Why President Trump Should Place Central Asia on His Agenda

Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Photo credit: Shutterstock.

For three decades Central Asia has remained largely peripheral to Washington’s strategic horizon. Yet Kazakhstan now supplies more than forty percent of the world’s mined uranium, while Turkmenistan controls one of the planet’s largest natural-gas deposits. No sitting US president has visited one of the region’s five countries – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. […]

How Kazakhstan Can Become the Hub of the New Silk Road

Containers at the China-Kazakhstan Logistics Cooperation Base in Lianyungang, China, March 2025. Photo credit: CFOTO via Reuters Connect.

The Trans-Caspian International Transit Route or “Middle Corridor” is Central Asia’s best bet for increasing connectivity and economic ties to the West. But Kazakhstan, the corridor’s hub, faces internal challenges like price competitiveness and external threats like climate change and geopolitics. The Middle Corridor stretches from western China across the vast Kazakh steppe and the […]

Afghanistan’s Relations with Neighbors Under the Taliban: Exporting Instability

Afghan men consume drugs on a side street of a market in Afghanistan. Photo credit: Oliver Weiken/dpa

In the two years since they took over Afghanistan, the Taliban have ignited several diplomatic crises and security threats across the country’s borders. Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have warned that the Taliban are hosting terror groups, and UN and other sources have noted increasing drug trade, border tensions and refugee flows.   Central Asian states, particularly […]