers affect Central Asia in the 

coming decades? How dependent are the five countries on the water resources from these 

glaciers? How dependent are economic growth and investment on them? A good place to start 

would be a combination of grassroots, cross-border programming efforts on the community 

level and renewed efforts to support cooperation on resources across the region. Helping the 

countries of the region more transparently negotiate with China on resource use would be an 

important step as well. 
1 6 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

Promote safe labor migration. Some South Asian and East Asian countries have decades of 

experience in protecting their workers abroad from which the Central Asian countries could learn. 

Mitigating the negative impacts of labor migration on education and child welfare, and exploring 

ways to promote growth through focused investment of remittance resources are examples. The 

work of the International Organization for Migration on understanding migration patterns and building a consensus on what safe labor migration could look like has been an important contribution. 

Understand the role of organized crime and corruption in exploiting and provoking violence in the region. Although political arrangements across the region vary from authoritarian 

and closed to relatively democratic and open, corruption and criminal influence are to a greater 

or lesser extent universal, and the hand of criminal organizations is visible in most mobilizations 

to violence. The role of organized crime in exploiting and triggering communal violence, though, 

needs to be better understood to be addressed effectively. Will more openly competitive democratic politics over time potentially give more opportunity to organized crime? How would 

competing authoritarian models from Russia and China potentially affect the problem?

Manage the collaborative and competitive trends in the region’s relationship with Russia 

and China. These relationships are an opportunity to engage the Central Asians, the Russians, and 

the Chinese to help define a future for Central Asia that is more peaceful and prosperous and does 

not leave Central Asia in the passive role of an object of great power competition or just a place 

“between” more important international issues. Where can Russia, China and the United States 

collaborate, or at least work in parallel, in promoting peace and prosperity in the region? How do 

visions of stability and success in the region agree, and how do they differ? Where visions do not 

agree, how can dialogue help mitigate the consequences to the region? On a range of issues—

promoting safe labor migration, preventing violent extremism, avoiding being drawn into murky 

political transitions—discussion will help mitigate rather than exacerbate these problems.

Box 5.

COVID-19 and Revolution: How It All Comes Together

Many of the drivers and accelerators outlined in this report reveal 

themselves in the recent popular 

revolt and overthrow of President 

Jeenbekov in Kyrgyzstan in 

October 2020. What began as an 

urban youth revolt against election 

fraud was quickly exploited by both 

organized crime and ethnic Kyrgyz 

nationalists to grab power in yet 

another irregular political transition. 

Popular dissatisfaction was fueled 

by a poor government response 

to the COVID-19 pandemic, which 

left labor migrants stuck at home 

or stranded and unemployed in 

Russia unable to send remittances

home to support their families. 

Russian media blamed active 

American “democracy promotion” 

and American observers speculated that Russia intervened to cut off 

another “people power” revolution 

at a time when they were already 

juggling another one in Belarus, a 

proxy war in Ukraine, and a hot war 

in the South Caucasus. 

Note

For more information, see two articles by Gavin Helf on the United States Institute of Peace website: “Central Asia and Coronavirus: When Being 

Nomadic Isn’t Enough,” April 3, 2020; and “In Kyrgyzstan, It’s Easier to Start a Revolution than to Finish It.”
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 17

Notes

1. Examples include the very un–Central Asian “Kazakhstan” portrayed in Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 Borat: Cultural Learnings 

of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (and the 2020 sequel), John Oliver’s mocking of Turkmenistan’s 

leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, and the portrayal of the overthrow of a character based on 

Berdymukhamedov in the movie 6 Underground.

2. C. L. Sulzberger, “Along the Soft Underbelly of the USSR,” New York Times, December 12, 1959.

3. The New Great Game expression is of course a 1990s play on the Great Game between the Russian Empire and Great Britain in 

the nineteenth century in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

4. The emphasis on Afghanistan shifted explicitly in a 2020 US government strategy document: “Central Asia is a geostrategic region 

important to United States national security interests, regardless of the level of United States involvement in Afghanistan” (Bureau 

of South and Central Asian Affairs, “United States Strategy for Central Asia 2019–2025,” February 5, 2020, www.state.gov

/united-states-strategy-for-central-asia-2019-2025-advancing-sovereignty-and-economic-prosperity).

