Russia - Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies ...

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S. F. Starr publicized his idea of a Greater Central Asia (GCA) (which is
not a new term) in the early 2000s, conceptualizing a vast zone of
cooperation including post-soviet republics and adjacent countries in
South and West Asia. 4 His GCA partnership scheme called upon
cooperation of the five Central Asian republics plus Afghanistan. Their
close connection with South Asia has been welcomed by the expert
community with certain reservations. Many analysts, especially those in
Russia and the CIS, perceive it as part of a continuing effort to reframe
the Asiatic rim (including former Soviet republics) in accordance with
US visions and strategies. 5 According to some CIS analysts (M.
Laumulin, etc), the basic purpose of the GCA partnership is to connect
Central Asia and Afghanistan to form a cohesive military-strategic and
geopolitical entity and than to link it with the Greater Middle East
which, at the time it was proposed, would supposedly be controlled by
the West. 6 It is said, further, that this project aims to shift this extended
region out from under the supposedly monopolistic influence of Russia
and China.
4
See, for instance: Canfield, Robert L., “Restructuring in Greater Central
Asia: Changing Political Configuration”, Asian Survey, vol. 32 no. 10, October
1992, pp. 875-887; Belokrenitsky V.Y., “Russia and Greater Central
Asia,” Asian Survey, vol. 33 no. 12, December 1993, pp. 1093-1108; Naumkin
V.V. (ed.), Tsentral’no-Aziatskii makroregion i Rossiia, Moscow, 1993.
One of the first references to the subject is Starr, Frederick S., “Afghanistan:
Trade and Regional Transformation,
http://www.asiasociety.org/publications/update_afghanreform.html#trade;
Alexei Voskressenski, one of the brightest Russian Orientalists with a strong
methodological focus, frames the vast Eurasian space as consisted of several megazones,
which in turn are constituted by regions, etc. The separate countries can be
divided into different regions within two or even three different regional clusters
according to various parameters, forming a “Eurasian Far East and Siberian Meso-
Area”. Voskressenski , Alexei D., “Regional Studies in “Russia and Current
Methodological Approaches for the Social/Historical/Ideological Reconstruction
of International Relations and Regional Interaction in Eastern Eurasia,”
Reconstruction and Interaction of Slavic Eurasia and Its Neighboring Worlds., Ieda.
Osamu and Uyama, Tomohiko, Slavic Research Center, 2006. - http://srch.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no10_ses/contents.html.
5 Novaya bolshaia igra v bolshoi tsentralnoi Azii. Mifi i realnost, Bishkek, 2005, 192 p.
6 Laumulin M., “Bolshaya Tsentralnaya Aziia (BTsA): noviy megaproject SSA?”,
p. 29.