Revisiting the Geo-Political Thinking

Of Sir Halford John Mackinder:

United StatesUzbekistan Relations
19912005

A thesis
Presented to the Faculty
of
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
by
Chris Seiple
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
27 November 2006
Dissertation Committee
Andrew C. Hess, Chair
William Martel
Sung-Yoon Lee

Chris SeipleCurriculum Vitae

Education
1999 to Present:
1994 to 1995:
1986 to 1990:

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University: PhD

Candidate
Naval Postgraduate School: M.A. in National Security Affairs
Stanford University: B.A. in International Relations

Professional Experience
2003 to Present
President, the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE)
2001 to 2003
Executive Vice President, IGE
1996 to 1999
National Security Analyst, Strategic Initiatives Group,
Headquarters, United States Marine Corps
1997
National Security Affairs Specialist, National Defense Panel
1996
Liaison Officer, Chemical-Biological Incidence Response Force
1990 to 1994
Infantry Officer, United States Marine Corps
Publications

Numerous website articles on Christian living, religious freedom, religion & security,
engaging Islam, just war, and Uzbekistan (please see the website:
www.globalengagement.org)
Americas Greatest Story. The Review of Faith & International Affairs. 4, no. 2
(Fall 2006): 53-56.
Uzbekistan and the Bush Doctrine. The Review of Faith & International Affairs. 3,
no. 2 (Fall 2005): 19-24.
Realist Religious Freedom: An Uzbek Perspective. Fides et Libertas (Fall 2005).
Understanding Uzbekistan, an Enote publication distributed by the Foreign Policy
Research Institute (1 June 2005).
Uzbekistan: Civil Society in the Heartland. Orbis (Spring, 2005): 245-259.
Religion & Realpolitik, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 12 November 2004.
The 9/11 Imperative, Outlook, GovtExec.com, 13 September 2004.
Shaping Tomorrows Foreign Policy. In America Moving Ahead, ed. Art Shostak,
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. [Originally published on IGEs
website as Youthful America, 6 January 2004].
Uzbekistan and the Central Asian Crucible of Religion and Security. In Religion
and Security: The New Nexus in International Relations, co-authored with Joshua T.
White, ed. Dennis Hoover and Robert A. Seiple (New York: Roman & Littlefield,
2004).
Religion and the New Global Counterinsurgency. In The Iraq War, ed. Art Shostak,
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. [Originally published on IGEs
website, 2 September 2003].
Implications of Terrorism in Uzbekistan, an Enote distributed by the Foreign Policy
Research Institute (12 April 2004).
Heartland Geopolitics and the Case of Uzbekistan, an Enote distributed by the
Foreign Policy Research Institute (25 January 2004).

The Grand Strategy: Sustainment. In In the Shadow of War, ed. Art Shostak,
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. [Originally published on IGEs
website, 25 April 2003].
Baghdad Spring. In Victorious Hawks, Hopeful Doves, ed. Art Shostak,
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. [Originally published as an Enote for
the Foreign Policy Research Institute, 24 March 2003].
Waging Peace, Outlook, GovtExec.com, 20 May 2003.
On Frailty & Freedom. The Review of Faith & International Affairs. 1, no. 2 (Fall
2003).
Of Wars and Rumors of Wars. The Review of Faith & International Affairs. 1, no. 1
(Spring 2003).
Three Mile IslandThe 20th Century's Introduction to the 21st Century Crisis,
with Michael J. Hillyard; concluding chapter in Hillyards book, Homeland Security
and the Need for Change: Organizing Principles, Governing Institutions and
American Culture. (Aventine Press, March 2003).
Geo-Christianity: Back to the Future. Prism (May 2003).
Humanitarian Action and Private Security Companies: Opening the Debate, an
International Alert publication (June 2002). Co-authored with Tony Vaux, Gregg
Nakano and Koenraad Van Brabant.
Homeland Security Concepts and Strategy. Orbis (April 2002): 259-273.
The Lessons of Kosovo. The Marine Corps Gazette (June 2000): 39-41.
Commentary & Reply, Parameters, Spring 1999 (Response to Interagency
Operations Centers: An Opportunity We Cant Ignore, Parameters, Summer 1999).
Window into an Age of Windows: The U.S. Military and the NGOs. Marine Corps
Gazette (April 1999): 63-71.
Wrestling with Humanitarian Operations, Marine Corps Gazette (December 1998):
24 [Published under Gazette Staff].
Consequence Management: Domestic Response to Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Parameters (Autumn 1997): 119-34.
A forward presence in a violent world, by General Charles C. Krulak and Admiral
Jay L. Johnson, The Washington Times, November 25, 1996 [ghost-written].
Combating the New Terrorism. Proceedings (October 1996): 9.
The U.S. Military/NGO Relationship in Humanitarian Interventions. Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, the U.S. Army Peacekeeping Institute, April 1996.

Professional Associations

Senior Fellow, The Foreign Policy Research Institute, Program on National Security
(Philadelphia)
Member, The Council on Foreign Relations (New York and Washington)
Member, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (London)
Member, Board of Directors, Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA (Orlando)

Abstract
This dissertation asks a simple question: Does Sir Halford John Mackinders geo-political
thinking provide a suitable basis for examining and explaining the bilateral relationship between
the United States and the Republic of Uzbekistan, 19912005?
This dissertation re-visits Mackinders geo-political thinking, concluding that it is a living
and comprehensive philosophy consisting of two perspectives which were meant to be applied in
tandem to each new strategic era. These mutually dependent perspectives include the geocommunal view of mans local interaction with and perception of geography, and the geostrategic of a states understanding of, and interaction with, the Heartland (central Eurasia).
Re-visited as such, this dissertation demonstrates the context and origins of Mackinders geopolitical thinking (chapters 1 and 2), before modeling its explanatory suitability through an
analytical narrative of the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship (chapters 3 and 4). The dissertation also
suggests a general set of hypotheses (chapter 2) that summarize and illustrate Mackinders
comprehensive thinking, as applied through the analytic narrative of the U.S.Uzbekistan
relationship (chapter 5).

Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to James Joseph Grey.
He and his wife, Anne, lived across the street from me and Alissa. We spent many, many
hours with them, loving and appreciating them more with each visit. We were fascinated by their
service. Anne was a teacher; she had dedicated her life to the children in the Philadelphia school
system. Jim was also a servant. He had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and he and Anne had
served in George Kennan's Moscow embassy.
Amidst work and the frenzy of everyday life, I looked forward to my conversations with Jim.
We would debate the nature of God and leadership; who the top three Secretaries of State were
in U.S. history; the elements of the Wehrmacht defeat in Russia; and, always, the exercise of
American power. We would often sit back in his study, surrounded by the great books of world
affairs. Or we would walk to downtown Narberth for a Friday lunch at Greeks, where we
would talk geo-politics over a martini, or two. (Jim was old school State Department to the last).
He always had time for me. He always listened. As I wrestled with the dissertation, Jim was
indefatigably positive, always encouraging me. It was a powerful example.
I can still see him walking along Anthwyn Road, the perfect gentlemen, greeting neighbors
with the proper, and genuine, gesture or words.
He was my friend. I miss him.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to God for this experience and the people I have met along the way.
As I approached the end of my Pentagon tour in 1998, I was thinking about getting out of the
Marine Corps. That summer I met Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., who recruited me to come to
Fletcher. That fall, I met my wife, Alissa. We were married on 5 June 1999, I left the Marine
Corps in July and we moved to Boston on 24 August 1999.
I had planned to write my dissertation on managing the consequences of a WMD terrorist
incident in the U.S. (something I had worked on at the Pentagon). In December of 1999, after
completing my first semester of coursework as well as my first case study, it occurred to me that
I wanted to write on something I knew nothing aboutUzbekistan. And thus I committed the
cardinal sin of PhD students: I switched horses in mid-stream. Alissa supported me. Neither one
of us, however, could have imagined that that Christmas 1999 decision would result in seven
more years of Ph.D. Candidate status!
I am thankful for Bob Pfaltzgraff. I am grateful to Mark Semioli for making me aware of the
profound implications I faced one seemingly ordinary October night as I debated with him
whether or not to leave the party, or ask this woman I had met at the door, Alissa, to dinner.
Your decision to stay or go could quite possibly be the biggest decision of your life.
Without this confluence of events, which I consider divine, this dissertation would not be
possible.
Along the way, I have been blessed with incredible friends and support. I am grateful to
Sodyq Safaev who opened the door for me in Uzbekistan. Without him, I would not have met
and learned from all the friends I have today in that great country. I am also blessed by the

wonderful friends I have made in the U.S.; people like Matt Bryza, who selflessly serves our
nation.
I am filled with gratitude for the people who have also encouraged me along the way: my
mom and dad (who introduced me to Sodyq Safaev); my sister, Amy, and her husband, D.B.,
who let me live with them in Providence R.I., for my last semester of coursework as Alissa took
a job in New York; my brother, Jesse, who inspired me with his own graduate degree in conflict
resolution; and Mike Hillyard, John Hillen and Pauletta Otis, each of whom nagged me about
finishing the task.
In similar fashion, I am tremendously thankful for those who made this dissertation so much
better by finding and/or providing sources; reading chapter drafts; and helping with formatting.
These good and wonderful folks include: Nathan Murray; Drew Fink; Nate Carr; Dennis Hoover;
Josh White; Rebecca Yael Miller; Mekael Teshome; Peter Nasuti; Greg Matney; Amy Rowe;
Cara Boekeloo; Matt Vinson; Nicole Cordeau; Laura Bowman; Alice Serar; Nick Megoran;
Ulugbeg Khassanov; Tom Blau; Martha Brill Olcott; and Jon Chicky.
Of special note is the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia. Not only did
Alan Luxenberg encourage me to publish my analyses of Uzbekistan through FPRIs enotes,
Michael Noonan went out of his way to send me every type of analysis possiblefrom the latest
newspaper article to the most recent scholarship. Michael kept me current when my day job took
me away. I am grateful to both of them.
I thank the Board of Directors at the Institute for Global Engagementand especially IGEs
founders, my parents, Robert and Margaret Ann Seiplefor allowing me the time to work on
this dissertation.

I am profoundly thankful for Andy Hess. Before I had read Mackinder in depth, he helped
me understand history from the East; that is, through the eyes of the Turkic peoples. He has
tirelessly stewarded me and this project to completion. Helping him and me is Bernie KelleyLecceseshe is a saint! I am likewise grateful for William Martel and Sung-Yoon Lee, whose
substantive and editorial insights improved this dissertation greatly. Finally, this dissertation
crossed the finish line because of Jenifer Burckett-PickerThe Fletcher School is a much better
place because of her.
And then there is Alissa. She is my best friend, my biggest fan, and the kick-in-the-pants I
need when Im being stupid. I am deeply in love with her, my wife, my hero.
Finally I am thankful to God for His Sonwithout whom I am nothingand for giving us a
son, Liam Ambrose, who, like this dissertation, seemed impossible seven years ago.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:
Bibliography:

Introduction
Halford Mackinders Philosophy
The Going Concern: A Geo-Communal Perspective
The Going Concern: A Geo-Strategic Perspective
Summary & Conclusions

1
22
62
95
218
237

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction:
Context & Terms of Reference
The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Alexander Pope1

The function of political geography is to detect and demonstrate the relations subsisting
between man in society and so much of his environment as varies locallyKnowledgeis one.
Its division into subjects is a concession to human weaknessThe alternative is to divide the
scientific from the practical. Sir Halford John Mackinder2

This dissertation asks a simple question: Does Mackinders geo-political thinking provide a
suitable basis for examining and explaining the bilateral relationship between the United States
and the Republic of Uzbekistan, 19912005?
Halford Mackinder took an ecosystem approach to his thinking as he sought to practically
understand the interrelationship of geography, people and ideas as they interact and combine to
become the ultimate totality of the world organism.3 This dissertation organizes Mackinders
own wordswhich are often difficult to understandin a manner that is consistent with their
intent, and, arguably, more coherent.

Alexander Pope, Sound and Sense (accessed September 28, 2005); available from http://www.poetryonline.org/pope_sound_and_sense.htm.
2
Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University
Press, 1996), 154-5, 166, 173. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of
Halford Mackinders works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: The Scope and
Methods of Geography, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160
[hereafter cited as Scope and Methods]; The Geographical Pivot of History, Geographical Journal 23,
No. 4 (1904): 421-444 [hereafter cited as Pivot]; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt
and Company, Inc., 1919) [hereafter cited as Ideals and Reality]; and The Round World and Winning the
Peace, Foreign Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [hereafter cited as Round World]. All page
references to these works are found in the NDU re-publishing.
3
Mackinder, Pivot, 176.

As a result, this dissertation re-visits Mackinders geo-political thinking, concluding that it is

a living and comprehensive philosophy of two perspectives, meant to be applied to each new
strategic era. These mutually dependent perspectives include the geo-communal view of mans
local interaction with and perception of geography (i.e., the going concern of civil society),
and the geo-strategic of a states understanding of, and interaction with, the Heartland (i.e., the
going concern of international politics).4
While he lived, Sir Halford John Mackinder was foremost an educator. He was the man most
responsible for the creation of political geography as an academic discipline in the United
Kingdom. Similarly, he played an instrumental role in the establishment of Reading University,
the London School of Economics and the School of Geography at Oxford.
It is his Heartland idea, however, that reaches beyond his 1947 death, shaping western
strategic from the Cold War to today. Indeed, it is not too much to say that before George
Kennans Containment Strategy there was Halford J. Mackinders Heartland Philosophy, and
that the latter deeply influenced the former. Yet most have never heard of the man; and if they
have, their understanding of him is but a caricature of his thinking, making it impossible to apply
his geo-political thinking anew.
In 1904, Mackinder first argued that the Heartland was absolutely critical to global balance,
and therefore the West. With daring simplicity, he told his London audience that the Heartland
was vital to international security by virtue of its geographic position; and that those with access
to it will play a critical role on the global stage.

To be clear, Mackinder did not himself use geo-communal. Geo-communal, however, is the most
succinct phrase that captures his desire to understand and express how geography influences local society
and culture, producing a particular view of the world. Mackinder used going concern as a means to
describe a broad awareness of, and insight to, preceding events and idease.g., regarding specific issues
like economics or regionalism and how these same events and ideas, if they continued in similar fashion,
would practically effect the present and future.

Mackinder thus sought a formula that provided practical value as setting into perspective
some of the competing forces in current international politics;5 irrespective of the particular
form that key factorse.g., technology, population, resources, religion, terrorism, etc.take
anew in each strategic era. As he explained in the question and answer period following his
presentation, Mackinder stressed that the state that possessed the Heartland would be able to
fling power from side to side of this area. My aim isto make a geographical formula into
which you could fit any political balance.6
Mackinder articulated this living formula on three occasions: 1904, 1919 and 1943.
Understood collectively, as chapter two discusses in detail, his Heartland writings argue that
global balance, indeed civilization, rests on the twin pillars of Mackinderian geo-politics: the
geo-communal view of mans local interaction with and perception of geography (i.e., the going
concern of civil society), and the geo-strategic view of a states understanding of, and
interaction with, the Heartland (i.e., the going concern of international politics).
This chapter, however, examines such ubiquitous terms of reference as geo-politics and
region, providing a basis for understanding Mackinders Heartland Philosophy. The chapter
concludes with an outline of the dissertation.

Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University
Press, 1996), 176. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of Halford
Mackinders works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: The Scope and Methods of
Geography, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160 [hereafter cited as
Scope and Methods]; The Geographical Pivot of History, Geographical Journal 23, No. 4 (1904): 421444 [hereafter cited as Pivot]; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,
1919) [hereafter cited as Ideals and Reality]; and The Round World and Winning the Peace, Foreign
Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [hereafter cited as Round World]. All page references to these
works are found in the NDU republishing.

Harm J. de Blij, ed., Systematic Political Geography, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973), 285286.

Context
Today, when visitors walk into the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistans capital, Tashkent, they find
foyer walls covered with photographs that compete for the eyes attention. The wall is a whos
who of U.S. national leaders with American and Uzbek officials. Seemingly, almost every
cabinet secretary, senator or representative has been to Tashkent. Visitors can only conclude that
Uzbekistan is, or was, an important country, at least to the worlds only superpower.
It was not always so. On 20 September 2001, President George W. Bush addressed the
American nation before a Joint Session of Congress. As he laid out his doctrine for combating
terrorism on a global scale, the President cited the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as an
example of the enemy that had attacked the United States on September 11th.7 For most
Americans, it was an obscure reference. For Uzbeks, however, it was an acknowledgement
before the world that the threat they had faced for years was real. And for Uzbek foreign policy
elites, the reference was a sign that Americastarting with the first ever phone call from an
American President to the Uzbek President the day before8was finally ready to have a serious
and comprehensive foreign policy for that unchanging pivot point of Mackinders Heartland:
Central Asia.9
Largely unknown to Americansexcept those avid readers of Fitzroy Maclean and Robert
Kaplan travel journalsthe region nonetheless conjures up some notion of a romantic last
frontier, a last chance to live in the 19th Century at the beginning of the 21st. Images of ornate
7

George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People 20 September 2001
(accessed 22 September 2001); available from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.
8
John Herbst, U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Duggleby (U.S. Army), U.S.
Defense Attache to Uzbekistan, 20 September 2001, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
9
Uzbek elites had followed the November 2000 American election closely and were pleased that George
W. Bush had won, largely because he was perceived to have extremely capable aides and thus a foreign
policy that would be realist, i.e., founded on national interests instead of values. (Repeated interviews with
various sources). Please see page 39 for a map of Mackinders Heartland.

mosques, the conquests of Timur the Lame, and a landscape of brutal beauty blur together in the
minds eye as one tries to place history amidst the heart of a sweeping continent. Still, at least for
Americans, the region has long been shrouded in the twin tyrannies of geography and ignorance.
No more.
At the heart of Central Asia is Uzbekistan. Possessing one-third of the regions population,
Uzbekistan is the only country contiguous to the other five: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan). As such it is the nexus point for the security issues that plague
the region and the surrounding major powers: terrorism, drug trafficking, poorly integrated
economies, ecocide, lack of water, and human rights violations. The potential explosion or
implosion of this relatively unstable regionin the shared backyard of nuclear powers Russia,
China, Pakistan, India, and soon, Iranwould have a profound effect on Eurasian and global
security.
As history has repeatedly revealed, Central Asia, if only because of geography, is a fragile
fulcrum and critical to Eurasian and therefore global balance and stability. A significant
exception to this historic role was the 20th century, when Central Asia disappeared beneath the
ideological and cartographic monolith of the Soviet Union.
9/11, however, returned the region to prominence as a vital component of global security.
With the defeat of the Taliban in the fall of 2001, U.S. forces were stationed throughout Central
Asia and, from 2001-2005, in Uzbekistan at Karshi-Khanabad (K2). This troop deployment
played an important role in the initial stabilization of Afghanistan.
As the Heartland re-emerged on the global stage, this new footprint of American power
was unprecedented in American and global history. Never before had a great, non-Eurasian,
power been able to project its military at such length so easily into the Heartland. This capacity,

and resulting presence, has the potential to significantly alter the geo-strategic calculus of the
United States and the future of Central Asia (as well as the calculus of Russia and China).10
As Andrew Bacevich observes, the establishment of bases by American forces has the effect
of creating new facts on the ground, facts that have a way of becoming permanent. When U.S.
troops arrive, they tend to stay.11 This observation has already begun to take root in the
American strategic culture. As one Department of Defense official said in 2002: I believe fifty
years from now [these bases] will be as familiar to us as Ramstein Air Force Base [in
Germany].12 The United States does not seem to be leaving the region in the near future.
Although recent events re-confirm the age-old importance of the region, they also reveal a
paucity of strategic thinking by which to organize our ideas about itat the theoretical and
policy levels. What concepts most inform American strategy and its relationship with the
regions literal and figurative center? Is the first and most original western thinker on this region
relevant to examining and explaining U.S.Uzbekistan relations?
In order to revisit the geopolitical thinking of Sir Halford John Mackinder, however, it is first
necessary to understand two terms of reference in their historical and scholarly context.
Specifically, it is crucial to understand the meaning of geo-politics which is so ubiquitous that
it has lost its meaning; as well as the concept of region, especially those particular regions that

10

Russia and China established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to wield influence in
Central Asia. The Russians have also established an airbase in Kyrygzstan (where the U.S. also has access
to an airbase at Manas). See footnote #141 in Chapter Four of this dissertation for a more in-depth
description of the SCO.
11
Andrew J. Bacevich, Steppes to Empire, The National Interest 68 No. 3 (Summer 2002): 42. Bacevich
echoes George Curzon who wrote: It may be observed that the uniform tendency is for the weaker to
crystallize into the harder shape. Spheres of Interest tend to become Spheres of Influence; temporary
Leases to become perpetual; Spheres of Influence to develop into Protectorates; Protectorates to be the
forerunners of complete incorporation. See The Right Honourable Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Frontiers,
The Romanes Lecture, All Souls College, Chancellor of the University, delivered 2 November 1907
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 47.
12
Thomas Barnett, Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transportation at the Department
of Defense; as quoted by Nathan Hodge, Pentagon Strategist: Bases are Long-Term, Defense Week, 19
August 2002, 3.

lie among regional and/or global powers. Discussion of both terms provides important
perspectives on how we understand Mackinders thinking and writing, and thus the application
of his ideas to the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship.
Geo-Politics
To the ordinary citizen, and even many students of international relations, geo-politics has
become synonymous with power politics, a zero-sum game of Melian chess that is played with
global adversaries and issues. Realpolitik best embodies this effort to balance power. This
approach often views morality as a luxury, a luxury that only results from a proper balance of
power.
Yet, as the prefix itself indicates, geo-politics at some point must have included a concept of
earth, connoting an eco-system perspective that accounts for the interrelated nature of things. In
other words, an etymology of the term is needed to grasp its proper understanding, and
application.
In general, scholars condemn the term because of its association it with the racist
lebensraum of Nazism. Yet most scholarswhose job it is to be careful with terms of
referencestill use the term willy-nilly, often interchangeably with political geography. For
example, Geoffrey Parker considers the terms identical because they both seek to identify an
area of study which is concerned with the interface of geography and politics and with their
mutual interactions.13
Consider one of the leading books on political geography, edited by the former and current
U.S. State Department geographers. The title of the book is Geopolitical Perspectives on the
21st Century. The first chapter, however, written by the editors themselves, is Political
13

Geoffrey Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century (New York: St. Martins Press,
1985), 1.

Geography for the Next Millennium.14 From an analytical point of view there is no difference,
seemingly, between the two phrases.
Demko and Wood, like most, do not define geopolitics, but they do define political
geography:
Political geography is the analysis of how political systems and structuresfrom the local to
international levelsinfluence and are influenced by the spatial distribution of resources, events,
and groups, and by interactions among subnational, national, and international political units
across the globe[it] focuses, on the one hand, on how groups interactparticularly the ways
they manipulate each otherin the pursuit of controlling resources and, on the other, on how
these social, economic, and political activities determines the use of, and thereby modify, the
resource base. The resource most often directly implicated in international conflicts is land,
whether for intrinsic (it contains minerals or a fresh water source), strategic, (it straddles a key
trade route), or nationalistic (it embodies a homeland) reasons. The discipline also assesses the
political effects of information and resource flows that change spatial distributions and balances
of power Political geography uses an integrative, regional, and spatial framework that pulls
together contributions by both physical and social sciencesit is the one traditional discipline
that explicitly bridges the two realms of research.15

In 1887, however, Halford Mackinder had written:

The function of political geography is to detect and demonstrate the relations subsisting between
man in society and so much of his environment as it varies locallyOne of the greatest of all
gaps lies between the natural sciences and the study of humanity. It is the duty of the geographer
to build one bridge over an abyss which in the opinion of many is upsetting the equilibrium of our
culture.16

It seems that the definition of political geography has not changed much in the past 119
years. At the least, it has always been holistic in its approach. Physical geography is thus the
first part of knowledge of the world Accordingly, it is necessary to acquaint oneself with it as
a form of knowledge that may subsequently be completed and corrected by experience.17

14

George J. Demko and William B. Wood, ed., Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the
21st Century, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 3.
15
Ibid., 4-5.
16
Mackinder, Scope and Methods,154-5. Demko and Woods do not cite Mackinder in their use of
bridge.
17
Immanuel Kant, Physische Geographie, as translated in J. A. May, Kants Concept of Geography,
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 256.

Indeed, no rational political geography can exist which is not built upon and subsequent to
physical geography.18 But what is geo-politics?
The term itself, most agree, was coined by Rudolf Kjellen (1846-1922). Roger Kasperson
and Julie V. Minghi report that Kjellan defined geo-politics as the theory of the state as a
geographic organism or phenomenon as space, i.e., as land, territory, area, or most especially as
country.19 However, Kjellan, whose work we will return to, based his work on at least three
earlier sources.
Chronologically and conceptually, geo-politics begins with the two German grandfathers of
geography: Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Ritter. Both men knew each other, lived in the
same city for over thirty years, and even died in the same year (1859). In short, they thought that
geography was much more than topography. Ritters purpose, Richard Hartshone tells us, was
to find the coherence of forces in a Whole, and thus ultimately to indicate the purpose of the
Whole. Similarly, Humboldt used to quote his brother, Wilhelm, explaining, We wish to note
one idea which is visible in ever increasing validity through the whole of historythe idea of
humanityto treat the whole of humanity, without consideration of religious, nationality, and
color, as One great closely related race, as one Whole existing for the attainment of one purpose,
the free development of inner powers. They believed that geography and history are directed
toward integration of ideas and are therefore forced to philosophize.20

18

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 153.

Roger E. Kasperson, Julie V. Minghi, ed., The Structure of Political Geography. (Chicago: Aldine
Publishing Company, 1969), 8. (They cite Rudolpf Kjellen, Der Staat als Lebenform, M Langfeldt trans.
(Leipzig: S. Hirzel Verlag, 1917). See also Ola Tunander, Swedish-German Gepolitics for a New Century,
Rudolpf Kjellens The State as a Living Organism. Review of International Studies 27, No. 3 (2001):
451-463.
20
Richard Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography: A Critical Survey of Current Thought in Light of the
Past, 7th ed. (Lancaster: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1939. Reprinted 1961), 62,
64, 66. Also see L. Kellner, Alexander von Humboldt (London: Oxford Press, 1963), 232.
19

Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) took this holistic construct one step further. Ratzel, not unlike
Ritter and von Humboldt (and Mackinder), had a diversified education, gaining his doctorate in
zoology, geology and comparative anatomy. This natural science background lent itself to his
concept of the organic state. The state, Ratzel argued, was a living concept, where the state and
the people eventually became one, a community. It is more than a metaphor when one speaks of
a people as taking root. The nation is an organic entity which, in the course of history, becomes
increasingly attached to the land.21 It is this organic theory of the state that was retrospectively
reduced (after World War II) to racist and Darwinistic struggle.22 However, this teleological taint
is too simple and evades the tough process of comprehending Ratzel, to include his
contributions.23

21

Friedrich Ratzel, The Laws of the Spatial Growth of States, translated by Ronald Bolin (an abstract in
translation did appear in the Scottish Geographical Magazine 12 (1896): 351-361; as reprinted in Roger E.
Kasperson, Julie V. Minghi, ed., The Structure of Political Geography. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing
Company, 1969), 8, 22).
22
Colin Flint, Changing Times, Changing Scales: World Politics and Political Geography Since 1890, in
George J. Demko and William B. Wood, ed., Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st
Century, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 23-24. The tool adopted for this construction of the
globe was an organic theory of society based on a racist social Darwinism and promoted by an
antidemocratic elite.
23
His thinking here is difficult to follow, but it is apparent that [it is] not of the strict dog-eat-dog nature
so often attributed to him. He was referring to the relationship to which develops between a people and the
land which nourishes them, and the reciprocity which develops between them. Here again we must keep in
mind what it was that Ratzel meant by the term law. He referred to tendencies rather than absolutes, as is
clear from the following passages: Thus there arises a political organization of the land through which the
state becomes an organism in that a fixed portion of the surface of the earth enters in to such a degree that
the properties of the state are a combination of those of the people and of the land. The state is not an
organism merely because it forms a connection between a living population and the fixed earth, but rather
because this connection is so strengthened by reciprocity that the two become one and can no longer be
thought of as separate.Kasperson and Minghi, ed., The Structure of Political Geography, 7 (Ratzel,
Politische Geographie, 4).
Clearly, Ratzel was more about the principle than the rule, imbuing his students with this approach. As his
arch-disciple and American interpreter, Ellen Semple, wrote in the introduction to her own book: The
writer, moreover, has purposely avoided definitions, formulas, and the enunciation of hard-and-fast rules;
and has refrained from any effort to delimit the field or define the relation of this new science of anthropogeography to the older sciences. It is unwise to put tight clothes on a growing child. Ellen Churchill
Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment: On the Basis of Ratzels system of Anthropo-Geography,
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911), vii.

10

Kjellan, however, took the comprehensive concepts of Humboldt, Ritter, and Ratzel and
imbued the state with personality and destiny, arguing that the state was in a constant struggle
with other states. It had to expand or die. In the end, the world would have a few big states and
fewer small states.24
When Kjellan died, Dr. Karl Haushofer took up the evolutionary concept of geo-politics,
basing his own enhancement of the idea on Ratzel, Kjellan and, above all, Mackinder.25
Haushofer particularly appreciated Mackinder, and his famous dictum:
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:
Who rules the World-Island commands the World.26

After reading Mackinders 1919 book on Democratic Ideals and Reality, Haushofer is reported
to have concluded: Never have I seen anything greater than these few pages of geo-political
masterwork.27
Mackinders grand simplicity fascinated Haushofer as soldier, scholar, and proud German.
(Haushofer had served in Germanys eastern army during World War I, an army that had never
been defeated on the battlefield). Like subsequent scholars, however, Haushofer only understood
the physical and geo-strategic dimensions to Mackinders writings, ignoring, as will be
discussed, the geo-communal dimensions of civil society as found at the local, national and
international levels.
For Haushofer, Mackinders dictum provided an analytical description of the conditions in
which Germany found itself, as well as a policy prescription to address those conditions.
Haushofer agreed with Mackinder that whoever controlled the center of Eurasia would be
24

Geoffrey Parker, Western Geopolitical Though, 55; also see de Blij, Systematic Political Geography,
267.
25
The influence of Mackinder on Kjellan remains unclear.
26
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 106.
27
Geoffrey Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought, 58 (as found in: Weltpolitik von Heute (Gerlag und
Vertriebsgellschaft, Berlin, 1936)).

11

impervious to naval attack and would have greater resourcesenhanced by the interior lines of
the Eurasian railway systemenabling a greater fleet-building capacity than the maritime
powers.
Despite grasping only half of Mackinders Heartland Philosophy, Haushofer kept faith with
the fields comprehensive origins. Hans Weigert, an early American leader in the field of geopolitics, thought his contribution of the first order:
What did Haushofer add to previous exponents of human geography? Universality, practicality,
and definite political objectivesNo informed European or thoughtful American should fail to
recognize that the German geopolitik is precisely what its name signifiesthe politics of a wholly
earthy conception of life and human destiny.28

In this sense, Haushoferas a scholar, and we must separate the concept from its application by
and association with the Naziswas exactly in step with a holistic approach. The difference was
that Haushofer only applied his thinking to political-military matters of state whereas Mackinder,
as the next chapter reveals, applied his philosophy to a civilization of communities as well.
According to his understanding of Mackinderand as a soldier-policymaker with friends
like Rudolph Hess (who was close to Hitler before he defected in 1941)General Haushofer
advocated that Germany build a powerful inland bloc with the Soviet Union. Such a bloc would
naturally possess impervious interior lines, great resources, a self-sufficient economy and a
tremendous defense-in-depth for any attack that might come.29 Combined with a strong military,
Germany, as a member of this bloc, would overcome the ignominy of World War I. Importantly,

28

Hans W. Weigert and Vilhhalmur Stefansson, ed., Compass of the World (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1944), 25-26.
29
In this sense, along with the Nazi sense of autarky, Haushofer was echoing Aristotle through
Mackinders Heartland: It is clear that everyone would praise the territory that is the most self-sufficient.
That which bears every sort of thing is of necessity, for self-sufficiency is having everything available and
being in need of nothing. Aristotle, The Politics, translated by Carnes Lord (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984), 205-206.

12

Haushofer believed that this Heartland Bloc should be achieved through negotiation, not war,
through Rapallo, not Brest-Litovsk.30
With this worldview, Haushofer was a strong proponent of the German-Soviet NonAggression Pact of August 23, 1939 (his son, Albrecht, served on Foreign Minister von
Ribbentrops staff). This pact was the greatest and last triumph of Haushofers geo-politics.
Although he continued to call for a continental bloc that included Germany, Russia, and Japan
(where Haushofer had spent much time studying and writing), Hitler soon applied his own
thinking. Haushofers continental bloc pamphlet was published just prior to the German invasion
of the Soviet Union. Hitler was seeking Brest-Litovsk, not Rapallo. Haushofer was later sent to
Dachau and committed suicide in 1946. His son, Albrecht, was executed in 1944 for his
participation in the plot against Hitler.
The American public of the early 1940s, however, was generally not aware of the subtle
dimensions to Germanys geo-political thinking. Indicative of this feeling was Robert StrausHupe. He opened his 1942 book with the following comment: But geo-politics is the master
plan that tells what and why to conquer, guiding the military strategist along the easiest path to
conquest. Thus the key to Hitlers global mind is German geo-politics.31

30

Geoffrey Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought, 70. The 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was imposed on
the Soviet Union by Germany. The Soviet Union was forced to recognize the independence of Ukraine,
Georgia and Finland while giving up Poland and the Baltic states to Germany and Austria-Hungary. By
contrast, the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo was a cooperative, and secret, agreement between the Soviet Union
and Germany. Germany recognized the U.S.S.R. (the first western government to do so) and the U.S.S.R.
allowed Germany to develop, test and manufacture weapons forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. The
treaty also cancelled all debt between them and provided trading privileges to Germany.
31
Robert Strausz-Hupe, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons,
1942), vii. Strausz-Hupe overcomes this reductionist approach, presumably meant to grab the reader, later
in his book. Haushofer has never been the master mind behind Hitleras certain sensationalist reports and
fanciful inside stories would have it (77).

13

This simple association would soon be confirmed in American thought by the influential
work of Hans J. Morganthau. In his 1947 classic, Politics among the Nations, Morganthau
reduces geopolitics to its exact opposite.
In the hands of Haushofer and his disciples, geopolitics was transformed into a kind of political
metaphysics to be used as an ideological weapon in the service of the international aspirations of
Germany. Geopolitics is the attempt to understand the problem of national power exclusively in
terms of geography and degenerates in the process into a political metaphysics couched in a
pseudo-scientific jargon.32

This deterministicand decidedly non-comprehensiveperspective would eventually become

ingrained among respected western military thinkers. Sir Michael Howard wrote in 1978 that the
pseudo-science of geopolitics is a fragile basis on which to build any theory. It has never been
taken very seriously, either by historians or by political scientists.33
This dissertation, however, in keeping with the historic and holistic roots of political
geography, provides the following definitions as generally consistent with the authors
interpretation of Mackinders Heartland Philosophy:34

1928The editors of Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik: Thus geopolitics becomes an art,

namely the art of guiding practical politics.35

1942Robert Straus Hupe: Geopolitik, to its adepts, is first and foremost a way of
thinking, and secondly, a set of highly elastic plans Geopolitik is not a scienceit is a

32

Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), 118. (my italics)
Sir Michael Howard, The Influence of Geopolitics on the East-West Struggle, Parameters XVIII 3
(September 1988): 14.
34
The key characteristic of these definitions is the consistently comprehensive and non-deterministic,
perspective that they maintain. Accordingly, while they do not explicitly address the geo-communal of
civil societyphrases this dissertation uses to describe Mackinders own understanding of the
relationship between geography and democracythese definitions are sufficiently broad to implicitly allow
for them.
35
As recorded by Robert Strausz-Hupe, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power, 7.
33

14

school of strategythere is no distinction between war and peacethere is no real

distinction between the political strategy of peace and the military strategy of war.36

1943Ralph Turner: Geopolitics may be understood as an effort to think about national

existence in world terms.37

1975Robert E. Walters: The influence of geography, economics, demography,

technology and strategic possibilities on shaping foreign policy for a country.
Geopolitics, then, is a tool for the determination of a realist policy for a country or
coalition. It is the starting point for foreign policythe first premise.38

1977Colin S. Gray: A meta-or master framework that, without predetermining policy

choice, suggests long-term factors and trends in the security objectives of particularly
territorially-organized security communities Geopolitical relations open and foreclose
upon ranges of policy possibilitieswhich societies and their governments may pursue
or not as circumstance and mood take them.39

2004Colin S. Gray: The spatial study and practice of international relationsan equal
opportunity tool of analysis.40

Region (or, the Lands In-Between)

Leaders and scholars alike have always recognized that some regions of the world are more
prone to instability than others. This proclivity of certain regions begins with their topographical
position on the earth; usually this position is found between/among the competing powers of the
36

Ibid., 82, 101-2.

Ralph Turner, Technology and Geopolitics, Military Affairs 7, no. 1 (Spring, 1943): 15.
38
Robert E. Walters, Sea Power and the Nuclear Fallacy: A Reevaluation of Global Strategy (New York:
Homes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1975), 26.
39
Colin S. Gray, The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era: Heartland, Rimlands, and the Technological
Revolution (New York: Crane, Russak & Company, Inc., 1977), 11, 6.
40
Colin S. Gray, In Defence of the Heartland: Sir Halford Mackinder and His Critics a Hundred Years
On, Comparative Strategy 23 No. 1 (2004): 9, 18.
37

15

era. It is no accident, for example, that in the late 18th century, the Russian, Prussian, and AustroHungarian empires partitioned Poland off the map (1772-1795) for fear of a free, and contiguous,
state that might inspire their own minorities to rebel.
These types of regionsthese lands in-between the major powersare no longer subject
to the territorial whims of surrounding powers in a globalized world. While they remain points of
contention among the surrounding powers, they also influence and are influenced by global
events and players; especially the technological and cultural reach of the worlds only
superpower. This process forms and informs perception, internally, as well as among those
outside the region. This process takes on greater meaning amidst a transition period between
strategic eras. In short, regional definition and individual identity become more fluid, and are
essentially left to the individual.
Contemporary geographers agree. The splitting up of the global totality into convenient and
useful sub-units or regions depends less on predetermined circumstances than on the purpose for
which such regionalisation is required.41 For Demko and Wood a region is inherently a flexible
concept and may encompass any scale and whatever territory is appropriate for a given purpose;
depending on the problem at hand.42
The problem at hand for regions in-between, however, has always been the ever-present
interests of surrounding powers, usually competing for influence within the region. This problem
first became the topic of published discussion in the 19th Century, specifically through the
observations of an Englishman, George Curzon. The region as a sphere of influenceor as a
buffer zonewas something that Curzon had developed in his travels through Russian Central
Asia in 1889.

41
42

Geoffrey Parker, Geopolitics: Past, Present, and Future (London: Pinter, 1998), 80-81.
George J. Demko and William B. Wood, ed., Reordering the World, 8.

16

For example, he considered Afghanistan to be a buffer zone between the competing

influences of Imperial Russia and England in this part of the world. This new theory of a
Buffer Afghanistan, independent, though subsidized, and friendly though strong, was evolved.43
Writing in 1908, Curzon further suggested, As the habitable world shrinks, the interests or
ambitions of one state come into sharp and irreconcilable collision with those of another. He
advocated buffer zones on the outskirts of empire to separate the spheres of influence.44
Although an imperially imposed security concept, the idea of this kind of buffer zone was
theoretically and practically recognized among subsequent geographers. For example, Alfred
Thayer Mahan, the American naval captain whose ideas on sea power significantly influenced
T.R. Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm I, called the lands between southern Asia and Russia, the
debatable and debated ground.45 James Fairgrieve argued in 1915 that a Crush Zone existed
in Eurasia, which extended west to east from Holland to China, including Central Asia.
These states are largely survivals from an earlier time when political and economic organizations
were on a smaller scale, and each has characteristics partly acquired in that earlier time and partly
natural. With sufficient individuality to withstand absorptions, but unable or unwilling to unite
with others to form any larger whole, they remain in the unsatisfactory position of buffer states,
precariously independent politically, and more surely dependent economically.46

Later, in 1964, Saul Cohen presented his shatterbelt concept to describe these lands inbetween. The shatterbelt was a large strategically located region that is occupied by a number of

43

George N. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1889), 358.
As quoted in Parker, Geopolitics: Past, Present, and Future, 115. These theories were eventually tested
as Foreign Secretary Curzon sought to incorporate such zones in the aftermath of World War I. In
particular, he gave his name to the border drawn between Poland and Russia because He firmly believed
that such a zone was necessary to separate the German and Russian spheres, and the mosaic of small states
between the two was intended to be a buffer of this sort.
45
A. T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia and Its Effect upon International Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1900), 22.
46
James Fairgrieve, Geography and World Power, 8th ed. (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1941), 329330. Also see James Fairgrieve, Geography and World Power, in Compass of the World: A Symposium
on Political Geography, ed., Hans W. Weigert and Vilhajalmur Stefansson (New York: The MacMillan
Company, 1944), 191-192. Organizationally, the U.S. National Security Council has recognized this crush
zone for the past few years, creating a portfolio that includes the Aegean area, the South Caucasus and
Central Asia (minus Afghanistan).
44

17

conflicting states and is caught between the conflicting interests of adjoining powers. Another
locational characteristic was that the shatterbelt did not adjoin the core areas of opposing
Great Powers, thereby offering elbow room for various forms of contention that other areas do
not.47 After the Cold War, he refined the shatterbelt as: A politically fragmented area of
competition the distinguishing feature of the Shatterbelt is that it presents a playing field used
by two or more competing major powers from different geostrategic realms.48
This discourse, however, reflects the realist school of thought, which is what geo-politics
was reduced to during the Cold War. Accordingly, buffer regions are places on a map that allow
for the amelioration of the surrounding, and competing, influences of major and/or great powers.
While true, this geo-strategic understanding is only half of the equation because it does not
address the geo-communal dimension of the people who actually live in such a region (a mistake,
discussed below, that Mackinder makes as well).
In other words, what prevents these regions from becoming, in their own and the eyes of the
world, what Joseph Goebbels called kleinstaatengerumpea rubbish of small states?49
The problem with the realist construct of buffer zones, as E.H. Carr would argue, is that it
leaves no space, theoretically or practically, for a moral imperative. Realism breaks down
because it fails to provide any ground for purposive or meaningful actionrealism can offer
nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society
impossible.50

47

Saul Bernard Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided, (New York: Random House, 1963) 84,
65, 83, 85. The two Cold War shatterbelts were the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
48
Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics in the New World Era: A New Perspective on an Old Discipline, in
Demko and Wood, ed., Reordering the World, 2nd edition, 42-44.
49
Geoffrey Parker, Geopolitics: Past, Present, and Future, 161.
50
E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-1939 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1964), 9293.

18

In fact, Buffer Zones, Crush Zones, and Shatterbelts, are inherently two-dimensional,
hard power, constructs that see geography as a map, not as a topography that interacts locally
with the society that has developed there. There is no room in the realist construct for the
possibility that the soft power of a civil societyformed and informed by the literal worldview
around themmight contribute to stability, and therefore security.
Might it be possible that a proper geo-political definition of region could demonstrate a
viable regional identity that makes it less susceptible to internal subversion and external
penetration? And might the consideration of a geo-communal perspective contribute to
traditional stability among mutually dependent small states that together, as a conceived region,
might absorb the competing influences/desires of the surrounding powers even as it inherently
cannot threaten those same powers?
In other words, might Central Asia be such a region, a buffering balance point of geocommunal and geo-strategic stability? This dissertation will return to these fundamental
questions at its conclusion.
Dissertation Outline
It is against this backdrop that the dissertations chapters advance. Chapter two surveys the
literature on Mackinder, as well as his life, times, and writings. This chapter makes the case that
it is impossible to understand Mackinder without understanding the man himself and his
vigorous commitment to relevance through the re-examination and re-application of his idea to
each new strategic era. A detailed discussion of Mackinder and his critics reveals that the 20th
Century scholarship on Mackinder does not adequately address, and therefore does not
understand, the totality of Mackinders thinking. This discussion does reveal, however, the geocommunal and geo-strategic perspectives of what might be termed his Heartland philosophy.
19

This understanding of his geo-political thinking serves as the foundation for the analytic
narrative of chapters three and four, which demonstrate the explanatory suitability of
Mackinders geo-political thinking. Chapter two also suggests a general set of hypotheses that
summarize and illustrate Mackinders comprehensive thinking.
Chapter three considers the going concern of Central Asias evolution as a society,
detailing how the interaction of society with the local environment has shaped their culture and
view of the world. This geo-communal approach examines the geography, history and identity of
civil society in Central Asia in order to ascertain their influence upon the creation of Uzbekistan,
its experience as a Soviet Republic, and the resulting approach and attitude that Uzbekistan
brought to its relationship with the United States. The chapter concludes with a discussion of
how Americans view civil society and how this perception affected the relationship.
Chapter four examines the going concern of the regions historic importance as a catalyst
to empire, or as a buffer among empires. This geo-strategic perspective also examines the impact
of Mackinders geo-political thinking on American strategic culture, especially its role in the
U.S. Cold War policy of containment. The chapters focus, however, is the latest iteration of
this going concern, the evolution of the U.S.Uzbekistan bilateral relationship through three
key phases: 1983-1994; 1995-2000; and 2001-2005.
After modeling the suitability of Mackinders geo-political thinking as a basis for examining
and explaining the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship, the dissertation concludes by returning to
chapter twos hypotheses, discussing them in a manner that summarizes and illustrates
Mackinders thinking, as applied through the analytic narrative of the U.S.Uzbekistan
relationship (chapter 5).