5. For a comprehensive tally of foreign fighters, see Richard Barrett, “Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of 

Returnees,” Soufan Center, October 2017, www.thesoufancenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Beyond-the-Caliphate-Foreign

-Fighters-and-the-Threat-of-Returnees-TSC-Report-October-2017-v3.pdf. The report shows that the largest contingent of foreign fighters came not from the Middle East, but instead from the former Soviet Union (8,717), of which some 5,300 were from Central Asia.

6. Examples of the state using force against civilians include Kyrgyzstan in Aksy in 2002, Uzbekistan in Andijan in 2005, and 

Kazakhstan in Zhanaozen in 2011. Examples of clashes with armed groups are Turkmenistan in Ashgabat in 2008 and Tajikistan 

(most notably) in the Rasht Valley in 2010.

7. The latest outbreak in the Ferghana Valley is in the exclave of Sokh, a part of Uzbekistan completely surrounded by Kyrgyzstan and 

populated by ethnic Tajiks. See Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), “Dozens Injured as Fresh Clashes Erupt Along KyrgyzUzbek Border,” June 1, 2020, www.rferl.org/a/dozens-injured-as-fresh-clashes-erupt-along-kyrgyz-uzbek-border/30646065.html.

8. Ethnic attacks include those against Meskhi Turks in Uzbekistan in 1989 and against the Uzbek ethnic minority in southern 

Kyrgyzstan in 1990 and 2010. 

9. See RFE/RL, “Masked Men Attack Women’s Day Demonstration in Kyrgyzstan,” March 8, 2020, www.rferl.org/a/hooligans-attack

-women-s-day-demonstration-in-kyrgyzstan/30475849.html.

10. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the percentage of Russians are as follows: Kyrgyzstan 5.5 percent (2019 estimate), 

Turkmenistan 4 percent (2003), Uzbekistan 2.3 percent (2017 estimate), and Tajikistan less than 1 percent (2014 estimate).

11. See Elise S. Ahn and Juldyz Smagulova, eds., Language Change in Central Asia (Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton, 2016).

12. See Hannah S. Chapman and Theodore P. Gerber, “Russian Propaganda Isn’t As Effective As You May Think,” Washington Post,

September 5, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/05/russian-propaganda-isnt-effective-you-may-think.

13. For a comprehensive treatment of the complex ethnic and political causes of the Osh 2010 events, see International Crisis 

Group, “The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan,” Asia Report no. 193, August 23, 2010, www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/central-asia

/kyrgyzstan/pogroms-kyrgyzstan.

14. For the most recent events in Kazakhstan, see Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan’s Dungan Community Stunned by Spasm of Deadly Bloodletting,” 

Eurasianet, February 20, 2020, www.eurasianet.org/kazakhstans-dungan-community-stunned-by-spasm-of-deadly-bloodletting.

15. See Paul Goble, “New Wave of Kazakh Nationalism Changing Astana’s Domestic and Foreign Policies,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 

March 7, 2019, www.jamestown.org/program/new-wave-of-kazakh-nationalism-changing-astanas-domestic-and-foreign-policies. 

16. See Lin Taylor, “One in Five Girls and Women Kidnapped for Marriage in Kyrgyzstan: Study,” Reuters, August 1, 2017, www.reuters.com

/article/us-kyrgyzstan-women-bride-kidnapping/one-in-five-girls-and-women-kidnapped-for-marriage-in-kyrgyzstan-study-idUSKBN1AH5GI.

17. Merhat Sharipzhan, “Kazakh Clampdown on Land Protests Leaves ‘People’s Bard’ Behind Bars,” RFE/RL, May 23, 2016, www.rferl.org/a

/kazakhstan-clampdown-land-protests-bard-behind-bars/27752864.html; and Ryskeldi Satke, “Risks for Foreign Investors Resurface in 

Kyrgyzstan,” RFE/RL, April 14, 2018, www.rferl.org/a/qishloq-ovozi--risks-for-foreign-investors-resurface-in-kyrgyzstan-/29167863.html.

