Author: Fabrizio Vielmini – 30/09/2023
The “Greater Central Asia” Project and the Continuity of the American Strategy in the “Heartland”
Fabrizio Vielmini – Vision & Global Trends
On 15 September 2023, the Centre for Eurasian Studies of St. Petersburg State University together with the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and the Information and Analytical Centre of Lomonosov Moscow State University organized an online expert discussion dedicated to the analysis of the US “Greater Central Asia” project (GCA) in the current conjuncture of power competition in Eurasia.
The GCA concept was conceived in 2005 by the American think-tank “Central Asia–Caucasus Institute” (CACI) and adopted by the Bush Administration. The mind driving the effort, Richard Starr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, introduced it as a comprehensive plan for a new, big scale, partnership between the five post-Soviet republics of Central Asia and Afghanistan, such to orient the former away from the rest of the ex-USSR towards the Indian sub-continent, of course, under Western guidance[1]. Those were the years of the initial phase of the US occupation of Afghanistan under Hamid Karzai, so that the plan fitted the imperative to support that unpopular power imposed by Washington. At the same time, the GCA served also a quite larger design. To grasp it, one should have a look to the profile of its inventor[2]. An archaeologist by formation, with the unipolar moment of US foreign policy at the beginning of the 1990s, Starr was nominated to chair the Aspen institute, a think-tank of global reach intended to spread US soft-power across the world[3]. Under Clinton presidency, Starr specialized in geopolitics on the footsteps of Z. Brzezinski’s “Great Chessboard” conception. The GCA was thus just one of the strategic devices to assure Zibg’s dream of American supremacy. However, his idea received a serious set-back already on the very year of its announcement: in summer 2005 the US broke ties with Uzbekistan, then the principal referent of the Washington’s strategy for Central Asia[4]. Rebranded as “New Silk Road”, the GCA concept of merging Central and South Asia resurfaced again with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State but it was soon archived again following her departure from the White House. The idea is now coming up again. Already last year, Starr published a GCA 2.0 project[5]
and this return is quite surprising since it takes place after that Washington has lost its grip on the Afghan GCA pivot.
The aim of the 15 September round table was precisely to discuss which could be the reasons and the meaning of the new GCA hypostasis. To such end, the event’s coordinator, professor Alexander Knyazev managed togather a number of highly qualified experts from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. In addition, also Vision & Global Trends was invited in order to have an European perspective on the issue.
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[1]. Cf. F. Starr, A “Greater Central Asia Partnership” for Afghanistan and Its Neighboors, Silk Road Paper, Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, March 2005, https://silkroadstudies.org/CACI/Strategy.pdf>.
[2]. On Starr’s character see K. Silverstein, The Professor of Repression, Harper’s Magazine, 24 mai 2006, https://harpers.org/sb-professor-repression-3284828.html>.
[3] It suffices to have a look to the Italian branch of the Institute. Here, the actual deputy chair is John Elkann, heir of the former main industrial complex of Italy and current master of some of the main newspapers still able to form public opinion in Italy. Current premier Giorgia Meloni was also coopted during her climb to power as they were before Romano Prodi, Renato Brunetta e Giancarlo Giorgetti, the latter being the minister calling the shots of the economic strategy of the current government. See: https://open.online/2021/02/03/giorgia-meloni-aspen-institute/
[4] F. Viller, Les États-Unis en Asie centrale : Chronique d’une défaite annoncée, «Outre-terre – Revue française de géopolitique », n. 17, 2006, pp. 263-277.
[5] S. F. Starr, Rethinking Greater Central Asia: American and Western Stakes in the Region and How to Advance Them, Silk Road Paper, Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, June 2022, https://silkroadstudies.org/resources/pdf/SilkRoadPapers/220615-Starr-Final.pdf
Continue reading, please download the Seminar Publications Series SPS_03_2023 ISSN 2704-8969
THE AUTHOR
Fabrizio Vielmini is associate professor of International Relations at Webster University in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), associate researcher of Vision & Global Trends. International Institute for Global Analyzes and member of the Editorial Committee of Geopolitics. He is an expert in foreign policy, history and affairs of Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Between 2002 and 2021 he resided in the former USSR, where he worked for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the European Union. For over a quarter of a century, he has dedicated himself to the study of the political-economic dynamics of Kazakhstan, the country in which he lived for a long time and the subject of his latest essay: Kazakhstan: fine di un’epoca. Trent’anni di neoliberismo e geopolitica nel cuore della Terra (Kazakhstan: end of an era. Thirty years of neoliberalism and geopolitics in the heart of the Earth) Preface by Aldo Ferrari Ca’ Foscari University – Venice) – Mimesi Edizioni, 2023 – ISBN: 9788857590431