20

Finally, it should be noted that most of the personal interviews conducted over the course of
researching this dissertation, to include six trips to Uzbekistan, were off-the-record.
Particularly in the case of Uzbekistan, given the ongoing political context, it is sometimes not
appropriate to date or name the interview being cited. That said, this dissertation is a scholarly
work and the interview notes have been preserved.

21

CHAPTER TWO
Halford Mackinders Philosophy

Just over one hundred years ago, Halford Mackinder presented a grand and simple idea to
Londons Royal Geographical Society. The heart-land of Euro-Asia was vital to international
security (i.e., the continued primacy of the British Empire), and those with access to it will play a
critical role on the global stage.1 Understood collectively across three articulations, Mackinder
reveals a Heartland Philosophy that seeks geo-strategic and geo-communal balance. This
philosophy, in turn, provides a suitable basis for examining and explaining U.S.Uzbekistan
relations, 19912005.
Mackinder Summarized
Halford Mackinder was a profound and critical thinker who has been as misinterpreted as his
philosophy has been misapplied. Like all of us, he was very much a product of his time, a
prisoner of his experiences. As the 20th century dawned, major powersespecially Russia and
Germanywere looking for their place in the sun. Mackinder sought to preserve Great Britains
place in the sun amidst the dog-eat-dog context of Darwinian Europe.
Mackinder thus sought a formula that could be applied to any era, providing guidance for the
preservation of the British Empire. He determined through his study of history that Asias
heartland (see description below) was the key. The state, or combination of states, that controlled
1

Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense
University Press, 1996),189. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of
Halford Mackinders works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: The Scope and
Methods of Geography, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160
[hereafter cited as Scope and Methods]; The Geographical Pivot of History, Geographical Journal 23,
No. 4 (1904): 421-444 [hereafter cited as Pivot]; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt
and Company, Inc., 1919) [hereafter cited as Ideals and Reality]; and The Round World and Winning the
Peace, Foreign Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [hereafter cited as Round World]. All page
references to these works are found in the NDU re-publishing.

22

the heartland would be safe from the naval attack of those powers that occupied Eurasias littoral
regions surrounding the heartland (something Mackinder called the marginal crescent).
Whoever controlled the Heartland would have access to its rich resources, to include those
needed to build and sustain the fleets capable of defeating the maritime powers of the marginal
crescent, whose natural resources were necessarily more scarce; e.g., Great Britain. Furthermore,
with the systematic expansion of the railroad, the Heartlands owner would occupy the natural
seat of power,2 capable of utilizing its land power faster, with far greater efficiency and
effectiveness, in any direction (known as interior lines to military strategists). The great
struggle of the twentieth century, therefore was going to be that fought between the commercial,
maritime powers of the West and the authoritarian, land-based regimes that ruled the
Heartland.3
This geo-strategic awareness was not something the British could necessarily control, only
balance. The empire could control, however, through geo-communal awareness, how it was
organized to balance the Heartland. Toward this end, Mackinder sought a democratic civil
society of equal states within the empire whose subordinate componentsfrom capital to
province, from England to former colonywere self-sustaining and mutually reinforcing,
enabling a life of freedom for every citizen. By developing a common worldview among its
citizens based in these values, the British Empire would prevent class and regional tensions. The
result: a more efficient and therefore more effective imperial organism capable of balancing
Eurasian powers. In short, a geo-communal perspective enabled a balanced civil society across
the Commonwealth, which, in turn, was critical to Great Britains ability to geo-strategically
balance the tenant of the Heartland.

2
3

Ibid., 190.
Paul Kennedy, Mission Impossible? The New York Review of Books, 10 June 2004, 17.

23

For Mackinder, there was no contradiction between the geo-communal of civil society and
the geo-strategic of empirethey were two sides of the same coin. Together, these perspective
were a passionate paradox that would enable his ultimate goal: the melding of the West and the
East, [so that we might] permanently penetrate the Heartland with oceanic freedom.4
Mackinder Critiqued
The available scholarship and analysis does not comprehensively account for the
comprehensive nature of Mackinders approach. There are four basic camps of criticism relevant
to todays strategic environment; those who: 1) think certain factorse.g., technology, or the
lack thereof (i.e., railroads)make the Heartland Theory irrelevant; 2) fail to understand, or only
consider, the geo-strategic of Mackinders writing; 3) refuse to examine the geo-communal of
Mackinders thinking; and 4) understand Mackinder through his times, not his writing (this
camp, critical geopolitics, demands careful consideration by virtue of its contemporary
prominence in the literature).5 As we consider these camps, the one thing we know for sure, it
seems, is that many of those who have been influenced by Mackinder have not had the patience
to read the whole book.6
From the first articulation of Mackinders Heartland theory, scholars and commentators have
suggested that certain factors in a certain age reduce the relevance of the Heartland theory. For
example, many have since argued that technology negates one of the Heartland theorys
characteristics of inaccessibility and impregnability as the worlds foremost natural fortress.

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 122.

For a comprehensive discussion of the almost 100 criticisms of the Heartland (at least until 1982), please
see W.H. Parkers chapter eight Criticisms of the Heartland Theory, in Mackinder: Geography as an Aid
to Statecraft (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 213-247.
6
H. McD. Clokie, Geo-PoliticsNew Super Science or Old Art? The Canadian Journal of Economics
and Political Science 10, no. 4 (Nov., 1944), 501.
5

24

During the Q&A following Mackinders 1904 presentation at the Royal Geographical Society,
for example, Mr. Amery made the following comment:
He has given us the whole of history and the whole of ordinary politics under one big
comprehensive ideaBoth the sea and the railway are going in the futureit may be near, or it
may be somewhat remoteto be supplemented by the air as a means of locomotionwhen we
come to that, a great deal of this geographical distribution must lose its importance, and the
successful powers will be those who have the greatest industrial bases. It will not matter whether
they are in the centre of a continent or on an island7

Many scholars, from the 1940s to the present day, have specifically suggested that the
technology of air power and nuclear missiles necessarily diminished the power of the heartland.8
Still others have suggested that precisely because technology has not taken root in the region
namely, that railroads did not develop quickly in the manner which Mackinder describedthe
Heartland theory is invalid.9
These arguments, then and now, miss the bedrock logic of Mackinders argument. As with
all great ideas that endure, Mackinders Heartland theory is a simple one: The Heartland is vital
by virtue of its geographic position, and those with access to it will play a critical role on the
global stage. As such, the Heartland and its tenant(s) cannot help but influence Eurasian and
global stability. Mackinder thus sought a formula through which to understand this pivot position
from which force could be flung east and west; irrespective of the particular form that key
factorse.g., technology, population, resources, etc.take anew in each strategic era.
Factor-centric arguments thus fail to understand why Mackinder sought a formula for the
Heartland. To be discussed below, Mackinder sought a formula through which the future could
7

Harm J. de Blij, ed. Systematic Political Geography, 2nd ed.(New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
1973), 283.
8
See for example, Ralph Turner, "Technology and Geopolitics." Military Affairs 7, no 1 (Spring 1943); Christopher
J. Fettweis, Sir Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics, and Policymaking in the 21st Century, Parameters (Summer
2000); and Arthur R. Hall, Mackinder and the Course of Events, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 45, no. 2 (June 1955).
9
See, for example, H.W. Weigert, et al, Principals of Political Geography (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1957); and Arthur R. Hall, Mackinder and the Course of Events, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 45, no. 2 (June 1955). Also see W.H. Parkers discussion of this issue on page 228.

25

be understood, if the prevailing trends, or going concerns, held form. In short, arguments about
such ever-present factors as technology do not comprehend that Mackinder was attempting an
analysis which would alert people to likely future developments, rather than a recipe for the
solution of present difficulties.10 In other words, while factors may determine the result of the
formula, they do not alter the formula itself.
The second camp of critics includes those who fail to understand the geo-strategic logic of
Mackinders writings; as well as those who singularly focus on that logic. To those who have
heard of him, Mackinder has been reduced to essentially two points. First, he is to landpower
what Alfred Thayer Mahan is to seapower.11 Second, Mackinders is the famous dictum:

Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:

Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:
Who rules the World-Island commands the World.12

Most students, even military ones, read this for the first time (and many times thereafter) and
ask: What is he talking about?13 They are not alone. The eminent military historian and
thinker, Sir Michael Howard, wrote in response to the above axiom: To this one can only reply
that it is self-evident nonsense. There are few areas of less importance to the hegemony of the

10

W.H. Parker, 236.

A contemporary of Mackinders, Mahan had written The influence of Sea Power on History: 1660-1783
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1890). This book did much to shape naval global strategy and directly influenced
Teddy Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany (who required that a copy of the book be kept on each
German ship). Both Mackinder and Mahan, however, mutually reinforced each other, reductionist hindsight
stereotypes aside (as will soon be discussed). For example, most do not know that Mahan adroitly discusses
Eurasia in The Problem of Asia (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1900) or that Mackinder thought that
the control of Eurasian lands eventually lead to the ability to build greater fleets. (See Mackinder, Ideals
and reality, 25, 40, 45).
12
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 106.
13
For example, the author first encountered Mackinder in a graduate course on strategy as a young military
officer. The conclusion among the class was that Mackinder was irrelevant.
11

26

world than East Europe, however defined.14 Robert Kaplan writes that beyond explaining The
Great Game between the Russian and British empires, Mackinders theory is otherwise
incomprehensible.15
Indeed, many scholars find Mackinders geo-strategic logic guilty by association. Because
the above 1919 dictum inspired Dr./General Karl Haushofer, the foremost proponent of German
Geopolitik during the late 1930s, Mackinder has been discounted, his relevance dismissed.16
Today, noteworthy scholars blame Nazi geopolitics, and thus Mackinder, for its influence on
American Cold War strategy.
This was the Cold War era, influenced by the old geopolitics whose theoretical basis was a
crude nationalistic spatial determinism except for its rejection of racist superiority theories,
Cold War geopoliticians drew much from the environmental and organic determination of
German GeopolitikFor these geopoliticians (e.g., Strauz-Hupe, Walsh, Kennan, Kissinger,
Brzezinski), geography generally means the distance, size, shape and physical features all viewed
as static phenomena. The idea of geography as spatial patterns and relations that reflect dynamic
physical and human processes is absent. The old geopolitics appealed to its American
practitioners because it simplified the world mapAmerican geopolitics helped plunge the global
system into nearly half of a century of military buildups, arms transfers, and regional and local
conflict.17

Of those few scholars who do seek to give Mackinder some geo-strategic credit, most cannot
think of him as anything but a one-hit-wonder, a writer and product of a by-gone era. For
example, Donald W. Meinig wrote in 1955presumably referencing the 1904 presentation
that Mackinder was:
primarily focused upon the particular geopolitical context of his time. The inevitable result has
been a certain rigidity in the concepts and their full meaning becomes increasingly historical and
less applicable in detail to the dynamic patterns of current times. If people continue to employ

14

Sir Michael Howard, The Influence of Geopolitics on the East-West Struggle, Parameters XVIII 3
(September 1988): 14.
15
Robert Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth (New York: Random House, 1996), 306.
16
Charles Kruszewski cites The New Statesman and Nation (August 26, 1939), which published an article
discussing the way in which Makinders concept of the geographical pivot of history had been utilized by
General Haushofer to help bring about the Nazi-Soviet pact. See "The Pivot of History," Foreign Affairs
32 (April 1954): 398.
17
Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics in the New World Era: A New Perspective on an Old Discipline, in
Demko and Wood, ed., Reordering the World, 2nd edition, 41-2.

27

these terms and mold their thinking upon these concepts there is the ironic danger that they will
lead to but another stereotyped view of the world which does not reflect reality.18

Such conclusions typify the literature, reducing Mackinder to a static, cookie-cutter explanation
that only discusses the geo-strategic dimension.
In his book, Mackinder: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft, W.H. Parker summarizes the
above criticisms while also addressing such other critiques as Mackinders use of the Mercator
projection to present his Heartland map, as well as the vague nature of the Heartlands
boundaries. The chapter also addresses suggestions that Mackinder was geographically
deterministic in his analysis while other critiques question whether the Heartland is historically
or strategically relevant anymore.19
Published at one of the colder moments of the Cold War (1982)with the Soviet Union
firmly in control of the Heartland for the foreseeable futurethe chapter contains criticisms
clearly rooted in the bi-polar moment, ironically denying Mackinders paramount principle that
his formula is not static. If Mackinder had read this chapter in 1982, one can almost hear him
say: Be patient, history, as it has done before, will bear me out. This region of the world was, is,
and will be vital to Eurasian and global balance and security.
Todays Heartland proves this point on two counts. First, the Heartland, and Central Asia in
particular, is the backyard that everyone shares in a nuclear neighborhood. Russia, China,
(India), Pakistan, and soon, Iran, encircle Central Asia. Tension among these regional powers is
inevitable, just as it is inevitable that Central Asia will play a role in enhancing or ameliorating
those tensions (for example, as nations vie for access to the regions oil and gas reserves).20
18

Donald W. Meinig, Heartland and Rimland in Eurasian History, The Western Political Quarterly 9 No.
3 (1956): 555.
19
W.H. Parker, Mackinder, 213-247.
20
This dissertation recognizes the importance of such oil and gas reserves, but does not consider these reserves
sufficient in their own right to re-establish the geo-strategic importance of the Heartlands pivot point. See, for
example, Martha Brill Olcotts The Caspians False Promise. Foreign Policy 111 (Summer 1998): 94-112.

28

Second, the Heartland is again strategically relevant for no other reason that its ability to
sustain militant Islam. While the non-state actor was not a factor in Mackinders day, he
certainly could appreciate that al-Qaedaliterally, the basecontinues to sustain its global
operations from this part of the world. Mackinder would not at all be surprised that this
Heartland trespasser was capable of exercising power globally while remaining largely
inaccessible to the physical and technological reach of the surrounding powers, as well as the
worlds only great power, the United States.
According to our current era, and its relevant factors, this type of re-interpretation of
Mackinder does not go beyond his theory, but is exactly in keeping with it. As will be discussed
below, he meant it to be applied and re-applied in accordance with the strategic context. A static
or deterministic view of Mackinder is simply impossible to sustain with any serious reading of
his thrice-articulated theory.
In particular, Mackinders geo-communal understanding of democracy and civil society are
rarely, if at all, addressed by the critics.21 For example, W.H. Parkers summary of criticisms,
barely mentions these issues. According to Parker, Mackinder sought an enlightened, socially
conscious capitalism in which a free partnership of democracies [could be] united by common
interestthe necessity to belong to a political organization large and strong enough to compete
with great continental realms.22 Mackinder believed that true freedom of man lay in the
preservation of the independence and individuality of regions or provinces from centralized
control by distant metropolises.23 These comments remain, however, bits and pieces that do not

21

To reiterate footnote #4 from the preface, Mackinder did not use the phrases geo-communal or civil
society. They are used by the author to best describe and capture Mackinders thoughts in contemporary
language that enables understanding.
22
W. H. Parker, Aid to Statecraft, 89, 68-69.
23
Ibid, 123.

29

address a larger discussion of Mackinders understanding of what we would today call civil
society.
In fact, the literature discussing Mackinders view of civil society is very limited. His book,
Democratic Ideals and Reality, discusses the relationship between democracy and strategy, but
the geo-strategists generally choose to ignore this line of thought (although, to be fair,
Mackinders geo-communal perspective is difficult to follow). Instead, these scholars choose to
stay within their comfort zone, addressing only the military dimension of the Heartland theory,
reducing their analysis to one of power politics only.
Some early scholars, however, do note Mackinders discussion of democracy and civil
society. H. McD. Clokie, for example, recognizes that Mackinder makes not a geographical but a
political and social argument rooted in ethical terms.24 Arthur R. Hall notes Mackinders belief
that the individual would be better integrated into the life of the community and his freedom
would be better secured if economic classes could be eliminated through the integration of all
classes at the local and provincial level.25 Some have even described Mackinder as
Wilsonian.26
Mark Polelle, however, provides the best analysis of Mackinders approach to civil society.
Naming it a geo-domestic vision of British society, Polelle presents a comprehensive and
contextual perspective of Mackinders Victorian perception of an interrelated world. Polelle ably
articulates the Mackinderian view that only education could create a common understanding of
20th century geopolitics among the Empires citizens. This kind of education would also provide
the Empires citizens with the practical skills to efficiently negotiate a complex world, producing
24

Clokie, Geo-PoliticsNew Super Science or Old Art?, 501.

Arthur R. Hall, Mackinder and the Course of Events, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, 45, no. 2 (June 1955): 117.
26
Arthur Butler Dugan, Mackinder and His Critics Reconsidered, The Journal of Politics, 24, no. 2
(May, 1962): 257.
25

30

an efficient empire-organism. Imperial unity in thought and action would be the result; therefore
enabling the United Kingdom to compete with and balance the continental powers of Russia and
Germany.27
Still, Polellealong with the above citationsdoes not link, let alone apply, Mackinders
discussion of democracy and civil society to the Heartland itself. This oversight is no surprise.
Mackinder himself did not apply his own geo-communal perspective to the heart of the heartland
because his purpose was preservation and protection of the empire, not promoting the peoples of
Central Asia. Given the age in which Mackinder lived, it is an understandable, if tragic, flaw
given his desire to weld together the West and the East, [so that we might] permanently
penetrate the Heartland with oceanic freedom.28 Yet, as Donald W. Meinig reminds us: Sound
geopolitical strategy must always rest upon peoplesupon cultural-national groups in their
regional-global setting.29
Ostensibly seeking to understand such groups in their own setting, critical geopolitics
seeks to understand the political views of the geopolitical authors in the context of their times.
This ten-year old school-of-thought remains immature, however, for two reasons. First, it does
not apply its own methodology to its practitioners, as scholars of the critical geopolitics school
leave unexamined their own explicit and implicit assumptions about man, the nature of
international relations and present politics. (Even a cursory review of these scholars suggests a
leftist, even neo-Marxist worldview).
Second, and more importantly, critical geopolitics does not accept the possibility that ideas
exist and influence people irrespective of whether or not the reader is aware of the political views

27

Mark Polelle, Raising Cartographic Consciousness: The Social and Foreign Policy Vision of Geopolitics
in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Lexington Books, 1999), 58-75.
28
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 122.
29
Donald W. Meinig, Heartland and Rimland in Eurasian History, 568.

31

of their author. In similar fashion, critical geopolitics does not allow for the re-interpretation of
ideas in a new context. The ironic result is that this school of thought becomes just as static and
two-dimensional as the cardboard figure that it condemns its grandfather, Mackinder, to be.30
For example, its founder, Geraurd Touthail (hereafter cited as Gerald Toal), urges critical
geopolitics to recover the complexities of global political life and expose the power
relationships that characterize knowledge about geopolitics concealed by orthodox geopolitics.
It does this by forcing strategic thinking to acknowledge the power of ethnocentric cultural
constructs in our perception of places and the dramas occurring within them, thereby enabling
our ability to decolonize our inherited geographical imagination so that other geo-graphings and
other worlds might be possible.31 Nick Megoran, a serious and careful scholar of this school,
writes that the purpose of critical geopolitics is to explore and disclose contingent political
arguments concealed by apparently objective geopolitical language.32
Toal seeks a different way of envisioning the world, an alternative mechanism through
which he can acknowledge idealized maps from the center clash with the lived geographies of
the margin. Yet in his rush to deconstruct Mackinder and the geopoliticians of the early 20th
century, thereby revealing their imperialist agenda, Toal reveals an untoward bias that clouds his
otherwise original analysis.
Convinced that all geopolitics is once and always the ideology of an expanding, centralizing
imperial state, he concludes, similar to Saul Cohen above, that World War I is the result of

30

Gerald Toal, Understanding Critical Geopolitics: Geopolitics and Risk Society, (accessed 11 February
2003); available from http://www.majbill.vt.edu/geog/faculty/toal/papers/stratstud.tml, last modified
January 1999.
31
Gerald Toal, Critical Geopolitics, The Politics of Writing Global Space (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1996), 256.
32
Nick Megoran, Revisiting the Pivot: the Influence of Halford Mackinder on Analysis of Uzbekistans
International Relations, The Geographical Journal 170, no. 4 (December 2004): 347.

32

thinkers such as Mackinder.33 Toal goes so far as to blame the geopolitical classes taught to
South American military officers as the basis for national security doctrines that underpinned
the murderous activities of bureaucratic authoritarian regimes in Latin America over three
decades. Predictably, Toal finds current thinking to be of the same ilk through his
comprehensive analysis of Henry Kissingers words and actions.34 For Toal, Mackinder is the
root of all evil. As Megoran sums up: Toal insists that Mackinders geopolitical vision is
inextricable from his commitment to a racist and militarist strain of British imperialism.35
By pointing out that we are all prisoners of our experiencewithout noting his own or
demonstrating that Mackinders racism was reflective of his timesToal provides interesting
analysis and insight into the decision-making of some people. Yet, without describing the
broader implications, theoretical and practical, he leaves critical geopolitics irrelevant. For
example, if we assume that Mackinder was the worst kind of imperialist and racist we can
imagine, how does that information truly affect our 21st century understanding and application of

33

Gerald Toal, Critical Geopolitics, The Politics of Writing Global Space, 110, 2, 15.
Gerald Toal, Problematizing Geopolitics: Survey, Statesmanship and Strategy,(accessed 25 February
2003); available from http://www.majbill.vt.edu/geog/faculty/toal/papers/TRANSIBG.htm.
34

Megoran, in his critique of my own work published thus far, betrays the same flaw of critical geopolitics.
He assumes Mackinder to be an advocate of imperialist violence based on a simplistic understanding of
geography. As a result, an American using Mackinder to write about American engagement worldwide is
assumed to be writing about intervention that is, by definition, military, imperialistic and wrong-headed as
it dares to dialogue with existing rulers, such as Uzbekistans Karimov. He further concludes from my
work that democracy can only come about through U.S. intervention. (See Megoran, The Politics of Using
Mackinders Geopolitics: The Example of Uzbekistan, Central Asia and The Caucasus Journal of Social
and Political Studies 34, no. 4 (2005): 99-101). While these conclusions are unsustainableI have
consistently argued, according to Mackinder, for engaging Uzbekistan at the intersection of American
values and interests (see my Implications of Terrorism in Uzbekistan, 12 April 2004,
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040412.americawar.seiple.terroruzbekistan.html)they do reveal the danger
of a school of thought incapable of critically assessing itself or the particularity of the region where others
seek to practically engage.
35
Nick Megoran, The Politics of Using Mackinders Geopolitics: The Example of Uzbekistan, 94.

33

his thrice-articulated philosophy of the Heartland?36 Will we suddenly become Victorian

imperialists seeking preeminence?
Critical geopolitics is also problematic, if not irrelevant to, the first-time reader. While it is
usually useful to understand the personality and cultural context of the author, it is not a
necessary precondition to derive meaning and application. For example, a first-time reader of the
New Testament might conclude after reading the epistles of St. Paul that he was an arrogant male
chauvinist who condoned slavery. Just because this line of thought may be logical does not
discount the validity and power of the words as they were written then, or how they might be
interpreted today.
In other words, ideas count. And they will vary in their impact, according to their context, no
matter what is understood about their original meaning or intent. This point is particularly salient
when considering Mackinders so-called ethnocentricity. For example: Among Central
Asianists, Mackinders concepts are frequently discussed in terms of their contemporary
relevance. However, Anglo-American academics have seemed largely unaware of these
developments.37 Have each of these experts who actually live in Central Asia been
brainwashed? Or is it possible that they are reading Mackinder and interpreting him anew,
simply because they see logic in his concepts? Consider these words from an Uzbek scholar:
36

As but one example, Gerry Kearns holds that Mackinder had a racist view of society. (See Gerry
Kearns, The Political Pivot of Geography, The Geographical Journal 170, no. 4 (December 2004): 337.
In the same volume, Pascal Venier describes Mackinder as possessing a quiet superiority, racial or
otherwise, of the Edwardian British elites. (See Pascal Venier, The Geographic Pivot of History and
Early Twentieth Century Geopolitical Culture, The Geographical Journal 170, no. 4 (December 2004):
330.) Yet in the same journal, Mackinders primary biographer, Brian Blouet, states that Mackinder
thought it wrong to see the empire consisting of the U.K. as the manufacturing centre and the colonies as
the providers of foodstuffs and raw materialsthe English should stop thinking of Moslems as pagans, and
the empire should consist of different nationalities with equality between them. (See Brian Blouet, The
Imperial Vision of Halford Mackinder, The Geographical Journal 170, no. 4 (December 2004): 322-329.)
37
Nick Megoran and Sevara Sharapova, Mackinders Heartland: A Help or Hindrance in Understanding
Central Asias International Relations? Central Asia and The Caucasus Journal of Social and Political
Studies 34, no. 4 (2005): 19. None of the papers presented at this conference considered Mackinders
imperial context, except for Megorans, which admittedly used critical geopolitics as the framework of
analysis (to include Gerard Toals personal review).

34

Central Asia should rid [itself] of any illusions about a new world order, and accept the
controversial rules of survival in the modern world. They are located on Halford Mackinders
Heartland, an ongoing site of international struggle, and must act accordingly. In particular, they
have to defend and strengthen their sovereignty, political and economic independence,
simultaneously taking into account both the process of globalization and interdependence, and
their own national interestsfactors which do not always coincide.38

The irony of Mackinder is that he did not apply his thinkinggeo-strategic or geocommunalto those who actually lived in the region. That said, it is fair to conclude that he
would expect such conclusions as the above precisely because he sought a timeless formula that
could be applied in any context, from any perspective.
Finally, there is a triple irony to Toal. He says that he seeks to speak for, or at least interpret,
those lived geographies of the margin. Yet, he mirrors Mackinder by not applying critical
geopolitics to the Heartland even as those who live there echo Mackinder. As Nick Megoran
notes: One is entitled to ask what [critical geopolitics] might mean in the Central Asian
example.39 Could it be that center-periphery thinking is in the eye-of-the-beholder? Or might it
be that in a globalized world there is no center-periphery, especially if the alleged periphery
does not see itself as such? These questions suggest that Toal is closer to becoming an
ethnocentric cardboard figure than is the orthodox school of geopolitics that he so assiduously
attacks.
In sum, this school of thought is defined not by what it is for, but by what it is against. Still, it
represents an important first step in mapping the geo-communal and geo-strategic perspectives
and their combined impact, positive and/or negative impact, on our own worldview. Critical
geopolitics is therefore, strangely enough, an echo of Mackinders own intellectual approach to
geopolitics and thus the first step back toward realizing the future implications of Mackinder. In

38

Ulugbeck Khasanov, On Modern Geopolitical Pluralism or One-Nation Hegemonism, Central Asia

and The Caucasus Journal of Social and Political Studies 34, no. 4 (2005): 36.
39
Nick Megoran, The Politics of Using Mackinders Geopolitics: The Example of Uzbekistan, 102.

35

sum, this dissertations development of the geo-communal and geo-strategic perspectives is not
only consistent with Mackinder, it suggests how critical geopolitics might properly develop.

*****
Sir Halford John Mackinder is an important figure in world history. He was the first writer to
present a global perspective on the history of the world community and its relationship to
geography. What makes him more remarkable is that his argument was based on:
1) Asian, not Anglo-Saxon, history;
2) Landpower, not seapower (the key to Great Britains rise to power); and
3) A 1904 understanding of the world, at the apex of British imperial power.
In other words, Mackinder disembodied his intellect from his countrys preeminent place in the
world, its navy as the key to maintaining British ascendancy, and his own countrys history, in
order to develop the Heartland theory. Mackinders contribution was a broad awareness of, and
insight to, preceding events and ideas, and how they practically related to the present and future.
He consciously sought a formula that could be continuously applied, not petrified.
As a result, he applied his formula on three different occasions: In 1904 when he anticipated
the decline of the British Empire; in 1919 when he anticipated the rise of totalitarianism and the
Heartland as the primary battlefield of World War II; and in 1943 when he anticipated the
possibility that NATO and Russia might balance China and India. There are few examples of a
more strategically transcendent and intellectually practical mind. His is the proper understanding
of true geopolitical thought.
But most do not readily know these facts. Those who have heard of him have generally never
read him. But most have simply never heard of him.

36

Who was Halford John Mackinder? What did he really write? What were the themes of his
Heartland Philosophy? Is his Heartland Philosophy still relevantand practicaltoday? Does
his geo-political thinking provides a suitable basis for examining and explaining the U.SUzbek
relationship, 1991-2005?

Mackinder: His Life

Halford John Mackinder was a complex man, a democratic imperialist, a small-town
globalist. He was born on February 15, 1861, in the town of Gainsborough. This little hamlet of
roughly eight thousand was thirty miles from the North Sea, and about 130 miles north of
London. The Mackinder family lived in the working-class part of town and his father was a
doctor. Draper Mackinder was a man who served private and pauper patients. He had a keen
interest in the connection between environment and the outbreak of disease as well medical
geography.40
Mackinder was taught to work hard and rely on his own intelligence. In 1880 he won a
scholarship to Christ Church at Oxford. While there, he thought about joining the military and
even developed a university officer corps educational concept, but it was rejected by the local
commanding officer. Mackinder was also an active member of the Oxford Union Society where,
among other things, they debated educational reform. He majored in natural science, specializing
in animal morphology, but also taking exams in chemistry, physiology, and botany.41
After graduating in 1883, Mackinder won scholarships to stay at Oxford, eager for more
studies but also eager to be a part of the educational reforms that were taking place throughout
the country and at Oxford. During this time he studied geology as well as geomorphology. In
40

Brian W. Blouet, Halford Mackinder, A Biography (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1987), 6. As
Blouet notes, Mackinders use of the term heart-land probably echoes the medical geography of his
father.

41

Ibid., 19-25.

37

1885, one of Mackinders friends, Michael Sadler, became secretary to the committee for Oxford
University Extension. Mackinder, who had started studying law, agreed to be a geography
lecturer in the program. It was during this time that Sadler transformed the program from a
polite expression of interest in improving the education of those not at university to a crusade to
bring knowledge to the working man.42
In support of the extension program, Mackinder traveled all over England, delivering more
than 600 lectures on the new geography.43 This exposure produced an invitation from the
Royal Geographical Society (RGS)which was then amidst a campaign to establish geography
readerships at Cambridge and Oxfordto join the RGS, as well as present to it. Elected to the
RGS in March of 1886, he delivered the sum of his thinking to the group on January 31, 1887.
He was twenty-five years old.
He opened his lecture by asking his audience of experienced explorers, government officials
and retired officers an audacious question: What is geography? He told the RGS that
geographys main function is to trace the interaction of man in society and so much of his
environment as varies locally. He told them that political geographys function is to:
detect and demonstrate the relations subsisting between man in society and so much of his
environment as it varies locallyOne of the greatest of all gaps lies between the natural sciences
and the study of humanity. It is the duty of the geographer to build one bridge over an abyss
which in the opinion of many is upsetting the equilibrium of our culture.44

For Mackinder, there was no other way to think about the topic. After all, he reminded his
audience, Knowledgeis one. Its division into subjects is a concession to human
weaknessThe alternative is to divide the scientific from the practical.45 It was a remarkable
commentary from a twenty-five year old. It also revealed the young Mackinders philosophical
42

Ibid., 26-28.
Charles Kruszewski, "The Pivot of History," 390.
44
Mackinder, Scope and Methods, 153-155.
45
Ibid., 166, 173.
43

38

approach to life: only comprehensive analysis brings balance in the day-to-day achievement of
the practical.
Mackinders opportune presentation naturally complemented the RGS momentum to place
geography readers in higher education and, later that year, Mackinder was named as Oxfords
first-ever Reader in Geography. While there, Mackinder continued to work with Sadler, trying to
make the extension program better and more available. In the spring of 1892, Mackinder traveled
to the United States, participating in the University of Pennsylvanias extension program, while
also visiting the geography programs at Princeton, John Hopkins and Harvard.
Armed with this experience, he rejoined Sadler in June to take part in the establishment of an
extension campus in Reading (one half-hour north of Oxford). Mackinder wanted to be a part of
it because it would serve the wants of all classes.46 For the next ten years Mackinder served as
the schools first Principal, building it into a first class and sustainable program that would
later gain university status.
As an original thinker who needed to continuously create, Mackinder involved himself in
other activities as well. He stayed active at Oxford, where he eventually became Director of the
School of Geography (1898-1902), itself a direct result of his earlier years as its first reader in
geography. Additionally, he was involved with the start-up of the London School of Economics
(LSE), where he served as a Lecturer and Reader from 1894-1924, and as its Director from 19031908. During his LSE Directorship, Mackinder instituted a program where the War Office paid
for Army officers to attend a six month course in accounting, law, economic theory, geography,
statistics, and transportational studies.47 He also found time to climb Mount Kenyathe first
one to do soin the summer of 1899.

46
47

Blouet, Mackinder, 49, 56 (Blouet cites the Berkshire Chronicle, 4 June 1892).
Ibid., 132.

39

The key to Mackinders personality was his bias for action. Despite implementing his unified
vision of geography through new concepts, structures, lectures and inspired students, Mackinder
still sought the ultimate practical stage: politics. He wanted to name the biggest issue of the
dayto his mind, the future of the British Empire and the global balance required to preserve it
through Eurasia, first against Russia and later against Germanyand work toward a practical
and enduring solution.
Mackinders solutionvision, reallycalled for a league of democracies within the empire
where each democracy was fully educated (from capital to province) and had respect for the
other members.
He started out as a Liberal, running unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1900. He joined the
Conservatives in 1903 in support of Joseph Chamberlains idea of a moderated tariff to protect
trade throughout the British dominions. In 1910 he was elected as the member from Camlachie, a
post he held for the next twelve years. His time in active politics led to a number of other
experiences beyond the academy. For example, he served as the director for three private
companies; he was made British High Commissioner to South Russia (1919-1920); he was
knighted (1920); made Privy Councillor (1926); and he served as the Chairman of the Imperial
Shipping Committee (1920-1943) and the Imperial Economic Committee (1925-1931).
But he did not enjoy the same success in politics that he had in the academywhere good
ideas, hard work and circumstances had resulted in revolutionary educational programs that
developed a more comprehensive manner of thinking. Politics was a different game, with a
different schedule (i.e., short-term only) and a different mindset.
It is one thing to make observations about the long-term trend of events and quite another to
persuade institutions to prepare for the changesHighly capable men who were comfortable

40

trying to look a few years ahead were made uneasy by his views. Mackinder paid a large price for
his efforts to promote a broader understanding of Britains long-term difficulties.48

Long after the political issues of early 20th England have been forgotten, Mackinders global
contributions stand. His understanding of global balanceas a reflection of the geo-strategic and
geo-communal going concerns of the particular strategic erahas much to teach us today.
For Mackinder, the going concern was a notable trend in the present that would influence
the future. Mackinder uses this phrase repeatedly in several different contexts. It is a neutral term
that describes the dominant theme or habit, good or ill, in a person, society or state. The going
concern always reflected the whole around it. The going concern, however, was also
chronological, representing not only that which had gone before, but that which might lie ahead.
There was momentum to the going concern and, if it were to be changed, it had to be addressed
as something that was as much physical as it was psychological, as much preceding as it was
portending. 49
This was Mackinders calling: to match practical policy with visionary ideal as he sought to
understand and influence the going concerns of his time through the geo-strategic and the geocommunal balance that these perspectives offered.

Heartland Philosophy: The Geo-Strategic of International Affairs

My concept of the Heartlandis more valid and useful today than
it was either twenty or forty years ago.
Sir Halford John Mackinder, 194350

48

Ibid., 198-199.
Although he did not use the phrase until 1918, it is consistent with his earlier thinking. He wrote in 1887
that The course of history at a given moment, whether in politics, society, or any other sphere of human
activity, is the product not only of environment but also of the momentum acquired in the past. (Scope &
Methods, 170).
50
Mackinder, The Round World, 203.
49

41

Mackinders organizing principle in thought and action was how to balance against the
power(s) that controlled the Heartland of Eurasia. If that balance could be found, Mackinder
believed, it would preserve the global system, democracy and Great Britains central role on the
world stage.
This big idea seems to have come from his association with the Co-Efficients Dining Club.
This group included such leading thinkers and policy-makers as Sir Edward Grey (a future
Foreign Secretary), Lord Haldane (a future minister of war), Leo Maxse (Editor of National
Review), Bertrand Russell; H.G. Wells; and L.S. Amery (an influential Conservative Member of
Parliament). Nine months after their April 27, 1903, discussion about Englands relationship to
the European powers, Mackinder wrote his Geographical Pivot of History paper.51
Before discussing the geo-strategic implications of the Heartland Concept, however, it is
important to provide a brief overview of how Mackinder understood the Heartland itself,
geographically and as a reflection of his own historical context. As the map below indicates,52
Mackinder provided different parameters to the Heartland each time he articulated his theory. As
the argument below makes clear, these different boundaries reflected a living formula being
applied in a manner intellectually consistent with the strategic context of the day.
The heart of the heartland, however, never changed. It always included: central Russia;
western China, the northern parts of Pakistan, and Iran; and the Heartland Hinge itself, Central
AsiaKazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Central Asias
center, Uzbekistan.

51

Blouet, Mackinder, 116-118.

Below Map of Mackinders Heartland: Saul Bernard Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided,
(New York: Random House, 1963), 53.

52

42

Also consistent were Mackinders understanding of the Heartlands geographic

characteristics. The Heartlands rivers flowed into inland seas or the mostly unavailable Arctic
Ocean, making the region inaccessible to seapower. As such, the area provided potentially
tremendous interior lines (internal communications and transport) for any power that possessed
it. The Heartland is the greatest natural fortress on earth.53 The key was the man-power not
only to protect it, but to make it produce economically as well.54
The Heartland also possessed potentialities in population, wheat, cotton, fuel, and metals so
incalculably great[it is]... a vast economic worldinaccessible to oceanic commerce.55 It was
a great grassland zoneof high mobility.56
In order to understand the full scope of Mackinders geo-strategic approach to this part of the
world, we must first understand, individually, each of his three Heartland presentations.
53

Mackinder, The Round World, 201.

Ibid., Pivot, 177-188; Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 55-78.
55
Ibid., Pivot, 191.
56
Mackinder, The Round World, 198.
54

43

1904
On a wintry day in 1904 at the Royal Geographical Society (almost exactly seventeen years
after his On the Scope and Methods of Geography lecture), Mackinder revealed for the first
time his thoughts about the closed heart-land of Euro-Asia.57 He asked the representatives of
the greatest empire known to challenge their own ethno- and geo-centricity: the Geographical
Pivot Point of History was not in Europe.
I ask you, therefore, for a moment to look upon Europe and European history as subordinate to
Asia and Asiatic history, for European civilization is, in a very real sense, the outcome of the
secular struggle against Asiatic invasionFor a thousand years a series of horse-riding peoples
emerged from Asia through the broad interval between the Ural mountains and the Caspian sea,
rode through the open spaces of southern Russian, and struck home into Hungary in the very
heart of the European peninsula, shaping by the necessity of opposing them the history of each of
the great peoples aroundthe Russians, the Germans, the French, the Italians, and the Byzantine
Greeks. That they stimulated healthy and powerful reaction, instead of crushing opposition under
a widespread despotism, was due to the fact that the mobility of their power was conditioned by
the steppes, and necessarily ceased in the surroundings forests and mountains.58

By suggesting to his esteemed audience that it was Asia that had forced their ancestorsthrough
the creation of the modern state to defend themselvesinto becoming European, Mackinder
dared his audience to consider the once and future importance of Central Asia.59 Central Asian
horse-mobility was being replaced by the railroad. Trans-continental railways are now
transmuting the conditions of land-power, and nowhere can they have such effect as in the closed

57

Mackinder, Pivot, 189.

Ibid., 177, 182. Mackinder had an acute appreciation for position on the earths surface. For example, in
the introduction of his 1902 book, Britain and the British Seas, he properly placed his native island on the
absolute scale of chronology and geography, noting that before the 17th Century: The known lands lay
almost wholly in the Northern Hemisphere and spread in a single continent from the shores of Spain to
those of Cathay. Britain was then at the end of the worldalmost out of the worldNo philosophy of
British history can be entirely true which does not take account of this fact. Halford Mackinder, Britain
and The British Seas (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1902), 1.
59
If nothing else, Mackinders suggestion must have brought their own Thomas Hobbes to mind. He wrote
in 1651 that men formed states, in order to physically protect themselves and their values and goods. This
is the purpose of the state, or common-wealth, because covenants, without the sword, are but words, and
of no strength to secure a man. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York: E.P. Dutton Inc., 1950), 139.
58

44

heart-land of Euro-Asia, in vast areas of which neither timber nor accessible stone was available
for road makingThe century will not be old before all Asia is covered with railroads.60
The implications, he argued, were enormous. The spread of the railroad, combined with the
end of unclaimed territory to colonize, marked the end of the Columbian Epoch (1500-1900)
when Europedue to its sea-mobility, and thus military and economic powerhad expanded
over-seas against negligible resistances. The result was a closed political system where
every explosion of social forces, instead of being dissipated in a surrounding circuit of unknown
space and barbaric chaos, will be sharply re-echoed from the far side of the globe, and weak
elements in the political and economic organism of the world will be shattered in
consequence.61
There were two potential results. First, the coming of the railroad might reverse the
relations of Europe and Asia. Second, and most importantly, there was now opportunity to:
express human history as part of the life of the world organism [and thus the
chance to] perceive something of the real proportion of features and events on the
stage of the whole world, andseek a formula which shall express certain
aspects, at any rate, of geographical causation in universal history. If we are
fortunate, that formula should have a practical value as setting into perspective
some of the competing forces in current international politics.62

It is here that we find the crux of Mackinders think-do mentality. The Heartland concept was
a wonderful academic and cognitive construct perfect for debate in the smoking room. But
Mackinder could not help but seek the practical application of his idea for the purpose of some
good end, which, in 1904, meant the preservation and promotion of the British Empire.

60

Mackinder, Pivot, 189, 191.