18. See Pauline Jones, ed., Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017).

19. See Noah Tucker, “Violent Extremism and Insurgency in Uzbekistan: A Risk Assessment,” US Agency for International 

Development, August 14, 2013, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00JSSQ.pdf.

20. Noah Tucker, “Terrorism without God: Reconsidering Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization Models in Central Asia,” CAP 

Papers no. 225, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University, September 2019,

www.centralasiaprogram.org/archives/13164.
1 8 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

21. See Gavin Helf, “Central Asia Leads the Way on Islamic State Returnees,” The Olive Branch (USIP blog), September 13, 2019, 

www.usip.org/blog/2019/09/central-asia-leads-way-islamic-state-returnees.

22. “USIP Launches Bipartisan Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States,” Press Release, May 29, 2018, www.usip.org/press/2018

/05/usip-launches-bipartisan-task-force-extremism-fragile-states.

23. Henry Fountain and Ben C. Solomon, “Glaciers Are Retreating. Millions Rely on Their Water,” New York Times, January 16, 2019, 

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/17/climate/melting-glaciers-globally.html.

24. See the stunning graphic prepared by RFE/RL showing how the population growth rates in Central Asia and the European parts 

of the former Soviet Union have diverged since its collapse (RFE/RL, February 2, 2020, www.rferl.org/a/population-changes

-in-former-soviet-states-/30404544.html).

25. World Bank data cited in Niall McCarthy, “The Countries Most Reliant on Remittances,” Forbes, April 26, 2018, www.forbes.com

/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/04/26/the-countries-most-reliant-on-remittances-infographic.

26. The most thorough publicly available tally of foreign fighter numbers for ISIS estimates roughly five thousand fighters from 

Central Asia joined ISIS and that 95 percent of those were previously resident in Russia (see Barrett, “Beyond the Caliphate”).

27. See the International Organization on Migration’s Central Asia strategy: https://kazakhstan.iom.int/iom-strategy-ca.

28. See BBC News, “Uzbeks Protest at House Demolitions,” July 30, 2019, www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-49164936.

29. For recent examples, see Bruce Pannier, “A Troubled Government and Rare Protests in Turkmenistan,” RFE/RL, May 19, 2020,

www.rferl.org/a/analysis-turkmenistan-s-ineffective-government-brings-people-into-the-streets-for-rare-protests/30620560.html; 

Farangis Najibullah, “In Rare Public Protest, Uzbek Pensioners Demand Cash, Not Plastic,” RFE/RL, January 19, 2017, www.rferl.org/a

/uzbekistan-pensioners-rare-public-protest-cash-not-plastic/28244195.html; and Farangis Najibullah, “Power Crisis: Severe Energy 

Shortages Spark Rare Protests in Uzbekistan,” RFE/RL, December 4, 2019, www.rferl.org/a/power-crisis-severe-energy-shortages

-spark-rare-protests-in-uzbekistan/30307881.html. 

30. In Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov apparently went so far as to allow his extravagant daughter Gulnara to be placed under house 

arrest in 2014 to preempt her demise should he die.

31. Bruce Pannier, “Kazakhstan Shows Managed Transition Not the Smoothest Path in Central Asia,” RFE/RL, May 14, 2019, www.rferl

.org/a/kazakhstan-shows-managed-transition-not-the-smoothest-path-in-central-asia/29940129.html.

32. Stratfor, “Central Asia’s Economic Evolution from Russia to China,” April 5, 2018, https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/central

-asia-china-russia-trade-kyrgyzstan-kazakhstan-turkmenistan-tajikistan-uzbekistan.

33. Raffaello Pantucci, “China’s Complicated Relationship with Central Asia,” IPI Global Observatory, November 8, 2019,

www.theglobalobservatory.org/2019/11/chinas-complicated-relationship-central-asia.

34. Eiji Furukawa, “Belt and Road Debt Trap Spreads to Central Asia,” Asian Review, August 29, 2018, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight

/Belt-and-Road/Belt-and-Road-debt-trap-spreads-to-Central-Asia.

35. Sébastien Peyrouse, “Discussing China: Sinophilia and Sinophobia in Central Asia,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 7, no. 1 (January 

2016): 14–23.

