Central Asia’s rich hydrocarbon and uranium resources could serve the needs of a rapidly industrializing India’s economy and nuclear-energy program.
India’s Dilemma: Accessing Central Asia’s Wealth
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Central Asia
India’s Gambit in the Central Asian Abyss
Central Asia has increasingly dazzled players from near and far, once they’ve grasped its worth as a crucial source of energy — oil, gas, and hydroelectric power.
Is China Reentering the Great Game?
Many countries have contributed to Afghanistan’s reconstruction. But it’s only been since 2007 that China has attracted attention with its investments. In November 2007, the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) won the tender to invest over $2.9 billion to develop the Aynak copper mine, which is the second-largest copper deposit in the world. This was not only the second-largest investment in Afghanistan in recent years – equivalent to one-third of all foreign aid spent in the country between 2002 and 2007 – but it also raised China to the top tier of investors. In a more recent deal in October 2011, the PetroChina Company Ltd (CPNC) plans to invest about $300 million in three oil fields in northern Afghanistan.
Pipeline Politics in Central Asia
From the end of the 19th century to the mid-1990s, Central Asia was almost the exclusive domain of Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. A “Great Game” involving Tsarist Russia and the British Empire dominated the region’s history in the mid-19th century and what is now South Asia. The growing multi-polarity in global politics and a scramble to secure access to depleting natural resources, especially oil and gas, have led to the emergence of a “New Great Game’ that has the potential to fix the future structure of the global political and economic system. The battle over the construction of new pipelines and the routes they will take is at the heart of this “New Great Game,”which has been playing out in earnest since the mid-1990s.
U.S. Military Aid Far Outpaces Democracy Assistance
Desperate to secure supply routes to Afghanistan, the United States has been spending at least six times more on military aid for the mostly authoritarian states of Central Asia than on efforts to promote political liberalisation and human rights in the region, according to a new report released here by the Open Society Foundations (OSF).
Iran Gas Ban: Step toward War with Iran?
As the Obama administration struggles to devise a strategy for dealing with Iran’s intransigence on the uranium enrichment issue, it appears to be gravitating toward the imposition of an international embargo on gasoline sales to that country. Such a ban would be enacted if Iranian officials fail to come up with an acceptable negotiating plan by the time the UN General Assembly meets in late September — the deadline given by the White House for a constructive Iranian move.
A New Cold War?
Military alliances are always sold as things that produce security. In practice they tend to do the opposite.
Strategic Partnership or Strategic Competition
As part of our China Focus, we asked two leading scholars to reflect on the tensions and possibilities in U.S.-China relations. Bonnie Glaser is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. James Nolt is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. We asked them first about the potential for a strategic security partnership between the United States and China, then about their economic relationship.
Continuing Storm: The U.S. Role in the Middle East
This Special Report is from Global Focus: U.S. Foreign Policy at the Turn of the Millennium, the new Foreign Policy In Focus book that features major foreign policy analysts charting the dimensions of U.S. foreign policy. Also included are provocative essays on U.S. policy in all major global regions and a comprehensive reform agenda. Global Focus is available from St. Martin’s Press.
Women and the U.S. Military in East Asia
Organizations in East Asia and the United States as well as international networks are developing alternatives to militarized security that address the security of women, children, and the physical environment.