Ibid., 175-176. In one sense, Mackinder provided the physical and intellectual follow-up to Frederick
Jackson Turners 1890 Frontier Thesis. Turners thesis argued that with the official close of the
American frontier in 1890, American identity would suffer because it had been so tied to the rugged
individualism of manifest destiny. With the possibility of continental expansion over, the only way to
expand was to take land overseas or, as Woodrow Wilson would soon embody, to expand ideas overseas.
62
Ibid., 176. (My italics)
61

45

Mackinder very much believed in the democratic values of the British Empire. He also knew
that times were changing and that the Empire would have to change too if it were to maintain its
position in the world. He remembered well the surprise of the German victory over the French
in 1870. He knew that the British had done poorly in the recently completed Boer War (1902).
He knew that the Russians were probing and prodding in Central Asia and that they were about
to complete the Trans-Siberian Railroad (the catastrophic defeat of the Russian navy by the
Japanese was still a year away).63 Mackinder also knew that British goods had to compete
against these rising powers.64
The link among these political-military threats was the ability to operate inland and use
railroads. In the question and answer period that followed the presentation, Mackinder further
described the need for a working formula:
The Germans marched nearly a million men into France; they marched, and used the railways for
supplies. Russia, by her tariff system and in other ways, is steadily hastening the accomplishment
of what I may call the non-oceanic economic systemWhat I suggest is that great industrial
wealth in Siberia and European Russia and a conquest of some of the marginal regions would
give the basis for a fleet necessary to found the world empireIt is true that the camel-men and
horse-men are going; but my suggestion is that railways will take their place, and then you will be
able to fling power from side to side of this area. My aim is not to predict a great future for this
country, but to make a geographical formula into which you could fit any political balance.65

Philosophically and strategically, then, a formula was needed which could serve as the basis for
English Grand Strategy. Without a guiding strategy, there would be no way to plan for the real
63

This sense of an increasingly powerful Russia (as a result of her new railroads) had been stewing in the
British psyche for some time. Lord Curzon had written in 1890: In a word, the construction of the railway
means the final Russification of the whole Turkoman Steppes from Khorasan to Khiva, and from the
Caspian to the Oxus. See George N. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia (London: Longmans, Green and Co.,
1889), 275.
64
M.A. Busteed, a Mackinder critic, writes: [Mackinder] believed that the British Empire should be
transformed into a democratic league of equal states with an imperially financed navy and army. To this
end, he believed British education should be reorganized to make the Empires constituent parts more
aware of each other and he argued that British emigration should be guided first and foremost to British
colonies. To protect and encourage Imperial commercial links he embraced the idea of ending Free Trade
and giving preferential terms to British and Imperial goods throughout the Empire. M.A. Busteed, ed.,
Developments in Political Geography (London: Academic Press, 1983), 15.
65
As recorded in J. de Blij, ed., Systematic Political Geography, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1973), (Authors italics)

46

consequences of a continental power that could fling its weight east or west according to the
railway-enabled power of the Heartland. In other words, a new continental power capable of
flinging its weight toward India was disconcerting indeed.
As we consider this rapid review of the broader currents of history, does not a certain
persistence of geographical relationships become evident? Is not the pivot region of the worlds
politics the vast area of Euro-Asia which is inaccessible to shipsand is today about be covered
with a network of railways? ...Russia replaces the Mongol Empire.66 Tsarist Russia had to be
balanced for her potential was too great. If she were to harness the Heartlands power, Great
Britain was inescapably vulnerable.
As Mr. Spencer Wilkinson suggested during the question and answer period that followed:
I myself can only wish that we had ministers who would give more time to studying their policy
from the point of view that you cannot move any one piece without considering all the squares on
the board. We are very much too apt to look at our policy as though it were cut up into water-tight
compartments, each of which had no connection with the rest of the world, whereas it seems to
me the great fact of to-day is that any movement which is made in one part of the world affects
the whole of the international relations of the world.67

The subsequent years, 1905-1907, seemingly nullified the concept. With the Japanese maritime
victory over the Russians in 1905 and the accompanying unrest in Russia, Russia no longer
seemed like a great power. Importantly, the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 seemingly ended
the importance of the Heartland theory as Russia accepted the United Kingdoms sphere of
influence in Persia, and the U.K. accepted Russias sphere in Central Asia. To many,
Mackinders theory was now irrelevant, dead at three years of age.68
1919

66

Mackinder, Pivot, 191.

de Blij, Systematic Political Geography, 282.
68
See David J.M. Hooson, The Soviet Union (London: University of London Press, LTD, 1966), 339; M.A.
Busteed, ed., Developments in Political Geography, 15; and Geoffrey Parkers understanding of Nicholas
Spykman in Geoffery Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century (New York: St.
Martins Press, 1985), 134.
67

47

In 1919, Mackinder provided an update of his 1904 Heartland, expanding the concept into a
holistic philosophy of security that simultaneously addressed balance of power and civil society.
As the western front fell silent in 1918, Mackinder wrote feverishly, hoping to influence the
peace settlement process. Specifically written for the allied leaders administering the Versailles
Peace Conference, Democratic Ideals and Reality was a philosophical construct about how to
practically apply democratic ideals in the aftermath of the war to end all wars.
Mackinder believed that, if future world wars were to be prevented, the circumstances of
1919 called for the creation of a global civil society of economically balanced nations with
balanced opportunity for its citizens. Otherwise they were all doomed to repeat the past.
Mackinder wrote the gathered ministers with moral imperative and dire warning:
No mere scraps of paper, even though they be the written constitution of a League of Nations, are,
under the conditions of today, a sufficient guarantee that the Heartland will not again become the
center of a world war. Now is the time, when the nations are fluid, to consider what guarantees,
based on geographical and economic realities, can be made available for the future security of
mankind.69

Mackinder knew better than most what might have happened if Germany had won the World
War. We have conquered, but had Germany conquered she would have established her seapower on a wider base than any in history, and in fact on the widest possible base. The joint
continent of Europe, Asia, and Africa, is now effectively, and not merely theoretically, an island.
Now and again, lest we forget, let us call it the World-Island.70 Germany had almost won; in
fact, its Eastern Army, where General Haushofer had served, had never been defeated on the
battlefield. Now Germany replaced Russia as the primary threat to global balance. No one power
must be allowed to dominate the World Island through the Heartland.

69

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 80.

Ibid.,25, 45. Mackinder found this to be true about England as well: The real base historically of British
sea-power was our English plainfertile and detachedcoal and iron from round the borders of the plain
have been added in later times, 40.

70

48

Understood in the context of 1904, the Heartland Concept seemed irrelevant in 1919. Not so
for Mackinder who saw the constants as: 1) the Heartland itself; and 2) the Heartlands pivotal
role in providing global geo-strategic balance. According to the circumstances of 1919, the
Heartland formula had to be reinterpreted in an intellectually consistent manner so that it might
be a relevant construct through which to conceive and implement a global balance.
According to Mackinder, the essence of the geo-strategic situation in 1919 was to balance the
possessor of the Heartland (Russia) with the other great landpower of the world, Germany. At
the fulcrum of this balance was Eastern Europe, the lands in-between Russia and Germany.
Mackinder consequently redrew the Heartland to include the newly independent states of Eastern
Europe.
The key to the whole situation in East Europeand it is a fact which cannot be too clearly
laid to heart at the present momentis the German claim to dominance over the Slav.71 A
collection of independent and mutually reinforcing states, anchored at its northern tier, Poland
(the most developed and at greatest risk to Germany), could buffer the new Russia and balance
Germany.72
It is a vital necessity that there should be a tier of independent states between Germany and
RussiaWe must settle this question between the Germans and the Slavs, and we must see to it
that East Europe, like West Europe, is divided into self-contained nationsIf you do not now
secure the full results of your victory and close this issue between the German and the Slav, you

71

Ibid., 90. As Curzon had observed in 1890: Nothing can be more clear than the main and dominating
feeling of the Russian mind in relation to foreigners is an abiding and overpowering dislike of Germany
(Curzon, Russia in Central Asia, 275).
72
Josef Pilsudski, Polands leader was having similar ideas about a Polish-led confederation, especially
during and after the Polish-Soviet War of 1920. Mackinder met with Pilsudski in Warsaw on 10 January
1920. It is hard not to imagine the two quickly seeing eye-to-eye on the need for some kind of buffer
between Germany and the Soviet Union, especially on the eve of the Polish-Soviet War. (Mark Polelle,
Raising Cartographic Consciousness: The Social and Foreign Policy Vision of Geopolitics in the Twentieth
Century (Oxford: Lexington Books, 1999), 78). See also White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies
(London: Pimlico, 1986); Richard M. Watt, Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate, 1919-1939 (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1979), 100-102; and Waclaw Jedrzejewicz, Pilsudski: A Life for Poland (New York:
Hippocrene Books, 1982), 93.

49

will leave ill-feeling which will not be based on the fading memory of a defeat, but on the daily
irritation of millions of proud people.73

And thus the dictum: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland: Who rules the Heartland
commands the World-Island: Who rules the World-Island commands the World.74 Mackinder
even advocated giving the nascent communist state time to develop its resistance capacity, even
if that meant despotism. Autocratic rule of some sort is almost inevitable if [Russia] is to
depend on her own strength to cope with the Germans. Fifteen years earlier he warned against
Russia. Now he warned against Germany.
In both cases, the Heartland was the key to his argument. Without its balance, there would be
no preservation of British Empire, and thus no protection of democracy. In fact, without a proper
balance, the Heartland would serve as the catalyst to a new war. The stakes were now much
greater than Great Britain:
Civilisationand the League of Nations, as the supreme organ of united humanity, must closely
watch the Heartland[because] The end of the present disorder may only be a new ruthless
organization, and ruthless organizers do not stop when they have attained the objects which they
at first set before them.75

1943
The third interpretation of the Heartland Concept came amidst World War II, the unfortunate
proof of his 1919 warnings. With the rise of Nazi Germany, its easy erosion of Eastern Europe
through Czechoslovakia and Poland and its eventual invasion of the Heartland, people began
reading Mackinder again. Eerily entranced by his 1919 predictionsas well as his alleged use by
leading German geopoliticiansAmerican audiences wanted to know what Mackinder had to
say. At the age of eighty-three, Mackinder answered a request from Isaiah Bowman, editor of

73

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 111.

Ibid., 106.
75
Ibid., 115, 110.
74

50

Foreign Affairs, and provided his final comment on the Heartland in 1943 (Mackinder died in
1947).
Mackinder told the readers of Foreign Affairs that his Heartland theory was more relevant
than ever. Still, in keeping with his adaptive formula, he modestly offered an interim estimate
of the concept.76 Mackinder adjusted his Heartland again, taking out Eastern Europe,77 while
equating the Heartland entirely with the Soviet Union. For the first time in history, [the
Heartland] is manned by a garrison sufficient both in number and in quality [it is] the citadel
of land power.78
Curiously, Mackinder did not see the Soviet Union as a threat, as he initially focused on
Germany and then on the future.79 Mackinder believed that there first needed to be an alliance
between the Heartland (Russia) and the Mid-Atlantic Basin (i.e., France, the U.K. and America).
In this capacity, France would act as a defensible bridgehead, Britain as a moated aerodome
and the United States as a reserve of trained manpower, agriculture and industries. The
purpose of this alliance was to make two firm embankmentsthe Heartland and the MidAtlantic Basinagainst which the irrigation of the Nazi philosophy could take place. With
such embankments, however, Mackinder hoped that the cleansing stream might better be
released to flow from some regenerate and regenerating German source[because] Freedom
cannot be taught; it can only be given to those who can use it.80

76

Mackinder, Round World, 197.

Perhaps he sensed the coming conquest of the Russians and that they would need Eastern Europe to
balance the Teuton?
78
Mackinder, Round World, 201.
79
It would not be unnatural for Mackinder to be worried about Germanys ability to rise up for a fourth
time after 1870, 1914, and 1939; essentially the period of his entire life.
80
Mackinder Round World, 204, 201.
77

51

Toward the future, Mackinder thought that these three should be pledged together with
Russia in case any breach of the peace is threatened.81 He foresaw the day when the Heartland
and the Mid-Atlantic Basin (i.e., America, France and Britain) would combine to balance (not
necessarily against) China and India. The result would be a balanced globe of human beings.
And happy, because balanced and thus free.82 He thus set the stage for the future as he
implicitly called back his 1919 logic regarding Eastern Europe, while reminding the reader of his
1904 conclusion about China.83
In other words, the future fulcrum of global balance would be that region between Russia and
the West and India and China; i.e., Central Asia. This fulcrum would be decisiveas Eastern
Europe was in 1919to creating and sustaining a balanced and free world. These three visions
constitute a comprehensive and geo-strategic understanding of the need for global balance
among states, centered on the pivot point of the Heartland itself, modern Central Asia.
This geo-strategic perspective, however, does not reflect Mackinders concern for global
civil society and its economically balanced development. Without a geo-communal perspective,
the geo-strategic alone is dangerous, inviting misunderstanding as well as misapplication.
Mackinders geo-communal perspectivelargely ignored by scholarsis what makes his
Heartland formula a philosophy.

81

Ibid., 204, 202.

Ibid., 205.
83
It may be well expressly to point out that the substitution of some new control of the inland area for that
of Russia would not tend to reduce the geographical significance of the pivot position. Were the Chinese,
for instanceto overthrow the Russian Empire and conquer its territory, they might constitute the yellow
peril to the worlds freedom just because they would add an oceanic frontage to the resources of the great
continent, an advantage as yet denied to the Russian tenant of the pivot region. Mackinder, Pivot, 193.
82

52

Heartland Philosophy: The Geo-communal of Global Civil Society

As one reads Mackinders main works (and it takes several readings), he believed that a
comprehensive and values-based approach was needed to protect democracy and civil society. If
this approach were not adopted, democracy would suffer as the potentially dangerous trends of
regionalism and laissez-faire economics divided people, society and states at the individual,
national and international levels. These values informed his Heartland idea even as the proper
application of his idea allowed for these values to take root. Together they constitute a
philosophy.
Although critics sometimes decry Mackinders imperial utterances and times, Mackinder was
passionate about that which he cherished most: democracy. Its preservation required balance at
the individual, national, and international levels of society. This kind of balance produced a
civilization worth living in where service could be rendered one to another.84 If there was no
balance, then it was more likely that uneven economic development and regionalism could
divide a community, a state, or a civilization. Mackinders most comprehensive statement of
these ideas is found in his 1919 book, Democratic Ideals and Reality.
Mackinder bluntly admonished those gathered at Versailles about democracys inherent
weakness and its implications. Democracy refuses to think strategically unless and until
compelled to do so for purpose of defenseDemocracy implies rule by consent of the average
citizen who does not view things from the hilltops, for he must be at work in the fertile plains.85
It was the long-view that would preserve the family of democracies that he envisioned.86

84

MacKinder, Ideals and Reality, 2.

Ibid., 17.
86
From his writings we know that Mackinder regarded Englands former and soon-to-be-former colonies as
the nucleus for the family of democracies. He considered the term colony in the old Greek meaning
independent nations tied to the mother country only by a sense of common ideals. In short, rule-of-law
was the common trait.
85

53

The long-view on the family of democracies meant the short-term capacity to name and
address the major issues of the day, and their relationship to the whole. Otherwise their solutions
would not matter. Anticipating the globalized world he had predicted in 1904, he wrote to his
1919 Versailles audience:
Whether we think of the physical, economic, military or political interconnection of things on the
surface of the globe, we are now for the first time presented with a closed system. The known
does not fade any longer through the half-known in the unknown; there is no longer elasticity of
political expansion in the lands beyond the pale. Every shock, every disaster or superfluity, is
now felt even to the antipodes, and may indeed return from the antipodes Every deed of
humanity will henceforth be echoed and reechoed in like manner.87

If this were the case, then the issues of the day had to be addressed, with balance created at every
level. Two significant trends, or going concerns, especially troubled Mackinder: regionalism and
the laissez-faire model of economic development. Both, he believed, had the potential to divide
national and international civil society,88 and thus impact global stability.
Regarding regionalism, Mackinder thought that there should be no divide between the capital
and the other provinces of the country. The capital was important, but it was still one node
among many as province and capital remained balanced. The capital should not end up milking
the country, drawing the best and brightest away from the provinces thereby creating an overall
imbalance tilted toward the capital.89 For example, Mackinder referred to London in 1902, the
capital of the world at the time, as merely the United Kingdoms city of highest nodality.90
There had to be balance, between capital and region, between society and landthis was civil
society.
W.H. Parker summarizes 50 years of Mackinders writings this way:
87

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 2, 22.

More than likely, both concerns reflected such center-periphery experiences as his own provincial town
roots, achieving success in London and Oxford, and bringing that success back to a working class town
with the establishment of a university at Reading. (For scholars of critical geopolitics, and especially
Gerard Toal, this perspective is perplexingly ironic).
89
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 135.
90
Mackinder, British Seas, 331.
88

54

Physical geography and human geography are complementary, inseparable, and essential parts of
one subject. Man in society forms local communities and the natural environment may be marked
off into natural regions: natural regions influence the development of the communities inhabiting
them; communities modify the regions they inhabit; the regions, so modified influence the
communities differently than before; and so the interaction continues.
Regional geography synthesizes the interacting distributions within a region, arranging them in a
logical sequence linked by cause and effect. This synthesis requires the accurate mapping of
related data, and the ability to visualize and describe such mapped distributions associated
together in actual landscapes. Although practicality requires a regional treatment, there is no
complete region less than the whole world.91

In other words, regions and their communities were to be celebrated even as they themselves
created the global mosaic of which all were inherently a part. In short, Mackinder viewed regions
and the world as a living identity, the world organism (as he called it in 1904), a continuous
reflection of societies respective and corporate interaction with the earth.
The second going concern, or issue, that made Mackinder anxious was the potential
division that the economic policies of the day might have on regions and/or local communities.
Specifically, he was concerned about the unequal economic impact of laissez-faire policies in the
world. For a hundred years we have bowed down before [this] Going Concern as though it were
an irresistible god. Undoubtedly it is a reality, but it can be bent to your service if you have a
policy inspired by an ideal.92 As with regionalism, addressing this danger meant a
comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of the world.
At the international level, Mackinder believed that the great wars of historyare the
outcome, direct or indirect, of the unequal growth of nations, and that unequal growth in large
measure is the result of the uneven distribution of fertility and strategical opportunity upon the
face of the globe.93 As always, there had to be balance.
If [World War I] has proved anything, it has proved that these gigantic forces of modern
production are capable of controlIf you once admit control of the Going Concern to be your
91

W.H. Parker, Aid to Statecraft, 114-115.

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 134.
93
Ibid., 1.
92

55

aim, then the ideal state-unit of your [L]eague [of Nations]must be the nation of balanced
economic development no self-respecting nation henceforce will allow itself to be deprived of
its share of the higher industries. But these industries are so interlocked that they cannot be
developed except in balance with one anotherThis is the ideal, I am firmly persuaded, which
will make for peaceCivilisation, no doubt, consists of the exchange of services, but it should be
an equal exchangeFor the contentment of nations we must contrive to secure some equality of
opportunity for national development.94

Continuing to echo the center-periphery logic of regionalism, Mackinder believed that the
contentment of international society and the condition of a states domestic societies were
linked. If the internal society could be balanced, then the international community would be
balanced as well. Internal balance, above all else, called for the creation of local opportunity for
the individual.
The nation which is to be fraternal towards other nations, must be independent in an economic as
in every other sense; it must have a complete and balanced life. But it cannot be independent if it
is broken into classes and interests which are for ever seeking to range themselves for fighting
purposes with the equivalent classes and interests of other nations. Therefore you must base
national organization on provincial communities. But if your province is to have any sufficient
power of satisfying local aspirations it must, except for the federal reservations, have its own
complete and balanced life. That is precisely what the real freedom of men requiresscope for a
full life in their own locality.95

Mackinder was absolutely convinced that internal balance within a stateeconomically

and regionallylaid the foundation for external balance among states. With passion, he
connected the social stability of a states people groups and/or provinces to its official center,
that is, its capital and representative voice. The geo-political-socio-economic identity of each had
to be rooted in the other.
Since nations are local societies, their organization must, if they are to last, be based dominantly
on local communities within them, and not on nation-wide interests. That is the old English
idea of the House of Commons. The word commons, is, of course, identical with the French word
communes, signifying communities; the House of Communitiesshires and burghswould be
the true modern translation.96

94

Ibid., 126-127.
Ibid., 137. Mackinder had written seventeen years earlier that rooted provincialism, rather than finished
cosmopolitanism, is a source of the varied initiative without which liberty would lose half its significance
(British Seas, 15). [italics added]
96
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 130.
95

56

And the key to community was the concept of the neighbor.

That grand old word neighbor has fallen almost into desuetude. It is for neighborliness that the
world to-day calls aloudLet us recover possession of ourselves, lest we become the mere slaves
of the worlds geographyNeighborliness or fraternal duty to those who are our fellow-dwellers,
is the only sure foundation of a happy citizenship.97

This geo-communal approachworking with neighbors, in a local community that is balanced

regionally and economicallywas the only way to address the fundamental concerns of the
individual.
What does the ordinary man want? It is for opportunity to realize what is in him, to live a
life of ideas and of action for the realization of those ideasfor a recognition of his human
dignity.98 Anticipating todays terrorism, these were the questions Mackinder asked those
attending the Versailles Peace Conference to consider.
Nationalist movements are based on the restlessness of intelligent young men who wish for scope
to live the life of ideas and to be among those who can because they are allowed to doAre
you quite sure that the gist of the demand for Home Rule in Ireland, and in a less degree in
Scotland, does not come mainly from young men who are agitating, though they do not fully
realize it, for equality of opportunity rather than against the assumed wickedness of England?99

If these desires were not addressed, imbalance would occur within the state and therefore within
the international community.
1919 was one of those rare timesto be followed by 1945, 1989 and 2001when the
international patterns, or going concerns, of relating to one another might be significantly altered
in the name of humanity.
Civilization is based on the organization of society so that we may render service to one
anotherlike every other Going Concern, a national society can be shaped to a desired career
while it is young, but when it is old its character is fixed and it is incapable of any great change in
its mode of existence. Today all the nations of the world are about to start afresh; it is within the
reach of human forethought so to set their courses as that, not withstanding geographical
temptation, they shall not clash in the days of our grandchildren? And in regard to the internal
structure of those democracies, what conditions must be satisfied if we are to succeed in
97

Ibid., 145.
Ibid., 132.
99
Ibid., 133-4.
98

57

harnessing to the heavy plow of social reconstructionism the ideals which have inspired heroism
in this war? There can be no more momentous questions. Shall we succeed in soberly marrying
our new idealism to reality?100

Unfortunately, the Versailles conference instead succeeded in marrying revenge to reality and
thus sowing the seeds of another World War. Nevertheless, Mackinder boldly stood in stark
contrast to his times, refusing to go along with the short-sighted demands of economic
reparations. In this sense, he was who he had always been: someone from the provinces who
sought to bring better education to them; a member of parliament who sought to understand his
nations place in the world; a global citizen who sought better balance among the nations in the
name of civilization. Simply, he embodied the three-tiered civil society that he advocated as the
basis for global stability.

A Suitable Basis for Theory?

Is theory just word mongering?A valid theory, however minor, is
at least three things: a compact description, a clue to explanation, and
a tool for better work.
Stephen B. Jones101

Centered on the Heartland Hinge of Central Asia, Mackinders Heartland Philosophy can be
summarized in the following manner:

The Heartland possessed rich resources, interior lines (internal communication and
transport facilitated by the railroad) and was inaccessible to seapower, making it a natural
fortress.

100

Ibid., 2, 6.
Stephen B. Jones. A Unified Field Theory of Political Geography, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 44, no. 2 (June 1954): 122.
101

58

The tenant who controlled the Heartland would eventually have the capacity to
dominate Asia by flinging its power from side to side.

The unchanging heart of the Heartland was that geographic area east and southeast of the
Caspian Sea. Formerly known as Turkestan, it includes Western China, Central Asia
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistanand
the northern parts of Iran and Pakistan. This area was the geographic pivot upon which
the Heartland Concept literally rested. Today, Uzbekistan is at its center.

The Heartland Philosophy required balance and the long-view to create happiness:
o A balance between the geo-communal view of mans local interaction with and
perception of geography (i.e., the going concern of civil society), and the geostrategic view of a states understanding of, and interaction with, the Heartland
(i.e., the going concern of international politics).
o A long-view that reviewed and understood the geo-communal and geo-strategic
patterns of the past in order to preview the future if the pattern continued.
Where there was balance, there was a civilization worth living in, a place where citizens
render service to one another.

Mackinder expected this philosophy to be applied to each new strategic era as a practical
formula for understanding and examining global balance.

Mackinders Heartland Philosophy enables an analytic narrative (chapters three and four) that
models Mackinders thinkingproviding, as a result, a suitable basis for examining and
59

explaining the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship from 1991 to 2005. Mackinders Heartland

Philosophy also provides for general hypotheses which further serve as both summary and
illustration of Mackinders geo-political work, pointing the way toward future refinement and
research. They include:

If the world is increasingly globalized, then a comprehensive approach is necessary.

If a new strategic era occurs, then the Heartland must be geographically re-envisioned and
defined.

If a new strategic era occurred, then Mackinder would look for a new fulcrum point of
integrated states, or region, adjusting the Heartland Concept accordingly to achieve global
balance.

If the new fulcrum-region were surrounded by competing powers, then Mackinder would
focus on the political and geographic center of the in-between region to anchor the balance.

If the heart of the Heartland were indeed Eurasias security fulcrum, then it was in the selfinterest of the relevant great powers to ensure that no one dominated the Heartland.

If a successful policy toward the Heartland were developed, it would depend upon the geostrategic and geo-communal going concerns of the Heartland itself.

If the geo-strategic component of a policy were developed, then this going concern would
be rooted in the Heartlands historic role in international politics, to include the geography
and flow of present day threats.

If the geo-communal component of a policy were developed, then this going concern
would be rooted in the Heartlands historic interaction between man and his local
environment and that interactions impact on present day notions of civil society, regionally
and internationally.
60

If the geo-strategic and the geo-communal were effectively integrated into a policy, then that
policy will require the promotion of three issuesreligion, region and economicsthat
bridge the geo-strategic and the geo-communal:
o Religion: If the Heartlands civil society is rooted in a tolerant Muslim culture,
then a robust pluralism, consistent with the culture, is required for social stability.
o Region: If the Heartlands independent states cannot depend on anyone but
themselves, then it is in their self-interest to become more neighborly.
o Economics: If there is no local economic opportunitybetween and among the
regions within each of the Heartlands states, and between and among the
Heartland states themselvesthen young men will agitate for change.

If the center state of the Heartland possesses one-third of the population and is the only state
touching each of the Heartlands members, then that state is necessarily the political and
economic focus of any policy.

If democracies do not think strategically, then the U.S. will always have difficulty
understanding and engaging the Heartland.
Mackinder was not a successful politician. But he remains a successful visionary, standing

the test of time. One-hundred years later, he provides us with an able philosophythat is, a
comprehensive manner for considering the interrelated nature of Eurasias Heartland and its
relationship to the Westthat he intended to be applied as a living formula to each new strategic
era. As such, Mackinders Heartland Philosophy provides a suitable basis for examining and
explaining the U.S.Uzbekistan Relationship, 19912005.

61

CHAPTER THREE

The Going Concern:

A Geo-communal Perspective

Each century has had its own geographical perspectiveTo this day, however, our view of
geographical realities is colored for practical purposes by our preconceptions of the past. In
other words, human society is still related to the facts of geography not as they are but in no
small measure as they have been approached in the course of history.1

We need new maps to see things as the enemy and other peoples see things This
is the kind of vision which we really need if we are to achieve the mobility of
imagination which gives us the right compass for action and makes us, as the
same time, anticipate and understand the enemys action.2
Mackinder took a comprehensive and encouraging view of how humankind interrelated with
its physical environment and the community in which it lived. From his first writings at the age
of twenty-five, Mackinder refused to consider terrain as static. Instead, he thought of geography
as the science whose main function is to trace the interaction of man in society and so much of
his environment as varies locally.3 He argued that geography must be understood and taught as
a whole and continuous argument. In fact, no rational political geography can exist which is
not built upon and subsequent to physical geography. Understood as this mutual and dependent

Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University
Press, 1996), 21-23. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of Halford
Mackinders works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: The Scope and Methods of
Geography, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160 [hereafter cited as
Scope and Methods]; The Geographical Pivot of History, Geographical Journal 23, No. 4 (1904): 421444 [hereafter cited as Pivot]; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,
1919) [hereafter cited as Ideals and Reality]; and The Round World and Winning the Peace, Foreign
Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [hereafter cited as Round World]. All page references to these
works are found in the NDU re-publishing.
2
Richard E. Harrison and Hans W. Weigert, World View and Strategy, in Hans W. Weigert and
Vilhhalmur Stefansson, ed., Compass of the World (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944), 77.
3
Mackinder, Scope and Methods, 153.

62

relationship, political geography necessarily asks its fundamental question: How does
[geography] act on man in society, and how does he react on it?4
With this geo-communal approach, Mackinder believed that security resulted from a world of
economically balanced nations with balanced opportunity for its citizens. This global civil
society depended on individual liberty (freedom) equality (opportunity) and fraternity
(discipline). Fraternity was the linchpin for it implies self-control. Fraternity is the essence of
successful democracy, the highest but the most difficult of all modes of government, since it
demands most of the average citizen.5
This philosophy began with the individual. What does the ordinary man want? It is for
opportunity to realize what is in him, to live a life of ideas and of action for the realization of
those ideashe wishes for the glow of intelligent life, and incidentally for a recognition of his
human dignity.6 For Mackinder these individual desires could be met if there were an
opportunity for a full life in [ones] own locality.7 For this to take place, good neighbors were
needed. It is for neighborliness that the world to-day calls aloud Neighborliness or fraternal
duty to those who are our fellow-dwellers, is the only sure foundation of a happy citizenship.8
If local individuals were knit together in community, and local communities were knit
together in provinces, then the nation itself would be in balance, and at peace. Since nations are
local societies,9 and if local communities [are] essential to the stable and therefore peaceable

Ibid., 156, 166, 153, 158. This comprehensive approach also finds expression in his history of Britain:
The geography of Britain is in fact the intricate product of a continuous history, geological and human.
Mackinder, Britain and The British Seas (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1902), 230.
5
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 129.
6
Ibid., 132-3. Mackinder put his ideas into practice, helping establish Reading University, initially as an
extension of Oxford University, for the purpose of providing education to the working classes. (Blouet, 54).
7
Ibid., Ideals and Reality, 137.
8
Ibid., 145.
9
Ibid. 130.

63

life of nations, then those local communities must have as complete balanced a life of their own
as is compatible with the life of the nation itself.10
If this kind of balance within civil society could not be achieved, there were consequences
for national security. Taking two examples from the British experience, Mackinder asked this
provocative question: Are you quite sure that the gist of the demand for Home Rule in Ireland,
and in a less degree in Scotland, does not come mainly from young men who are agitating,
though they do not fully realize it, for equality of opportunity rather than against the assumed
wickedness of England?11 This potential for instability had implications for the local
community, the nation and the international system.
That systemcivilization itself, reallywas based on the organization of society so that we
may render service to one another.12 Civilisation, no doubt, consists of the exchange of
services, but it should be an equal exchangeFor the contentment of nations we must contrive to
secure some equality of opportunity for national development.13 In short, all politics were local
and, if so, international balance and security depended on mutually reinforcing neighborhoods
from the local to the global, among individuals and among nations.
As consistent with his definition of geographythe interaction of man in society and so
much of his environment as varies locallyMackinder demanded respect for the reality of local
culture in the promotion of his democratic ideal:
But the art of the clay-molderlies not merely in knowing what he would make, but also in
allowing for the properties of the material in which he is working As the artist endeavors to his
dying day to learn ever more about the medium in which he worksand not merely more in a
scientific sense, but in a practical tactile wayso has it been with the knowledge of humanity at

10

Ibid., 131. According to the context of his times, this meant a balanced economic opportunity between
rural and urban areas such that urban areas did not create a brain drain on the countryside, resulting in
richer cities and class warfare.
11
Ibid., 134.
12
Ibid., 2.
13
Ibid., 126-7.

64

large in regard to the realities of the round world on which we must practice the intricate art of
living together.14

In other words, practical impact demanded knowledge of the culture. This approach was critical
to understanding the going concern of any local civil society, and therefore Mackinders longterm goal for the Heartland: freedom. In the Heartland, where physical contrasts are few, it is
only with the aid of a conscious ideal, shaping political life in the direction of nationalities, that
we shall be able to entrench true freedom.15
Ironically, however, Mackinderwhose original purpose was the creation of imperial unity
within the British Commonwealth in order to balance the continental power(s) that controlled the
Heartlandnever applied his own approach to the peoples who lived in the Heartland. This
chapter attempts to do so as it details the going concern of civil society in Uzbekistan, thus
providing the geo-communal basis for understanding Uzbekistans geo-strategic concerns, 19912005.
This chapter concludes that the U.S. did not have a geo-communal framework for
understanding the going concern of Uzbek civil society; and was thus unable to grasp the
essential elements of Uzbekistans pre-existing civil societynamely, religion, the mahalla, and
the elites. Instead, it insisted, with the best of intentions, on promoting its definition of civil
society, while making no attempt to understand and work within those fundamental elements of
Uzbek civil society. Put differently, this chapter reveals, through the absence of data, the
comprehensive inability of the United States to understand the going concern of Uzbekistans
geo-communal roots. A proper geo-communal framework does result, as Mackinder would
expect, from a comprehensive examination of the land and the resulting history, religion,
traditions and culture that make up Uzbek civil society.
14
15

Ibid., 19.
Ibid., 144.

65

The Land of Uzbekistan

At the unchanging pivot point of Mackinders Heartland is a traditional and sometimes
mythical land that includes river-fed oases, sweeping grasslands, difficult deserts and skytouching mountains. The heart of this region is that land between the northern Syr Darya
(Jaxartes) river and the southern Amu Darya (Oxus) river. The Zarafshan River valley between
them, it is the home of fabled Samarkand and Bukhara. This region has been called Sogdia,
Transoxiana, Turan (the land beyond Iran), Mawarannahr (the land beyond the river), and
Turkestan (land of the Turks). Today it is the heart of Central Asia, and its heart is Uzbekistan.
The region represents the historic, and blurred, frontier between the settled south and the
nomadic north. It has been the worlds meeting place for religionsJudaism, Christianity,
Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Islam among themresulting in a tolerant and eclectic
combination of beliefs now united in a moderate Islam. It has also been the place where
empiresGreek, Persian, Chinese, Arab, Mongol, Russia, British and now Americanclash and
pass, each leaving something behind. The only constant, besides change, is the dogged
stationariness16 of the people and the land they reflect.
There is perhaps no better example of how geography shapes the daily interaction between
man and his environment than Central Asia, where geography has been the source of individual
identity and corporate civil society. For the settled people of this region, their identity serves as a
link to the land, rooted in the name of the location of their birthplace. 17 That location has

16

A. T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia and Its Effect upon International Policies, Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1900), 87.
17
Daria Fane, Ethnicity and Regionalism in Uzbekistan Maintaining Stability through Authoritarian
Control, in Leokadia Drobizheva et al. ed., Ethnic Conflict in the Post-Soviet World (New York: M. E.
Sharpe, 1996), 278. For example, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist group that
fought with the Taliban, was Juma Namangani from the city of Namangan in the Ferghana Valley. See
Shirin Akiner, Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks in The Nationalities Question in Post-Soviet States, Graham
Smith ed. (London: Longman, 1990), 335; and Richard N. Frye, The Heritage of Central Asia From
Antiquity to the Turkish Expansion (Princeton: Markus and Wiener Publishers, 1996), 20: Geography,

66

literally and figuratively shaped the regions civil society, one that is horizontally and vertically
organized at both the grassroots and governmental levels.
Uzbekistans civil society is rooted in the settled people of Central Asias river fed oases.
Separated by steppe and desert, but dependent upon artificial irrigation for life itself, a city-state
culture developed over time among these regional oases that was group-based and run by
authoritarian leaders. Because of the need to build and maintain irrigation canals for farming, this
society has always worked together with a profound sense of community, even as it has
submitted to strong leaders.
These leaders, meanwhile, have served in the context of being at the center of their own oasis
and/or region while being on the periphery of the empire that has most recently swept through
the region and is now ruling from afar. Further, these leaders have traditionally been subject to a
horizontal community of different elites atop the vertical structure of their society. Their
competing and clashing interests are as much managed as led by the local strongman who must
deal with these domestic politics to stay in power. This oasis-centered civil society has always
transcended the latest conquering empireeclectically choosing and embodying the various
cultures, religions and ideologies brought withwhile remaining culturally united by a tolerant
form of Islam since the 8th century.
Hydraulic History
Twelve thousand years ago, the ice age receded for the last time, leaving temperatures that
have remained seasonally consistent with today. While prehistory is hard to discern, as is the
early history of this region, we do know enough to suggest certain patterns. Between 6000 and
3500 B.C., a number of settlements began to emerge in the oases of Central Asia. For example,
perhaps more than other factors, determined both the cultural and the political map of Central Asia from
ancient times.

67

the Jeitun culture (Turkmenistan) was dependent upon a rudimentary man-made irrigation
system while the Kelminar culture (Khorezm in western Uzbekistan) lived as communities in
large circular shelters that were over 400 square meters.18
In his 1957 book, Oriental Despotism, Karl A. Wittfogel provides the basic rationale for how
and why a hydraulic society evolves. It is the history of civilization in Central Asia and
especially Uzbekistan.
If irrigation farming depends on the effective handling of a major supply of water, the distinctive
quality of waterits tendency to gather in bulkbecome institutionally decisive. A large
quantity of water can be channeled and kept within bounds only by the use of a mass labor; and
this mass labor must be coordinated, disciplined, and led. Thus a number of farmers eager to
conquer arid lowlands and plains are forced to invoke the organizational devices whichon the
basis of premachine technologyoffer the one chance of success: they must work in cooperation
with their fellows and subordinate themselves to a directing authority[they] share a negative
quality: none participates in the affairs of the state apparatus. They also share a positive quality:
none are slaves.19

By 1000 B.C. a sedentary pattern of civil society had taken root in the land now called
Uzbekistan. As David Christian describes, a simultaneously horizontal and vertical society
existed, mutually dependent upon each other and the water that gave them life.
As irrigation networks expanded, they demanded increasing organization, during the initial
clearance and drainage of land, during the construction and maintenance of irrigation ditches, and
in the management of water rights and of goods exchanges in regions which lacked many
important raw materials, including stone for building. The delicacy of such systems means that
having good and strong leaders was vital for the survival of the whole community. [For
example] at least 15,000 labourers worked for two months to dig the kirkkiz canal [in first and
second century A.D. Khorezm] while it took 6-7000 laborers each year to remove the siltmost
of the labor came from local village communities which benefited directly from the irrigation
systems they built and maintained.20

Or, more simply, local settled peoples submitted to a superior force, in organization or numbers,
or both, in order to assure their lands stability and protection.21

18

David Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia Volume I Inner Eurasia from
Prehistory to the Mongol Empire (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd, 1998), 46, 48, 72.
19
Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 18, 321.
20
Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, 112, 217.
21
Frye, The Heritage of Central Asia, 80.

68

This local balance between ruler and ruled, center and periphery, was also mirrored in the
regions relationship to the overseeing empire of the moment. The common link was mutual
loyalty anchored in self-interest. For example, the Soviet archeologist, B.Y. Stavisky, writes of
the 6th century B.C. Persian empire of Cyrus II and Darius I that this loyalty depended, it seems,
not only on the power and authority of [Persian] power, but equally on the interest that members
of local nobilities had in belonging to this great and powerful state. Still, the Persian center was
not afraid to exercise its vital veto upon them by sometimes closing the irrigation canals to make
sure local communities paid taxes.22

The Uzbek Identity Begins to Form

By the 7th century, as Muslim armies first began to arrive in Mawarannahr (the land beyond
the river), they encountered a distinct Central Asian culture of oases-based cities that needed
artificial irrigation to live. The culture was tolerant, syncretic and entrepreneurial, organized and
taxed by villages, but led by a local ruler [who] was a primus inter pares of the local nobility,
and who ensured that the water was organized such that the community could live.23 Under
strong leadershipand with firm faiththis Persian speaking army of Arabs brought settlers,
garrisons and taxation. In 751 A.D. they defeated the Chinese at Talas (in Kyrgyzstan), securing
a regional influence that continues to this day. Local elites retained their power, however, except
that there was now an Arab tax collector by their side.24
The history of the region, and the world, changed with the 1220 arrival of Chingiz Khan
whose Mongol hordes, after destroying everything in their path, eventually converted to Islam.
He also brought with him a sense of politics that turned largely on the capacity of potential

22

As quoted in Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, 167.

See Frye, The Heritage of Central Asia, 181-196.
24
Ibid., 212.
23

69

leaders to attractloyal followers, as he replaced familial clans with new ties based on
symbolic forms of kinship, on fealty and gift-exchange, and sometimes on bureaucratic ties of
office and discipline.25 Upon his death in 1227, each son received an ulus, or region of the
Mongol empire.
Chingizs second son, Chagatay, received the region of Central Asia, which became nothing
more than a loose grouping of semi-independent fiefs ruled by various clans and families, partly
Turkish and partly Mongol.26 From this mixed culture emerges the Chagatay language that
Timur the Lame spoke. After consolidating his power around Samarkand in 1370, Timur created
an empire from China to India to Turkey. As he conquered, he sent back the best architects and
artisans to his beloved capital, Samarkand. Timurs grandson, Ulug Beg, continued this cultural
tradition, establishing Samarkand as the intellectual and theological global standard of the day.
During this time, 1407-1449, he built the famous Registan, which featured a seminary whose
teachings addressed theology and science; demonstrating that modernity and tradition were not
incongruent to this region. His Timurid rule, not surprisingly, was administered by local elites
who spoke Persian.27
Chingizs grandson, Batu, inherited the ulus of Western Siberia. By the end of the 15th
century, it had evolved into the Golden Horde, an empire of its own to which the emerging
Russian state paid tribute. In the eastern part of this regionthe Qipchaq steppe northeast and
east of the Caspian Seadeveloped the White Horde, among them the Uzbeks, who took their
name from the Muslim and proselytizing Tatar chieftain, Ozbek Khan, son of Batu.28 At the
25

Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, 390, 395.

Edgar Knobloch, Beyond the Oxus Archaeology, Art & Architecture of Central Asia (London: Ernest
Benn, Ltd, 1972), 40.
27
Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Development and Meaning of Chaghatay Identity, in Jo-Ann Gross, ed.,
Muslims in Central Asia Expressions of Identity and Change (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992), 39.
28
Edward A. Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks From the Fourteenth Century to the Present, A Cultural
History (Stanford: Hoover Press, 1990), 6, 32. See also Olivier Roy, The New Central Asia: The Creation
26

70

beginning of the 16th century, the Uzbeks leader was Abul Fath Muhammad Shaybani Khan
(1451-1510) who moved his people south and conquered Samarkand and the region in 1500.29
A man of military, intellectual and spiritual prowess, he borrowed the Chagatay word for
shepherd, shaban, which had been borrowed from Farsi, to name the dynasty that would rule
Central Asia, in one form or another, for over three centuries.30 As Edward Allworth carefully
describes, Shaybani embodied and inspired a very different image of the Central Asia ruler than
we have today. This ruler had values of justice, equity, generosity, modesty and even
forgiveness.31
The Shaybanids, through different family branches, ruled in Samarkand, Bukhara and
Tashkent while also establishing the khanates of Khiva (based in ancient Khorezm) and Kokand
(all of which, except Kokand, are in present-day Uzbekistan). The civil society over which they
ruled consisted of three layers that would eventually become the Uzbek people. The foundation
layer was the elite local class of rulers, intellectuals and merchantsSogdian in origin,32 Persian
in language. This class would continue to exert their influence in the regions khanates and in the
establishment of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan in 1925.33 The term sart,

of Nations (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 7; and Zeki Velidi Togan, The Origins of the
Kazaks and the Ozbeks, in Central Asia Reader The Rediscovery of History, ed. H. B. Paksoy (Armonk:
M.E. Sharpe, 1994), 25-39.
29
This conquest forced Babur to flee from the Ferghana Valley to India, where he established the Moghul
empire which would rule until 1857.
30
Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, 29, 52-55.
31
Ibid., 18-21, 66.
32
The Sogdians were a merchant people who emerged from the oasis city-states of the Zerafshan river
valley, dating back to the 6th Century B.C. conquests of Cyrus II. Ethnically the Soghdians belonged to the
Iranian family and their language was related to Persian. Their religion, as far as we can tell, was a
synthesis of many creeds an currents, incorporating elements of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Buddhism,
and Christianity, together with Greek and Indian mythology. (Knobloch, Beyond the Oxus Archaeology,
53-4).
33
The Sarts were the ethnic basis for the Jadids, or intellectual, urban Muslims who sought to reform Islam.
They lived mostly in Bukhara. Many Jadids saw the establishment of Uzbekistan as a chance to create
Greater Bukhara. See Donald S. Carlisle, Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and its
Neighbors, in Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies, ed. Yaacov RoI (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 74.

