Eurasianism and the Concept of Central Caucaso-Asia

Rethinking Central Eurasia 63
Soviet republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan), Mongolia, Afghanistan, Western China, and several parts of
India, Pakistan, and Iran. 228
Geopolitical studies of Central Asia became particularly topical in the post-
Soviet period when the region acquired five new independent states
previously parts of the Soviet Union. 229 Even with the political and economic
heterogeneity of this region, it has also already become a geopolitical
entity. 230
Some geopolitical studies still follow the Soviet tradition. They interpret
Central Asia as being limited to five former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. 231 This nevertheless
leaves out Afghanistan, Mongolia, and the adjacent areas of the countries
enumerated above, which are historically and geographically deeply
interconnected. 232
As mentioned above, in Soviet times the region was called Sredniaia Azia
(Middle Asia); it included Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
228 M.S. Asimov, “Description of the Project,” in UNESCO History of Civilizations of
Central Asia (2001), .
229 See, for example, Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner, eds., The New Geopolitics of
Central Asia and Its Borderlands (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Peter
Ferdinand, ed., The New States of Central Asia and Their Neighbours (New York:
Council of Foreign Relations Press, 1994); Graham E. Fuller, “The Emergence of
Central Asia,” Foreign Policy, No. 78, Spring (1990), pp. 49-67; Mohiaddin Mesbahi, ed.,
Central Asia and The Caucasus after the Soviet Union (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 1994).
230 Michael W. Cotter, “The New Face of Central Asia,” Caucasian Review on
International Affairs, Vol. 2 (2) (2008), pp. 1-5, .
231 For example, Rajan Menon, “Introduction: Central Asia in the Twenty-First
Century,” in Eugene Rumer, Dmitri Trenin, and Huasheng Zhao, Central Asia: Views
from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2007), p. 3.
232 See, for example, Eden Naby, “The Emerging Central Asia: Ethnic and Religious
Factions,” in Mohiaddin Mesbahi, ed., Central Asia and The Caucasus after the Soviet
Union (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), pp. 35-36. Some authors include
Azerbaijan in Central Asia (Malcolm Dowling and Ganeshan Wignaraja, Central
Asia’s Economy: Mapping Future Prospects to 2015, Silk Road Paper (Washington, D.C.:
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, July 2006), p. 10,
), but
this is hardly consistent since the country geographically and economically forms part
of another region, the Caucasus.