foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
Preface
There seems to be a general agreement that ISAF’s withdrawal from Afghanistan
in 2014 will affect not only Afghanistan itself, but also its immediate and
regional neighbours as well as global powers. Rather than if, the question seems
to be how. The Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) has previously
published extensively about Afghanistan (see www.foi.se/asia) and about Russia
(www.foi.se/russia), but with less attention to the five former Soviet republics
north of Afghanistan: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan. This conference report, therefore, fills a gap in the FOI output up to
now.
The Swedish Armed Forces have participated in operations in Afghanistan since
early 2002. In early 2012, the Swedish Ministry of Defence was seeking to
develop a deeper understanding of how a NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan
could affect Central Asia. A study that was subsequently commissioned from the
FOI and became a joint endeavour of the agency’s Russia Studies Programme
and Asia Security Studies Programme, drawing on the latter’s experience of
Afghanistan and Iran as well as South and East Asia.
As a start, four FOI researchers – Jakob Hedenskog, Erika Holmquist, Johan
Norberg and John Rydqvist – undertook research trips to Moscow (February
2012), Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (March 2012) and Kazakhstan (October 2012)
in order to find out what questions and possible concerns existed in the region
and Russia looking to the year 2014. The positive responses and penetrating
analysis from both academia and government interlocutors in Central Asia gave
birth to the idea of organising a conference and publishing a report based on
papers written by scholars from the region itself.
Against this background, FOI contacted Fatima Kukeeva and Kuralay
Baizakova, distinguished professors at the department of International Relations
at Al-Farabi Kazakh State University in Almaty, Central Asia’s most prestigious
academic research establishment, to jointly organise a conference to discuss
these issues in further depth. The conference took place at Al-Farabi University
on 22–23 May 2013 and included speakers from all five Central Asian countries,
Russia, China and Afghanistan. FOI analysts and professors from Al-Farabi
University acted as moderators and discussants and documented the discussions.
The presentations subsequently became the bases for the analytical essays that
are the core chapters in this report.
A number of people deserve our thanks for their participation and the help that
they have given in realising this report. First and foremost, we would like to
thank the presenters at the conference in Almaty – Rustam Burnashev, Emil
Dhuraev, Ye Hailin, Azamjon Isabaev, Said Reza Kazemi, Vadim Kozyulin,
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