71

describing this group of oasis elites, first comes into existence during this time.34 The second
layer consisted of that Chagatay speaking conglomeration of Turkic and Mongol tribes and
fiefdoms that the Shaybanids, the third layer, conquered in 1500.
Unfortunately, just as this culture was developing within the Shaybanid led region, Vasco da
Gama was discovering sea routes around Africa to open up trade between Asia and Europe.
With the territory to the east and west of Central Asia not safe for travel along the Silk Roads
multiple routes, Central Asia began to wither into obscurity. From 1600 to the Russian conquest
of the region (1865-1881), the regions khanates became the familiar stereotype of cruel
despotism that most now associate with Central Asia. In particular, as Allworth points out,
Bukharan Emir Nasrullah-khan (1826-1860) did much to singularly embody this stereotype.35
(He is famous in British history for beheading two British officers in 1842).36
While it is this image of Central Asia that has become emblazoned in the Western psyche
and not the image of Ulug Beg or Shaybanicivil society itself has not deviated from its historic
pattern. The local community, dependent on irrigation for life, was left alone under the
leadership of indigenous elites who were responsible to the imperial and distant overlord. After
the Russian conquests, for instance, the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara were allowed to keep
their independence while accepting the lordship of the Tsar). In the territory officially
administered by the Russians, known as the Governorate-General of Turkestan, the Russians, as
much as possible, left the Central Asian peoples to themselves, administratively and socially.
The [Russian] authorities allowedlocal judicial institutions, as well as the political institutions
of the villages, to continueon the political level, Russian authorities supported the traditional

34

Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, 42; Roy, The New Central Asia, 4.
Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, 10.
36
For an account of this episode, see Fitzroy Maclean, A Person from England and other Travellers to
Turkestan (New York: Harpers & Brothers, 1958), 30-40. See also Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game The
Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (New York: Kodansha America, Inc., 1990), 230-236, 270-280.
35

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village leadersthe political organization of Central Asia was based on one definite principle:
manage the population without interfering in its affairs.37

In the major cities of the region, the Russians built their homes alongside, but separate from, the
local people.38 Despite the Russians distinctive identity, no reciprocating consciousness
developed among any of the people groups of Central Asia during the Russian occupation. The
ideas of nationality and frontier had no meaning for the people of Turkestan.39 More
importantly, as Olivier Roy notes these populations were, and still are, widely intermingled, so
that intra-ethnic identities (tribal, clan, locality, family, etc) were more important in determining
loyalties than strictly ethnic origin.40

Understanding the Clans

Understanding the clans of these oasis-societies is imperative to understanding
Uzbekistans civil society today and how it has developed in the last century, especially the last
forty-five years. Unfortunately, most American academics and policy-makers alike have not
sought to understand this roof under which Uzbek civil society operates.41 However, without
understanding the clan conceptand how it manifests itself within such traditional structures
as the mahalla and regional elitesone cannot understand Uzbekistan, making any kind of
policy toward it almost irrelevant.

37

Edward Allworth, ed., Central Asia 120 Years of Russian Rule (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989),
154, 159. See also Roy, The New Central Asia, 106.
38
As Seymour Becker writes, the Russians were simply content with having satellites rather than
subjects. See his book, Russias Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), xiii.
39
Geoffrey Wheeler, The Modern History of Central Asia (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc.,
Publishers, 1964), 41.
40
Roy, The New Central Asia, 3, Wheeler, The Modern History of Central Asia, 65.
41
An experienced Uzbek official once told me: You understand our clans as well as any American. But you know
nothing. Given the current context in Uzbekistan, Uzbek officials often spoke with me off-the-record. As a
function of honor, and security, I am not comfortable naming or dating quotes from Uzbek officials that stand any
remote chance of negative interpretation by Tashkent. That said, this dissertation is a scholarly work and I have
preserved my notes, which are available upon request.

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The clans of Uzbekistan are actually regional networks of family and friends who trust
each other and are obliged to one another in some way. Oliver Roy, based on his study of Uzbeks
in northern Afghanistan, calls this a dynamic model of ethnic identity, subjective and relative,
that one must understand in terms of a social context highly influenced by the political
momentthe key is to view [these] solidarity groups from the perspective of political loyalties
that go above and beyond such concepts as tribe, clan, and segmentary group.42
This latter concept best describes the authors own experiences in Uzbekistan and is in
keeping with the definition of the ultimate clan politician, Islam Karimov. The ultimate goal of
a clan is to push its members as far as possible up into the ranks of the state hierarchy. The
feature which distinguishes members of a clan is the same birthplace. This is important: it is not
shared professional skills, nor a shared world outlook, nor shared spiritual interests, but simply a
shared birthplace.43 In other words, while the clans have always competed for influence, they
remain in dialogue with one another, a fluid yet stable patchwork of political and familial
obligation, defined by geography, Uzbek patriotism and their desire for influence.44

The Uzbek State Begins to Form

Eight years before the fall of the Russian empire, Count K.K. Phalen conducted an analysis
of the region for the Tsars court. He observed: I had my first glimpse of that peculiar subtlety
with which the Asian regards the European. What I believe to be a genuine contempt is veiled by
an appearance of outward submission that somehow suggests inner awareness of a culture and an

42

Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War (Princeton: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1995), 14.
Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Challenges to Stability and
Progress (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), 60. Alisher Ilkhamov calls them quasi clans. See The
Limits of Centralization Regional Challenges in Uzbekistan, in The Transformation of Central Asia, ed.
Pauline Jones Luong (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 176.
44
Also see Kathleen Collins, Clans, Pacts, and Politics in Central Asia, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 3
(July 2002): 137-152; and by the same author, The Logic of Clan Politics: Evidence from the Central
Asian Trajectories, World Politics 56, no. 2 (January 2004): 224-261.
43

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outlook on life vastly older than our ownThe oasis peoples, with a legacy of countless
centuries of experience in submitting to irresponsible rulers, appear to be more adept at giving
an appearance of outward submission than the Kazaks and Kirghiz.45 The Uzbeks of the oases
would prove within the century how right he was.
In December of 1917, Lenin and Stalin signed a communiqu to all you whose mosques and
prayer houses have been destroyed, whose beliefs and customs have been trampled upon by the
Tsars and oppressors of Russia: Your beliefs and usages, your national and cultural institutions
are forever free and inviolate. Organize your national life in complete freedom. Specifically
addressed were the Sarts of Siberia and Turkestan. 46 Not addressed were the Uzbeks, who did
not yet have a national conscious.
Stalin, because of his status as an ethnic experthe had written Marxism and the National
Question in July of 1913 in Viennahad begun acting as the Commissar for Nationality Affairs
before the post had even been created.47 With military victory in the civil war complete, and the
death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin consolidated his power as only a dictatorial paranoid bent on
power could, something the diction and demarcation of Central Asia (1925-1936) reveals. Under
the slogan of national in form but socialist in essence, Stalin sought to seduce the peoples of
Central Asia into the Soviet fold by creating previously non-existent national identities whose
real purpose was to act as a mainstreaming vehicle that would indoctrinate the peoples of Central
Asia into the Soviet (Russian) culture. This diction not only contradicted basic Marxist teaching

45

Elizabeth E. Bacon, Central Asians under Russian Rule A Study in Culture Change (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1966), 208.
46
As quoted in, Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism 19171923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), 155.
47
Robert C. Tucker, Stalin As Revolutionary 1879-1929 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1973),
168, 152-154.

75

of a global communism that denigrated nationalism or religion, it was ironic, as there was little to
no national consciousness among the peoples of Central Asia.
This did not stop Stalin as he drew the map of Central Asia with a preventive eye toward
future rebellions. The borders, which persist until today make no sense, unless viewed according
to the three results achieved, which must have been catalytic in Stalins thinking. First, the five
Central Asia republics were drawn in such a way as to prevent the future possibility of political
loyalty to preexisting structures such as the khanates (of which none kept all of their land within
the confines of a newly created state; nor were the major khanates allowed to be in one state).
Second, there was sufficient dispersion and division of nascent ethnic groups such that they
would balance each other within state boundaries, preventing them from becoming a unified
force. (Even today, 25% of Tajikistans people are Uzbek while two of the ancient khanates,
Samarkand and Bukhara, have majority Tajik speaking populations but are located in
Uzbekistan). Accordingly, this made the newly aware ethnic groups dependent on Moscow for
power and Russian as the lingua franca, thereby encouraging incorporation into the new Soviet
culture.48
Such were the conditions in 1925 as the Soviets began the process of Uzbekifying
Uzbekistan.49 Language, alphabets, history and cultural tradition had to be imposed or invented.
Education and health care were made available across the land, especially to women. Timur the
Lame, who predated the actual Uzbek people group, had to be made into an Uzbek by Professor
Iakubovskii.50 State structuresfrom the secret police to youth leaguesbound the peoples
within the Uzbekistan borders together.

48

Roy suggests that this divide and conquer approach also bolstered the region as a bulwark against panTurkic and pan-Islamic movements. (The New Central Asia, 66).
49
Allworth, Modern Uzbeks, 219.
50
Ibid., 243.

76

Soviet in Structure, Cultural in Content

With these Soviet trappings of nationhood provided, a process was begun whereby the
unasked for vehicle of the state would become a self-realized nation through the pre-existing
culture. No matter the origins of this process, this nation-building process was founded on
Uzbekistan as a place of shared Muslim values that permeates competing domestic elites at the
grassroots and government levels. These cultural structures community-based and linked
through kinship bonds of blood, geography and mutual patronagesimply adapted themselves to
the latest empire to show up in the region.
This rooting of the state modelis an effect of sovietism,51 made possible not by the void
created in civil society, but by the recomposition of civil society around an apparatusthe
Communist Partywhich it has subverted and turned to its own ends.52 In other words, as
Count Phalen would have expected, the Uzbeks, over time, rewrote Stalins slogan, creating an
Uzbek-Soviet civil society that was simultaneously Soviet in structure, but cultural in content.53
This dual-identity found basic expression in both rural and urban social organization,
shaping, especially, the elites interactions and exercise of power relative to the Uzbek people
and to Moscow. If we are to trace the interaction of man in society and so much of his
environment as varies locally, as Mackinder would insist, we must begin here.
In rural areas, the arrival of the Soviet empire brought the collectivization of farms and the
pooling of manpower to irrigate those farms. It was a very familiar system where a Soviet-

51

Sovietism is a form, an apparatus, a technique of power and an organization of the social which is
permanently out of step with the ideology on which it is supposedly based, like a film out of synch with its
sound-track. The ideological register, that of speeches, slogans, textbooks, symbols, billboards and
newspapers is simultaneously saturated and empty. Roy, The New Central Asia, xv.
52
Ibid., xii.
53
See James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan A Soviet Republics Road to Sovereignty (Boulder:
Westview Press, 1991), 14, Uzbek nationality, however artificial its original premises, has been shaped
and consolidated by the federal institutions of the soviet system.

77

oriented rural aristocracy was imposed on the traditional orderSoviet water lords, who
controlled the irrigation system, represented a modern version of an ancient profession and
practice.54 Despite the vertical nature of this new-old system, the system was run by the local
clan and dependent upon the horizontal network to which the clan member/communist party
member belonged. In other words, the collective farm (kolkhoz) official was directly engaged
with the population of the Kolkhoz [because] his political power depends on [clan-] networks
originating within his district.55
If one werent in a Russian kolkhoz, one probably belonged to a mahalla. Arabic for place
or neighborhood, the mahalla has been around for millennia. Today, it continues to be the
operational construct through which local elders, aqsaqals, rule the village, subdivision or even
Soviet apartment building in the cities. At its best, the mahalla is the place where religious and
family values are imbued and the group looks out for each other, together parenting their
children, connecting their friends and families to jobs, distributing funds to those in need, and
submitting to the judgment of the aqsaqals. This environment is what most Uzbeks experienced
in the Soviet period, before they were old enough to go to school or workwhere the
Soviet/Russian culture was lived and taughtand what they returned to after school, and work.
It was, and is, exactly the neighborliness that Mackinder longed for in 1919.
The mahalla has been a place where rich and poor, professional and laborer, Sunni, Shia and
Sufi can meet together. The mahalla is a remarkable synthesis of an informal social network

54

Donald S. Carlisle, Power and Politics in Soviet Uzbekistan, in Soviet Central Asia The Failed Transformation,
ed. Donald S. Carlisle (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), 99. See also, Elizabeth E. Bacon, Central Asians under
Russian Rule A Study in Culture Change), 204; Poliakov, Sergei P. Everyday Islam, Religion and Tradition in Rural
Central Asia (Ed., Martha Brill Olcott, trans., Anthony Olcott), Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1992, 16-17.
55
Roy, The New Central Asia, 92, 85. See also Alexander Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay,
Islam in the Soviet Union (New York: Praeger, 1967), 185; and Patricia M. Carley, The Legacy of the
Soviet Political System and the Prospects for Developing Civil Society in Central Asia, in Political
Culture and Civil Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk:
M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,1995), 297.

78

and a state territorial-administrative unit.56 As such, the mahalla represents a native

neighborhood, as Mackinder would expect and approve, a civil society built on collective
identities and the reciprocal relationships necessary to get things done. People trust almost
exclusively those who are in some way obligated to them and to whom they are obligated
through multifaceted and often unquantifiable material and emotional ties.57 This is Uzbek civil
society.
With this grassroots background, newly created Uzbek elites began to serve the Soviet
Union at various governmental levels. As they did, they learned the taste of power and the desire
to keep it (as the regions elites had been doing forever). Keeping and building power meant
balancing the desires of Moscow with the desires of their country and clan-networks. It was a
delicate but not difficult tightrope to walk for most Muslim elites. They knew who they were
Uzbeksand they were increasingly proud of it. But they also knew that their positions and
prestige depended on their place in the Soviet structure.
The result was an elite bent on preserving power; simultaneously respecting the culture of
Moscow and the culture in which they had been raised and to which they daily returned.58
Importantly, the powerful pull of the traditional civil society demanded that its children protect
and preserve it. Writing in 1955, Richard Pipes observed: Muslim Party members are regarded
rather as friends and protectors, capable of shielding the inhabitants from the full brunt of Soviet
56

David M. Abramson, Identity Counts: The Soviet Legacy and the Census in Uzbekistan, in Census and
Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses, ed. David Kertzer and
Dominique Areal (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 18699).
57
David M. Abramson, Foreign Aid, Bureaucratization, and Uzbek Social Networks, unpublished paper
presented on March 20, 2000, at Harvard University, 11. See also Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, 14; and
Lawrence R. Robertson and Roger D. Kangas, Central Power and Regional and Local Government in
Uzbekistan, in Unity or Separation Center-Periphery Relations in the Former Soviet Union, ed. Daniel R.
Kempton and Terry D. Clark (Wesport: Praeger, 2002), 301.
58
See Elizabeth E. Bacon, Central Asians under Russian Rule A Study in Culture Change, 211: They
speak Russian, wear European style clothes, and generally conform in public to the behavior expected of
them by Russian officials, but they remain a part of their own community. See also Michael Rywkin,
Moscows Muslim Soviet Central Asia Challenge, Revised Edition (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1990), 9091.

79

policies.59 Writing in 2000, Olivier Roy concluded the same thing: In short, it is indigenous
people who live their lives according to a double code, but without schizophrenia, because there
really are two social lives. The elites have a double culture, a double code, and pass from one to
the other with no problem.60 (If there is any doubt, watch how quickly an Uzbek elite will
switch back and forth from Russian to Uzbek according to the situation, or the topic of the
conversation).61
The tie that binds top-down elites and bottom-up mahallas is Islam; an Islam not strident but
eclectic, not tolerant but respectful, not abrasive but hospitable. Uzbeks know the five pillars of
Islam, but generally only practice a couple at a time. They are not afraid to have a shot, or two,
of vodka. They circumcise their boys and would make the pilgrimage to Mecca if they could
afford it. They also, however, celebrate Nov Rus, a spring festival that existed before Islams
arrival, even as they worry about the evil eye and counter it in different ways (e.g., burning a
candle after the birth of a child).
Perhaps the greatest symbol of Uzbek society is found on the faade of a seminary that Ulug
Beg built in the 15th century to study theology and science. Defying conservative Islams ban on
iconography, this mural displays two sun-tigers chasing two white deer. The sun-tigers reflect
the Zoroastrian fire of a religion that pre-dates Islam. The deer represent a sometimes passive
and pessimistic people used to being invaded, dependent upon a flexible faith to comfort them.62

59

Richard Pipes, Muslims of Central Asia, Part II, Middle East Journal X, No. 3 (1955): 306.
Roy, The New Central Asia, 82. Some, however, think that such a duality remains rare, especially
because of the Soviet influence. See Alisher Ilkhamov, Impoverishment of the Masses in the Transition
Period: Signs of an Emerging New Poor Identity in Uzbekistan, Central Asian Survey 20 No. 1 (2001),
33-54.
61
This has been my repeated experience in various social and professional settings.
62
There is an old Soviet joke about the passivity of the Uzbeks. Some Soviet officials tell a group of
Uzbeks that the price of bread has gone up from 15 kopecks to 1 rouble. They dont complain. The Soviets
keep raising the price of the bread, from 15 to 50 roubles and the Uzbeks still dont complain. Finally the
Soviet officials, out of frustration, tell the Uzbeks: Tomorrow we will hang you. Do you have any
questions? The Uzbeks reply, asking Yes, will you provide the rope or should we bring our own?
60

80

Even though the majority ofmullahs do not know dogma, the canonically approved
rituals, or the prayers, they serve Islam very well on the daily level, because they know very well
what their people need. They preserve their Islam, which consists of everything that satisfies
their society.63 To be Uzbek is to be Muslim.64 And to be Uzbek is to have a robust and resilient
civil society that endures and protects the people of your clan-network, locally, regionally and
nationallywhich would have been much to Mackinders pleasure if he had applied his own
philosophy to the Heartland itself.

Regionalism & Rashidov

The above characteristics have been common to the civil society of Transoxiana for
millennia. Yet they take particular form, as Mackinder would insist on understanding, in the
various regions, and thus clans, of Uzbekistan. Depending on the expert, there are five, 65 six66 or
seven regions to Uzbekistan. This dissertation uses seven because it allows greater possibility to
trace the interaction of man in society and so much of his environment as varies locally. Roy

63

Sergei P. Poliakov, Everyday Islam, Religion and Tradition in Rural Central Asia, 106.
This saying is common in Uzbekistan today, despite periodic and best efforts of the Soviet to repress
Islam (especially in the late 1920s and late 50s and early 60s). Soviet Moscow eventually followed in
Tsarist St. Petersburgs steps, establishing the Central Asian Spiritual Directorate of Muslims (SADUM) in
Tashkent, which helped Moscow tout Central Asias Muslims to the 3rd world as an example of what
Communism could do for them.
64

It should be noted, however, that some believe that the success of Soviet educational, political and
economic achievements in weakening, if not totally destroying traditional Islamic cultural forms, has been
considerable. See Nazif Sharhrani, Central Asia and the Challenge of the Soviet Legacy, Central Asian
Survey (1993), 12(2), 131. See also Pauline Jones Luong , ed., The Transformation of Central Asia (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2004), where Jones argues that there is new evidence that Islam was not a
dominant social force in Central Asia during the Soviet period (4, 12).
65
See Donald S. Carlisle, Power and Politics in Soviet Uzbekistan, 96-98. Carlisle lists them as:
Tashkent region; Ferghana Valley; Samarkand/Bukhara; Northwest territories (Karakalpakstan); and the
southern regions (which includes the districts of Sukhandarya and Kashkadarya). See also Demian Vaisan,
Regionalism and Clan Loyalty in the Political Life of Uzbekistan, in Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting
Legacies, ed. Yaacov RoI (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 107-108. Vaisan lists: Ferghana Valley; Khorezm;
Samarkand-Bukhara; Tashkent; and the KashkadaryaSukhandarya region.
66
Daria Fane, Ethnicity and Regionalism in Uzbekistan Maintaining Stability through Authoritarian
Control, 278-280. Fane includes the following regions: Tashkent, Ferghana Valley, Samarkand/Bukhara,
Sukhandarya and Kashkadarya, Khorezm,and Karakalpakistan.

81

delineats them as follows: Ferghana, Khwarezm, Karakalpakistan, Bukhara, Samarkand, and

SukhandaryaKashkadarya. 67
The Soviets used these traditional regions as the administrative boundaries, thus preserving
the preexisting patron-client relations among the Uzbek clans.68 The power of regional clans
depended on their respective relationships with Moscow. In the beginning, the Jadids of Bukhara
were prominent among the first elites running Uzbekistan but they were murdered in Stalins
purges of 1937-38. The Tashkent-Ferghana faction subsequently came to power, but lost
influence to the Samarkand faction with the reign of Sharaf Rashidov (1959-1983). With
Rashidovs death, Moscow found favor with the Tashkent-Ferghana clan. The Samarkand clan
came back to power with the appointment of Islam Karimov as Party Secretary in June of 1989.
He has ruled ever since.69
Throughout the Soviet period, Moscows policy was to place native elites at the top posts in
Central Asia, but also to place Russians as their deputies, using an indirect administration to
run the empire. They also insisted that national elites remain within their Central Asia republics
and they were never posted to the western half of the Soviet Union, let alone to another Central
Asian republic. (The opposite was true for the Russians).70 Consequently, with no opportunity
for promotion outside of Uzbekistan, Uzbek elites stayed in Uzbekistan, developing their own
clan-networks along with their communist careers. The Soviets were aware of this informal
nepotism, 71 but did nothing to stop it as long as Uzbekistan provided the cotton quotas

67

Roy, The New Central Asia, 98.

Pauline Jones Luong, Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 86.
69
See Roys chapter 6, Political Factionalism and National Affirmation during the Soviet Era, The New
Central Asia; and Donald S. Carlisle, Power and Politics in Soviet Uzbekistan: From Stalin to
Gorbachev, in Soviet Central Asia The Failed Transformation, ed. William Fierman (Boulder: Westview
Press, 1991).
70
See Roy, The New Central Asia, 104, 107; See also, James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, 29.
71
Bacon, Central Asians under Russian Rule A Study in Culture Change, 204.
68

82

required by Moscow (Uzbekistan was and remains the fourth largest producer of cotton in the
world today). This was especially true during the stagnation of the Brezhnev years.
The dual-nature of the Uzbek-Soviet identity among elites was solidified during the long
reign of Sharaf Rashidov, who embodied this approach. On the one hand, he worked hard to stay
in the good graces of Moscow. He required his collaborators to have perfect mastery of the
Russian language and that the elites children go to Russian schools.72 He told Moscow what
they wanted to hear, especially when it came to cotton quotas. On the other hand, Rashidov
prided himself on being widely published and read as an Uzbek author.73
All the while he was building a massive patrimonial network of relationships and contacts.
He was able to do so because Rashidov presented himself, in deed and word, as the national
aqsaqal, or elder, who, in the eyes of his people should be a subtle psychologist that is wise
and experienced and who understands the power mechanisms in a society that, in the main,
lives according to the deeply ingrained laws of a rural community.74 When it became clear that
Rashidov had hoodwinked Moscow over the years, keeping cotton profits for himself and his
clan-network, he suddenly had a heart attack as Moscow wondered if it actually controlled the
empire.75
Between 1984 and 1987coinciding with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev who was antiIslamic but pro-reform90% of the ruling elites in Uzbekistan were replaced, to include 10 of
13 District Party chiefs.76 Throughout the Soviet Union, this corruption became known as The
Uzbek Affair. Moscow denounced this affair as clientelism, localism and Rashidovism.
72

Roy, The New Central Asia, 109.

Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, 313.
74
Demian Vaisan, Regionalism and Clan Loyalty in the Political Life of Uzbekistan, 109-110.
75
For an extended discussion of whether Rashidov was a nationalist or party stooge, see Gregory Gleason,
Sharaf Rashidov and the Dilemmas of National Leadership, Central Asian Survey 5, no. (1986): 133160.
76
Roy, The New Central Asia, 125; See also Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, 43.
73

83

Rashidov was personally denigrated in several newspapers as a latter-day Uzbek khan with a
party card77 (which is, of course, exactly what he was). It had taken the Soviets only fifty-eight
years to begin discovering that their New Soviet Man vision was incongruous with the culture
of Central Asia.
Uzbeks took exception to being designated as corrupt, seeing the crackdown as an ethnic
vendetta emanating from Moscow, designed to achieve a fundamental transformation of the
traditionally Islamic native societies[and] break the hold of the networks of local officials.78
Moscow failed for two reasons. First, the very Uzbek reaction itselfas Uzbeksconfirmed that
the Soviet system had succeeded in creating an ethnic identity separate from the Soviet/Russian
conception of identity. Anything Russian Moscow did against Uzbek Tashkent would only
further galvanize that identity, strengthening Uzbek defiance.
Second, Uzbeks were also clan members, possessing a different concept of corruption than
imperial Moscow. Given the dependence of most people in Uzbekistan on familial and other
social ties, as soon as resources become available to one member of a network, it is expected that
that person will distribute the wealth among his or her own.79 In other words, one persons
corruption is anothers coping mechanism for a state that does not provide for the society. As
Uzbekistan expert James Critchlow concludes, without judgment: Behavior that is reprehensible
by the norms of one society may be admissible by those of another.80

77

As quoted by James Critchlow, Prelude to Independence: How the Uzbek Party Apparatus Broke
Moscows Grip on Elite Recruitment, in Soviet Central Asia The Failed Transformation, ed. William
Fierman (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), 135.
78
Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, 42, 41.
79
David Abramson, Civil Society and the Politics of Foreign Aid in Uzbekistan, unpublished manuscript,
4. See also Michael Rywkin, Moscows Muslim Soviet Central Asia Challenge, revised ed. (Armonk: M.E.
Sharpe, Inc., 1990), 150.
80
Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, 46. See also Roy, The New Central Asia, xiii; and Gregory
Gleason, Fealty and Loyalty: Informal Authority Structures in Soviet Asia, Soviet Studies 43, no. 4
(1991): 613-628.

84

The Rashidov affair more than demonstrates the permanence of civil society patterns that
have persisted in Transoxiana since recorded history began. It also set the stage for more of the
same in the Post-Soviet Era as Uzbek nationalism began to take different expression, especially
among Tashkent intellectuals. The political party, Birlik, was formed in 1988, becoming a voice
for Uzbek issues vis--vis Moscows policies regarding Russian language requirements, the
Russian names of local streets and parks, the environment, its treatment of Islam and the feeling
that outsider Russians had the best jobs.81

Karimov and Nation Solidification

With the Ferghana Valleys ethnic violence of June 1989 (Uzbek-Meskheti Turk),
Gorbachev brought a new First Secretary to power, Islam Karimov. Taken from the backwater
province of SukhandaryaKashkadarya, Karimov was a technocrat, an economist who did not
have any visible connections to the Uzbek Affair (although he was from Samarkand) and, most
importantly, possessed no inherent power base.82 The last person to expect political acumen
from, he was soon cherry-picking Birliks issues, rehabilitating Rashidov, defining himself
against Moscow andaccording to the historic model, from Timur the Lam to Rashidov
developing his own network as he consolidated his power. By 1993, Karimov was the
unambiguous leader of Uzbekistan.83

81

See Critchlows chapter 6, Objections to the Russian Presence, in Nationalism in Uzbekistan.

His rise is reminiscent of Titos ascent to power after the 1937-38 purges among the Yugoslav
communists. See Donald S. Carlisle, Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and its Neighbors,
in Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies, ed. Yaacov RoI (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 82-83.
83
For an account of how Karimov institutionalized his centralized power, see Donald S. Carlisle, Islam
Karimov and Uzbekistan: Back to the Future, in Patterns in Post-Soviet Leadership, ed. Timothy J. Colton
and Robert C. Tucker (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 197-201; William Fierman, Political
Development in Uzbekistan: Democratization?, in Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the
Caucasus, ed. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 374-392;
and Pauline Jones Luong, Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia, 120136.
82

85

The peoples of Uzbekistan respected the stability he brought amidst the ethnic riots of 1990,
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the beginning of the civil war in Tajikistan in 1992.
Uzbeks began to consider their leader as a grandfather figure. As one member of Tashkents
intelligentsia told me: Traditional Uzbeks have an acceptance of someone who has more power
and has the last word just like the Uzbek family, where the father fills this role. President
Karimov is the head of the Uzbek household. Although the situation was much different by the
end of 2005, Karimov was legitimately popular for much of his rule.
Not surprisingly, however, as the West chose to see only the appearance of another Central
Asian authoritarian, behind the scenes it was as it always has beena centralized power that
still had to account for, and balance, the regional elites. The loyalty of regional forces, and
therefore stability in general, must be achieved much as it was during the Soviet periodthat is,
by maintaining a fine balance between concessions and reprisals.84 As Karimov is reported to
have said: They [the regional clans] are the first thing I think about when I get up in the
morning.85 Accordingly, the average regional leaders time in power is 3.1 years;86 Karimov did
not want grass to grow underneath the feet of any potential competitor.
In sum, we may understand Uzbekistan as a twice (1925 and 1991) unasked-for state that has
become a nation at the center of Mackinders heartland. It is a people group defined by its culture
of grassroots and governmental elites who share a common bond in Islam. These are the
properties of the material in which the United States works as it seeks to understand the
realities of the round world on which we must practice the intricate art of living together.87
84

Alisher Ilkhamov The Limits of Centralization Regional Challenges in Uzbekistan, in The

Transformation of Central Asia, ed. Pauline Jones Luong (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 161.
85
As given to the author by a senior Uzbek official. For more on Karimovs view of the regional clans and
their potential threat to Uzbekistan, see Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First
Century: Challenges to Stability and Progress (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), 60, 62.
86
Ilkhamov, The Limits of Centralization Regional Challenges in Uzbekistan, 170.
87
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 19.

86

U.S. Civil Society vs. Uzbek Civil Society

Given this geography, history and culture, seemingly the worlds latest superpower would
take a geo-communal perspective as the basis for engaging Central Asia, and especially its core,
Uzbekistan, in an appropriate manner. This would not be the case as the U.S. lost an opportunity
to promote its policies because it did not understand the culture.
Certainly prophets at the time accurately named the dynamics at play. Donald S. Carlisle
argued that Uzbekistans domestic political geography and internal regional politics provide the
best framework for understanding how national and ethnic relations unfold.88 Martha Brill
Olcott made clear that understanding the clan-networks is perhaps the single most crucial
element in understanding Central Asia, especially that clan politics convey privilege and
responsibility.89 And Robert Kaplan concluded from his travels in Uzbekistan that Islamic
identity engender[s] community-mindedness. Though Islamization has proved fertile ground
for terrorists, it also offers a path toward civil society that former-Soviet Central Asia desperately
requires.90
Despite these voices, the U.S. did not engage Uzbekistan as it is, in accordance with the preexisting civil society formed and informed by clan-networks at the grassroots and government
levels, united in a Muslim culture. Suffering from an acute case of cartographic camouflage (to
be discussed in the next chapter), the U.S. failed to recognize the geo-strategic importance of
Uzbekistan until 9/11. In the meantime, the U.S. suffered throughout the bilateral relationship
from a preconceived and ideological notion of civil society as it failed to grasp the importance

88

Donald S. Carlisle, Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and its Neighbors, 72.
Martha Brill Olcott, Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, in Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting
Legacies, ed. Yaacov RoI (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 25.
90
Robert D. Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth: A Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy (New York: Vintage
Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 1996), 278.
89

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of, let alone work within, the literal and figurative terrain of Uzbekistans pre-existing civil
society.
Why? The answer is as simple now as it was for Mackinder in 1919: Our view of
geographical realities is colored for practical purposes by our preconceptions of the past
human society is still related to the facts of geography not as they are but in no small measure as
they have been approached in the course of history.

An Absence of a Geo-communal Perspective

With the winning of the Cold War, the United States clearly suffered from the Victory
Diseasewhere victors continue to pursue the strategies that brought them victory in utterly
new and inappropriate circumstances that the victory has created.91 In the case of Uzbekistan,
America refused to acknowledge, let alone map, the geo-communal landscapeto understand
the peoples and regions of Uzbekistan and how they interact locally with their geography. The
U.S. already had its definition of civil society and there was obviously no room in it for
Uzbekistans pre-existing civil society.
Consider the following experts. The basis for creating civil society does not yet exist in
Uzbekistan.92 These states possess a political culture that includes pre-Soviet and Soviet-era
influences, both of which repudiate a civil societya framework conducive to establishing a
civil society remains largely nonexistent.93 Apparently, there are many complex reasons for

91

James Kurth, The American Way of Victory: A Twentieth Century Triology, The National Interest,
Summer 2000.
92
Abdumannob Polat, Can Uzbekistan Build Democracy and Civil Society? in Civil Society in Central
Asia, ed. M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), 135.
93
Roger D. Kangas, State Building and Civil Society in Central Asia, in Political Culture and Civil
Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
1995), 271. (Curiously, in other writings, Kangas recognizes that we in the west do not organize our lives
around our families as do the Central Asians; see footnote #17 in Roger D. Kangas, Central Power and
Regional and Local Government in Uzbekistan, 305).

88

the absence of civil society.94 Among them, seemingly, is that rather than adopting the model
used by much of the developed world for the implementation of welfare through professional
social workers, Uzbekistan has chosen a community-based system that depends on character,
knowledge and inherent fairness of elders in the community.95 And it was an absence ofcivil
society that hampered the Clinton administrations policy goals for the region.96
This attitude and approach continued to plague the U.S. approach through George W. Bushs
administration, to include the foremost promoter of civil society in Central Asia and
Uzbekistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 2003, for example, it trumpeted:
civil society is beginning to develop in Uzbekistan. It proved this development by citing the
more than 500 non-governmental organizations that were working in Uzbekistan.97
What is civil society? According to Adam B. Seligman, it is the outgrowth of western
political thought, that space where free, self-determining individuality sets forth its claims for
satisfaction of its wants and personal autonomy.98 Another leading expert, Larry Diamond,
defines civil society as the realm of organized social life that is voluntary, self-generating,
(largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of shared
rules. According to Diamond, civil society is at its best when it is dense, affording individual
opportunities to participate in multiple associations and informal networks at multiple levels of

94

Patricia M. Carley, The Legacy of the Soviet Political System and the Prospects for Developing Civil
Society in Central Asia, in Political Culture and Civil Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed.
Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1995), 292.
95
Marianne Kamp, Between Women and the State Mahalla Committees and Scoial Welfare in
Uzbekistan, in The Transformation of Central Asia, ed. Pauline Jones Luong (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2004), 56.
96
Stephen Sestanovich, Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New
Independent States, Remarks to the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, House International Relations Committee,
Washington, D.C., 17 March 1999 (accessed 3 April 1999); available from
(http://www.state.gov/www/policy_remarks/1999/990317_sestanovich_hirc.tml.
97
U.S. Government Assistance to and Cooperative Activities with EurasiaFY2002, Country
AssessmentsUzbekistan (accessed 2 February 2004); available from
http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rpt/23630.htm.
98
Adam B. Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3.

89

society. Necessarily it is hard for civil society to function in places like Central Asia where
civil traditions were weakest and predatory rule greatest.99
Taken together, the above comments betray a Western-oriented set of beliefs and values
focused on the individual with little understanding of, let alone appreciation for, Uzbekistans
pre-existing society. David Rieff summarizes the Western approach to civil society by
suggesting that where it is absent, repressive, tyrannical, even genocidal forces are supposed to
have a freer hand. Civil society is thus everything that is not the state and exemplifies a set
of inherently democratic values. As such, Rieff concludes, this approach seems to be part of
the dominant ideology of the post-cold war period: liberal market capitalism.100
These definitions do not suggest conceptual, let alone practical, room for engaging religion,
existing traditional structures, or elites. Why were American policy-makers and practitioners
unable to take a geo-communal perspective, as Mackinder would demand?
To begin with, Americans strategists and civil society experts alike have had an especially
tough time in understanding the role of religion in international affairs. The sweet dream of
American political thoughtreborn in each generation, it seemsis that cultural factors like
religion will shrink into insignificance as blessed pragmatism finally comes into its own.101
Since the Enlightenment the West has separated church and state with good result. The casualty,
however, has been traditional international relations, which has generally not provided a role for
religion in its analysis.
To the extent that religion is included as a factor of analysis, it is often framed as a
simplistic ideologyand catalyst to conflict, rather than a complex worldview that forms and

99

Larry Diamond, Rethinking Civil Society Toward Democratic Consolidation, Journal of Democracy 5,
no. 3 (1994): 5, 14-15.
100
David Rieff, The False Dawn of Civil Society, The Nation, 22 February 1999, 12.
101
Jack Miles, Religion and American Foreign Policy, Survival 46, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 25.

90

informs culture and action, and therefore deserves more subtle discussion.102 If this is the case,
and it is certainly was with the U.S. engagement of Uzbekistan, then Americans need to find a
way to participate in this discussion, preferably with Uzbeks.103
In similar fashion, it is extremely difficult for the American conception of civil society to
allow for existing traditional structurese.g., elite networks and the mahallathat are, worse,
tied to religion. It just does not compute for most secular Americans. Inevitably, pre-existing
cultural mechanisms are viewed as part of the problem, instead of as a culturally congruent form
that might share, even promote, the values that American civil society holds dear.
The result is to push the development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that act as
single-issue advocacy platforms. Unfortunately, however, while they might fit into a western
concept of civil society, these NGOs simply do not do as well in places like Uzbekistan. For
example, in 2004, an older Uzbek man received U.S. training on how to deliver a political speech
in ten minutes. When he was told to practice it in front of his fellow trainees, he spent the first
ten minutes greeting everyone, as Uzbek culture calls on well-mannered people to do. He still
had his friends, but he was now a training failure.104
In his groundbreaking work, Daniel John Stevens considers the role of Western and U.S.
donors in promoting civil society in Uzbekistan. He confirms several disturbing, but not
surprising, trends. First, among western donors, there doesnt seem to be a ready definition of
what civil society actually is. For most it is interchangeable with democracy-building and
usually results in a focus on NGOs as proxy for civil society. He notes that western and US
102

Chris Seiple and Josh White, Uzbekistan and the Central Asian Crucible of Religion and Security, in
Religion and Security: The New Nexus in International Affairs, ed. Dennis Hoover and Robert Seiple (New
York: Rowman & Littlefield, Inc., 2004) ,45.
103
One innovative program on religion and education was presented by the Department of Defense in the
Fall of 2002. Unfortunately, as the coming war with Iraq took precedent, this $10 million dollar project was
scratched. Interview with DOD official, 15 June 2004.
104
Interview with Uzbek participant who observed this American NGO-led training exercise.

91

donors are reluctant to engage traditional structures because they seem to be at odds with the
western values the donor is trying to inculcate. He even concludes that the prefix civil in civil
society parallels the good in good governancethey both refer to a set of assumptions about
the way societies are best run. The civil society to be created is far from value free or pluralistic,
but an attempt to create a constituency that is able to bolster and advocate for neo-liberal
reforms.105
Instead, Stevens suggests that a more communitarian approach to civil society is needed, one
that would support pre-moderncommunities, valuing their functions of solidarity and
sociability and allowing them to structure participation in both a parochial sense, in projects of
community development, and politically, seeking to help their elites represent the community
interest at the state level. Such an approach is sceptical of the extent to which modern
associational forms can exist except on the foundations of pre-modern affiliations.106 Noted
Uzbek anthropologist David Abramson concludes that this western civil society ideology does
indeed seem to foster a particular hegemony in which civility is symbolically opposed to
accommodating an Islamic political culture.107
USAID officials confirm these critiques. As one long-time USAID employee, an Uzbek,
said: USAID doesnt deal directly with the mahalla system, except to seek its approval for local
and micro-finance loans and its influence with delinquent loanees. Or, as another USAID
employee noted, USAID, before 9/11, was focused on simply having more NGOs. Using a
classic, cookie-cutter template, USAID taught people how to fund-raise, develop a staff, etc.
105

Daniel John Stevens, Conceptual Travels Along the Silk Road: On Civil Society Aid in Uzbekistan,
Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2004, 100-111.
See pp. 245-46, Appendix 2 for a concise and very useful chart on how the various western donor agencies
define civil society.

106

Stevens, 52.
David Abramson, A Critical Look at NGOs and Civil Society as Means to an End in Uzbekistan,
unpublished paper, 20.

107

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There was never a focus on what the NGO actually did (although this has begun to change since
9/11).108
Stevens goes so far as to conclude that not unlike Lenin and his development of the
Vanguard of the Proletariat (as discussed in his 1902 treatise, What is to be Done?), the aim of
western donors has been to foster a professional elite of civil society activists, workshop trained
and clearly versed in what is to be done, to assume the leading role in the transition to western
civil society.109
In sum, because of these prevailing attitudes, one is hard pressed from 1991 to 2005 to find
any U.S. program that regularly engaged Islam, the mahalla, or the elites in a sustained manner;
that is, traditional Uzbek society. The absence of a geo-communal perspective resulted in less
understanding, which, in turn, could not help but impact American policy.
As one senior US embassy official described at the end of a three year tour in June of 2002:
Its amazing how little we know about the internal politics.110 Or, as one of the most
experienced U.S. interagency officials in Central Asia said in February of 2005: Its really
impossible to figure out whats actually going on in Uzbek politics.111

Conclusion
Mackinders revolutionary idea was that the study of geography should be approached from
the human standpoint.112 Such an idea requires a geo-communal engagement strategy that is
congruent with the culture, remembering that the transformation of a traditionalist society can

108

USAID interviews, April 2004, and October 2005, Tashkent.

Stevens, 121. See 248-249 for a ready-reference chart for programs conducted by Western donors in
Uzbekistan.
110
USG official, June 2002, Tashkent.
111
USG official, February 2005, Washington, D.C.
112
Charles Kruszewski, "The Pivot of History," Foreign Affairs (April 1954): 390.
109

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proceed only by traditional methods.113 Crucial to understanding Uzbekistan is the role Islam
plays. Indeed, it is unlikely that anything akin to civil society will develop and prosper in
Uzbekistan without the cultural and moral framework provided by resurgent Islam.114 Still,
there is a need for caution because nations cannot be born, or reborn, in a day; nor can the raw
material of individual men, personally excellent, be manufactured into a living national organism
by mere external pressure. Growth processes are from within.115

113

Sergei P. Poliakov, Everyday Islam, Religion and Tradition in Rural Central Asia, 4-5.
Reuel Hanks, Civil Society and Identity in Uzbekistan, in Civil Society in Central Asia, ed. M. Holt
Ruffin and Daniel Waugh (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), 174.

114

115

A. T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia, 173.

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CHAPTER FOUR

The Going Concern:

A Geo-Strategic Perspective

As we consider this rapid review of the broader currents of history, does not a certain
persistence of geographical relationships become evident? Is not the pivot region of the
worlds politics the vast area of Euro-Asia which is inaccessible to shipsRussia
replaces the Mongol Empire1It is true that the camel-men and horse-men are going; but
my suggestion is that railways will take their place [in the heartland], and then you will
be able to fling power from side to side of this area.2
Halford J. Mackinder, January 1904

We must understand that the importance of Central Asiato the United States lies [in
its] geographic proximity to key theaters in Europe, the Middle East, and across Asia.
Military power can be projected back and forth from any one of these theatersthe
Transcaspian area is pivotal to any such exercise.3
Stephen J. Blank, July 2005

Just over one hundred years ago, Sir Halford John Mackinder presented a majestically bold
and simple idea that has since become the intellectual heartland of geopolitics and, unbeknownst
to most Americans, the forgotten foundation of Cold War foreign policy as well as 21st century
security. While there remains a range of interpretations about Mackinder and the threefold
1

Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University
Press, 1996), 191. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of Halford
Mackinders works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: The Scope and Methods of
Geography, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160 [hereafter cited as
Scope and Methods]; The Geographical Pivot of History, Geographical Journal 23, No. 4 (1904): 421444 [hereafter cited as Pivot]; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,
1919) [hereafter cited as Ideals and Reality]; and The Round World and Winning the Peace, Foreign
Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [hereafter cited as Round World]. All page references to these
works are found in the NDU re-publishing.

As recorded in Harm J. de Blij, ed., Systematic Political Geography, second edition, (New York: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1973).285-286. [authors italics]
3
Stephen J. Blank, After Two Wars: Reflections on the American Strategic Revolution in Central Asia, a
monograph of the U.S. Army War Colleges Strategic Studies Institute, July 2005, v. It is unclear whether
Blanks use of the word pivotal is intentional; probably not because there is no mention of Mackinder in
the monograph, except in passing on page 3 (in reference to another article).

95

application of his theory, there is one undeniable and underlying constant to his thinking:
understanding the geo-communal and geo-strategic of the Heartland was vital to balancing
Eurasian and therefore global security.
Mackinder sought one thing: a formula [that] should have a practical value as setting into
perspective some of the competing forces in current international politicsMy aim [is
to]express human history as part of the life of the world organism.4 As the Englishman told
his 1904 audience during the Q & A, My aim isto make a geographical formula into which
you [can] fit any political balance.5 In order to do so, one had to possess a keen awareness of
history and geography, especially their relationship in understanding the geo-strategic impact of
the Heartland on the development of Europe and the Middle East.
This chapter considers the geo-strategic history, or going concern, of this pivotal region
and its impact on Western civilization (calling attention to our ethnocentric approach as a result).
Before examining the three phases of the U.S.-Uzbekistan relationship in detail, the chapter pays
particular attention to the influence of the Heartland concept on American geo-strategic thinking
during the Cold War, noting the double irony of the U.S. departure from southern Central Asia
(Afghanistan) 6 as the Cold War ended:
1) The U.S. forgot the intellectual underpinning of its Cold War victory, i.e., Mackinders
instrumental role in the shaping of containment policy; and,
2) The U.S. forgot Mackinders insistence that his Heartland concept be re-applied to each
new era.