36. Jacob Mardell, “Fear of the Middle Kingdom in Central Asia,” Berlin Policy Journal, January 16, 2020, www.berlinpolicyjournal.com

/sinophobia-in-central-asia.

37. Dena Sholk, “Kazakhstan’s Land Reforms,” The Diplomat, June 15, 2016, https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/kazakhstans-land-reforms.

38. RFE/RL, “Authorities in Kazakhstan Agree to Move Coronavirus Quarantine Center,” February 20, 2020, www.rferl.org/a/authorities

-in-kazakhstan-agree-to-move-coronavirus-quarantine-center-after-protests/30445446.html.

39. Nurlan Aliyev, “China’s Soft Power in Central Asia,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, December 19, 2019, www.cacianalyst.org

/publications/analytical-articles/item/13599-chinas-soft-power-in-central-asia.html.

40. US Department of State, “C5+1 Factsheet,” September 22, 2017, www.state.gov/c51-fact-sheet.

41. Yau Tsz Yan, “Smart Cities or Surveillance? Huawei in Central Asia,” The Diplomat, August 7, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019

/08/smart-cities-or-surveillance-huawei-in-central-asia.
USIP.ORG SPECIAL REPORT 489 19

The United States Institute of Peace is a national, 

nonpartisan, independent institute, founded by Congress 

and dedicated to the proposition that a world without 

violent conflict is possible, practical, and essential for US 

and global security. In conflict zones abroad, the Institute 

works with local partners to prevent, mitigate, and resolve 

violent conflict. To reduce future crises and the need 

for costly interventions, USIP works with governments 

and civil societies to help their countries solve their own 

problems peacefully. The Institute provides expertise, 

training, analysis, and support to those who are working 

to build a more peaceful, inclusive world.

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

Stephen J. Hadley (Chair), Principal, Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, Washington, DC •

George E. Moose (Vice Chair), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The George Washington 

University, Washington, DC • Judy Ansley, Former Assistant to the President and Deputy 

National Security Advisor under George W. Bush, Washington, DC • Eric Edelman, Roger 

Hertog Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International 

Studies, Washington, DC • Joseph Eldridge, Distinguished Practitioner, School of International 

Service, American University, Washington, DC • Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy 

Human Rights, Washington, DC • Ikram U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC, 

Las Vegas, NV • Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, 

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA • John A. Lancaster, Former Executive Director, National 

Council on Independent Living, Potsdam, NY • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, Antonin 

Scalia Law School, George Mason University, Arlington, VA • J. Robinson West, Former 

Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, DC • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership 

Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, DC 

Members Ex Officio

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State • Christopher C. Miller, Acting Secretary of Defense • 

Frederick J. Roegge, Vice Admiral, US Navy; President, National Defense University • Joe 

Lataille, Acting President, Chief Financial Officer, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
2 0 SPECIAL REPORT 489 USIP.ORG

2301 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20037

(202) 457-1700

www.USIP.org

Since its inception in 1991, the United States Institute of Peace Press has published 

hundreds of influential books, reports, and briefs on the prevention, management, and 

peaceful resolution of international conflicts. All our books and reports arise from research 

and fieldwork sponsored by the Institute’s many programs, and the Press is committed to 

expanding the reach of the Institute’s work by continuing to publish significant and sustainable 

publications for practitioners, scholars, diplomats, and students. Each work undergoes 

thorough peer review by external subject experts to ensure that the research and conclusions 

are balanced, relevant, and sound.

OTHER USIP PUBLICATIONS

THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE PRESS

• Constitutional Issues in the Afghan Peace Negotiations: Process and Substance by 

Barnett R. Rubin (Special Report, November 2020)

• Pathways for Post-Peace Development in Afghanistan by Khyber Farahi and Scott 

Guggenheim (Special Report, November 2020)

• The Arakan Army in Myanmar: Deadly Conflict Rises in Rakhine State by David Scott 

Mathieson (Special Report, November 2020)

• What Works in Youth Projects? Lessons for the Youth, Peace, and Security Field by 

Rebecca Ebenezer-Abiola and Jeremy Moore (Special Report, October 2020)

• Why Burma’s Peace Efforts Have Failed to End Its Internal Wars by Bertil Lintner 

(Peaceworks, October 2020)