Mackinder, Pivot, 176.

As recorded in de Blij, Systematic Political Geography, 286.
6
As mentioned above, this dissertation, in keeping with Central Asians own views, defines Central Asia as
Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
5

96

Because there was seemingly no awareness of Mackinders Heartland philosophy among

American policy-makers, there was also no strategic imperative to remain engaged in Central
Asia, as America left an Islamic extremist movement behind that the U.S. had helped create and
sustain.
As a result, the U.S. haphazardly engaged Uzbekistan from 1991-2000, emphasizing human
rights and civil society without a geo-communal understanding of Uzbek culture and civil
society. With September 11th, however, the United States emphasized the geo-strategic out of
military necessity as it waged a global war against terrorists, starting in Afghanistan. Even then,
however, there still was little, if any, appreciation for Mackinders geo-political thinking.

Heartland History: Empire-Builder & Empire Buffer

David Christian reminds us that the southern borderlands of Inner Asiathe Heartlands
Pivot Point, modern day Central Asiais one of the most dynamic points in Eurasia. It was here
that the nomadic north met the settled south, where the hunters and grazers of the steppes met
city and farm. As these two worlds mingled and merged in Central Asia, the only common
denominator was permanent instability. But Christian also notes that as far back as the second
millennium B.C., the cities of Central Asia acted as the worlds hub, linking China, India and
Mesopotamia, and they also linked the pastoralist and the woodland cultures of Inner Eurasia to
the agrarian cultures of Outer Eurasia.7 (The same dynamic took place along the Great Wall of
China, as nomadic groups forever changed the course of Chinese history).
At the center of Central Asia is that area between the Syr-Darya, or Jaxartes River (in
southern Kazakhstan today) and the Amu-Darya, or Oxus River to its south (the present day
border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan). Known as Transoxiana through much of its
7

David Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Volume I: Inner Eurasia from
Prehistory to the Mongol Empire (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd, 1998), 17-18, 105, 115.

97

history, this placenow the home of modern day Uzbekistanhas served two purposes
throughout history. It has been a place to build ones empire by invading west; or it has been a
buffer zone through which the expanding energy of the surrounding empires could be absorbed
without catastrophic conflict. In both cases, its Eurasian, and thus global, impact is undeniable;
something we forget to our detriment.

Heartland Catalyst: Creation of Empire

The Scythians were the first Central Asians to impact the known world (that is, the
recorded history of Europe). In 750 B.C., they left the Fergana Valley, the easternmost part of
present day Uzbekistan, and migrated east. Eventually they controlled southern Russia, to the
north of the Caucasus. Herodotus tells us that the Persian king Darius had to attack the Scythians
in the Caucasus in order to protect his northern flank. (514-512 B.C.).8
Nearly a millennium later, another group, the Huns, started to migrate west from the Altai
Mountains. Presumed descendents of the Hsiung-nu people of northern China/Mongolia, this
group became a distinct ethnic identity on the steppes of Kazakhstan in the first centuries of the
common era. They also migrated east, settling in southern Russia, pushing the Indo-European
people into Europe. It was this group that gave birth to Attila the Hun, who would terrorize the
Roman Empire in Germany, Italy and the Balkans from 441 to 453 A.D.9
No matter who emerged from the nomadic reservoirs of greater Mongolia and moved
westward into Central Asia, they brought the Darwinian nature of their land with them. As Rene
Grousset observes:

Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia 133; Rene Grousset, The Empire of the
Steppes: A History of Central Asia (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), 9.
9
Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, 75-76; Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia,
226-231; Richard N. Frye, The Heritage of Central Asia From Antiquity to the Turkish Expansion, 170171.

98

[The art of the] Assyrians and Achaemenids, like the China of the Han, show prowling beasts,
pursuing or defying each other within a simple, airy setting. Steppe artists, whether Scythians or
Huns, show scufflesoften as entangled as a thicket of lianasbetween animals locked in a
death struggle. Theirs is a dramatic art of the crushed limbs, of horses or deer seized by leopards,
bears, birds of prey, or griffins, the bodies of the victims being often wrenched completely round.
No swiftness here, no flight; instead a patient and methodical tearing of throats in whichthe
victim appears to drag the slayer to his death.10

This zero-sum conception of life still permeates Central Asian thinking today. Paradoxically,
however, there is also a syncretic dimension in the Central Asian form of power politics. These
characteristics defined such homegrown empires as the Seljuks (1040-1141 A.D.), whose empire
first demonstrated why Mackinder aptly named Central Asia as the pivot point of history.11
As the Samanid EmpireSunni Persians who were the first indigenous rulers to oversee
Transoxiana and Iran from Bukharaapproached its demise in 999 A.D., it gave its successor
states three transcendent characteristics. Foremost was an established Persian language
equivalent to Arabic in both statecraft and poetry. Second, it left an administrative organization
second to none. Third, it bequeathed a proselytizing spirit, which laid the foundation for the rise
of the Seljuk Empire.
In 893 A.D., for example, we know that the Samanids crossed their northern frontier border,
the Syr-Darya River, and seized Talas (where the Arab armies had defeated the Chinese in 751),
replacing the Nestorian church there with a mosque. Such forays inevitably bumped into the
Turkic nomads migrating west. One such group was the Oghuz, or Guzz (later Turkmen). An
offshoot of this group, led by Seljuk Timuryaligh, established itself at the lower end of the SyrDarya River around 985 (near present day Kyzl-Orda, Kazakhstan, on the northeast side of the
10

Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, 13-14.

This discussion based on the following sources: Richard C. Martin, ed. Encyclopedia of Islam and the
Muslim World, Vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 2003), 665-666; John L. Esposito, ed. The Oxford
Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 30-31; M. Th.
Houston, T.W. Arnold, R. Basset, and R. Hartmann, ed. The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. IV (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1934): 208-214; Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000), 72-76, 93-101; J.J. Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (Philadelphia: The University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 37-39; Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, 143-161; and Christian, A History
of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, 373-377.

11

99

Aral Sea), converting to Islam. He and his descendants served as mercenaries to the Samanids,
who rewarded the Seljuks with Khorezm (western Uzbekistan).
Seljuks grandsons, Toghril Beg and Chagrhi Beg, became involved in the geo-politics of
the day serving two overlords as mercenaries. The Seljuks served the Ghaznavidsanother
Turkic group from Afghanistanwho had defeated the Samanids in Iran and claimed Khorezm;
and they also served the Karakhanids, yet another Turkic group that had expanded west from
Kashgar and defeated the Samanids in Transoxiana (at Samarkand in 999 A.D.). Soon, however,
the Seljuks wanted part of Khurasan (northeastern Iran) to the south of Khorezm and the AmuDarya River. When the Ghaznavids refused, Toghril Beg and Chagrhi Beg worked with the
Karakhanids to defeat the Ghaznavids near Merv (Turkmenistan) in 1040.
While this kind of power politics has always defined Central Asia, this particular revolt
reverberated throughout the world, marking the start of five centuries during which Turkish and
Mongol nomads entered the Middle East in significant numbers, changing the course of history
as a result.
The Saljuks (Toghril Beg) quickly expanded west, capturing Baghdad in just fifteen years
(1055). The Caliph welcomed established Toghril as the King of East and West under the
Caliphs tutelage, thus establishing a nominal form of church-state relations. Toghrils
Baghdad arrival also assured Sunni ascendancy over the revolutionary Shia ideas of the Buyids
in Iraq and Iran, as well as the Fatamids in Egypt. With the restoration of orthodox Islam and
the stability of Persian iqta administrative system, came the establishment of the madrasa system
of theological colleges (begun in 1067) and the empowerment of great theologians and thinkers
such as Abu Hamid Muhammad al Ghazali (d. 1111 A.D.).

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These events alonewith their self-evident implications for the 21st Centurydemand that
we respect these Saljuks from western Uzbekistan as pivotal in the history of the world. Securing
their place among the most influential empires of all time, however, is their invasion of Anatolia
(modern day Turkey) under the leadership of Toghrils nephew, Alp Arslan (son of Chagrhi
Beg). In 1071, Alp Arslan defeated and captured the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes IV
at Manzikert in modern day Armenia. The historic impact was threefold. Anatolia was
effectively no longer a part of the Byzantine Empire. The Turks soon began to settle Asia Minor
(a migration that would prove irreversible). And, perhaps most importantly, the defeat of a
Christian Emperor at the hands of Muslims created such a tremor in Europe that Rome issued its
first call for a Crusade (Pope Gregory VI in 1074). By the end of the century, Sulieman, a Seljuk
descendant, had conquered Asia Minor, laying the foundation for the Turko-Persian empires of
the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These empires would repeatedly threaten Europe until
the end of the 17th century, forcing it to organize and defend itself (that is, to become modernday states). There is no more pivotal influence on Eurasian history than the Seljuk brothers from
Khorezm.
The Seljuk Empire came to an end, however, when the Karakitai Mongols from western
China appeared, defeating and killing the last great Seljuk Sultan, Sanjar, in 1141 near
Samarkand. The Karakitai were, in turn, defeated in 1210, by Ala ad-Din Muhammad, the leader
of the emerging Khorezmshah Empire. By 1217, Muhammads empireruled from Urgench in
western Uzbekistanencompassed all of contemporary Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan,
Iran, Iraq and Armenia. While this empires scope is fascinating in its own right, it is
Muhammads action in 1218 that would forever change the region, and the world.12

12

Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, 373-378; Rene Grousset, The Empire of the
Steppes,144-170; Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, 93-197; Erik Hildinger, Warriors of the Steppe: A

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In that year, the frontier town of Otrallocated just north of modern day Uzbekistan at the
midpoint of the Syr-Darya Riverreceived a delegation from the east (where Chingiz Khan had
established the basis for a new steppe empire in 1206). Ostensibly a trade commission, the
delegations leader improperly addressed Muhammads representative in Otral, Inal, insulting
him. Inal, already suspecting spies to be among the merchants in the caravan, massacred the
entire delegation. A second delegation was sent demanding an apology, and the punishment of
Inal. Muhammad refused and executed this group as well.
Although there is evidence that Chingiz Khan did not seek war in the west, and that he even
sought peace with the Khorezmshah Empire,13 we do know that he had no choice but to avenge
the massacre of his two delegations. By 1222 the Mongols had destroyed modern day
Uzbekistan, sacking and massacring any who resisted, particularly in Samarkand, Bukhara and
Urgench (which they also submerged by breaking the dams of the Amu-Darya river). During this
time they also conquered Afghanistan as they also laid waste to Iran and Iraq chasing
Muhammad unto his death in the Caucasus. Once aware of the easy-pickings to the west, the
sons of Chingiz Khan would return across both the steppes and the Middle East, respectively
laying waste to Europe (1238-42) and sacking Baghdad (1258).
In just over 200 yearsfrom the establishment of the Seljuk Empire to the careless
diplomacy and flight of the Khorezmshah, Mohammad the antecedent of modern day
Uzbekistan had been the unintended catalyst that changed world history. Remarkably, however,
this land in-between the Sar-Darya and the Amu-Darya would raise up one more great empire.
In 1336, Timur (iron) Lenk (lame)known in the West as Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane
was born just south of Samarkand. A Turk, he rose to power through the manipulation of friends
Military History of Central Asia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 1997), 91-96; and J.J.
Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests, 39-42.
13
Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, 401.

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and clans, being sure to always pay lip service to the descendant of Chingiz Khan who ruled on
the local throne. Timur did, however, marry a woman of Chingiz Khans descent, giving him
some claim to the immense credibility that the name of Chingiz Khan still commanded some 150
years later.14
Timur redefines paradox. He was a Turk who felt the need for Mongol credibility. He was a
devout Muslim who massacred his co-religionists, building towers of human skulls in the
aftermath of his conquests. He was a military genius with battlefield victories from Delhi to
Damascus, yet he left no organization behind to administer the most recently conquered city.15
He destroyed everything in a city except the artisans, whom he shipped back to his beloved
capital, Samarkand.
Moreover, Timur twice provided strategic support, albeit indirectly, to Christian Europe:
first, by defeating the Golden Horde on the Russian Steppe (alleviating the pressure the Horde
was putting on an emergent Muscovy); and then by defeating Ottoman Sultan, Bayazet, who
already ruled much of the Balkans and was besieging Constantinople when Timur arrived on the
scene. His victory over the Ottomans in 1402 potentially saved Europe and ensured that
Constantinople would not fall to the Turks until 1453.16
Timur died in 1405 on his way to conquer China and convert it to Islam. Curiously, he died
in Otral, the Mongol gateway to Central Asia and the world in 1218.17

14

For a fascinating account of Timur Lenks rise to power, see Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, 409419. It is no wonder that President Karimov, himself from Samarkand, identifies with Timur and his
uncanny instinct to manipulate the local politics of the moment and remain in power.
15
For example, after he defeated the Mamelukes at Damascus, they simply reoccupied the city after he left.
Even in his own backyard, he had to twice re-conquer Khorezm.
16
In terms of Europes Christian evolution in culture, rule of law, and nation-state, Timurs 1402 defeat
of the Ottomans ranks in the same category as the Moor defeat at Tours in 732, or the Ottoman defeat in
Vienna in 1683.
17
Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, 123-143; Hildinger, Warriors of the Steppe, 169-175; Grousset, The
Empire of the Steppes, 409-465.

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Ninety-five years later, as described in the previous chapter, the Uzbek people group
conquered Transoxiana. In so doing, they forced out the last Timurid descendant of note. Babur,
a prince of the Fergana Valley who ruled from Andijan, was consistently thwarted in his desire
to rule Transoxiana. Finally, the Uzbeks forced him south. In time, he conquered Afghanistan
and India, establishing the Mogul Empire in 1526, which would last, in one form or another,
until 1857.
While scholars can debate about the sweep of the Scythians and Saljuks, the might of the
Mongols, or the terror of Timur, one thing remains undeniable: we Westerners tend to
misunderstand, or forget, the geo-strategic impact this region has had on world history.
Mackinder was indeed right when he asked his 1904 audience to look upon Europe and
European history as subordinate to Asia and Asiatic history.18 He was also right to call geostrategic attention to the Heartlands roleespecially the Heart of the Heartland, modern day
Uzbekistanas a staging ground for the creation and maintenance of empire, the fulcrum from
which military power has consistently been flung from side to side.

Heartland Buffer Zone: Competition for Empire

The Heartland has also served as a buffer zone among competing powers. The first recorded
instance of this role came when the Persian King Cyrus preemptively attacked the Scythians at
Khiva (western Uzbekistan) in 529 B.C. in order to protect the northern flank of his empire.

18

Mackinder, Pivot, 177, 182. Mackinder had an acute appreciation for position on the earths surface.
For example, in 1902, he properly placed his native island on the absolute scale of chronology and
geography, noting that before the 17th Century: The known lands lay almost wholly in the Northern
Hemisphere and spread in a single continent from the shores of Spain to those of Cathay. Britain was then
at the end of the worldalmost out of the worldNo philosophy of British history can be entirely true
which does not take account of this fact. Halford Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas (New York: D.
Appleton and Company, 1902), 1.

104

In similar manner, in the 4th Century B.C., Alexander the Great also recognized the strategic
importance of Transoxiana. In order to protect his northern flank as he moved toward his eastern
goal of India, he attacked and established control of Transoxiana in order to buffer the Scythians
to the north. Using Samarkand as his capital, Alexander built more fortresses in Central Asia,
along the Syr-Darya, than anywhere else in his campaigns. Because of its central location,
Alexander ended up spending more time, and losing more troops, in Central Asia than any other
place.19 It is one of the few places where he was wounded and the only place he took a native
bride (Roxane), in order to ensure stability and continue his line.20
Likewise, Rene Grousset notes that when the Persians controlled Transoxiana, both the
Sassanids (250-550 A.D.) and the Samanids (875-999), who made their capital in Bukhara,
regarded the Syr-Darya as the northern border between the civilized and barbarian peoples.21 The
same can be said of the Arabs, who arrived in the 7th century but did not consolidate power there
until the 8th century. In particular, the Muslim victory over the Chinese at Talas in 751 A.D. (in
Kyrgyzstan), ensured that the boundary between Muslim and Pagan would be Central Asia. It
also ensured that the Chinese influence would not return until the end of the 20th century.
Perhaps the best-known example of the regions use as a buffer zone is the so-called Great
Game, creating the backdrop for todays global stage. With Ivan the Terribles 16th century
victories over the Golden Horde, the Russian state not only got stronger, but it began to expand.
In less than 300 years, the Russian Empire was extended to the South Caucasus, Siberia, Central
Asia and the Far East. This consistent characteristic gave pause to the other great empire of the

19

Frank Holt, (author of Into the Land of Bones, Alexander the Great in Afghanistan), as quoted in Kristen
M. Romey, The Forgotten Realm of Alexander, Archeology 57, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 2004): 18-25.
20
Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan, a Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban
(Oxford: Da Capo Press, 2002), 17-51.
21
Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, 142; Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia,
218-19.

105

day. One of the primary foreign policy goals of 19th century British Empire was the containment
of Russia along its southern peripheryfrom Constantinople to the Caucasus to Central Asia
(which the Russians occupied from 1865-1881).
Two different philosophies competed in the British effort to contain Russia. The first was
masterly inactivity. This approach depended on geography to separate the two empires and to
prevent Russias capacity to threaten British interests, especially India. For example, 2000 miles
separated British India from Russia in 1800. By 1876, however, it was only 1000 miles. And by
1895, there were points in the Pamir Mountains (near Tibet) where only 20 miles distance
between them. As the Russian Empire expanded, however, it brought with it the railroad.
The Forward School, saw intentional design in this expansion, with a mind to threaten the
British Raj.22 This approach, like that of Mackinder, understood the geo-strategic implications of
the railroad, as the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 demonstrated. Soon, it seemed, the railroad
would enable an attacking state to mass troops quickly as it brought overwhelming force to bear
at decisive points (especially while the British did not possess a comparable railroad system in
northern India).23 There was no choice but to contain Russia.
Although there was never a real threat of the two going to war (except for a dispute over the
Turkmenistan oasis of Pandjeh, which the Russians illegally occupied in 1885), the concept of a
buffer zone did crystallize. George Curzon, in particular, encouraged this idea in 1899 after
publishing a book on his travels through Central Asia (Curzon would later become the Viceroy
22

The Forward School was egged on by such Russian leaders as Foreign Minister Gorchakov, who
remarked in 1864 that Russia should occupy Central Asia in order to pacify the half savage, nomad
peoples of Central Asia in the interests of its frontier and its commercial relations. In less than twenty
years it would be so. As quoted in Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The
Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999), 207. Russia
was also encouraged by Otto von Bismarck, who believed that a Russia preoccupied in Asia was a Russia
less able to exert influence in Europe. Hence, he strongly supported their great civilizing mission. See
Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (New York: Kodansha
International, 1994), 301.
23
Hopkirk, The Great Game, 439.

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of India, 1899-1905). This new theory of a Buffer Afghanistan, independent, though subsidized,
and friendly though strong, was evolved.24
In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Convention was signed, effectively ending the Great Game;25 but
it did not end the need for buffer zones, or spheres of influence, in a globalizing world. As
Curzon wrote in 1908: As the habitable world shrinks, the interests or ambitions of one state
come into sharp and irreconcilable collision with those of another. As a result, like most
imperial minded men of Victorian England, he advocated buffer zones on the outskirts of
empire to separate the spheres of influence.26
It is the Forward Schools thinking that informs our last example of Central Asias use as a
buffer zonethe American use of Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Fearful
that the Moscow-friendly regime in Kabul was not up to keeping Afghanistan in the Soviet
sphere of influence, Leonid Brezhnev ordered the Soviet army to invade. On Christmas Day
1979, the 357th and 201st Motorized Rifle Division crossed pontoon bridges across the AmuDarya River, near Termez, Uzbekistan. Ten years later, on Valentines Day, 1989, the Soviet
Army would return to Uzbekistan across the Friendship Bridge at Termez, defeated for the first
time since 1920 at the gates of Warsaw.
Critical to the defeat of the Soviet Army was a policy laid out by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a man
with personal and professional experience with bufferzones, having been born in Poland and
written extensively about geopolitics (see below discussion). By New Years Day, 1980,
24

George N. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1889), 358.
Still, old ideas die hard. Five years later the British developed a plan that called for the possible
occupation of Ottoman Mesopotamia so that England could build a railroad from Basra to Mosul in order to
counterattack Russia, should it attack India. (See Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
(New York: St. Martins Griffin, 1994), 338.)
26
As quoted in Geoffrey Parker, Geopolitics: Past, Present, and Future (London: Pinter, 1998), 115.
Curzon would personally test his theories as Foreign Secretary Curzon in the aftermath of WWI. In
particular, he gave his name to the border drawn between Poland and Russia because He firmly believed
that such a zone was necessary to separate the German and Russian spheres, and the mosaic of small states
between the two was intended to be a buffer of this sort.
25

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President Carter had signed off on his national security advisors plan.27 With no other
expectations than to make the Soviets bleed by aiding the Afghans, Brzezinski still expected this
new policy to be conducted in the context of a review of regional policy, especially the
relationship with Pakistan and the U.S. fixation on non-proliferation.28 While the regional policy
never did receive significant review, the military support to the Afghans echoed advice that was
already 100 years old:
I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us, the less they will dislike us. Should
Russia, in future years, attempt to conquer Afghanistanwe should have a better chance of
attaching the Afghans to our interests if we avoid all interference with them in the meantime.29

The problem with such an approach, however, was that strategy, by definition, not only includes
the military as but one component of the solution, it also includes consideration of those who live
through the war, into the following peace.
In fact, the U.S. never had a strategy for Afghanistan. American policy-makers were content
to sub-contract everything to Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which coordinated
directly with the mujahadin. As long as Soviets were dying and the Soviets were looking bad on
the international front, it didnt matter where the money went. Howard Hart, CIA station chief in
Islamabad from 1981-1984 summarized it this way: Heres your bag of money, go raise hell.30
By the end of the 1980s, the CIA began to become aware of the twin, and independent
monsters it had, along with Saudi Arabia, funded and created. The ISI and the Islamic
fundamentalists were de facto an alliance, with well-established command and control functions,
to include financing mechanisms. When the ISI decided to support a radical fundamentalist to
rule Afghanistan as the Soviets departedGubuddin Hematyar, someone bent on eradicating his
27

Peter Schweizer, Reagans War (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 118.

Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 51.
29
General Frederick Roberts, writing from Kabul, 1880; as quoted in Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair
Brysac, Tournament of Shadows, 199.
30
Coll, Ghost Wars, 55.
28

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rivals before unifying the countrythere was not much the CIA could do.31 Civil war was
inevitable.
The famed British strategist, B. H. Liddell Hart once wrote: It is essential to conduct war
with constant regard to the peace you desire.32 Unfortunately, in achieving an unprecedented
covert, military, victory through the mujahadin, the U.S. treated Afghanistan as a classic buffer
zone, without a geo-communal regard for the people or culture, let alone, ironically enough, the
geo-strategic implications of its departure. As the Cold War ended the U.S. simply discarded
Central Asia.
There was no American policy on Afghan politics at the time [December 1987] on the de facto
promotion of Pakistani goals as carried out by Pakistani intelligence. The CIA forecasted
repeatedly during this period that postwar Afghanistan was going to be an awful mess; nobody
could prevent that. Let the Pakistanis sort out the regional politics. This was their neighborhood.33

The unintended consequences were enormous. Prior to its involvement in Afghanistan, there had
been less than one thousand madrasas in all of Pakistan. As it wound down its operation, the
CIA left almost 8000 official madrasas, and some 25,000 unofficial ones, most of them along the
Afghan-Pakistani border (funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states).34 The rise of a second,
triumphant, generation of mujahadin was inevitable.
To them the miracle victory over the Soviets was all the work of Allahnot the billions of
dollars that America and Saudi Arabia poured into the battle, not the ten-year commitment of the
CIA that turned an army of primitive tribesmen into techno-holy warriors. The consequence for
America of having waged a secret warwas that we set in motion the spirit of jihad and the
belief in our surrogate soldiers that, having brought down one superpower, they could just as
easily take on another.35

This attitude would permeate extremist thought and incite terrorist action throughout Central
Asia as the Heartland re-asserted its geo-strategic importance.
31

Ibid., 181, 211; Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 187.
B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 353.
33
Coll, Ghost Wars, 169. Also see Neamat Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan (New York:
Palgrave, 2002), 196-198.
34
Coll, Ghost Wars, 180.
35
George Crile, Charlie Wilsons War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), 522.
32

109

The Heartland and American Strategic Culture

Mackinder had written in 1904 that it did not behoove any nation to have the Heartland
dominated by one power or coalition of powers. With access to almost limitless resources, and
the sea, Eurasia under singular authority would not only have the ability to fling power from side
to side, it would also possess the long term means to build and sustain a navy, and thus outlast
and defeat the maritime powers of the marginal crescent surrounding the Heartland. That
changed with the Soviet Unions eastern front victory in World War II. Mackinder had written in
his 1943 article in Foreign Affairs that the Soviet Union:
must rank as the greatest land Power on the globe. Moreover, she will be the Power in the
strategically strongest defensive position. The Heartland is the greatest natural fortress on earth.
For the first time in history it is manned by a garrison sufficient both in number and quality... [the
U.S.S.R. is] the citadel of land power.36

Sir Halford John Mackinder died on March 6, 1947. Within the week, President Truman
would address Congress, asking them to help contain the perceived expansion of the Heartlands
tenant into Greece. In June, Secretary of State Marshall put forth his plan for Europe. And in
Julyat the urging of the Secretary of the Navy, James ForrestalGeorge Kennan published his
February 1946 long telegram as The Sources of Soviet Conduct in Foreign Affairs.37
Kennan believed that the issue was not the Soviet Union, but Russia. Echoing Mackinder,
Kennan argued that Russia had a fundamental sense of insecurity, something ingrained through
centuries of obscure battles between nomadic forces over the stretches of a vast unfortified
plain. As a result, it was Russian nature to expand into Europe and Asia. Although it was

36

Mackinder, Round World, 201.

Jeffrey M. Dorwat, Eberstadt and Forrestal (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1991), 151-152. See
also Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 63. Forrestal,
who was about to become the first Secretary of Defense in accordance with the new National Security Act
(signed 26 July 1947), was also about militarize Kennans containment. It was Forrestal who distributed the
22 February 1946 Long Telegram to Trumans cabinet, immortalizing Kennan. See James Chace,
Acheson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 150.

37

110

impossible to change the nature of Russia, it might be possible to contain the expansion. He
argued:
The Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be
contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting
geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but
which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.38

The approach had to be holistic, however, addressing the military and psychological dimensions
of intent, as well as the threat.39 This article served as the basis for the containment of the
Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, establishing the philosophical foundation for bleeding
the Soviets by supporting the mujahadin at the edge of Soviet expansion into southern Central
Asia.
Was Kennan, however, really the father of containment?
By late 1947 there soon developed a line of reasoning reminiscent of Sir Halford
Mackinders geopolitics, with its assumption that none of the worlds rimlands could be secure
if the Eurasian heartland was under the domination of a single hostile power.40 Indeed,
Kennan wrote in 1951 that it was essential to us, as it was to Britain, that no single continental

38

George Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct, 1947 (accessed 19 September 2005); available from
http://www.historyguide.org/europe/kennan.html.
39
For example, see George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy Expanded Edition (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984), 145, 172-178. Unfortunately, however, containment was soon militarized with the
publication of NSC-68 in April of 1950, and its confirmation on 25 June 1950 (when North Korea invaded
South Korea). Also see Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men (New York: Touchstone, 1986),
353, 385.
40
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National
Security Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 57. Ironically, Gaddis mistakenly refers to
Mackinders Marginal Crescent as Rimlands, a term invented by Nicholas John Spykman (Spykman
taught at Yale, as does Gaddis). Spykman reinterpreted the Heartland thesis in 1944, arguing that the
Heartland was not the key to controlling Eurasia. Instead Eurasia could be controlled by the Rimlands, or
the Marginal Crescent surrounding Eurasia. See Nicholas John Spykman, The Geography of Peace (New
York: Harcourt & Brace, 1944). See also Michael P. Gerace, Between Mackinder and Spykman:
Geopolitics, Containment, and After, Comparative Strategy 10, (1991): 347-364. Gersace argues that the
logic of Mackinders heartland, and not Spykmans rimlands, is consistent with key aspects of
containment.

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land power should come to dominate the entire Eurasian land mass.41 Yet Kennan denied any
influence of the Heartland on his containment theory;42 which seems highly unlikely given how
well-read he was and the American fascination with Mackinder during World War II.
Francis P. Sempa resolves the potential conflict this way: If Kennan was the intellectual
father of containment, the doctrines intellectual grandfather was the British geographer, Sir
Halford Mackinder.43
Irrespective of the intellectual origins of containment, the simple point is that Mackinders
Heartland became the basis of Americas Cold War containment strategy.44 This conclusion is
born out in both the policy world and the scholarly literature. In March of 1946, for example, H.
Freeman Matthews, drafted a State Department memo, noting that America dominated the sea,
the U.S.S.R. the land. Given the U.S. military ineffectiveness within the land mass of Eurasia,
the use of force in support of containment would have to be limited.45 In March of 1948, in one
of its first policy papers, the newly created NSC argued that there are areas of great potential
which if added to the existing strength of the Soviet world would enable the latter to become so

41

As quoted by Robert E. Waters, Sea Power and the Nuclear Fallacy: A Reevaluation of Global Strategy
(New York: Homes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1975), 178. Walters also notes that Kennan admitted, in his
1925-1950 memoirs, that he had been influenced by the edition, Makers of Modern Strategy (a book whose
authors were heavily influenced by Mackinder).
42
See footnote #24 in Stephen P. Jones, Global Strategic Views, Geographical Review (July 1955), 497.
Jones, based on his personal communication with Kennan, concludes that Kennan conceived
independently the doctrine of containment.
43

Francis P. Sempa, U.S. National Security Doctrines Historically Viewed: A Commentary, (accessed 2
September 2005); available from http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/ad/ad_v9sef01.html.
44
Clearly the word containment is the invention of Kennan. See The Sources of Soviet Conduct, in
Kennan, American Diplomacy, 119.
45
As quoted in Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 449. The Matthews
memo was sent out as an interagency memo on 1 April 1946, thereby influencing others. Kissinger notes
that Trumans advisor, Clark Clifford, actually issued a study on 24 September 1946, calling for a strategic
concept that stood for and protected all democratic countries which are in any way menaced or
endangered by the U.S.S.R. (Please see Henry Kissinger, Reflections on Containment, Foreign Affairs
(May/June 1994): 115). Cliffords assertion, which President Kennedy would take up in his inaugural,
echoes Mackinders own desire to create a family of democracies to balance the Heartland tenant.

112

superior in manpower, resources and territory that the prospect for the survival for the United
States as a free nation would be slight.46
Scholars have written that Mackinder reached his zenith by the late 1950s. 47 Yet,
Mackinder was clearly still relevant in March of 1964 when the State Departments Geographer
wrote: Whether we view Mackinders theory as fact or fancy, the entire American concept of
containment is inextricably bound up with his presentation of the Heartland theory.48 Robert
Walters observed in 1975 that Kennans containment policy could only have been put forward
in relation to a Heartland theory.49
And if there was any doubt that the Heartland was intrinsically interlinked with containment
and the strategic culture of the United States, consider this 1988 statement by Ronald Reagan
from his National Security Strategy for the United States:
The first historical dimension of our strategy is relatively simple, clearcut, and immensely
sensible. It is the conviction that the United States, most basic national security interests would be
endangered if a hostile state or group of states were to dominate the Eurasian landmassthat area
of the globe often referred to as the world's heartland. We fought two world wars to prevent this
from occurring. And, since 1945, we have sought to prevent the Soviet Union from capitalizing
on its geostrategic advantage to dominate its neighbors in Western Europe, Asia, and the Middle
East, and thereby fundamentally alter the global balance of power to our disadvantage. The
national strategy to achieve this objective has been containment.50

Simply, it cannot be ignored that the heartland concept substantially influenced the postwar
U.S. policy of containing Moscows expansionist appetite.51 Or as Saul Cohen states frankly:

46

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 57.

David Hooson, The HeartlandThen and Now, in Global Geostrategy: Mackinder and the Defence of
the West, ed. Brian Blouet (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 167.
48
G.T. Pearcy, Geopolitics and Foreign Relations, Department of State Bulletin, March 3, 1964, 321; as
quoted in G.R. Sloan, Geopolitics in United States Strategic Policy, 1890-1987 (New York: St. Martins
Press, 1988), 155.
49
Robert E. Walters, Sea Power and the Nuclear Fallacy, 178.
50
Ronald Reagan, The National Security Strategy of the United States, Department of State Bulletin
(April 1988), (accessed September 23, 2005); available from
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2133_v88/ai_6761415#continue.
51
Milan Hauner, What is Asia to Us?: Russias Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today (Winchester, Mass.:
Unwin Hyman, Inc.), 237.
47

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Cold War U.S. containment policy was based on [Mackinders] Heartland.52 Writing in the
mid-1990s, Colin Gray found the above discussion so obvious that he was more worried about
the future of geopolitics.
From Harry S. Truman to George Bush [41], the overarching vision of U.S. national security was
explicitly geopolitical and directly traceable to the heartland theory of Mackinder. Mackinders
relevance to the containment of a heartland-occupying Soviet Union was so apparent as to
approach the status of a clich; much more challenging is the problem of geopolitical
interpretation in this postcold war world.53

Answering this problem, while implicitly endorsing the continued relevance of Mackinder,
Henry Kissinger writes that: The domination by a single power of either of Eurasias principle
spheresEurope or Asiaremains a good definition of strategic danger for America, Cold War
or no Cold War.54
This discussion makes two basic points about the Heartland concept and its relationship to
American strategic culture. First, Mackinders concept has seeped deep into the American
strategic psycheshaping U.S. analysis, and actionwhether we realize it or not.
Second, if there is not a proper understanding of Mackinders Heartland Philosophy (as
argued in chapter two), it stands to reason that Mackinders ideas will be inappropriately applied.
Put differently, if Mackinder specifically designed his concept to be re-conceived and applied
anew according to the strategic era at hand, then the best that traditional strategists can do is
apply a petrified theory to the living organism of the new era.
The tragic-irony of our present age is that as the Cold War endedthe result of a transgenerational strategic concept rooted in the Heartland ideathere was no attempt to reinterpret

52

Saul Cohen, Geopolitics of the World System (New York: Rowman Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 16.
Colin S. Gray, The Continued Primacy of Geography, Orbis (Spring 1996): 258. Gray would later
defend Mackinders association with containment by echoing Kennans desire not to see containment
reduced to just a military equation. Nothing in his writing advisedcontainment militarily in any
particular location. Please see Colin S. Gray, In Defence of the Heartland: Sir Halford Mackinder and His
Critics a Hundred Years On, Comparative Strategy 23, no. 1 (2004): 21.
54
Kissinger, Diplomacy, 813.
53

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Mackinder, let alone anticipate the impact of his ideas on an unstable Heartland. Because
American strategists did not fully understand the strategic concept behind winning the Cold War,
they reduced the Heartland theory to a two-dimensional cardboard cutout with their geo-strategic
focus of preventing one state, the Soviet Union, from dominating Eurasia. And because they
forgot, or refused to consider, the geo-communal dimension of Mackinders writing, they were
prevented from re-applying the concept to the new strategic era.
Consequently, Central Asia was irrelevant because Mackinders geo-political thinking could
not be remembered, let conceived of, as a suitable basis for grand strategy, let alone a regional
strategy regarding the pivot point of history.
It is in this comprehensive contextgrounded in the previous chapters geo-communal
understanding of Uzbekistanthat we now consider the geo-strategic dimension of the
relationship between the United States and Uzbekistan.
There are three stages to the relationship, although it can just as easily be understood as
before 9/11 and after 9/11. The period before 9/11 is divided into two parts. The first period is
from 1983 (the beginning of Uzbek nationalism with the cotton affair) to 1994. The second
period is from 1995 (the visit of Secretary of Defense, William Perry) to 2000. The post 9/11
period is simply 2001-2005. In keeping with the Mackinderian deductions made thus farthat
we must literally and figuratively understand the local worldview as well as our ownthis
chapter presents the three phases of the relationship from both an Uzbek and an American
perspective.

1983-1994, an Uzbek Perspective

While U.S.Uzbekistan relations did not begin until early 1992, this period essentially
begins in 1983 for the Uzbeks. As described in the previous chapter, the Uzbek Affair was the
115

beginning of a defined Uzbek consciousness.55 Where Moscow saw a corruption scandal,

purging all Uzbek leaders associated with the false reporting of cotton quotas, Uzbeks saw
imperialistic measures that insulted an increasingly defined, and public, national pride. This
purge ended in 1989 with Mikhail Gorbachevs appointment of Islam Karimov as the leader of
the Communist Party. Karimov was an economist-technocrat with no perceived connections to
the scandal, or the Rashidov regime.
Moscows measures were consistent with their historic approach to leadership in Central
Asia. Fitzroy Maclean, the British diplomat and traveler, visited there in 1938, describing this
imperial mindset and management style:
As the basis for a policy of imperialism, this system has much to recommend it. Power is vested
in the hands of a group of reliable natives, who are responsible for seeing that the wishes of
central authority are carried out. If they prove unreliable, they can be replaced by others, while, if
the worst comes to the worst, an emissary of the central authority can be sent to put things right.
By this means, no risks are taken and an appearance of autonomy is preserved.56

In this regard, Karimovs ascension to power was very much like that of Titos in Yugoslavia.
After surviving the purges of the communist party in Yugoslavia, Tito was appointed a caretaker
because Moscow deemed him to be safe; that is, until history intervened (the 6 April 1941
invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany). Like Tito, Karimov was an apparently able
technocrat loyal to Moscow with no discernable domestic power base. When the August 1991
putsch in Moscow failed, Karimov only reluctantly declared independence on 1 September 1991.
No longer an accidental apparatchik, Karimov did not yield the moment. Ambassador James
F. Collins spent a considerable amount of time with Karimov during these early years. He
describes Karimov as a man of national identity and purpose; and he was in charge of a place
that had identity. In Collins opinion, only Boris Yeltsin also saw himself as the father of his
55

See James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1991); see also Ahmed
Rashid, The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1994),
92-93.
56
Fitzroy Maclean, Eastern Approaches (London: Penguin Books, 1949), 35.

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country. As such, it was Karimovs job to restore greatness. In the case of Uzbekistan, Collins
understood Karimovs view to be as simple as it was compelling: We had a bad run for 150
years with the Russians, but were back. From the beginning, Collins notes, Karimov saw the
West and especially the United States as the vehicle to reassert this status within Central Asia,
and vis--vis Russia.57
Karimov set out immediately and unabashedly to build the Uzbek nation (identity), as well as
the Uzbek state (institutions). The Uzbek language was Latinized (and learned by Uzbek leaders,
including Karimov); Timur the Lame was made a national hero; education was invested in;
President Karimov went on the hadj to Mecca and was sworn into office with his hand on the
holy Quran.
Underlying this process was oneand only oneguiding principle: stability. Without
internal and external stability, nothing was possible, especially the ongoing state and nation
building efforts. It is not surprising that he, and his domestic allies, relied on the infrastructure,
institutions and power-keeping-mindset that had been their cultural condition, as well as their
communist context.
There were several obstacles to the establishment of the Republic of Uzbekistan, as well as
the consolidation of Islam Karimovs power. Not significant among those obstacles, ironically
enough, was the economy. Certainly, the Soviet Union had not prepared Uzbekistan for
transition to a market economy. It had been developed as a mercantile colony, designed to serve
Moscow with its raw materials. Accordingly dependent on the center for investment subsidies,
there was little available capital. (These factors had almost killed the entrepreneurial spirit of
57

Interview with author, James F. Collins, 1 December 2005, Washington, D.C. Collins, a career foreign
service officer, was the Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New
Independent States from 1994-1997. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from
1997-2001. These views confirmed by several interviews, especially U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Joe
Presel (1997-2000), 4 September 2000, Tashkent.

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Uzbeks, famed since Silk Road days for conducting business). Meanwhile, state-owned
industries, to include agriculture, provided social services. Finally, the population was divided
between urban, educated Russians and rural, less-skilled Uzbeks.58
Blessed with gas, gold and white gold (cotton, of which it is the worlds 4th largest
producer), Uzbekistans raw materials prevented economic chaos. These natural resources gave
Karimov access to hard currency as he did his best to limit outside influence through a policy of
import substitution.59 As a result, Uzbekistans GDP only dropped by 15% from 1990-1993.60
Jeromin Zettelmeyer concludes that the exceptional mildness of Uzbekistans transitional
recession was due to Uzbekistans low degree of industrialization, its cotton production, and
its self-sufficiency in energy. In other words, Uzbekistan suffered less in spite of Karimovs
economic policies.61

Internal Tensions
With his economic flank essentially covered, Karimov focused on three tensions affecting
internal stability. The first issue was the management of ethnic tension. On 4 June 1989, riots
had erupted between Uzbeks and Meskhetian Turks in Fergana.62 In May and June of 1990,
ethnic riots respectively rocked the Ferghana Valley in Andijan (Uzbek-Jew/Armenian) and Osh

58

Resul Yalcin, The Rebirth of Uzbekistan (Reading (UK): Garnett Publishing Limited, 2002), 188.
In this regard, Karimov mirrored, in varying degrees, Haushofer, Mackinder and Aristotle. As far as its
being of a certain quality is concerned, it is clear that everyone would praise the territory that is the most
self-sufficient. That which bears every sort of thing is of necessity, for self-sufficiency is having everything
available and being in need of nothing Aristotle. The Politics, translated by Carnes Lord (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984), 205-206.
60
Yalcin, The Rebirth of Uzbekistan, 182.
61
Jeromin Zettelmeer, The Uzbek Growth Puzzle, Working Paper of the International Monetary Fund,
September 1998 (WP/98/133), 31.
62
The Meskhetian Sunni Muslims, are the so-called Georgia Turks, dating back to 1944 when Stalin
deported 70,000 people from the mountainous Akhaltsikhe district of Georgia. Giampaolo R. Capisani, The
Handbook of Central Asia (London: I.B. Tauris, Publishers, 2000), 80.
59

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(Uzbek-Kyrgyz). Soviet police soon quelled the riots, setting a precedent that has since kept a lid
on ethnic tensions.63
Second, Karimov had to establish himself among the leading elites and the regional clans,
which served as an alternative to formal market institutions and official bureaucracies.64 As
such the consolidation of power was not the institutionalization of official state mechanisms.
Rather, the consolidation of power witnessed the creation (historic re-affirmation, really) of an
unofficial system of checks and balances among the clans. Karimov was careful to preserve his
utility, and therefore his power, through the proportional use of carrots and sticks to maintain the
clan balancesomething that served the interests of all the clans as none was strong enough to
dominate. As discussed in the previous chapter, Karimov consolidated his power by 1993 as the
unambiguous leader of Uzbekistan. Still we often forget that he came into power with no power
base.65
A prisoner of his 1989-1993 circumstancesand the resulting power patchwork of clans that
he created and maintainsthis process was, and continues to be, a double irony. First, from the
perspective of the clans, the idea of nationalism, while superficially appealing, is but a substitute
for communisma convenient cloak that enables them to pursue their own interests; that is, to
compete for state resources.66 It is a chance to be Uzbek in structure, but clan in content.
Second, because of the zero-sum nature of the clans competition, there is no way for the
Uzbek nation to truly unitepolitically, economically, socially. In other words, the clans need
Karimov to validate their nationalism while Karimov needs the clans to legitimize his

63

These tensions are never far from the surface, however, and could easily come back; especially during a
Karimov transition.
64
Kathleen Collins, Clans, Pacts, and Politics in Central Asia, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 3 (July
2002): 142.
65
Martha Brill Olcott, presentation at the Religion & Security Conference, Beijing, 10 December 2005.
66
Collins, Clans, Pacts and Politics in Central Asia, 143.

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leadership. The status quo result is a national leadership that cannot liberalize its economy
because the vested interests of the clans would lose out (as discussed below in the repeated
attempts to make the Uzbek currency convertible).
Uzbekistans number one national security threat is its neo-Soviet, clan-based elites who
are generally incapable of reform. They are not anti-NGO, anti-religious freedom, or antieconomic reforms; they are simply against anything that threatens their control.
Everything from the governments protectionist trade policy to its persecution of pious
Muslims finds root in this fundamental understanding. Although these clans balance each
other and Karimov, together they preserve a status quo that, ironically, seals their doom
as they prevent the necessary change that the country will inevitably demand.67

In fact, as suggested in the below narrative, if the Uzbek economy cannot attract foreign
investment and therefore grow beyond its current zero-sum nature, the Karimov regime will end
through implosion (elite revolt), or through explosion (people revolt). We will return to these
ideas at the dissertations conclusion.
While solidifying his standing among the elites between 1991 and 1993, Karimov also had to
deal with the third tension: political and religious opposition. Although homegrown political
parties, such as Birlik and Erk, never gained much sway among ordinary Uzbeks, Karimov
nevertheless made them illegal by 1992, not taking any chances.68
Religious opposition, however, was completely different. As Gorbachev loosened the states
control of Islam in the late 1980s, the pace of puritan Muslim missionaries and money into
Central Asia quickened (although it was already supported by the U.S. government through the
mujahadin). With the dissolution of the Soviet empire, an ideological and spiritual vacuum
opened up, quickening the pace again. Within a year of Uzbekistans independence, for example,
there were several thousand mosques established in Uzbekistan (there had only been two
67

Chris Seiple, Implications of Instability for U.S. Interests, unpublished paper presented at DFI
Uzbekistan Futures conference, 26 May 2004.
68
For a detailed discussion of this early political opposition, see William Fierman, Political Development
in Uzbekistan: Democratization?, in Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, ed.
Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 360-408.

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mosques in 1991). As one Uzbek official said to me: When you have been in a desert for 70
years, you will drink any water, even if its muddy.69
In this context, Saudi money made its way to the religiously conservative Fergana Valley. In
the town of Namangan, two twenty-somethings, Tahrir Yuldoshov and Juma Namangani created
an Uzbek equivalent of a Neighborhood Watch network for their community. Adolat
(justice) soon became a recognized, albeit not specifically political, force calling for an Islamic
republic. Karimov, amidst his first presidential election in December 1991, felt he should address
the organization. After promising to speak with them on a visit to Namangan, Karimov did not
and returned to Tashkent.
The uproar was so great that Karimov promptly returned the next day to talk to a crowd of
five to ten thousand (accounts vary). Yuldoshov, on the stage with Karimov, did not express
personal or professional deference to his elder, even as he presented a number of demands,
among them the declaration of Uzbekistan as an Islamic Republic.70
Karimov was taken aback. For someone used to Uzbek and Communist deference to his
person, if not his rank, this insubordination was troubling and the lesson was clear. Three months
later, the popularly elected president clamped down across the country, and especially in
Namangan. With no political voice, let alone outlet, for their concerns, Namangani and

69

Zhuherin Husdinitov; at the time of the interview, he was the Special Advisor to the President of
Uzbekistan for Religion, and Rector of Islamic State University, Tashkent. Interview with author, 15 April
2004, Tashkent.
70
See Annette Bohr, Uzbekistan Politics and Foreign Policy (London: The Royal Institute of International
Affairs, 1998), 26-27; Abdujabbar A. Abduvakbitov, The Jadid Movement and Its Impact on
Contemporary Central Asia, in Central Asia, ed. Hafeez Malik (New York: St. Martins Press, 1994), 74;
and Abdummanob Polat, The Islamic Revival in Uzbekistan; A Threat to Stability? in Islam and Central
Asia: An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat?, ed. Roald Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower (Washington,
D.C.: Center for Strategic and Political Studies, 2000), 45. Also Abdummanob Polat personal e-mail to
author, 30 September 2000. A videotape exists of this encounter, especially the discussion after the
auditorium presentation. On tape is Karimov dutifully taking notes as Yoldashov dictates his demands.
Karimov is quite uncomfortable, most likely concerned for his life. (Interview with U.S. intelligence
officer, 7 June 2005).

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Yuldoshov fled Uzbekistan into neighboring Tajikistan. There they encountered the same issues:
former communists trying to dominate Islamic forces. While Yuldoshov would move on travel
among the elites of the Green International, Namangani became a field commander for the
United Tajik Opposition (UTO), fighting against the former Communist government for the
duration of the Tajik civil war (1992-1997). Later they would together found the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
External Tensions
With Namangan fresh in his memory, Karimov soon confronted his worst domestic
nightmare next door in Tajikistan. In Tajikistan the fundamentalist Islamic forces had united to
form a front against the former communist elites. It was more than obvious to Karimov and his
ruling elites that the same might happen in Uzbekistan. At all costs the threat of militant Islam
what it was and what it could behad to be contained. This logic would not only drive
Uzbekistans foreign policy in Tajikistan throughout its civil war, but define Karimovs time as
President.
As the civil war in Tajikistan began, Karimov had no choice but to get cozy with Russia. Not
possessing a fully developed military, Karimov announced that Russia was the primary provider
of Uzbekistans security.71 That same year, the Commonwealth of Independent States defense
pact was signed in Tashkent (December 1992). By 1993, Karimov was working actively with the
Russians in support of the former communists against the United Tajik Opposition (UTO).
Uzbekistan even intervened militarily against the UTO, fearing a spill-over effect into
Uzbekistan (where there are a million Tajiks).

71

As quoted in Bess Brown, National Security and Military Issues in Central Asia, in State-Building and
Military Power in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (New
York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 246. (See footnote #38 where Brown quotes Liberation, 8 September 1992.)

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Yet Karimov was not afraid to meet with UTO leaders when it served his purpose. When it
became clear that negotiations would be the best way to ensure Uzbek minority rights in northern
Tajikistan, Karimov met a UTO deputy in 1995 (there are 1.2 million Uzbeks there, or 25% of
the Tajik population).72 Two years later a peace plan emerged that, for the time being, stabilized
Uzbekistans border with Tajikistan.
Karimovs second external and paradoxical concern was Russia. On the one hand Uzbekistan
needed Russia to fight their common enemy: militant Islam. On the other hand, Russia was the
last partner Uzbekistan wanted as it tried to adopt an independent foreign policy that was in
keeping with its nascent national identity. As Martha Brill Olcott observed in 1995:
All of these states recognize that their transition to independent statehood will be shapedand
perhaps even changed beyond recognitionby a Russian state intent on playing the role of
regional hegemon. But each hopes to limit its involvement with Russia, in order to minimize the
impact of that entanglement upon its sovereignty and so reduce as much as possible Russias
long-term ability to dominate the new states economic and political life.73

Resisting Russia, however, was as old, and unlikely, as Russia overcoming the paranoia that had
resulted since Kennans obscure nomadic tribes had trespassed Russian geography. With good
reason, Alfred Thayer Mahan named the Heartlands mobility-enabling geography the
debatable ground of Asia:

The division of Asia is east and west; movement is north and south. It is the character of that
movement, and its probable future, as indicated by the relative forces, and by the lines which in
physics are called those of least resistance, that we are called to study; for in the greatness of the
stake, and in the relative settledness of conditions elsewhere, there is assurance that there will
continue to be motion until an adjustment is reached, either in the satisfaction of everybody, or by
the definite supremacy of some one of the contestants. Practically, if not logically, equilibrium
may consist in decisive overweight as well as in an even balanceanother paradoxical truth. 74
72

See Bohr, Uzbekistan Politics and Foreign Policy, 52.

Martha Brill Olcott, Sovereignty and the Near Abroad, Orbis (Summer 1995): 356.
74
A. T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1900), 43, 23. Rajan Menon
calls this decisive overweight the Russian Preponderancea question of what type of dependence
Central Asian nations should take, not whether they have the option. Please see Rajan Menon, In the
Shadow of the Bear: Security in Post-Soviet Central Asia, International Security 20, no. 1 (Summer
1995): 174.
73

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Striking an even balance that allows for decisive overweight is the sine qua non to
stability in Eurasia, and especially its fulcrum, Central Asia. Since its 1865-1881 conquest of
Central Asia, Russia has been Mahans definite supremacy, responsible for the regions
decisive overweight. This responsibility is hard to maintain given Russias strategic weakness:
she is vulnerable from everywhere. Russia replaces the Mongol Empire. Her pressure on
Finland, on Scandinavia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Persia, on India, and on China replaces the
centrifugal raids of the steppe-men. In the world at large, she occupies the central strategic
position held by Germany in Europe. She can strike on all sides and be struck from all sides.75
During the 19th and 20th Centuries, Russias strategic vulnerability was the western and
eastern flanks, while the southern underbelly was strong.76 With the fall of the Soviet empire,
however, the southern flank became the point of vulnerability. With no bufferzone in the
Southern Caucasus or Central Asia, Russia was now dependent upon these newly independent
countries to protect her largely unprotectable border.
The Russia of the 1990sstill smarting from the loss of its empire and increasingly
dominated by criminal interestsstruggled to define its policies as well as its very identity.
Consequently, the Yeltsin administration proclaimed a Russian Monroe Doctrine, whereby
only Russia had the right to intervene, politically or militarily, in its former Soviet republics to
the south.
Owen Lattimore agrees, describing Western Inner Asia (i.e., Central Asia) in 1957 as a different kind of
buffer zone. The new stabilization is active; it is in moving balance. The buffers have been transformed
into zones of transition, of access, of economic interchange. A paper presented before the American
Historical Association, December 30, 1957; as published in Owen Lattimore, Studies in Frontier History
Collected Papers, 1928-1958 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 502.
75
Mackinder, Pivot , 191.
76
As Mahan argued in 1900: To this element of powercentral positionis to be added the wedgeshaped outline of her territorial projection into central Asia, strongly supported as this is, on the one flank,
by the mountains of the Caucasus and the inland Caspian Seawholly under her controland on the other
by the ranges which extend from Afghanistan, northeasterly, along the western frontier of China. Mahan,
The Problem of Asia, 55, 25.

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Put differently, this doctrine sought to exclude global domination in its own backyard
(read: America influence). As the Russian Defense Minister said at the end of the Yeltsin era:
Western policy constitutes a challenge to Russia, a challenge aimed at weakening its
international positions and edging it out of the strategically important regions of the world,
primarily from the Caspian region, the Transcaucasia, and Central Asia.77
Unfortunately Russia was not in a position to accept this challenge in the 1990s. As
Stephen Blank noted in 1995: For the first time in modern history Russia [had] nothing to offer
its neighbors, neither a legitimizing culture nor an ideological principle to justify its imposition
of order and co-optation of local elites.78 And, its economy was a wreck. Despite this dearth
of offerings, Yeltsins Russia exercised a crude coercion to maintain its influence in the Caspian
Regionusing violence in the Southern Caucasus and intimidation in Central Asia. Throughout
the 1990s, Russia would maintain troops in seven of the eight countries (Uzbekistan being the
exception).
During the 1990s, then, Russia acted as a wounded bear, viewing its soft underbelly as a
zero-sum contest where security could only be provided by military means. The only exception,
of course, was Uzbekistan; with which it did not have a contiguous border (Stalin had finally
been outfoxed). In other words, Russia had no choice but to work with Uzbekistan, and
Uzbekistan with Russia, especially when it was in their common interest. This would certainly be
the case with militant Islamin Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and into the 21st century after 9/11, and
after Andijan.
Given these two concerns, Uzbekistan, from the beginning, sought the United States as its
guarantor of security. The U.S. was the perfect partner: Distant but global, the U.S. had the
77

Igor Sergeyev, as quoted in David Hoffman, Russia Defiant after Rap on Policy, The Boston Globe, 13
November 1999, A11.
78
Stephen Blank, Russias Real Drive to the South, Orbis (Summer 1995): 384.

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military power to balance Russia (and eventually China) and fight militant Islam while
possessing the economic power to help Uzbekistan transition to a market economy.
Of course, this viewpoint expected the U.S. to see Uzbekistan as it saw itself: the inheritor of
a great civilization and the regions natural hegemon, standing at the nexus point of the worlds
great powers and therefore competitions. Uzbekistan was the fulcrum, the literal place where the
balance of powerbetween and among Russia, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Irantook
place.
Uzbekistan never received the attention it thought it deserved from the U.S. In fact, Uzbek
foreign policy elites struggled to understand the American approach toward Uzbekistan and
Central Asia. While Uzbeks saw themselves as ground zero in the new Great Game, America
seemed to be much more comfortable engaging Uzbekistan through four different, and
overlapping, paradigms, none of which allowed for the actualities of the region, let alone the
terrorist threat.79 By trying to understand the physical and psychological worldview of Uzbek
foreign policy elites, we begin to understand how their
worldview shaped events and initiatives as much as the events and initiatives shaped their
perceptions.
To the Uzbek mind, the first monolith that the United States used to engage Central Asia was
a Russia First mentality (discussed below).80 After seventy years of the Soviet Union, this
mentality was natural enough, especially as America focused on the possibility of loose nukes.
Yet there never seemed to be room for particularity. That Uzbekistan might require its own
nuanced approach did not seem to register with the Americans.
79

These impressions represent the distillation of scores of interviews with foreign policy officials from
1999-2005.
80
This perception was strongly held throughout the South Caucasus as well (where I conducted hundreds of
interviews in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in May of 2000. At the time, I was going to write the
dissertation on GUUAM).

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The second paradigm was an East-West mindset. With independence, the republics of the
former Soviet Union (FSU) were literally grouped by U.S. agencies, especially the State
Department, as the FSU. Later, this grouping would morph into the more nuanced Newly
Independent States. While Uzbeks appreciated being considered in this context (they knew that
Europe was Americas focus), they could not understand why the Americans didnt recognize
their north-south strategic threat: the terrorism and narcotics coming out of Afghanistan. They
were a front-line state and no one seemed to appreciate it.
The third convenient and overlapping mindset that most Americans usedand continue to
useis the authoritarian monolith. This paradigm suggested that Karimov did not have his own
domestic politics to consider and balance (as discussed in the previous chapter), nor did this
viewpoint allow for the possibility that there might be positive elements among the competing
clans. This attitude was and is particularly irritating to those Uzbek leaders who want their
country to become a responsible member of the international community.
The fourth monolith portrays Uzbekistan as the egregious violator of human rights. Because
Uzbekistans geo-strategic position was not appreciatedwhile no one seemed to understand the
geo-communal framework of Uzbekistans pre-existing civil societyit was easy to reduce
Uzbekistan to a stereotype against which all could unite in the name of human rights. This
pattern was firmly established by the end of 1993.
Together, these monoliths were especially irksome to those Uzbek leaders who, because they
did not have any other option, had to work in the only political system they had. It was in this
context that the Uzbek government established its embassy in Washington, D.C., on 28 February
1993.81

81

The embassy was established by two Uzbek diplomats at the Embassy Row Hotel. Later it moved to 800
4th Street, NW, and then again to 1511 K Street, NW, the 7th floor. Today the embassy occupies one of the

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1983-1994: An American Perspective

Although an American embassy was not established until early 1992, the U.S. began to
engage Uzbekistan in a manner detrimental to its long-term interests in early 1985. At the urging
of CIA Director, William Casey, the CIA translated and printed five thousand Qurans into
Uzbek. The first shipments of these Qurans, facilitated by the ISI, were transported across the
Amu-Darya at the beginning of 1985 by the mujahadin. Once across the river, these Muslim
fundamentalists distributed them, even as they launched mortar attacks on Soviet military
positions.82 President Karimovs later fixation on the south-of-the-border threat of militant Islam
was not imaginary. The U.S. had helped create it.
As the Cold War began to wind down, the Heartland concept was simply forgotten. America
wanted to enjoy the blissful ignorance of its peace dividend. For example, when the former
CIA station chief in Islamabad happened to be discussing Afghanistan with President George
H.W. Bush, in 1991, the president responded: Is that thing still going on?83
Obviously, President Bush had much bigger things on his mind during this period. In the
spring of 1989 he had given five speeches that began to lay the framework for change. They
asked the Soviets to move beyond containment and notified them that the U.S. would not
accept spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. With the coming new century there were new

prime locations in Washington at 1746 Massachusetts Avenue. Interview with Ulegbek Ishankhovdjaev 26
July 2002. Mr. Ishankhovdjaev was one of the two diplomats to found the embassy in 1993.
82
Coll, Ghost Wars, 90, 104, 161. See also Ahmed Rashid, The Resurgence of Central Asia, 245; and
Ahmed Rashid, Islam in Central Asia: Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Islam and Central Asia, ed. Roald
Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower (Washington, D.C.: Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000), 214.
83
Coll, Ghost Wars, 228.

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opportunities for the reality of a united Europe as the idea of communism bowed to the advance
of the democratic ideal.84
Still, the events of 19891991 and the fall of communism were a surprise. As President
Bush reacted to these events, he had three priorities. First, he had to gently manage the soft
suicide of an empire. Second, he had to secure the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons. Third, he
worked hard for the unification of Germany. (And he did this while leading an unprecedented
global coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in the first Gulf War). In order to achieve
each of these tasks, President Bush absolutely needed Moscow. Everything else was subordinate
to these major initiatives.
Looking back, we should not underestimate the leadership involved to achieve these goals.
Nor should we be surprised that Central Asia, to include Afghanistan, was not at the top of the
presidents priority list. Focused on the former Soviet Unions nuclear arsenal (then located in
the newly independent states of Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and Belarus) while working to prevent
the widespread death and chaos that usually accompanies the death of an ideology and empire,
the Bush administration will undoubtedly go down in history for its deft management of these
monumental issues. With all that could have happened with the death of the Soviet Union, we are
all very fortunate to have the outcome that we did.
By focusing on the big picture, however, the Bush administration clearly preferred the map
knownand the stability it offeredto the unknown map of national aspirations and instability
it suggested. For example, upon returning from Yugoslavia in June of 1991, Secretary of State
Baker reported to the Freedom Forum that there was a distinct air of unreality, an inability on
84

See George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred Knopf, Inc., 1998); and
Robert L Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: an Insiders Account of US Policy
in Europe, 1989-1992 (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1997). The five speeches included: 1) Hamtramck,
Michigan (17 April); Texas A&M (12 May); Boston University (21 May); The U.S. Coast Guard Academy
(24 May); and Mainz, Germany (31 May).

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the part of several of the republic leaders to understandthe dangerous consequences of

seeking independence.85 Soon thereafter, President Bush told a Ukrainian audience starving for
official American recognition that the U.S. preferred to work through President Gorbachev.86
Within a month of this speech, Uzbekistan had declared independence after the failed putsch in
Moscow against Gorbachev; and the Soviet Union was dead by the end of the year.87
The Bush administration moved quickly to recognize Kazakhstan in the fall of 1991. The
only Central Asia country mentioned in the Bush-Scowcroft memoir, A World Transformed,
Kazakhstan was recognized immediately in September 1991 because it had nuclear weapons.
While the context was certainly understandable, the signal sent was that Uzbekistan was not
important.
At the beginning of 1992, President Bush sent his Secretary of State, James Baker, to
Tashkent. The purpose of the visit was to meet President Karimov and determine whether
Uzbekistan would work toward democracy. This trip was a harbinger of the characteristics that
would define the U.S.-Uzbekistan relationship through 2005.
To begin with, President Karimov said all the right things, espousing democratic reform and
free markets. He even pulled out a copy of Secretary Bakers ten guiding principles for the

85

James Baker III, Address to the Gannett Foundation Freedom Forum, 26 June 1991, Rosslyn, Virginia,
Federal News Service, Federal Information Systems Corporation. Also see Reuter, U.S. Wont Accept
Slovenian Secession, The Toronto Star, 22 June 1991, A12. Less than a year later, the United States would
recognize the independence of the former Yugoslav states (after the Europeans had first recognized them).
See Patrick Rahir, Washington Makes Tough Decision on Yugoslavia after Policy Struggle, Agence
France Presse , 8 April 1992.
86
See Terence Hunt, Bush Warns Republics against Hopeless Course of Isolation, Associated Press, 1
August 1991; also see Bogdan Turek, Bush Endorses Ties with Ukraine but not at Gorbachevs Expense,
United Press International, 1 August 1991. Brent Scowcroft offers a different, if unconvincing,
interpretation in A World Transformed (see page 516).
87
A number of Uzbek academics have commented to me that it was obvious to them that President Bush
(41) really didnt know what to do with Uzbekistan during this time. (Not that Uzbekistan knew what it
wanted at this time as it too tried to avoid chaos).

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former Soviet Union states (given in a 16 December 1991 speech at Princeton University),88 and
recited them to him. This imageof mouthing democratic clichs just before he cracked down
on secular and Muslim political groups in March 1992would itself become clich as U.S.
government officials gradually lost confidence in Karimovs commitment to reform.
Second, Baker established a critical marker for U.S. policy, given the potential proclivity for
cheap talk among dictators. When we are in a position to talk and reason with the leaders of the
newly emerging democracies, we can be a force for more freedomwe use those relations to
push for greater economic and political reform. It was better to have a seat at the table and
engage, than to not be there at all.89
Third, reformers living in Uzbekistan encouraged diplomatic recognition and engagement by
the U.S., which they saw as positive for them and Uzbekistan. The founder of the Birlik Party,
Abdul Pulatov, noted the sooner diplomatic relations are established, the better it will be for
those forces that do not have democratic freedoms. Throughout the course of the relationship,
many westerners have recommended that the U.S. disengage. It is usually the Uzbeks
themselves, however, no matter their profession, who make the case for U.S. engagement.
(Pulatov, for example, was against sanctions after the Andijan events in May 2005).90
Fourth, it was soon very obvious to Bakers delegation that they were in an opaque culture
that was difficult to understand. Indeed, they recognized just how little they knew. Officials on
88

See James Baker 12 December 1991, Princeton address: America and the Collapse of the Soviet
Empire: What has to be Done (U.S. Department of State Dispatch 2, no. 50 (1991). See also Bakers
6 February 1991 testimonyOpportunities to Build a New World Orderbefore the House Foreign
Affairs Committee for another take the large contours of American policy at that time (U.S. Department of
State Dispatch 2, no. 6 (1991)).
89
David Hoffman, Baker Discusses Democratic Reforms with Uzbek Leaders, Washington Post, 17
February 1992, A30.
90
Another example: when the Uzbek government asked me to participate as a monitor for the 27 January
2002 presidential election, the State Department, the Helsinki Commission and others recommended that
I not go as it would lend credence to the government. Every contact who lived in Uzbekistan, however,
Uzbek or American, recommended that I participate. Everyone knew the election was a joke, but it
provided the opportunity to engage for the future.

131

the trip acknowledged that, the internal politics that will shape these republics remains a
mystery.91 Ambassador Collins confirms: Frankly, no one knew anything about these
places.92 As discussed at the end of the previous chapter, this mystery would not change. As one
senior embassy official reported at the end of a three-year tour: Its amazing how little we know
about how this country works.93 Or, as one of the most experienced U.S. interagency officials in
Central Asia described in February of 2005: Its really impossible to figure out whats actually
going on in Uzbek politics.94
The U.S. established diplomatic relations on 9 February 1992, opening its embassy the next
month. By the summer of 1992, Peace Corps volunteers and other NGOs were arriving. That fall,
President Bush signed the Freedom Support Act, enabling $388.13 million dollars to be spent
from 1992-2004 in support of the following sectors: democracy ($98.6); economic and social
reform ($200.52); humanitarian ($19.9); security & law enforcement ($51.16); and cross-cutting
initiatives ($17.95).95
The formal recognition and funding of the newly independent states such as Uzbekistan
served one overarching purpose: the non-restoration of the U.S.S.R. Amidst discussions with
Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan about the peaceful surrender of their nuclear weapons, the
normalization of borders and the Russian troop withdrawals from the Baltics (not to mention the
troop build-up in the Gulf to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait), it was all the U.S. government
could do to treat [the former Soviet Republics] as adults, establish full embassies, and

91

Thomas L. Friedman, Uzbeks Say Yes to Democracy, Of Course, New York Times, 17 February 1992,

7.
92

Collins, 1 December 2005, Washington, D.C.

USG official, June 2002, Tashkent.
94
USG official, February 2005, Washington, D.C.
95
Statistics emailed by the USAID Mission Director, Joann Hale, 31 August 2004. This total represents
nearly 2/3 of the cumulative USG funds spent during this time in these sectors ($643.6 million dollars).
Freedom Support Act spending in Uzbekistan was $33.5 million dollars for FY05
(http://www.usaid.gov/locations/europe_eurasia/car).
93

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recognize them as, and encourage them to be, full, responsible members of the international
community.96
Perhaps it should be no surprise then that the U.S. did not fund such homegrown democratic
movements as Birlik or Erk (although it does indicate a key difference between the
administrations of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush). As the co-founder of Birlik wrote
to me: I can understand why the US govt did not give any aid to Uzb. Dem/movement in 198792we were almost unknown for the US. Still, the US lost an opportunity.97
1992, however, was an American election year that was about the economy, stupid. Bill
Clintons 4200-word acceptance speech for the Democratic Partys nomination used 141 words
to address foreign affairs.98 Once president, he continued to focus on domestic affairs, leaving
issues regarding Russia and the former Soviet Union to Strobe Talbott, the presidents longtime
friend and a Russophile. (Talbott served as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the
Secretary of State on the New Independent States from 1993-1994, before becoming the Deputy
Secretary of State from 1994-2001). As a result, Talbott de facto shaped U.S.-Uzbekistan
relations through his overemphasis on Russia, leaving little to no time to participate in the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship. His general lack of interest in Central Asia would characterize U.S.
engagement during the Clinton administration (except for the Department of Defense).
On 3 May 1994, Talbott laid out his vision for the region at the U.S.-Central Asia Business
Conference in Washington, D.C. In his remarks, Talbott clearly put Russia first as he promoted
abstract ideals of free-markets and human rights with no contextual sense for how they might be
realistically applied. The theory here is simple: If reform succeeds in Russia, it is more likely to
96

Collins interview, 1 December 2005, Washington, D.C.

Abdumannob Polat, brother to Abdul, personal email to author, 24 August 2004. Between 19871992as far as I know, [the national democratic movement of Uzbekistan] received $0 from the US or any
other govt
98
Coll, Ghost Wars, 240.
97

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succeed among Russias neighbors. (In this same speech, Talbott naively likened the president
of Kyrgyzstan to both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson). 99 In other words, U.S. policy
was to create Russia anew in an American image so Russia could, in turn, do the same thing with
their former Central Asian republics; who, presumably, would be anxious to do so (especially
since at least one of them was already a Jeffersonian democrat).
In working toward the inclusion of Russia into the West, Talbott unknowingly echoed
Mackinders 1943 prediction for Russia, Europe and North America to work together. That said,
the arrogance and ignorance of the speech is astounding.
Good advice, however, was available during this time. In May of 1993, one year before
Talbotts speech, the former Director of Radio Liberty offered some sound and preemptive
advice. The Clinton administration should separate:
the new non-Russian states from the concept of Russia. The administration should direct aid
selectively to some of the new non-Russian statesregardless of what happens to
RussiaUzbekistan is the key to Central Asian stability. Yet it has received little except
opprobrium from Western democrats for its slowness in shedding its Soviet ways[Karimov]
told me [in the spring of 1992] that the United States will wish it had paid less attention to Russia
and more to Uzbekistan when other influences burst into the open[such as the] Islamic
militancy affecting neighboring TajikistanAid and support should flow naturally in accordance
with the new strategic realities.100

Paul Wolfowitz was particularly concerned that the Clinton administration was, in general,
too comfortable with a minimal effort to protect American interests. Specifically, he thought
the administration was:
not only unwilling to challenge Russian actions in its so-called near-abroad [the South Caucasus
and Central Asia], but also seem[ed] unresponsive to the security concerns of the East Europeans
and unenthusiastic in its support of Ukrainian independence. A policy of Russia first, pursued
with balance, makes sense as long as Russia is proceeding on a moderate and democratic course,
but the administration is slipping into a dangerous and misguided policy of Russia only.101
99

Strobe Talbott, Promoting Democracy and Prosperity in Central Asia, U.S. Department of State
Dispatch 5, no. 19 (1994): 280.
100
S. Enders Wimbush, In Aid Game, U.S. Must Look Beyond Russia, Insight on the News 9, no. 21
(1993): 22.
101
Paul D. Wolfowitz, Clintons First Year, Foreign Affairs 73, no. 1 (January/February 1994): 29, 41.

134

Although sound, both critiques were from administration outsiders, especially Wolfowitz, a
well-known Republican. Yet there was one more voice with immense credibility, a Democrat
and a former National Security Advisor who understood the importance of the Heartland.
Writing in 1994, Brzezinski concluded that Russia as the primary focus of U.S. policy was
wrong-headed, flawed in its assumptions and dangerous in its likely geopolitical
consequences.102 He noted that democratic progress takes time, as the examples of Taiwan and
Korea demonstrate.
As Ambassador Collins points out, however, an intellectual and budgetary framework
already existed. It was only natural that American officials engaged Central Asia accordingly;
i.e., through an East-West context, centered on Moscow. There was no other way to consider
it.
According to this argument, this de facto mindset among American policy-makers was a
good thing. The (West) European desk at the State Department was the most important regional
desk. Engagement from a traditional East-West perspective gave the former Soviet republics an
importance that they would not garner as part of any other regional desk. The European
perspective would also directly encourage the development of democracy.
That said, Central Asia was not seen as important, and therefore there was no reason to put
resources and talent [personnel] into it. In fact, as the Ambassador-at-Large for the New
Independent States, Collins had no one providing guidance to him (given Talbotts Russiacentric approach). The good, and bad, news was that DC didnt pay any attention; I was left
alone to do whatever I wanted. There was much to do.

102

Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Premature Partnership, Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (March/April 1994): 6783.

135

By all accounts, the U.S. presence in Uzbekistan that first year did not accomplish much. The
first U.S. ambassador did not seem to understand the entire context, focusing entirely on
President Karimovs crackdown of political and Islamic opponents. Collins: We had lectured
them about human rights and how to be Jefferson democrats in 1993it didnt go down very
well. In fact, there was no relationship with Uzbeks until 1994. Collins offered the Central
Asians a different package. Instead of bowing to the historical hegemony of their Russian,
Chinese or Iranian neighbors, the U.S. offered a fourth option: real independence.103
And thus began the only consistent theme to the U.S. engagement of Central Asia and
Uzbekistanthe prevention of a regional hegemon from monopolizing the heart of the
Heartlandas Mackinder, unbeknownst to most American policy-makers, quietly reasserted
himself.
To be certain, as will be discussed below, there were plenty of things U.S. policy was for
during this time period; e.g., democracy, prosperity, stability, etc. It was only the negative theme
of anti-monopoly, however, that practically transcended American administrations as well as the
phases of the relationship. Not surprisingly then, the U.S.-Uzbekistan relationship really begins
with the Department of Defense.
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia,
Ukraine and Eurasia, tells the story of flying to Uzbekistan, accompanied by two majors, to meet
the Uzbek Army Chief of staff. When the Uzbek general walked into the room, he saw one
woman and two officers of field rank. He then did what any good Soviet general would do, and
left.

103

Collins, 1 December 2005; also Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, 26 October 2005, New York City.

136

Everything we did, right from the beginning, was an object lesson in democracy.
Sherwood-Randall quickly moved past the slight and found someone with whom she could work,
General Rostam Achmedov, the Uzbek Minister of Defense. Together, they began to build a
military-to-military relationship between the two countries. In January 1994, Uzbekistan joined
NATOs Partnership-for-Peace program, whereby former Warsaw Pact officers participated in
cultural and educational exchanges with NATO, as well as field exercises.
Put yourself in the moment: it was a new security framework, and we did not know if the
death of the Soviet empire was irreversible. We offered them an alternative to Russian
dominance.104 And the Uzbeks appreciated it. Present from the very beginning of the
relationship, Uzbek diplomat Ulegbek Ishankhovdjaev reflected on the importance of the
military relationship. Liz was the pioneer of mil-to-mil relationsshe effected the change of
minds in the Uzbek leadership.105

1995-2000: An Uzbek Perspective

Secretary of Defense Perrys visit to Uzbekistan in 1995, marked the beginning of a second
phase in the bilateral relationship. The Perry visit signaled that these two countries could talk to
each other over common interests; namely, security. This military-to-military relationship would
also put in place the interagency process that would enabled the U.S. to quickly respond to 9/11
with Uzbekistans support. Perrys visit was a turning point for Uzbek foreign policy elites as
well. They could now entertain a previously unimagined foreign policy objective: a truly
independent foreign policy enabled by an ongoing U.S. interest that balanced Russia.

104
105

Sherwood-Randall, 26 October 2005.

Ulegbek Ishankhovdjaev, 26 July 2002, Washington, D.C.

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The Perry Visit

On April 8, 1995, the Secretary of Defense for the United States of America visited Tashkent
and Samarkand. Dr. William Perry was a man who invested in personal relations, believing
that eye-to-eye engagement could begin to adjust the Uzbek worldview from the paranoid to
the possible. Just four years after the demise of the Soviet Union, an American Secretary of
Defense was visiting Uzbekistan, unequivocally signaling to Uzbek (and Russian) elites that
Uzbekistan mattered.
Karimov warned Perry about Afghanistan, and they talked about the reform of Uzbekistans
military, which was still a Soviet leftover in organization, doctrine and mentality.106 It was a
moment, a time that clearly demarcated a break from the past characteristics of the bilateral
relationship and the chance for a fresh start. It was a soft approach that allowed for the fair
assumption that Central Asians had very little knowledge about how the outside world works,
whilst their leaders have only borrowed ideas as to how to bring about change.107
Among Uzbekistans foreign policy elites, however, there was a very clear understanding of
issues. This small band of analysts was looking for a new model of regional security in the
mid-90s that included the surrounding powers, as well as the United States. This model would
balance Russias doctrine of strategic negation; that is, the Monroe Doctrine of denying any
country the ability to influence its backyard. For these geo-strategically minded elites, the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship did not truly start until the Perry visit. The subsequent military-tomilitary initiatives were the founding of the relationship as the Pentagon was the only [USG]
structure that had a strategic approach to Uzbekistan and the region.108

106

Sherwood-Randall, 26 October 2005.

Ahmed Rashid, The Resurgence of Central Asia, 245.
108
Uzbek official.
107

138

The Perry visit led to Uzbek officers, enlisted personnel and units traveling to the United
States for professional exchanges, education and exercises.109 The visit also contributed to the
transformation of the Uzbek army from a Soviet style force to a modern mobile force capable of
striking quickly. Writing in 1995, Maxim Shashenkov anticipated the force needed to counter the
likes of the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), four year later: How
capable [will] the Uzbekistan army be in conducting low-intensity warfare in Tajikistan or on
the frontier with Afghanistan?110
An interagency working group of twelve people was established in 1995 to examine
Uzbekistans military doctrine. Headed up by Professor Rachmankulov of the National Security
Council, this group produced a new military doctrine, rooted in maneuver warfare that was
implemented in February of 2000 (preceded by the October 1999 installation of the first civilian
Minister of Defense).111
It was also in 1995 that a new War Academy was established to enable a strong, compact,
mobile Army. A good officer corps is critical. We need open-minded officers. Challenges
included developing a new curriculumThe old Soviet doctrine is not applicable to our region
and our situationand introducing the Uzbek language to the officer corps, most of whom
spoke Russian. They also had a need for information technology experts; a simulation capacity;
an NCO academy so decision-making could be decentralized to the lowest level possible (in
keeping with the nature of 21st century warfare); and a center for serious officers to study the
operational art of military campaigns. The need also included sending as many junior officers to
109

Most of which was made possible by General Jack Sheehan, USMC, then the NATO Supreme Allied
Commander, Atlantic. SACLANT goodies, and Sheehans personality, made these interactions, especially
in 1996 and 1997, possible. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, 26 October 2005.
110
Maxim Shashenkov, Central Asia: Emerging Military-Strategic Issues, in After Empire: The Emerging
Geopolitics of Central Asia, ed. Jed C. Snyder (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press,
1995), 105.
111
Kadyr Gulamov, Minister of Defense for Uzbekistan, 11 September 2001, Tashkent.

139

the West as possible. One 30 year-old Captain simply said upon returning from NATOs
Marshall Center in Germany: My eyes were opened.112
The Economy
In a similar vein, Karimov seemed ready to open his eyes to the need to reform the economy
in 1995; despite criticism for maintaining his import substitution policy while subsidizing energy
and food stuffs in the name of social stability. Karimov began to liberalize his import/export
and convertibility policies, while fostering greater trade. The 1996 combination of a balance of
payments crisis, a poor cotton harvest (the primary source of hard currency), dropping world
cotton prices and increased wheat prices (imported, and key to providing bread to ordinary
Uzbeks), however, proved too much for this control-oriented president in charge of a centralized
economy. Karimov soon restricted access to hard currency.113
In other words, fearful of outsiders influencing his economy, Karimov set up a series of
exchange rate mechanisms through his banks to remove hard currency from the system. If you
control the exchange rate, you control everything. We want to control it and not depend on
foreign exchange, where people can gang up on you and force you to do things.114
Despite the IMF suspending its December 1995 Standby Arrangements (SBA) in 1996,
Karimovs wisdom was soon confirmed by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the
Russian financial crisis of 1998; both of which, to his mind, demonstrated the danger of outside
forces in Uzbekistans economy.
112

Kadyr Gulamov, then the Commandant of the Uzbek War College, 28 August 2000, Tashkent.
As general overviews of this period, see, for example, Robert M. Cutler, Uzbekistans Trade
Liberalization: Key to Central Asian Economic Integration, The Analyst, February 16, 2000 (accessed 2
February 2000); available from http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=192; and Richard
Pomfret, Recent Economic Reforms in Uzbekistan, The Analyst, September 26, 2004 (accessed 12
December 2001); available from http://www.cornellcaspian.com/analyst/010926_H1.htm. Also see Martha
Brill Olcott, Central Asias New States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1996), 131-136;
Olcotts Central Asias Second Chance (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 2005), 117;
and Resul Yalcin, The Rebirth of Uzbekistan, 184-233.
114
An Uzbek official familiar with the economy.
113

140

By 2000, Karimovs economy did not have much to show for its non-participation in a
globalized economy: it had the lowest per capita level of all transition countries in attracting
foreign equity investment while its foreign trade declined by 40% from 1996-2000.115
Because of Uzbekistans unwillingness to reformsymbolized through the never-ending
promises to make the Uzbek currency, the som, fully convertiblethe IMF closed its office in
Tashkent in early 2001.
These self-inflicted wounds are difficult to understand unless two reminders constantly
inform analysis. First, Uzbek officials fear only that which they cannot control. Second, a
mentality shift was beginning to take place among Uzbek elites, especially the younger
generation. As one Uzbek official stated in 2000:

There is a conflict in both government and business today between old thinkers and new thinkers.
Old thinkers cant transfer their minds and skills automatically. They speak very nicely using the
new terminology but you cant be sure they what theyre talking about. We need to re-tune the
system. Still, think of Uzbekistan like an oriental nationyou always have to keep the
hierarchy in mind.116

Militant Islam Gathering: The External Threat

Re-tuning takes time, however, and it is especially hard to do when such real world threats as
militant Islam appear on the horizon. As is well known now, a global and militant Islam matured
between 1995 and 2000 in Central Asia with Afghanistan especially serving as the incubator.
While the American mind distinguishes between the former Soviet Central Asiathat is, the five
republicsand Afghanistan, the Central Asian mind does not. Afghanistan, and Pakistan, are

115

Christoph B. Rosenberg, unpublished paper, 14 Arguments about Current Account Convertibility

Frequently Heard in Uzbekistan, February 2001, Tashkent. Rosenberg headed the IMFs office in
Tashkent.
116
Uzbek official.

141

intricately interwoven into the Central Asians security complex. You have to think of
Afghanistan and Pakistan when you think of Uzbekistan.117
A number of key events took place during this time, framing President Karimovs
understanding of Uzbekistan as a front-line state in the war against militant Islam (which took
place against the ongoing war in Tajikistan).
Of incalculable and indelible impact, however, was the rise of the Taliban. Afghanistan was
geo-strategically important for two reasons. First, it bordered Uzbekistan at Termez, and
therefore represented an invasion route. (After all, it was over the Friendship Bridge in Termez
that Soviet troops had invaded, and then retreated from, Afghanistan). Second, there were two
million ethnic Uzbeks living in northern Afghanistan to whom Uzbekistan felt an allegiance (as
it did to the Uzbeks living in northern Tajikistan). With the fall of Kabul on 27 September 2006,
the Taliban soon represented a direct threat to Uzbekistan, even as they created a safe harbor for
global militant Islam in landlocked Central Asia.
Not fully confident in his military, which had just started to transform away from the Soviet
model, Karimovs reaction to the Taliban reveals his paramount concern for the spread of
extremist and militant Islam. Karimovs reaction also reveals his overarching principle of
maintaining maximum independence for Uzbekistan and therefore himself.
When the Taliban briefly captured the northern Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif in May of
1997 (reaching the Uzbek border in the process), Karimov called for the establishment of an
international contact group in October to address the issue. This multilateral effort (the 6+2
group) provided the framework through which Afghanistan was discussed by the international
117

Martha Brill Olcott, interview, 25 October 2000, Washington, D.C. During a June 2002 International
Institute for Strategic Studies conference in Tashkent on Afghanistans reconstructionattended by the
entire region and surrounding powers (including China and Iran)almost every participant explicitly or
implicitly assumed Afghanistan to be a part of Central Asia, from a geo-strategic and geo-communal
perspective. (I was the only American attending, 14-16 June 2002).

142

community. It also sent a strong signal to Russia that while Central Asia was its backyard, it was
not its sphere of influence.
When the Taliban again overran Mazar-i-Sharif in August of 1998, Karimov was frightened
to the extent that he convened a Central Asia summit of defense ministers, and he permitted a
joint Russian-Uzbek statement to be made from Tashkent about the need to preserve the borders
of the Commonwealth of Independent States.118 The following year, with the Taliban still
threatening, Karimov met with Prime Minister Putin on 11 December 1999 in Tashkent. They
signed a military cooperation pact that established a new level of relations in security matters
with Uzbekistan, according to Putin, as Russias strategic partner for many, many years.119 In
May of 2000, Karimov stated unequivocally that Uzbekistan findsprotection in the form of
Russia.120
When the Taliban conquered 95% of Afghanistan in the fall of 2000, Karimov
sent official Uzbek envoys in October to meet Taliban representatives in Islamabad (and
then Khandahar).121 The Uzbeks were very aware that if Massoud and the Northern Alliance
were defeated, the Taliban had already declared Samarkand and Bukhara holy cities that
needed to be united under their rule.122
In November 2000, rumors swirled that Russia and the U.S. were going to launch an attack
against the Taliban and Osama Bin Ladens al Qaeda from Uzbekistan. It was no surprise,
however, when the Uzbek foreign minister officially announced that Uzbekistan would provide
118

Neil J. Melvin, Uzbekistan: Transition to Authoritarianism on the Silk Road (Amsterdam: The Gordon
and Breach Publishing Group, 2000), 99-100.
119
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian PM Calls Uzbekistan Strategic Partner, 13 December,
1999 (accessed 4 March 2000); available from http://www.rferl.org/newsline/1999/12/2-tca/tca131299.asp.
120
Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002),
197 (see footnote #7, which quotes AFP, Uzbekistan Asks Russia for Protection against Terrorism, 19
May 2000).
121
Rashid, Jihad, 197; Uzbek officials.
122
Gulamov, 28 August 2000.

143

no such base.123 Air attacks from countries not contiguous to Afghanistan were simply not good
enough, as it placed Uzbekistan at direct risk. Shortly after 9/11, an American missionary put the
reality of the threat into perspective: What would you think if the Taliban controlled
Canada?124
Steve Coll records that as early as 1996, Pakistans prime minister, Benazir Bhutto feared
that a Taliban government would press its Islamic militancy on toward Central Asia. He also
notes that Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the northern alliance, believed that al Qaeda
wanted to destroy him in order to link up with Islamist militants in remote areas of Uzbekistan
and Tajikistan, to press forward into Central Asia, burnishing bin Ladens mystique as a
conqueror of lost Islamic lands.125 In other words, Karimovs actions from 1997-2000 did not
reflect the mind of a dictatoras he was unquestionably regarded at the end of 2005. Instead, his
actions reflect the mind of a leader facing a very real threat, alone; a threat that was both
conventional and unconventional.
Taliban and al Qaeda were much more than a hostile regime capable of conventionally
defeating Uzbekistans nascent military. It was the incubator for a global militant Islam.
Thousands of foreign radicals now fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan are
determined to someday overthrow their own regimes and carry out Taliban-style Islamist
revolutions. For example, the Chechnya-based militants who took over parts of Dagestan in
July [1999] included in their ranks Arabs, Afghans, and Pakistanis, most of whom had fought in
Afghanistan. So had the 800 Uzbek and Tajik gunmen who took over parts of southern
Kyrgyzstan in August [1999]. The state breakdown in Afghanistan offers militants from
Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian republics, and Chinas predominantly Muslim Xinjiang
province a tempting package deal: sanctuary and financial support through [drug]
smuggling.126

123

Marina Kolzova, Uzbekistan Says No to Bin Laden Attacks, United Press International, November
29, 2000. Accessed 3 December 2000. Available from LexisNexis.
124
Interview, Tashkent.
125
Coll, Ghost Wars, 331, 561.
126
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs 78, No. 6 (November/December
1999), 23.

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The Taliban was an increasingly loud echo of what was already taking place in Uzbekistan
itselfand that could not be allowed. Karimov got his first hint of what that might look like in
December 1997 (just months after Mazar-i-Sharif had been overrun the first time).

Extremist Islam Gathering: The Internal Threat

On 2 December 1997 in Namanganthe same town where Karimov had been introduced to
militant Islam in December 1991terrorists decapitated a Ministry of Internal Affairs officer.127
The resulting crackdown was the most comprehensive to date. In their well-documented report,
Crackdown in the Farghona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination, Human
Rights Watch describes how over a thousand men in Namangan and surrounding cities were
indiscriminately rounded up under the most primitive of pretenses; often after the planting of
narcotics and weapons.
Planting such evidence was reportedly so widespread during the crackdown that, according
to local residents, men in that area tried to wear clothing without pockets to help deter such
commonly used set-ups. Once detained, suspects were routinely beat or tortured and
subjected to psychological pressure that threatened harm to family members if confessions were
not made. Human Rights Watch could only conclude that legitimate concern for state security
has been corrupted by politically motivated repression and police abuse [the crackdown was]
merely a dramatic escalation of a sporadic six-year government campaign against free expression
of religion, specifically nongovernmental Islam.128

127

Rashid says it was an Army Captain, Jihad, 146.

Humans Right Watch, Republic of Uzbekistan, Crackdown in the Farghona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests
and Religious Discrimination, 10, no. 4 (D) (accessed 2 November 1999); available from
128

145

The crackdown did not end there. It was legalized on 1 May 1998, when the Uzbek
parliament passed The Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations. This law,
among other things, made it illegal to proselytize, prohibited the private teaching of religious
principles, prevented the wearing of headdresses, and required all religious organizations to have
at least 100 members in order to register. The law also stiffened the penalties associated with
such crimes.129 In his Parliamentary speech that day, President Karimov denounced the
Islamic extremists, stating that Such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, Ill shoot
them myself.130
Eight months later, and just six months after the Talibans August 1998 recapture of Mazar-iSharif, several bomb blasts rocked Tashkent on 16 February 1999. In what was an apparent
assassination attempt on the life of Islam Karimov, five coordinated blasts occurred
simultaneously around the Cabinet of Ministers Building. Karimov narrowly avoided the blast,
having been delayed momentarily. No one claimed credit for it. That did not stop the
government, however, from blaming the IMU leaders, Takhir Yuldoshov and Dzhuma
Khodzhiyev (Juma Namangani), who were tried and found guilty in absentia.131

http://www.hrw.org/reports98/uzbekistan/. See also Acacia Shields, Testimony before the House

Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights.
Hearing on the State Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2000, 7 September
2000.
129
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, Uzbekistan Country
Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998, released February 26, 1999 (accessed 2 November 1999);
available from http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1998_hrp_report/uzbekist.html.
130
Widely reported; see, for example, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 1998 timeline for Uzbekistan:
http://www.rferl.org/specials/uzbekelections/timeline1998.asp.
131
Unfortunately, even if the official Uzbek report is largely accurate, any Uzbek trial and/or evidence is
suspect because of previous crackdowns and show trials.
Several theories have been offered besides the IMU conviction. It was the Russians punishing Karimov for
his waywardness according to their Yeltsin doctrine of destabilization in the near abroad; it was the Tajiks
punishing Karimov for providing tacit support to an ethnic Uzbek colonel in the Tajik army who revolted;
it was banned democratic parties like Erk and Birlik; it was disgruntled former high-ranking Uzbek
officials who had been previously dismissed by Karimov; and finally, it was Karimov himself, seeking to
demonstrate why he Uzbekistan needs him as a stabilizing force. For a fascinating discussion of most of
these theories, see Abdumannob Polat and Nickolai Butkevich, Unraveling the Mystery of the Tashkent

146

The goal of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is to overthrow the Uzbek government and
establish a Caliphate. It seems that their primary means of accomplishing this task was to
infiltrate Uzbekistanfrom Afghanistan through Kyrgyzstanin small guerrilla groups (a la
Che Guevara in Bolivia). These incursions occurred twice, in the summer of 1999 and in the
summer of 2000 with the support of al Qaeda.
The IMU fought as committed shock troops in the Talibans war against Massouds forces in
northern Afghanistan. They were also a vanguard of bin Ladens grandiose plans to sponsor a
thrust by Islamist forces into central Asia to overthrow the regions secular leaders and establish
new caliphates. Bin Laden provided the Uzbek radicals with funding, weapons, and access to
training camps. The Taliban provided them with bases and housing in Kabul and farther north.132

The IMU also helped move narcotics north, further supporting their cause. The militants are
in close contact with Mafia drug structures. They pray by day and ship drugs by night.133
Trained in Afghanistan according to US manuals developed for the mujahadin in the 1980s,134
and living off of previously cached food and weapons in the Surkhandarya (Uzbekistan) and
Batken (Kyrgyzstan) regions, these forces apparently sought to demonstrate the instability and/or
ineptness of the Karimov regime merely by their presence. In the summer of 2000, for example,
they managed to reach the south and east of Tashkent itself just as Uzbekistan celebrated its
ninth birthday on the first of September (preventing government officials from taking holiday in

Bombings: Theories and Implications, Demokratizatsiya 8, no. 4 (2000). See also Acacia Shields
Comments on the Tashkent Terrorism Trial and Uzbekistans Ongoing Crackdown on Muslims
EurasiaNet, 20 November 2000 (accessed 25 November 2000); available from
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/qanda/articles/eav112000.shtml.
Repeated US sources, however, confirmed that they have evidence linking the IMU to the Tashkent
bombing (although that evidence has not been released). Laura K. Cooper, State Department Office of
Counterterrorism, 26 October 2000, Washington, D.C.
132

Coll, Ghost Wars, 458, 500; Interview with U.S. official, 11 June 2002, Tashkent.
Kyrgyz Security Council Chairman Bolot Dzhanuzakov, as quoted in Kyrgyz Official Warns About
Islamic Militants, Interfax News Agency, April 27, 2000.
134
Gulamov, 28 August 2000.
133

147

the mountains and creating occasional gridlock with the multiple checkpoints in and around
Tashkent).135
It military terms, it is hard to judge the incursions as anything but a failure. In fact, it was
never quite clear what this dispersed small unit force of perhaps a 1000 men would do once they
got to Tashkent. Karimov, in classic form, proudly told the press: Uzbekistan is able to protect
itself. We have never invited and are not preparing to invite armed forces from outside
Uzbekistan, no matter what country they are from.136 Clearly Karimov had no stomach for Lord
Curzons long-ago prophecy: The Russian eagle may at first have alighted upon the eastern
shores of the Caspian with murderous beak and sharpened talons, but, her appetite once satisfied,
she has shown that she also came with healing in her wings.137
The IMU, however, did do themselves irreparable harm by taking four American mountain
climbers hostage during their invasion.138 The hostage-taking episode contributed to the
designation of the IMU as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State in September
2000.139

135

Authors personal experience late August and early September of 2000 and interviews with Uzbek
government officials. At the height of the infiltrations, rumors again circulated that Uzbekistan sought
outside aid from Russia. Both Uzbekistan and Russia denied such a request. But interviews suggest that
Uzbekistan did make such a request that was granted. Uzbekistan balked, however, when they were told
they had to pay for it.
See Foreign Minister Denies Uzbekistan has Requested Outside Help, Radio Free Europe 1 September
2000 (accessed 1 September 2000) available from http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/rferl/2000/00-0901.rferl.html.
136
Rashid, Jihad, 197. (See footnote #7: AFP, Uzbek President Hits Out at Russia, 22 September 2000).
137
Curzon, Russia in Central Asia, 385.
138
Pete Takeda, Escape from Kyrgyzstan, Climbing, December 15, 2000, 86-92.
139
For a detailed discussion of the IMU, see Chris Seiple, Questions and More Questions: The IMU,
Uzbek National Security and U.S. Policy, unpublished paper, December 11, 2000 (where I concluded that
the incursions were diversions to enable narcotic runs through different routes); Ahmed Rashid, Jihad,
especially 137-188; and Chris Seiple and Joshua T. White, Uzbekistan and the Central Asian Crucible of
Religion and Security, in Religion & Security: The New Nexus in International Relations, ed. Robert A.
Seiple and Dennis R. Hoover (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 37-57; and Jeffrey A. Smith,
Counterinsurgency in Uzbekistan: An adapted FID Strategy for Policy Consideration (Naval Postgraduate
School Thesis: June 2002).

148

Like Che Guevara, the IMU was unsustainable because it did not have an ideology supported
by a clear, comprehensive and consistent argument. Fortunately for them, however, such an
ideology was available.

Neither Bin laden, nor former Taliban leader Mullah Omar nor Yuldoshov have come up with an
ideological and theological framework that justifies their actions. Instead, they often rely on the
comprehensive teachings provided by Hizb ut-Tahrir, currently the most popular radical
movement in Uzbekistan.140

The real threat to Karimov was, and is, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), which published its first
Tashkent leaflets in April 1999,141 just two months after Karimovs assassination attempt. HT
seeks the same Caliphate as the IMU, but claims to do so in a non-violent manner.
As extremists, HT provides answers to the many questions of a psychologically and
spiritually dislocated youth. With a profound knack for contextualizing their message through
individual discipleshipaccording to the transcendent theme of justice, but tailored to the
culture and political issues of the dayHT recruits people from around the world.
HT does not hesitate to use the Wests free speech to declare their hatred of Jews, Sufis,
Shia, and the West. HT does hesitate, however, to explain how they will achieve their global
caliphate without using violence. This non-violent extremism creates a ready pool of
ideologically indoctrinated people who can easily cross into terrorism. (For example, one of the 7
July 2005 London bombers was a former HT disciple).
In his telling interview with an HT leader in November of 2000, Ahmed Rashid helps us
understand the gap between non-violence and Caliphate. The HT leaders words:

We want to make a Caliphate that will reunite all the Central Asian states. Hizbe-e Tahrir wants a
peaceful jihad that will be spread by explanation and conversion not by war. But ultimately there
will be war because the repression of the Central Asian states is so strong.We have no special
140

Zeyno Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islams Political Insurgency (Washington, D.C.: The Nixon Center,
December 2004), 77.
141
Ibid., 78.

149

relationship with Osama bin Laden, but he supports all Islamic movements in Central Asia and he
is very famous here for doing so. Karimov has no future here. There is too much corruption and
bad policies. There are no jobs, the economy is very bad, rich men dont help the poor as in Islam
and the government gives nothing to the poor so there is a lot of anger among people. However,
there are many people in Karimovs government who are good people so its a good time to break
the government from the inside as some are certain to join us. But who knows the plans of
Allah?142

In other words, violence will come if need be; but maybe not, as HT seeks to convert people
from the inside. This approach is the most dangerous kind of threat to any government, and
especially a dictator, because it creates true believers throughout society, even within the
government itself (see below discussion about the 12-13 May 2005 events at Andijan).
In sum, from 1997 to 2000, Karimov experienced the following extremist and/or terrorist
threats:
1) His own officers are decapitated inside Uzbekistan;
2) His border is conventionally threatened three times by the Taliban;
3) His country is infiltrated twice by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan;
4) He survives an assassination attempt; and
5) HT begins to operate in his country.
The Uzbek view of this time period, therefore, was one of looming crisis and no clear
answers, except one: do whatever it takes to get to tomorrowwhether that means working with
the U.N., striking deals with the Russians, talking to the Taliban directly, or cracking down on
your own people.

142

See Ahmed Rashid, Interview with Leader of Hizbe-E Tahrir, Analyst, November 22, 2000 (accessed
22 November 2000) available from
http://cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=114&SMSESSION=NO. For a detailed discussion of HT,
see Zeyno Baran, The Challenge of Hizb ut-Tahrir: Deciphering and Combating Radical Islamic Ideology,
Conference Report (Washington, D.C.: The Nixon Center, September 2004); Baran Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islams
Political Insurgency); Rashids Jihad, 115-136; Seiple and White, Uzbekistan and the Central Asian
Crucible of Religion and Security, 37-57; Martha Brill Olcott and Alexei Malanshenko, Islam in the PostSoviet Newly Independent States (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2001); and http://www.hizb-uttahrir.org.

150

International Relations
In this security context, to the Uzbek mind, how could human rights be a legitimate issue for
serious international relations? Indeed, Karimov was simply embodying Lord Palmertons
guidance for himself. Uzbekistan has no eternal friends, only eternal interests. And the
overriding interest from 1995-2000lived out day-to-day, no matter the apparent
inconsistencieswas a Karimov-led-independent-Uzbekistan that was not destabilized by
terrorism from the south; too much Russian influence from the north; instability from the east
(Tajikistan); and extremism from within.
Uzbekistans multilateral relations also reflected this national interest-driven approach. For
example, Karimovs relationship with GUUAM143 and the Shanghai Five144 provided
sufficient and simultaneous relations with both the West (GUUAM) and East (the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization). As such these organizations gave Karimov the flexibility he needed
to act according to the political context of the moment.
143

Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova; Karimov joined GUUAM in 1999, when Russia was

at a weak point; namely, during the 50th anniversary of NATO as Russias fellow Slavs were bombed in
Serbia (April 1999). The icing on the cake: Karimov signed it at the Uzbek embassy in Washington, D.C.,
where the NATO anniversary was being held. Karimov withdrew that same month from the CIS Collective
Security Treaty as it had become, according to him, an agent for Russian hegemony. Also see Shahram
Akbarzadeh, U.S.-Uzbek Partnership and Democratic Reforms, Nationalities Papers 32, no. 2 (June
2004): 276.
GUUAM was formed in 1997 as GUAM. Although officially not against any third party, the four original
members all had a common trait: Russian intervention. From Trandniester to the Black Sea Fleet to
Abkhazia to Nagorno-Karabakh, the Russians had a made it a point during the 1990s to interfere with their
individual sovereignty.
Of course, laterwith Putin in power, the IMU and Taliban threatening and the demise of his economy
Karimov would find a way to warm back up to Russia. See Economic Decline Forcing GUUAM Nations
to Return to Russia 30 November 2000 (accessed 30 November 2000) available from
http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=102463&selected=Country%20Profiles&s
howCountry=1&countryId=80&showMore=1.
144

The Shanghai Five was established in 1996 to examine border disputes among its members (Russia,
China, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan). It became the Shanghai Forum when Uzbekistan joined
the group as an observer in the summer of 2000. It became the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
during its 14-15 July 2001 meeting when Uzbekistan officially joined as a charter member. The name
changes reflect Uzbekistans self-importance, as well as the other members desire to include them. As a
matter of pride, Uzbekistan did not join things, but it did start them; hence the double name change.

151

This dualism in policy resulted from Uzbekistans geostrategic position and concomitant
geopolitical point of view and national interest. GUUAM, to the Uzbek mind, lent the
possibility of transportation and communications; a Euro-Atlantic orientation; and an
instrument through which to integrate into European/Western structures. The SCO, on the other
hand, represented the chance to coordinate with potential allies on international terrorism,
narcotics and extremism. It went without saying that the latter organization would not criticize
Uzbekistans internal policies.
In the Uzbek mind, therefore, it was perfectly logical that Karimov could be the first one to
propose a GUUAM Secretariat in Baku, Azerbaijan, while seeking a U.N. terrorism center in
Tashkent that was associated with the SCO and allowed the U.S. to participate as an observer.145
(It is worth noting that, with all this activity with the great powers and surrounding countries,
Karimov was still creating and playing every card he could, as he sought to engage places like
Israel, India, and Georgia).146
The most important relationship during this period, however, was also the most maddening to
the Uzbeks. After such a poor start with the Americans in 1993, because of their total focus on
human rights, there was genuine euphoria with the April 1995 Perry visit. One well-placed
observer noted that with the visit, the Uzbeks felt like they had been discovered. Perrys visit,
no matter what was actually said, granted the Uzbeks equal status with the Russians.147

145

Uzbek official.
Karimov, as a Muslim, openly visited Israel seeking a defense partnership, calling attention to
Uzbekistans 30,000 (Bukara) Jews and their long history of living in a religiously tolerant environment
(Steve Rodan, Uzbekistan Sees Israel as Defense Partner, The Jerusalem Post, 18 September 1998, 5).
Karimov visited India, seeking an increased dialogue and a trade corridor through Iran (Delhi, Tashkent
Seek to Regularize Dialogue, The Hindu, 21 May 1999. Karimov also signed a cooperation pact with his
colleague in fighting Russian influence, President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia (Uzbekistan, Georgia
Sign Cooperation Pact, Journal of Commerce, 30 May 1996, 4).
147
John Reppert, Brigadier General, USA (retired). Reppert was serving as Elizabeth Sherwood-Randalls
executive assistant at the time. Personal email to author, 30 November 2005.
146

152

On five counts, however, the Uzbeks simply could not understandsometimes genuinely
why the U.S. was so interested in human rights. First it was not a part of their historic or Soviet
experience. In fact, both experiences confirmed the Uzbek approach to security. Accordingly, it
was very difficult to understand human rights as an integral part of security. While the question
of human rights and economic development are important, one official conceded, national
security is more important. To their mind, despite the best efforts of Bill Perry, Elizabeth
Sherwood-Randall, and Jeffrey Starr (her replacement), the Pentagons strategic approach was
constantly curtailed by President Clintons human rights agenda, making the 1995-2000 period a
difficult time.148
Third, the Uzbeks viewed themselves as in the same fight as the U.S.; and doing a relatively
good job at it. (After all, they werent Pakistan). Fourth, and inexplicably, the Americans did not
seem to know they were in the same fight, and apparently did not want to listen to warnings of
Islamic extremism. Finally, the United States did not seem to have any kind of consistent or
coherent overall policy (besides pipelines, which was itself confused).
Still the Uzbek did what they could to stand with America. To their mind, they made some
human rights concessions before President Karimovs June 1996 visit to New York City and
Washington, D.C. (where he met President Clinton unofficially, the last Central Asian leader to
do so). They consistently voted with the U.S. in the U.N. And President Karimov came out in
support of NATO expansion.149
With the IMUs 1999 incursion, the Americans seemed to become more receptive, albeit
according to their split personality. For example, both sides were irked by President Clintons

148

Uzbek official.
See Svante E. Cornell, Uzbekistan: A Regional Player in Eurasian Geopolitics? European Security 9,
no. 2 (Summer 2000) (accessed 26 June 2001); available from
http://www.cornellcaspian.com/pub/0010uzbekistan.htm.
149

153

refusal to send President Karimov a congratulatory note for winning a rigged election that he
would have won legitimately anyway if he had allowed a free and fair election. 150 In a similarly
awkward fashion, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Tashkent in April of 2000.
Albright promised $10 million dollars in anti-terrorism aid to be split among three of the five
former Soviet republics (not much). Meanwhile, she spoke forthrightly about the connection
between human rights and security, which fell mostly on deaf ears.151
Two other factors loomed as the bilateral relationship entered the 21st century. First,
Uzbekistan had as its ambassador to the U.S., Sodyq Safaev. Having previously served as the
ambassador to Germany, Safaev assumed the ambassadorship in Washington on 6 September
1996. Throughout his time in Washington (he returned to Uzbekistan in 2002 where he would
serve as Foreign Minister until 2005), Safaev found a way to bridge the cultural and
communication gaps between Uzbekistan and the United States. As a brief example, consider his
articulation of the concept of security:
The new world order demands from us admission of the principle of indivisibility of security. The
regional security of Central Asia and the South Caucasus is an important element of global
security. Only through cooperation on both regional and global levels will we achieve our
152
common goals in building a stable and secure world environment.

This was a man whose holistic thinking provided vision, as well as enough strategic
ambiguity for both parties to feel comfortable enough in the relationshipno small task.
Second, 2000 was an election year, and the Uzbeks were unabashedly for George W. Bush.
They had read Condoleezza Rices Fall 2000 piece in Foreign Affairs, as well as other Bush
campaign documents on foreign policy (although none of these pieces, the Uzbeks pointed out,
150

Conversations with Uzbek embassy and NSC officials, March 2000.

Albrights speech is available from http://www.friends-partners.org/CCSI/resource/albright.htm.
152
Unpublished remarks at the Stanford University conference on The Geopolitics of Energy
Development in the Caspian Region: Regional Cooperation or Conflict? December, 1999 (provided by
Sodyq Safaev).
151

154

mentioned Central Asia). They came to one conclusion: in a Bush administration, foreign policy
would be conducted from national interest, not principle because, simply, it was not a good
idea to push the [human rights]. It can create an opposite effect.153
September 11th was coming in the next year, however, and the Uzbeks, to a person, would
say the same thing: we told you so.

1995-2000: An American Perspective

During this period (1991-1995)Uzbekistan [was] considered beyond the pale by the U.S.
State Department. Moreover, with the Russo-centric Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in
the driving seat of U.S. policy toward the FSU, Washington was not keen to antagonize Moscow
and challenge its abiding interests in Central Asia. Talbotts agenda was to enlist Russia in NATO
and not create problems in U.S.-Russia relations by encroaching on Russias backyard.
However, as Russia slipped into chaos, Talbotts pro-Russian policy came under bitter attack
from within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, the Jewish and Israeli lobbies in Washington
and U.S. oil companies, who all wanted the U.S. to embrace a more multi-dimensional foreign
policy toward the FSUThe USA could not develop strategic clout in Central Asia without
Uzbekistan, the largest and most powerful state and the only one capable of standing up to
Russia.154

As the conclusion to this section reveals in detail, the U.S. was never able to adopt a more
multi-dimensional, let alone coordinated, foreign policy toward Central Asia and Uzbekistan
during this period. On the one hand, a profound discussion of Central Asia, and Uzbekistan, took
place from 1995-2000, almost all of it rooted in Mackinder (although few, if they even knew,
acknowledged it). On the other hand, that discussion never transferred to an actionable,
comprehensive foreign policy.
Such as it was, the leadership of President Clinton, Strobe Talbott, and the U.S. interagency
process itselfstill trapped in its Cold War mentalitycombined to provide an American
foreign policy that interacted with Uzbekistan and the region in piecemeal fashion. Not

153
154

Various Uzbek officials, September 2000, June 2002.

Rashid, Taliban, 161-162. Italics added.

155

surprisingly, different issues dominated U.S. policy toward the region at different moments.
These issues included pipelines; security (military and counterterrorism); and human rights,
especially, religious freedom.

Strategy?
By 1995, many in the national security establishment were beginning to understand that
historically, whoever controls the lands between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya also dominates
Central Asia.155 It was an important consideration as it became increasingly clear that an
Afghanistan-generated extremist Islam was not a figment of the imagination but already
looming on the horizon.156
Looking back from 2000, however, one U.S. official was at a loss to explain just what U.S.
policy was toward Uzbekistan and the region. Its an important region. Our goals: 1) Promote
stability/security; 2) Address terrorism; 3) Promote economic and political reform. But things
get determined by terrorism and energy There is no strategic planning for policy in the
region.157
He was not alone. When asked what he thought U.S. policy was in the region, the J5 officer
for Central Asia just smiled. Officially, we want to prevent a hegemonic influence [in Eurasia]
by supporting [the] sovereignty and territorial integrity [of the Central Asian states]; we want to
prevent the proliferation of WMD; and we seek to enhance democracy, human rights and
economic reform. Then he added: But we havent had a policy decision in years; were band-

155

Martha Brill Olcott, The Myth of Tsentralnaia Aziia, Orbis (Fall 1994): 563.
Boris Z. Rumer, Gathering Storm in Central Asia, Orbis (Winter 1993): 101.
157
Amit Pandya, 16 February 2000, The U.S. State Department. At the time, Pandya was serving on the
U.S. Department of States Policy and Planning staff (an internal think tank created by George Kennan in
1951 to serve the Secretary of State).
156

156

aiding along because we cant sit down and make a decision.158 A long-serving official at the
embassy in Tashkent reflected on his 1998 arrival in-country: There was no policy except watch
the Iranians, and promote democracy.159 Another U.S. embassy official who served a long tour
in Tashkent said that his in-brief was his decision to read the Uzbekistan section in the Lonely
Planet travel guide.160
These opinions were not held only by critical action officers working at the intersection of
policy-creation and implementation, but also by leaders at the highest level. As the commanding
general of Central Command from August 1997 to September 2000, General Anthony Zinni,
USMC, was responsible for Central Asia (the region was added to Central Commands area of
operations in late 1998, to be discussed below). Zinni felt that Uzbekistan had the potential to be
a bulwark against an expanding extremism. The problem, however, was twofold.
On the one hand, Karimov was adopting a Chechnya model because he didnt have the
experience to handle the IMU. As a result, he was going to breed generational terrorism.
On the other hand, you can only give our policy to a perfectly healthy patientwe need to
get a policy.161 Karimov used to lecture me for three to four hours at a time about how
strategically important Uzbekistan was; but we had no plan or policyI was left to scrape it
together. We never had a viable policy.162 The U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan during this time,

158

Thom Burke, 25 October 2000, The Pentagon. At the time, Burke was the Central Asia action officer for
the J5; that is, the Central Asia desk officer in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs (CJCS) think
tank. It was this shop that commissioned the U.S.-Atlantic Councils Strategic Assessment of Eurasia,
January 2001 (see below).
159
U.S. official, 11 June 2002, Tashkent.
160
U.S. embassy official, June 2002.
161
Anthony Zinni, telephone interview, 7 March 2000; and presentation at The Fletcher School of Law &
Diplomacy, 3 May 2000.
162
Anthony Zinni, telephone interview, 16 September 2005.

157

Joe Presel, sums up the problem: We invented flavor-of-the-month to sell ice cream. We
conduct our policy the same way. We have no concept of the long term.163
Certainly there was some good thinking being done between Secretary Perrys visit and
2001. For example, S. Frederick Starr argued as early as January of 1996 that a sovereign
Uzbekistan, politically and economically reformed, is the best hope to anchor a potentially
unstable region and foster Russias development as a normal country free from regional
insecurities and imperial longings. Borrowing Secretary Perrys April 1995 phrase, Starr
encouraged the U.S. to treat Uzbekistan as an island of stability in Central Asia, instead of
relegating [it] to the periphery of U.S. policy.164
Zbigniew Brzezinski, however, as the Democrats last living former national security advisor
was presumably more persuasive to a Democratic administration. Writing in 1997and
continuing the themes of his 1994 Foreign Affairs article Brzezinski argued in a decidedly
Mackinderian fashion. His views had matured into the call for a Trans-Eurasian Security
System (echoing Dr./General Karl Haushofer), and the need to recognize Uzbekistan as a
pivotal state in that security system.165
The point of departure for the needed policy had to be hard-nosed recognition of the three
unprecedented conditions that currently define the geopolitical state of world affairs. For the first
163

Joe Presel, 4 September 2000, Tashkent.

S. Frederick Starr, Making Eurasia Stable, Foreign Affairs 75, no. 1 (January/February 1996): 92, 81.
Starr later argued that the U.S. had no policy for Central Asia but a mlange of corollaries of policies
whose real focus is elsewhere (that is, focused on Russia). See S. Frederick Starr, Power Failure:
American Policy in the Caspian, The National Interest (Spring 1997).
165
This discussion based on the following articles and book by Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Premature
Partnership, Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (March/April 1994); A Geostrategy for Eurasia, Foreign
Affairs 76, no. 5 (September/October 1997) [also published in David L. Boren and Edward J. Perkins, ed.,
Preparing Americas Foreign Policy for the 21st Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997),
309-318]; and The Grand Chessboard (New York: BasicBooks, 1997), 197, 208, 198, 130-131.
164

Remarkably, in each of these writings, Brzezinski does not once cite Sir Halford John Mackinder; except in
his book, The Grand Chessboard where, unbelievably, he refers to him as Harold Mackinder (p. 38).
(Using phrases like democratic bridgehead, Brzezinski echoes Mackinders 1943 Round World article
in Foreign Affairs, where he calls France a defensible bridgehead).

158

time in history, (1) a single state is truly a global power; (2) a non-Eurasian state is globally the
preeminent state, and (3) the globes central arena, Eurasia, is dominated by a non-Eurasian
power.
Eurasia contained 75% of the worlds population; 60% of its GNP; and 75% of its energy.
Consequently, the immediate task is to ensure that no state or combination of states gains the
ability to expel the United States or even diminish its decisive role. Accordingly, strategically
pivotal states such as Uzbekistan would be critical to preventing the domination of Eurasia.

Uzbekistan is, in fact, the prime candidate for regional leadership in Central AsiaMore
than in any of the other Central Asian states, Uzbekistans political elite and increasingly also its
people, already partake of the subjective makings of a modern nation-state and are determined
domestic difficulties notwithstanding never to revert to colonial status.

While, ironically enough, todays Central Asian scholars and students of geopolitics agree
with Brzezinskis logic, if not his ideas,166 no one in America, let alone his own political party,
had time for such quaint ideas on the verge of the 21st century.
If it was clear to scholars and practitioners at the time that the U.S. needed a comprehensive
regional policy centered on Uzbekistan, why was there no concerted effort to do so?
Less than a month after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, and just three months after the 25
June Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, James F. Collins spoke at the opening of S.
Frederick Starrs Central Asia Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS). U.S. policy goals now included:

Independent and sovereign states in Central Asia

The establishment of free-market and democratic governments

Integration of these states with the international political and financial institutions

166

See, for example, repeated references to Brzezinskis writings by Central Asians in Central Asia and
The Caucasus Journal of Social and Political Studies, 4 (34) 2005. These views are also confirmed through
my own interaction with scholars and students at various Uzbek universities.

159

Prevention of WMD trafficking

Enhancement of US business interests and energy diversification

Collins mentioned that the U.S. was prepared to work with the Central Asian governments on
other transnational threats of terrorism, narcotics and environmental degradation. Collins also
made reference to Starrs article, but nothing about its specific recommendations regarding
Uzbekistan.167
On 21 July 1997, Strobe Talbott presented his thoughts on American policy in Central Asia
to the Johns Hopkins University (with Paul Wolfowitz and Fred Starr present). He juxtaposed the
Great Game between the British and Russian empires with the 1990s. Whereas the former was a
zero-sum game, the 1990s represented an opportunity for all responsible players in the
Caucasus and Central Asia to be winners. While displaying more nuance than his 1994 speech
on the matter, he closed his speech by casting U.S. relations with the former Soviet south in the
context of the proper integration of Russia into the international community.
Talbott stressed specific U.S. policy goalsthe promotion of democracy, the creation of
free market economies, the sponsorship of peace and cooperation within and among the countries
of the region, and their integration with the larger community in the context of the simple
message the Clinton administration had been giving to the region for four-and-a-half years: as
long as [the region] move[s] in the direction of political and economic freedom, of national and
international reconciliation, we will be with them.
Talbott did mention, however, two other possible factors for the first time. If reform were not
successful, the region could become a breeding ground of terrorism, a hotbed of religious and
167

James Collins, Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary for the New Independent States, U.S.
Policy toward the Central Asian States, 21 October 1996 (accessed 16 May 2002); available from
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/nis/collins.html.

160

political extremism, and a battleground for outright war. Clearly no one wanted this potential
outcome as the region sits on as much as 200 billion barrels of oil. That was yet another reason
why conflict-resolution must be Job One for U.S. policy in the region: It is both the prerequisite
for and an accompaniment to energy development.168 (We will return to this topic below).

Talbotts warnings were prescient, and so were his ideas about future U.S. strategy. The only
problem was that Washington failed to follow up on them. Had the United States been serious
about its strategic vision for Central Asia, policymakers should not only have talked about
conflict resolution; they should have insisted that it be the number one priority.169

Pipelines as Policy
The day after Talbotts speech, 22 July 1997, Americas foremost observer of Central Asia
testified before the U.S. Senate. Martha Brill Olcott told the senators:

It is Central Asias wealth of course, which has sparked the American interest in the region.
While U.S. policy-makers certainly do not want to see a hegemonic Russia for general
geopolitical reasons [a la Mackinder], the potential costs of such hegemony become far greater if
Russia is able to dictate the terms and limit western access to the worlds last known vast oil and
gas reserves.170

The regions reserves were substantial. (The region is defined here as the Caspian Basin, i.e.,
the Caspians five littoral states plus western Uzbekistan). The Caspian Basins potential and
proven oil reserves totaled 186 billion barrels, equating to 75% of Saudi Arabias proven oil
reserves, and 25% of the entire Persian Gulf proven reserves. The gas reserves were equally
impressive, amounting to 560 trillion cubic feet of potential and proven gas. This amount

168

Strobe Talbott, A Farewell to Flashman: American Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Johns
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 21 July 1997. Talbott later made the speech into an oped for the Financial Times: The Great Game is Over, 1 September 1997, 18.
169
Rashid, Jihad, 190.
170
Martha Brill Olcott, The Central Asian States: An Overview of Five Years of Independence,
Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 22 July 1997.

161

represents 25% of the Gulfs proven gas reserves.171 In other words, while western policymakers may talk about the Caspian region as one of new and real strategic importance [this
area is] little more than a back-up for the potentially much vaster reserves in the more
strategically located Persian Gulf region.172
Even as back-upassuming the potential reserves were as good as the proventhe other
issue, of course, was getting the oil and gas out of the region. The U.S. option of choice was to
send the oil and gas from Kazakhstan across the Caspian Sea to Baku, Azerbaijan, and then
through Georgia to Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean Sea. Such a pipeline would
increase the standard-of-living of the peoples in these countries while enhancing their
independence from Russia. Summing up the purpose of the pipeline and Americas approach to
Central Asia, one official commented at the time: Our policy is anti-monopoly.173 (The 1,000
mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline concept eventually became reality, opening 25 May 2005).
174

The northern (Russia) and western (China) pipeline possibilities were decidedly not U.S.
policy options, as they might increase hegemonic inroads, so to speak, to Central Asia.
(Kazakhstan and China, however, agreed to build a 600 mile pipeline in 2004, with full

171

See Jacquelyn K. Davis and Michael J. Sweeney, Central Asia in U.S. Strategy and Operational
Planning: Where do we go from here? (Washington, D.C.: The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis,
February 2004), 7. Footnotes #s 6 and 7, cite and compile several scholarly and government sources.
172
Martha Brill Olcott, Caspian Sea Oil Exports, Testimony before the Subcommittee on International
Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 8 July 1998.
Also see Olcotts, The Caspians False Promise, Foreign Policy 111 (Summer 1998); and Amy Myers
Jaffe and Robert Manning, The Myth of the Caspian Great Game: The Real Geopolitics of Energy,
Survival 40, no. 4 (Winter 1998-99).
173
Matthew J. Bryza, Senior Advisor, Office of the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State
on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy, The State Department, 23 March 2000.
174

See BBC News, Giant Caspian Oil Pipeline Opens, 25 May 2005 (accessed 18 July 2005); available
from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4577497.stm.

162

operations expected by 2006).175 This left the southern route through Iran (under U.S. sanctions
throughout the U.S.-Uzbek relationship), or Afghanistan. But Afghanistan was in the middle of a
civil war, until the Taliban brought stability.
This stability, so the argument went, would enable the planned energy pipelines from Central
Asia to Indian Ocean ports via Afghanistan, particularly the Unocal project to transport natural
gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. [Unocal was competing with an Argentinean company,
Bridas, for pipeline rights]. Some even recommended that the U.S. should therefore find a way
176
to do business with the Taliban.

Just after the fall of Kabul on 27 September 1996, the U.S. quickly recognized the Taliban,
and then retracted its recognition. The confusion only further convinced Iran, Russia, the
[Central Asian Republics], the anti-Taliban alliance and most Pakistanis and Afghans that the
US-Unocal partnership was backing the Taliban and wanted an all-out Taliban victory.177
Adding to the confusion, Zalamay Khalilzad soon argued that the Taliban was the good kind
of fundamentalism, like Sunni Saudi Arabia, not the bad kind of fundamentalism, like Shia Iran
(Khalilzad was soon invited to join the Unocal board). Meanwhile, President Clintons
Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, was denouncing the Taliban while
President Clintons Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia (1993-1997) was arguing before
the U.N.s Security Council that the Taliban should not be isolated (something Unocal
appreciated very much).178

It was a tawdry season in American diplomacyIn the absence of alternatives, the State
Department had taken up Unocals agenda as its own. Whatever the merits of the project, the
sheer prominence it received by 1996 distorted the message and meaning of American power.

175

Ian MacWilliam, Kazakh-China Pipeline Opens, BBC, 15 December 2005 (accessed 20 December
2005); available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4530426.stm.
176
Rajan Menon, The New Great Game in Central Asia, Survival 45, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 187-188.
177
Rashid, Taliban, 166.
178
See Coll, Ghost Wars, 338-339. Coll quotes Khalilzads op-ed in the 7 October 1996 Washington Post.
See also Neamatollah Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, 198-202.

163

American tolerance of the Taliban was publicly and inextricably linked to the financial goals of
an oil corporation.179

The struggle for control over the ancient Silk Route had been replaced by the race to secure
energy pipelines.180 Martha Brill Olcott called U.S. strategy arrogant, muddled, nave and
dangerous.181 Or as the American ambassador to Pakistan at the time later reflected: There
basically was no policy.182 With no overarching context, to include the hard work, and precondition, of the conflict-resolution necessary to implement the pipelines, U.S. policy drifted
along.
Uzbekistan could only watch askance. At the logistical and military heart of the pipelines
issuegiven its geography and dire concerns about the Talibanit was difficult for this geostrategically-minded government not to place the pipeline/energy issue in some larger context.
What ends was it serving? What did America want from Uzbekistan besides movement toward
democratic and economic reform? Did America recognize the Taliban for the threat that it was?
As discussed above, there wasnt much of a policy upon which to base the bilateral relationship,
let alone a regional strategy. As one experienced Uzbek diplomat described it: There is no U.S.
policy toward the region, just spontaneous ideas being pushed by individuals.183
Once Washington began to acknowledge the threat of the Taliban and al Qaedathat is, after
the June 1996 bombings of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the August 1998 bombings of
the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 16 February 1999 assassination attempt on
Karimov, and the 1999 and 2000 IMU incursionsUzbekistan did begin to find a consistent
partner in the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency.
179

Coll, Ghost Wars, 330.

Ahmed Rashid, Power Play, Far Eastern Economic Review, April 10, 1997, 23.
181
Rashid, Taliban, 175.
182
Coll, Ghost Wars, 309 (Coll interviewed Tom Simons on 19 August 2002).
183
Alexander Achmedov, Political Officer, America Desk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 25 August 2000,
Tashkent.
180

164

Security: the Steady Steps of Military and Counterterrorism Engagement

The inclusion of Central Asia in Central Commands AOR (area of responsibility) was the
most important development for the bilateral relationship between Uzbekistan and the United
States during this period. The only U.S. agency to challenge the east-west engagement paradigm
during this time, Central Command (CENTCOM) argued that Central Asia belonged in its northsouth axis of operationswhich extended from the Horn of Africa through the Middle East, Iran,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead of placing Central Asia in European Command (EUCOM),
General Anthony Zinni made the case that it made much more sense to include Central Asia in
CENTCOM because the region shared some common issues that ran north-south: namely the
radiating effect of Afghanistans militant Islam through the Taliban, al Qaeda, IMU and other
radical groups, as well as serving as the point-of-origin for 90% of the worlds heroin at the
time.184
Preoccupied with the rapidly developing situation in Kosovo, however, EUCOM accepted
this logic. (The State Department also wanted to keep Central Asia within EUCOM, as consistent
with its own regional grouping of Europe and Eurasia). Besides, EUCOM was already
responsible for some ninety countries (including much of Africa), while CENTCOM, at the time,
had only sixteen.185

184

Telephone interview with author, 7 March 2000. At the same time, President Karimov was writing:
Among some Western analysts and Islamic scholars it has become increasingly popular to treat
fundamentalism as something not harmful to the world community, as something primarily directed against
the fundamentalists own statesDo these people fully comprehend the real situation in the Muslim East?
(Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Challenges to Stability and
Progress (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), 27.
185
Cliff Bond, Director of the State Departments office of the Caucasus and Central Asia suggests that this
geographic categorization might be adopted by all US agencies over the next few years. Interview with
author, 26 October 2000, The U.S. State Department. (Condoleezza Rice announced in the fall of 2005 that
Central Asia would be grouped with South Asia).

165

Everyone loved Zinni. In a region used to being treated as second class citizens according to
the Russia-first policy of Strobe Talbott, Zinni gave quality time to its leaders.186 Under Zinni,
CENTCOMs engagement plan stressed as many military-to-military contacts as possible.
Building these relationships was a full-time job. As the U.S. Defense Attach said at the time:
Im engaged with about as much as I can handle (as a one-man shop). There are forty-five milto-mils hereBy comparison, there are fourteen per year in Moscow.187
In the absence of a comprehensive policy, these interactions took on a different and much
more significant impact. Whereas funding from the State Department is usually tied to reform
and outside-in approach that often limits the scope of fundingthe Defense Department is able
to demonstrate the behavior of a professional military and the functioning of democratic
principles[this inside-out] inspires change instead of demanding change.188
While there can be obvious drawbacks to an inside-out approach onlynamely the de facto
blessing of human rights abuses by the host-nation government, even if U.S. forces are not
working directly with the perpetratorsinspiring change through friendship and respect must be
the basis of any relationship.

186

Many Uzbek officials remember meeting with U.S. officials of lesser rank during the 1990s. Granted,
the global issues facing the U.S. officials were bigger, but treating someone as an equal goes a long, long
way. The Uzbeks still talk about Perry and Zinni
187
Matt Brand, Lieutenant Colonel, (U.S. Army), Defense Attache to the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan, 31
August 2000, Tashkent. Mil-to-mil contact also took place in a multilateral context through such
institutions as Centrazbat, a peacekeeping battalion made up of several Central Asian militaries, and
various exercises (e.g., Cooperative Nugget, held in August 1995 and June-July 1997 at Ft. Polk,
Louisiana, and Cooperative Osprey, held in August 1996 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina). See Kenley
Butler, U.S. Military Cooperation with the Central Asian States, 17 September 2001 (accessed 19
September 2005); available from http://www.cns.miis.edu. See also, C.J. Chivers, Long Before War,
Green Berets Built Military Ties to Uzbekistan, New York Times, 25 October 2001.
188
Jeffrey A. Smith, Counterinsurgency in Uzbekistan: An Adapted FID Strategy for Policy Consideration
(Monterey: Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, June 2002), 47-48. Smith served in Uzbekistan as a member
of a Special Forces team that worked directly with the Uzbek military.

166

There was a strong relationship between U.S. Special Forces and the Uzbek military before
9/11.189 It was one rooted in common cause and enemy, as well as respect, and humility. As one
former military officer who was working counterterrorism in Uzbekistan put it: I feel dumber
each time I go backthis place wasnt in any of my history classes.
The same person warned about another problem in the relationshipthere just werent
enough Uzbeks who spoke English and/or had been exposed to the (alleged) interagency
processes of great powers. We send too many folksthe entire interagency, the army of
progresswho are throwing too many things at themits not all that coordinated (on our
part).190
It was something the Uzbeks could live with, however, if it meant that the U.S. was finally
beginning to understand the true nature of the threat. And if this was the case, there was the hope
that the U.S. would recognize Uzbekistan as its regional partner; as Mackinder would have
suggested.
While that bridge was one too far, serious American policy-makers were beginning to
understand the threat for what it was. In the fall of 1999, Cofer Black, the Director of the
Counterterrorism Center at the CIA, reached out to President Karimov. Black proposed a CIAfunded but Uzbek-commanded strike force capable of snatching al Qaeda leaders from within
Afghanistan. (Bin Laden had traveled to the Uzbek border once before, wanting to see for
himself his future caliphate conquests).191
Karimov approved the plan, allowing intercept stations (signals intelligence) to be built while
making air bases available for small aircraft and helicopters, as well as predator
reconnaissance missions. (The predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV). The CIA felt
189

Repeated interviews with, and observation of, U.S. and Uzbek military personnel.
U.S. counterterrorism official.
191
Coll, Ghost Wars, 500.
190

167

they had a relatively leak-proof partner (unlike the intelligence services of Pakistan or Saudi
Arabia), and Karimov finally had a second U.S. agency that appreciated his cross-border threat
for what it was.192
As the security relationship steadily warmed, to include working in northern Afghanistan
together, 193 the Uzbeks felt that they had found a friend in the security agencies of the United
States. Pragmatic and task-oriented, and with no strings attached, they could work with the
Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency.
But if there was one thing they were clear about it was this: They do not like any
[assistance] being tied to human rights.194

Human Rights & Religious Freedom

From the beginning of the relationship, human rights were a constant concern for the United
States, and a transcendent thorn for Uzbekistan. During this time, the Americans were giving lip
service to national security while the Uzbeks gave lip service to human rights.
Yet there could be no mistake: Uzbekistan was, and is, an authoritarian system of the worst
kind. This is definitely a police state. If you havent been harassed yet its because there isnt
enough time in the day to harass everyone.195 With no other history or experience to draw on,
the Uzbek secret police cracked down on any one who might even look like a terrorist in a crude
and uneven fashion (e.g., see above report on the December 1997 crackdown in Namangan).
192

Coll, Ghost Wars, 458-460, 531, 547-551.

Ehsan Ahrari, a National Defense University professor, reports that Karimov had given permission for
the U.S. to conduct clandestine operations as early as 1998. (See Ehsan Ahrari, The Strategic Future of
Central Asia: A View from Washington, Journal of International Affairs, 56, no. 2 (Spring 2003), 264).
See Thomas E. Ricks and Susan B. Glasser, U.S. Operated Secret Alliance with Uzbekistan, Washington
Post, 14 October 2001, A1, where Ricks and Glasser report that, Karimovs spokesman, Rustam Jamaev,
told them that U.S.-Uzbek operations began two or three years ago. Also, various interviews with U.S.
and Uzbek special operations forces in Tashkent.
194
Brand, 31 August 2000, Tashkent.
195
U.S. embassy official, 25 August 2000, Tashkent.
193

168

Criteria for being thrown in jail included the following: wearing a beard; praying too many times
a day; attending the mosque; being related to someone in jail, and being put on the black list
by someone with a connection to the Ministry of Interior. Torture was and is widespread,
characterized by such unconscionable behavior as beatings, drowning, boiling and the use of
electric nodes.196
Pick almost any human rights report from 1995-2005 and there will be a round number of
somewhere between 8,500 (1995-2000) and 4,500 (2001-2005) political prisoners of conscience
in Uzbek jails, most of them for being a pious Muslim. (This downward trend in numbers is itself
an indicator that someone somewhere in the Uzbek government was trying to make a
differenceor, human rights organizations were doing better reporting).
Because of well-documented pattern of repression, Karimov was the last Central Asia
president to meet President Clinton in June of 1996; and not until after some tangible progress
had been demonstrated. Before coming to the United States, Karimov released several political
prisoners. While in America, Karimov met with Uzbekistans leading dissident, Abdumannob
Polatov (a man he had thrown in jail in 1992) and invited him back home. Upon returning to
Uzbekistan, President Karimov announced that he would protect human rights.197
To the American mind, especially the single-issue human rights advocate, Uzbekistan was a
black-and-white case. This perception was accentuated by the absence of a security perspective
during this time, not to mention a clearly identified policy. That said, it is too easy to say that if
the U.S. had engaged differentlythat is, without the finger-wagging, and with a comprehensive
policy that explained the connection between security and human rights conceptually and
196

See reports of the U.N. Rapporteur on Torture, http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/torture/rapporteur/.

Also see any Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, or U.S. State Department report between 1995
and 2005; also, various interviews in Tashkent, 2000-2005.
197
Uzbekistan: Getting There, The Economist, 21 September 1996 (accessed 15 September 1999);
Available from LexisNexis.

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programmaticallythen Karimov would have responded differently. It is also too easy to say
that if the U.S. had engaged differently, Karimov would not have responded anyway. And thus it
is important to fully examine the human rights issue from the American perspective of religious
freedom, which was the human rights focal point from 1995-2000.
Certainly people suffer in Uzbekistan because of their faith, mostly pious Muslims. The
conceptual question, however, is this: does one determine religious freedom violations by the
persecuted product or by the persecuting motivation?
The government of Uzbekistan represses people not because it is anti-economic reform, antiNGO, anti-religious, or anti-political parties. It represses people because it is anti-anything that
threatens its control. This threat can take the form of foreigners controlling Uzbekistans debt;
NGOs with outside funding; or people of faith who practice differently than the government
prescribed form. People of faith are repressed in Uzbekistan not because they are people of faith
but because they represent, to Karimovs mind, a terrorist threat to the state.
In other words, while viewing Karimovs repression as violations of religious freedom is
easy to doresulting in the typical condemnation that comes through op-edsthe creation of
such stereotypes is almost always of limited usefulness. Characterizing the issue as religious
freedom negates the complex context in which there is opportunity to build relationships across,
and shrewdly link, interrelated issues, while explaining why it is in the governments self-interest
to think more seriously about why it represses people.
With this backdrop, it was also during this time that the United States passed the
International Religious Freedom Law on October 9, 1998. The act created an Ambassador-atLarge, requiring him or her to produce an annual report on every country in the world, except the
United States. No country embraces the basic principle of religion in democracy as it exists

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in the United States [in many countries] they see democracy as majoritarianism. The sense of
the rights of a minority is very hard to build up.198
America was different, however. As Senator Joe Lieberman declared when the act became
law:
We have the right to put our values at the center of our foreign policy. Countries can do what they
will, but we have no obligation to deal with countries on a normal basis, to give them aid and
comfort if they are violating a central animating principle of American life, which is freedom of
religion. Who else, if not a nation whose forbears and citizens, beginning with the Puritans and
continuing to this day, suffered persecution in foreign lands before coming to this country? Who
else will speak for those around the world who are likewise persecuted?199

In an interview shortly after being sworn-in, the first Ambassador-at-Large, Robert A. Seiple,
was asked: How do you get off being the morality cop on issues that are internal, domestic
issues? He saw the post as not a finger-wagging position, but as one that embodied a universal
right recognized by the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which there was
mutual accountability among the signatories. Because nations are engaged in major ways on
many levels, from disaster assistance to foreign aid, investment, trade, and military security; it
would be a profound point of absentia not to engage on human rights. Seiple believed he had
three objectives as ambassador: promote religious freedom; promote reconciliation; and make
sure that the first two tasks are woven into the fabric of our foreign policy.200
As a part of the annual U.S./Uzbek Joint Commission, begun in 1998, Seiple began to engage
Uzbekistan on religious freedom in his 1999 trip there.201 The unofficial U.S. embassy comment

198

Jane Lampman, Europe Spars over Faith, The Christian Science Monitor, 25 March 1999, 13.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, floor speech given just prior to the passage of the International Religious
Freedom Act, 9 October 1998.
200
Jane Lampman, In the Diplomatic HotseatReligion, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 April 1999,
17.
201
This discussion is based on the following sources:
1) An unofficial Memorandum for the Record by Robert A. Seiple, 7 June 1999;
2) An informal e-mail summary of the meeting, internal to the Office of International Religious
Freedom, 18 August 1999, 7:54 PM;
3) Robert A. Seiple, Washington, D.C., 3 November 1999;
4) Sodyq Safaev, Washington, D.C., 4 November 1999;
199

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for this first series of religious freedom meetings concluded: We see a real desire on the part of
the Uzbeks to keep the U.S. satisfied on these issues. Unfortunately, so far, this desire expresses
itself by defensiveness and denial, rather than by real cooperation. Seiple later noted in a memo
to the file that pragmatism is something this government understands We need to test the
resolve of the Uzbekistan government. There are numerous specific cases that can be easily
solved immediately, if the government (the President) wishes to do so.
Seiple tested the Uzbeks in August, 1999, calling the Uzbek ambassador, Sodyq Safaev, to
his office. He asked for a Muslim human rights activist and a number of Christians (recently
arrested in Nukus) to be released from jail. Otherwise, the United States would have to sanction
Uzbekistan as a country of particular concern. With the Taliban ever-threatening and bilateral
covert relations increasing, the government of Uzbekistan did not want to lose the U.S. as a
potential security partner. Thus, it is worth presenting the different and common perspectives
that they embodied as representatives of their own societies, while negotiating a realpolitik issue
in the context of 1999.
Safaev explained that Uzbekistan was just eight years old, a nascent nation that had emerged
from a rigid and totalitarian state, with no experience in democracy. It was important to
understand that Uzbekistan was free from the religious extremism found in Afghanistan,
Tajikistan, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Also, compared with Soviet times, there was a freedom to
worship in the mosques that did not previously exist. Uzbekistan offered a freedom from the
disintegration of society. Without such freedoms, there was no road to secular democracy.

5)

The testimony of Uzbekistans Ambassador before the Commission on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, Washington, D.C., 18 October 1999;
6) Tashkent 3418, unclassified Department of State cable from the American Embassy in Tashkent to
Washington, D.C., 201318Z AUG 99, and Tashkent 2185, unclassified Department of State cable
from the American Embassy in Tashkent to Washington, D.C., 281145Z MAY 99;
7) Official letter from the Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the U.S. Ambassador-atLarge for International Religious Freedom, 22 August 1999.

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Seiple was acutely aware of the violations of religious freedom and human rights in
Uzbekistan; but he also understood that democracy is not a drive-through experience. Nor was
it, in his mind, something that evolves in a teleological format. The process of democracy is not
linear, it is not a neat process. [In Uzbekistan] there is the constant baggage of the past; and the
past is a failed economic and dictatorial system in the extreme. It is hard to pull away from the
past with a clear vision of the future when your country is less than ten years old and your
leaders, by definition, are former Soviet apparatchiki.
Safaev appreciated the role human rights had to play in the world. Human rights are not
completely an internal affair in an age of globalization. Likewise, the Aral Sea is not an Uzbek or
even regional problem. It is a global problem whose impact is everywhere felt by everyone. The
more democracy the more trust and transparency there will be.
Seiple understood that Uzbekistan was concerned with national security threats that were as
real as a bombing in a neighborhood that foments terrorism. Safaev expected and respected
the American position. The U.S. position is very understandable. Any ideology has a propensity
to spread its fundamentalsit is the nature of an ideology. The United States cannot be a
civilization and a superpower if it does not try to spread its ideas, the freedoms of its ideology.
They both knew the stakes as well: an emerging American-Uzbek relationship that might
continue to grow into a strategic partnership. Safaev, reflecting the 1999 security context back
home, stated unequivocally: Our relationship with the U.S. is one of our highest priorities. No
one would dare do something that would harm that relationship. Uzbekistan thinks that it is best
for Uzbekistan and the United States for the U.S. to be in Central Asia.
Seiple was aware of the danger of reducing religious freedom to a litmus test. Once you
label someone, there is a lot of good policy that is now no longer possible, no matter the

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relationship it never is the same again. Still, Seiple remained concerned about the conduct of
U.S. foreign policy. I am concerned about the possibility of mixed signals coming from
Washington, which allows the Uzbekistan government to compartmentalize the issues, and
potentially marginalize the soft issue of human rights.202
Three days after their official meeting, the Christians were set free. The Muslim human rights
activist, Makhbuba Kassimova, was not freed. She was accused of aiding and abetting extremists
groups. And that was one line in the sand that no Uzbek official could cross. Uzbekistan will
never accept the Islamicization of the state ... keep in mind, a Sharia state, by definition, will
never be a state that allows human rights.203 Within six weeks, however, Uzbek officials raided
an unregistered Evangelical Baptist church in Karshi, detaining, beating, and imprisoning many
of the participants.204
This example suggests some clear lessons about working with the Uzbeks. First, there are
first-rate professionals, and not unreasonable, among the official Uzbek ranks (something that is
easy to forget when stereotypes dominate). Second, there is always the opportunity for poor
communication between and among different elements of national power (e.g., between the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior), as well as between Tashkent and
local authorities. Third, while the preceding point is true, the bottom line was that Karimov
reacted to the American threat of sanctions within three days.
Meanwhile, in America, no one was happy with the result. Religious freedom advocates were
very disappointed.

202

Robert A. Seiple, MEMORANDUM FOR THE FILES, unpublished, 7 June 1999.

Sherzod M. Abdullaev, Deputy Chief of Mission, the Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 4
November 1999.
204
Felix Corley, Uzbek Baptist Church Raided: A Return to Religious Repression?, Keston News
Service, 15 October 1999 (accessed 15 October 1999); available from http://www.keston.org.
203

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The more closely I study the Tashkent governments recent concessions to some minority
religious leaders, the less impressed I am. The release of religious prisoners who never should
have been arrested to begin with is of course welcome news for those believers and their
familiesbut it is a lot less welcome than it would be if Tashkent were really to remove the
sword of Damocles that continues to hang over them. These believers have simply been pardoned
or have had their sentences suspended; the government has not admitted either formally or
informally that the arrests were wrong to begin with, it has not compensated the arrestees for the
damage it unjustly inflicted on them, it has not even returned all of the property that it confiscated
from them, it has not punished, reassigned or even reprimanded the officials responsible for
persecuting them. Nor has the government repealed any of the provisions of the harsh 1998
law.205

Or as another respected human rights monitor suggested, Concessions granted cheaply,

however, are ultimately counter-productive, and only give Uzbekistan the opportunity to
continue repression with assurances of impunity.206
Yet, a more nuanced reality emerges the further one is from the black-and-white perspectives
of Washington and human rights advocates. For starters, Americans thought they were engaging
on behalf of religious freedom, but they were perceived as caring about Christians only. One
embassy official told me a year after the threat of sanctions: Its an embarrassment to human
rights and U.S. policy that our focus on Christians leads our policyleading with persecuted
Christians is an endorsement of methodologies used to put and keep Muslims behind bars.207
For example, there is a little known, but true, story of an American senator visiting with
Karimov during this time. The senator gave Karimov a delicately and intricately decorated bible.
The senator also asked Karimov to release a number of religious prisoners. Karimov visibly
stiffened, asking what he meant. The senator explained that the reference was to Christians.
Karimov exhaled as his smile returned. No problem.208

205

Lawrence Uzzell, then Director of the Keston Institute, Testimony before the Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe, 18 October 1999.
206
Cassandra Cavanaugh, Human Rights Watch, Europe and Central Asia Division, Testimony before the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 18 October 1999.
207
Embassy official, 29 August 2000, Tashkent.
208
USG official, 2000, Washington, D.C.

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This perception, and reality, is something for all Americans to think through (especially those
of the Christian faith). As a long-time and balanced observer of Uzbekistan, despite his negative
experiences with the government in the early 1990s, Abdummanob Polat felt in 2000 that there
was too much attention on Christian activities. You send the signal that the U.S. only cares
about Christians. You need to soften your words and have more realistic models of behavior for
countries in transition, keeping in mind your vision.209 Acacia Shields, the Human Rights
Watch advocate, also felt that a disproportionate attention was given to Christians by the U.S.
government.210
Christian leaders in Uzbekistan were also aware of this issue. One local leader reflects that
we are harassed, not persecuted.211 Another Christian, a Canadian with long experience in
Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, reflected that the Muslims have as many problems as the
Christians, maybe more. They [the government] pick on the Christians to balance the books in
the eyes of the Muslims.212
And then you peel back the onion a bit more and ask what Uzbeks really think about this
issue. One friend articulated a common theme: Look, there is no advertising [proselytizing] but
you are free to choose. My personal opinion: it is not acceptable to turn somebody from their
religion/identity. (This man was born to a Muslim mother and Orthodox father).
Another government official, with a Ph.D. from France, took a different approach. Shoazim
Minovarov, the long-time Director of Religious Freedom Affairs for the Cabinet of Ministers,
described to me why they arrested the Christian leader in Nukus (who became the subject of the
209

Abdummanob Polat, co-founder of Birlik, an Uzbek democratic party, 25 October 2000, Washington,
D.C.
210
Acacia Shields, presentation at the Open Society Institute, 21 September 2000.
211
Christian leader, Tashkent.
212
Richard Penner, Country Director for World Concern (a relief and development organization) 2
September 2000. Richard died in 2002 in an Uzbek Airlines crash outside of Tashkent. He, with his wife,
Ann, were the bravest of people, serving the people groups of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for over twenty
years.

176

August 1999 meeting between Ambassadors Seiple and Safaev): The arrested man needs a
medical examination for psychological reasons. He made people go into a dirty river to get
healing [a baptism]. If the man is healthy, he does not do this [especially in Nukus which is an
ecological disaster zone near the Aral Sea]its not important if they are Christian or Muslim,
only if they are a threat.213 Later Minovarov explained his quite scientific and atheistic approach
to me: The national interest is about culture, economics and security. Religion is a small part of
culture.214
In sum, religious freedom is a complex issue in a place like Uzbekistan where the culture is
quite different from the American experience. By no means does that statement condone the
violations of human rights; it does, however, suggest that every American should think carefully
about how to engage Uzbekistan, if they want to have any impact at all.

*****
As 2000 ended, Fred Starr finished the J5 commissioned Strategic Assessment of Central
Eurasia (which would be published just as George W. Bush was sworn in).
While there was no discussion of terrorism in the strategic goals, Mackinders voice noted that
U.S. vital interests would be affected if there is submission of the region to the rule of a single
hegemon. Importantly, the report called for a comprehensive strategy, with NSC coordinated
oversight, that focused on a cooperative model that seeks to improve the capacity of all the
regional states to deal with the most pressing internal threats.it should also make clear that the
United States and its allies do not intend to introduce troops or bases of their own or create

213

Shoazim Minovarov, Director, Religious Affairs, Cabinet of Ministers, government of Uzbekistan, 28

August 2000, Tashkent.
214
Shoazim Minovarov, 4 September 2000, Tashkent.

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military surrogates.215 Selective engagement or balance of power was not good enough any
longer.
As Joe Presel closed out his tenure as Ambassador, he summed up the lessons learned,
providing a practical perspective about how to understand Uzbekistan, and the United States.

They know who the hell they are. They have a sense of self. But the United States wants to be the
City on the Hill (religious freedom stuff) and have national interests (intel stuff), all at the same
time. Then we want them to abjure 75 years of Marxism and its economic system, and, we want to
introduce a western system with a market economycriticizing them the whole timewhile were a
long way away [geographically]. Then they hope they catch us on the one day the USG is thinking
about Uzbekistan.
Look, we have a shot with Uzbekistan. It wont be Norway, but it wont be Pakistan. But weve got to
give them more attention, listen and spend time with them. And when they do something right, tell
them. And when they do something half-right, stop bitchin.216

As Mahan reminded us long ago, Neither in politics nor in seamanship can the course at any
moment set disregard the port desired, nor in either profession does neglect of charted data
conduce to success.217 Presels chartered, and priceless, data were what the strategic port
required. But there was no focal point, no sense of urgency, no captain of the ship.
September 11th would bring both as the sense of urgency to focus on the bad guys left the
other elements of strategy and power struggling to keep up.

January20 September 2001

By 2001, Central Asia has reasserted its historic significance, providing the the greatest
natural fortress on earth218 to militant Islam. Due to its incubation timethat is, its time to have
training camps and build relationships and alliances, such as the IMU with al Qaedaradical
Islam became capable of flinging its power from side to side. From Bali to Baghdad, from the
215

The Atlantic Council of the US, January 2001, Central Eurasia Strategic Assessment, Prepared for the
Middle East Division, J-5, Joint Chiefs of Staff (Contract DASW01-01-99-M-1248), 97, 104.
216
Ambassador Joe Presel, U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan, 4 September 2000, Tashkent.
217
Mahan, The Problem of Asia, 130.
218
Mackinder, Round World, 201.

178

U.S.S. Cole to Casablanca, militant Islam has used, and continues to use, the Central Asian
heartland to create fear around the world, proving again this Mackinderian insight: The
Heartland yields its power to the [non] state which commands it, and it can be commanded from
outside or within.219
The United States, unfortunately, was not able to incorporate this basic awareness into its
policies, or grand strategy, after the Cold War. In fact, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that
no such policy or grand strategy existed. Certainly this was the case regarding Central Asia,
proving again another truism from Mackinder: Human society is still related to the facts of
geography not as they are but in no small measure as they have been approached in the course of
history.220 Despite the fact that Mackinders Heartland concept was the cornerstone of
containment, American policy-makers did not grasp the pivotal role Central Asia must play in
the grand strategy of the worlds only global power.
The tragedy of September 11th offered American policy-makers one last chance to come to
grips with this reality. Unfortunately, they were not able to seize it; in part because Uzbek
policy-makers, who already knew the importance of their geography, were not able to meet the
Americans half-way.
This final period of the U.S-Uzbekistan relationship begins with the Bush administration
coming to power in January of 2001 and ends with the clear move by the Karimov regime to ally
itself with Russia at the end of 2005. This period has three distinct components: January10
September 2001; September 11December 2003; and 20042005. Each component is
presented from an Uzbek and an American perspective.

219
220

W.H. Parker, Mackinder Geography as an Aid to Statecraft (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 218.
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 23.

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January-10 September 2001: An Uzbek Perspective

The Uzbeks were very pleased with the Bush victory in the 2000 presidential election. While
there was still a Russo-centric approach by the U.S., the security relationship with Uzbekistan
continued to strengthen. President Bush had sent a telegram to President Karimov, expressing his
confidence that relations between the two countries will continue to develop,221 and that had
been followed up with counterterrorism and counternarcotic talks in April.222
Yet they were keeping their options open. In mid-July, they officially created, by joining, the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Aware that they lived in the land in-between Russia
and China, the SCO represented an opportunity to exercise the old admonition to keep your
friends close and your enemies closer. To the Uzbeks the SCO was just a zeroa means to get
arms from the Russians.223 (Uzbekistans army, which had only adopted its new transformation
doctrine in early 2000, was still very much dependent on the Russians for parts and equipment).
While the SCO was clearly about economics for the Chinese, the SCO shows the weakness of
Russia because they have no other way to influence the region.224
Meanwhile, as the fall 2000 threat from the Taliban diminished, the relationship with the
Russians, not surprisingly, got colder. In late August of 2001, Karimov stated publicly that
Uzbekistan would not join any military-political blocs, to include the rapid reaction forces of
the CIS Collective Security Treaty. However, Karimov stressed that terrorism in Central Asia
is a major threat to the security of Uzbekistan and the region.225

221

US President Confident Countrys Relationship with Uzbekistan Will Develop, Interfax, 15 February
2001
222
Anthony Davis, US Special Forces Train Kyrgyz Units, Janes Defence Weekly, 29 August 2001.
223
Uzbek official.
224
Uzbek officials.
225
Uzbekistan will Not Join Military-Political Blocs, Washington Times, 27 August 2001, 15.

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Still, the relationship with the Americans was not cozy. While acknowledging that without
UBL [Osama bin Laden] and the Taliban, the IMU wouldnt existas the Taliban/IMU
pushed drugs through Kyrgyzstan to Chinathere was an increasing lack of transparency in
the bilateral relationship as the end of summer approached. This polite distance was, in part, due
to the Uzbek army chief, General Kasimov. Gulamov may be policy and admin [as Minister of
Defense], but its Kasimovs army and he hates Americans.226
To the Uzbeks, there just didnt seem to be a comprehensive approach; there was no clear
strategy from the Americans toward Central Asia.227 As Joe Presel had said, they were waiting
for their chance to be the flavor-of-the-month.

January-10 September 2001: An American Perspective

As the new administration settled in, its foreign policy agenda was centered on a great
powers approach. Not unlike his fathers administration, George W. Bush was focused on getting
the big geo-political issues right (e.g., Russia, China, India), which left less time for places like
Central Asia. As a result, developing India as a counterweight to China and Russia was a
priority; as was National Missile Defense (India was the only country to come out in public
support of NMD); China; and military transformation.228
As the new administration went through the systematic review of all U.S. policies, it was
only natural that the de facto policy remained; i.e., no policy on Afghanistan with no support for
the northern alliance against the Taliban. Accordingly, comprehensive ideas about taking on the

226

U.S. embassy officials, 10 September 2001, Tashkent.

Uzbek official, June 2002.
228
See Condoleezza Rice, Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest, Foreign Affairs 79, No. 1
(January/February), 2000. During the presidential campaign, Governor Bush explained that the U.S. would
not be involved in nation-building, a dirty-word associated with the post-humanitarian response in
Somalia, and symbolic of the Clinton administrations non-judicious use of the military.
227

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Taliban, through such partners as Uzbekistan, were going to fall on deaf ears. For example, Dick
Clarkes 25 January 2001 memo suggesting a multi-pronged strategy against al Qaeda and the
Talibanto include more covert aid for Uzbekistan, and more predator reconnaissance flights
into Afghanistanwent nowhere. Clarke, a civil servant who had been the White House
Counterterrorism Director from 1998-2001, soon lost his cabinet status, and later resigned. In
short, the Bush administration had no clear direction regarding the terrorists hiding in the
Heartland.229
Still, President Bush recognized he had a problem in the American response to terrorism.
Sometime in the early spring of 2001, the president said: Im tired of swatting fliesI want to
play offense. By 30 April 2001, the senior interagency leaders met, deciding that the
destruction of al Qaeda was Americas number one policy objective in South Asia.230
Uzbekistan was now positioned to come into the steady gaze of U.S. policy-makers according to
the number one issue in its hierarchy of values: security.
While this discussion was taking place at the highest levels, the U.S. policy toward Central
Asia demonstrated its same vague listlessness. In his testimony before the House of
Representatives, Cliff Bond, the acting Director of the South Caucasus and Central Asia office,
repeated the usual clichs: the U.S. had three core strategic interests regional security;
political/economic reform; and energy development. Congressman Joe Pitts (PA-R) responded,
commenting that US foreign policy toward the region has been one that emphasizes a stand
back and watch approach. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (CA-R) was more direct: There
has been very little done in Central Asia by the United States Government.231

229

Coll, Ghost Wars, 547-551.

Coll, Ghost Wars, 564.
231
U.S. Policy in Central Asia, Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of
the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 107th Congress, 6 June 2001. The
230

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Indeed, even the human rights community was begging for the U.S. to take a holistic
approach to its policy-making in Central Asia. We hope that Congress will urge the
administration to develop a coordinated interagency strategy on security assistance in the region,
to insure that all the actors involved, including Departments of Defense and Justice, the FBI and
the CIA, deliver the same, consistent message.232

11 September 2001December 2003

That day seared into our memories forced the United States to finally focus its gaze on
Central Asia. Uzbekistan was now the flavor-of-the-month and would be for some time. While
in hindsight it appears obvious that the U.S.-Uzbekistan relationship would move into a new and
more defined phase, it was not immediately obvious at the time. It was ten days before the
presidents spoke to each other and almost a full month before a more firm agreement was
reached between the two countries.
For the Uzbeks, as Mackinder would recognize, it was a chance to realize their geo-political
goalsthe potential for an alliance with a distant power who not only agreed with them on
security issues, but who might also balance Russia and China. For the Americans, it was not so
obvious. The need for a good relationship with Uzbekistan was driven by the exigencies of the
war at handofficially known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT). With this common and
paramount needsecuritythe relationship between the two countries began anew after

juxtaposition between the title of the issue and the title of the sub-committee says it all. Ten years since the
fall of the Soviet Union and the U.S. still did not know quite where to put Central Asia in our geocommunal maps.
232
Dr. Cassandra Cavanaugh, Congressional Testimony, Silencing Central Asia: The Voice of the
Dissidents, 31 July 2001 (accessed 31 July 2001); available from
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/rights/articles/eav072701f.shtml.

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September 11th. Given their long-term, common, interests, it was a moment that Mackinder
would have predicted, and seized.

11 September 2001December 2003: An Uzbek Perspective

On September 11, 2001, Uzbekistans Minister of Defense reflecting on what he would like
U.S. policy to be toward Uzbekistan: There is an old Soviet joke: To be prosperous, you must
lose a war to the United States (implying that Uzbekistan would never get the kind of support it
needed from the U.S.). Aware of the increasing mutual aloofness in the relationship, Kadyr
Gulamov further observed: Everything is interrelated and you have to know the limitsyou
cannot just jump into paradise; you have to go through certain steps. He was doing his part,
however, trying to create a real profession among junior enlisted leaders by developing them at
the new NCO schools throughout the country.
One hour before the World Trade Center was hit, Gulamov concluded: We need more
counterterrorism cooperation between the U.S. and Uzbekistan.233
Uzbekistans foreign policy elites immediately recognized the opportunity before them. For
the first time since the Seljuks and Timur the Lame, Central Asia would be the subject, not the
object of global politics.234 This point cannot be overstated. The psychological impact of the
worlds attention was enormous.
As Mackinder had pointed out, Central Asia and Uzbekistan was vital. No more was it just a
region of colonies or a buffer zone on the periphery of great powers to use how they pleased; it
was a legitimate player in world affairs. Classifying regions as either central or peripheral, as

233

Gulamov, 11 September 2001, Tashkent.

Aziz Tatibaev, Chairman of the History Department, National University of Uzbekistan, 5 June 2002,
Tashkent.
234

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important or not, is irrelevant today.235 It was a time to for Central Asia to truly have
independent relations with the world absent the conscious and subconscious influence of, and
deference to, Russia.
First, however, there needed to be a deep analysis of the driving forces of globalization in
order to create the geo-political and geo-economic structures necessary for interdependence and
inter-operability. The geopolitical context had three characteristics:
1) The recent emergence of Central Asian countries from political non-existence into independence,
into a type of European statehood, becoming a vital piece of the Asian geo-political space;
2) Central and South Asia were now a part of the globalization process; and
3) 9/11 accelerates the process of bringing globalization to Central and South Asia.

There were four practical implications to 9/11 that demanded the worlds attention:
1) Central Asia is now the focus of genuine world attention and commitment; the future of the
region and the world are at stake;
2) The world is immediately dependent on Central Asia for global securityterrorism will take
years to combat and a zero-sum mentality is not practical; regional cooperation is the key to a
future where everybody wins;
3) There are new opportunities for Central Asian development and modernization through
Afghanistan (previously the threat, now the opportunity);
4) Now is the time for Central Asia to address its major problem: being landlockedwhich will
help solve economic and political issues.236

Continuing to echo Mackinders geo-strategic perspective, Uzbek officials felt that America
now needed Uzbekistan for several reasons.
Here is the fundamental remark: 9/11 brought things into focus. It was a very
important psychological factor, building on the geo-political factors that were forming
well before 9/11. The new U.S. policy has three characteristics:
1) Great power balancingtoday the U.S. is in a region that allows them to control all
of Eurasia by being next to the most closed regions of Russia and China (to include
their military-industrial complexes)all of this is very important as Asia is the
primary region for U.S. military involvement;

235

Abdulaziz Kamilov, Uzbekistan and the Reconstruction of Afghanistan, International Institute for
Strategic Studies (IISS) conference report on Central Asia and the Post-Conflict Stabilization of
Afghanistan, 14-15 June 2002, 10.
236
Sodyq Safaev, presentation at same IISS conference, 14 June 2002. These comments are based on my
notes and the presentation itself. The official paper, Regional Development and Afghanistans Post
Conflict Recovery, can be found in the IISS conference report on page 20.

185

2) Problems of energy resources; and,

3) Afghanistan involvement means that the U.S. is regaining influence in a region where
it has not been effective since 1979 and the fall of the Shah.
This is not a regional security issue but a global one. Central and South Asia are the most
important regions in the world, informing the U.S. security strategy in the 21st century as a result.
This region is critical to developing a new world order. The U.S. is the only global power capable
of responding to global security issues. Such a perspective understands that this region is very
volatile. Regional stability here is the key to global security.237

On 20 September 2001, President George W. Bush addressed the American nation before a
Joint Session of Congress. As he laid out his doctrine for combating terrorism on a global scale,
the President cited the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as an example of the enemy that had
attacked the United States on September 11th.238 For most Americans, it was an obscure
reference. For Uzbeks, however, it was acknowledgement before the world that the threat they
had faced for years was real. And for Uzbek foreign policy elites, the reference was a sign that
Americastarting with the first ever phone call from an American President to the Uzbek
President the day before239was finally ready to have a serious and comprehensive foreign
policy for Central Asia.240
Still, they were a small country living in a dangerous neighborhood, and had to consider the
consequences of a partnership with the U.S. The positives were compellingly obvious: a big
brother who balanced Russia and China, worrying too much about human rights (although this
was something they thought they could live with). The negative possibilities were significant. If
the U.S. did not keep its word, Uzbekistan, with an implicit loss of face, would be forced into the
237

Uzbek official.
George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, 20 September
2001 (accessed 22 September 2001); available from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.
239
John Herbst, U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and Robert Duggleby, Lieutenant Colonel (U.S. Army)
and Defense Attache to the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan, 20 September 2001, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
240
As noted above, Uzbek elites had followed the November 2000 American election closely and were
pleased that George Bush had won, largely because he was perceived to have extremely capable aides and
thus a foreign policy that would be realist, i.e., founded on national interests instead of values. (Repeated
interviews with various sources).
238

186

arms of Russia and/or China out of necessity. In other words, the Uzbeks had to be quite sure
that the U.S. would be there for them.
As the Bush team reached out to Uzbekistanat the least, they needed an airbase in
Uzbekistan to support the upcoming war with the Talibanthey soon encountered Uzbekistans
fundamental question: What do we do if your action puts us at risk?241 Sodyq Safaev, now
serving as the First Deputy Foreign Minister in Tashkent, made the stakes quite clear to the U.S.
embassy in Uzbekistan: We dont want to be stuck with a living snake.242

The Uzbeks wanted immediate membership in NATO for starterssomething the U.S. could not
grant and a sensitive issue with the Russians to say the least. As Powell put it, the Uzbeks wanted
a bilateral treaty of mutual defense, love, cooperation and economic support. They wanted some
proof that the love would be permanent, a kind of Will You Be There Tomorrow?
declaration.243

The White House marched out quickly through a series of steps that culminated in a strategic
partnership with Uzbekistan in March 2002. On 19 September 2001, President Bush met in the
White House with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.244 Ivanov said that Russia would not
impede Americans efforts to work directly with the Central Asian republics. That same day,
President Bush also called President Karimov (it is not clear whether the phone call took place
before or after the Ivanov meeting).245 The next day, President George W. Bush addressed the
American nation before a Joint Session of Congress.
By 5 October 2001 the Uzbeks had a visit from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, which
resulted in a joint U.S.-Uzbek statement on 7 October 2001. The statement established a
241

See Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 159.
Christopher Sibilla, U.S. State Department, 19 December 2001.
243
Woodward, Bush at War, 172.
244
Susan L. Clark-Sestak, U.S. Bases in Central Asia, (Institute for Defense Analyses, September 2003),
5. (See footnote #6: Clark-Sestak references Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian
Affairs, Beth Jones, Briefing to the Press, 11 February 2002 (accessed 23 February 2004); available from
http:/www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/7946pf.htm.
245
Interview with U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, John Herbst, and the U.S. Defense Attache, Lieutenant
Robert Duggleby (USA), 20 September 2001, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
242

187

qualitatively new relationship based on a long-term commitment to advance security and

regional stability as both countries partnered to eliminate international terrorism and its
infrastructure. As a result, U.S. forces would have access to the airbase at Karshi-Khanabad
(K2), just north of the Uzbek-Afghan border.
While no quid pro quos were officially established, major international financial institutions
announced nearly at the same time that they would be looking to increase credits and
investments. The Uzbeks, however, ever mindful of their neighborhood and the Americans short
attention span, were quick to point out that the K2 would not be used for combat operations.
American forces there (soon to total 1,000) were only for search and rescue and other
humanitarian missions.246
The military-to-military relations of the past five years had made the deal possible. This is a
region where personal contact is extremely important. If we had just shown up last month,
wanting to use Uzbekistans bases, it would not have been possible for things to go so
smoothly.247
The Uzbeks moved quickly to seize the expanding opportunity. In November they sent a
delegation of English-speaking officials that made a positive impression upon the foreign policy
establishment in Washington, D.C. (most of whom had never met an Uzbek before). Through
cabinet level meeting and briefings at the National Press Club and major think tanks, the Uzbek
delegation implicitly countered the stereotype that most American policy elites had previously
held of Uzbekistan.

246

Joint U.S.-Uzbek Statement Announces Qualitatively New Relationship, Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, Central Asia Report, Vol. 1, No. 13, 18 October 2001.
247
P. Terrence Hopmann, as quoted in C.J. Chivers, Long Before the War, Green Berets Built Military
Ties to Uzbekistan, New York Times, 25 October 2001. Also confirmed in repeated interviews with U.S.
and Uzbek officials, military and civilian.

188

Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov spoke knowledgably about the mechanisms of the
various international financial institutions. Minister of Defense Gulamov revealed the history of
mil-to-mil relations that had previously existed, and of his desire for a language training center at
the Uzbek armed forces academy. And Deputy Foreign Minister Safaev acknowledged that
without further democratization of the country, improvement in human rights, creating a civil
society, and running by laws of the state, there will be no economic prosperity, no lasting
stability for Uzbekistan. We realize that it is in our self-interest.
The first time an Uzbek-delegation had been empowered to make decisions without checking
with Tashkent (Karimov) first, they were a huge success.248 In the next week Secretary of State
Colin Powell was in Tashkent for the opening of the bridge at Termez (into Afghanistan) for the
delivery of humanitarian aid. At the press conference with President Karimov, Powell stated that
the U.S. was looking for a relationship that will endure long after the crisis is over.249
In January 2002, the U.S. Government sent to Uzbekistan its largest interagency delegation
ever. Headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Eurasia Mira Ricardel and Assistant
Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Beth Jones, the delegation met with their Uzbek
counterparts to determine how to increase cooperation while finalizing a strategic framework for
signature. Amidst the usual security issues of counterterrorism and joint military operations, Pat

248

Central Asia and the War on Terrorism, transcript of a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council of the
United States, moderated by Joseph A. Presel, 30 November 2001; interview with Uzbek official.
249
Secretary Colin L. Powell, Joint Press Conference with President Karimov, 8 December 2001, Tashkent
(accessed 31 August 2004) available from
http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2001/dec/6749.htm.
As a side note (and of useful reference for the 2004-2005 discussion below), it is worth recording one
Uzbek officials reaction to the international humanitarian NGOs that descended upon Termez. My
authorities were confused with the overflow of NGOs. There is no common denominator for these
institutions. We wanted to treat them like a sub-contractor to the UNHCR but could not. They irritated midlevel bureaucrats who want a clear instinct about with whom they have to work.

189

Davis (from the State Departments Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor), made the
case for the inclusion of human rights in the agreement.250
On 12 March 2002, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Uzbek Foreign Minister
Abdulaziz Komilov signed a comprehensive Declaration on the Strategic Partnership and
Cooperation Framework between their two countries. The eighteen page framework pledged
practical goals in establishing stability and security in Central Asia and promised to work
toward increased cooperation in five key areas:

political relations (with a commitment to further intensify the democratic transformation

of [Uzbek] society);

security cooperation (where the U.S. would regard with grave concern any external
threat to Uzbekistan);

economic relations (with priority to economic and structural reform in Uzbekistan);

humanitarian cooperation (with the intention to work together in education, public

health and environmental protection); and

legal cooperation (with a promise to develop a law-based government system and

culture).251

The security partnership was a point of deep pride for the Uzbekswe are the only CIS
country with such an agreement with the United States.252 President Karimov said that the U.S.
can stay on the territory of Uzbekistan as long as it needs.253

250

Various interviews with U.S. and Uzbek officials in Tashkent and Washington, D.C. I was in Tashkent
at the time, monitoring Karimovs rigged election the day before the U.S.-Uzbek interagency summit. As it
turned out, I flew back to D.C. with the interagency delegation on 29 January 2002, gaining more insight in
the VIP lounge than through a dozen official interviews.
251
The Declaration of the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation between the United States of America and
the Republic of Uzbekistan (full text, provided by Titi Baccam, then the Uzbekistan desk officer at the
State Department.) Available from http://www.fas.org/terrorism/at/docs/2002/US-UzbekPartnership.htm);
see also the U.S. State Department Fact Sheet, 12 March 2002 (accessed 19 January 2004), available from
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/8736.htm.

190

It is important to note, however, that the human rights component came from the Uzbeks
themselves. According to several accounts, the original declaration was six pages. The Uzbeks
added twelve pages of changes, including the human rights component. All agree that the Uzbeks
added the changes of their own volition; most think that the changes came from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (others suggest that it came from Karimov).

Human Rights
With the security arrangement achieved, the Uzbeks began several human rights initiatives
over the next two years, some of which would have been impossible just the year before:

(Released 460 political prisoners in December 2001)

Provided access to the U.N. Rapporteur on Torture the only Central Asian country to
do so whose report concluded that torture was systemic in Uzbek jails

Released 930 political prisoners in December 2002

Released 705 political prisoners in December 2003

Placed secret police on trial for human rights violations (the first time in Uzbekistans
history)

Allowed Birlik to meet as an opposition party

Abolished the governments monopoly over the internet

Registered the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan

Removed censorship from papers

Developed a four month survey of HT extremists in twenty-one prisons (April-August

2003) to better understand why people became extremist

252

Uzbek official.
See Shireen Hunter, Islam and Russia, 341. (Hunter quotes the Jamestown Foundation Monitor 8, no.
55, 19 March 2002).

253

191

Established a new English-speaking only school for highly qualified young people

Brought back the former head Mufti, Mohammed Yusef (an independent voice who has
criticized the regime) back to help with Islamic education

Participated in a conference on religion and the state in Washington, D.C. (October 2004)

Sustained a downward trend in arrests (e.g., lowered by 50% from 2001 to 2002)

Lowered the number of political prisoners, by all accounts, from approximately 8,500 to
4,500-5,500

Did not conduct the usual sweep after the 2004 and 2005 terrorist bombings rounding
up random innocent people (as they did in Namangan in December 1997 when a police
official was assassinated)254

Of course there is a counterargument to many of these statistics. For example: if the

government allowed a group to register, how much freedom was the group really given? The
government allowed the Rapporteur for Torture to visit the countryand his final report said
that torture was systematic but why was the Rapporteur not allowed in the worst prisons?
Why is his plan not being implemented? Were the convicted secret police truly punished? These,
and others, are very fair questions. And they are properly raised by Human Rights Watch and
others.255
Among the various initiatives, however, two questions loom. First, were these Uzbek actions
merely lip-service in order to stay in the good graces of the U.S.? Or were they genuine efforts to
begin reform, representing a significant break with the past?
254

Interviews with Uzbek and U.S. officials, April 2004; U.S. State Department Fact Sheet, U.S.
Engagement in Central Asia: Successes, 27 November 2002 (accessed 19 January 2004) available from
http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/15561.htm.
255
For example, see Uzbekistan: Progress on Paper Only, An Analysis of the U.S. State Departments
Certification of Uzbekistan, 3 June 2003; Availble from
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/uzbek060303-bck.htm. [Without certification, the U.S. government
is limited, by law, in what money it can give.]

192

Put differently, were these efforts as fast as Uzbekistan could move, given the domestic
politics described in the last chapter?
Second, what if these actions were not taken? Would the domestic situation in Uzbekistan be
better or worse? Would it be closer to becoming a failed state?
Counterfactual questions are not of much practical use. But they do provide perspective. For
example, consider the ending of editorial censure by the Uzbek government. Officially, censure
was over. Some saw it as a political gesture to please the Americans, however, and were quick to
point out that many editors self-censured to keep their jobs. On the other hand, others saw such a
change as the first small step in habitualizing the rule of law.
Perhaps most fascinating among these initiatives was Karimovs educational efforts. While
his first prong of attack against extremist Islam was repression, his second prong of attack was
always education. To his credit, Karimov recognized from the beginning that he was in a war of
ideas: This is idea against idea, spirituality against darkness.256 This war could only be won
through secular and theological education. Unfortunately, as the government overhauled the
spiritual and secular education, the means tainted the ends.
Regarding theological matters, Karimov took advantage of Central Asias historical context.
Since 1789, the region has had some kind of religious board, providing advice to the state and
oversight of religion.257 Karimov simply re-established this religious board after he became
president, thereby controlling the placement of imams while exercising an indirect censure of

256

Zhuherrin Husdinitov, Special Advisor to the President for Religion, and Rector of Islamic State
University 15 April 2004, Tashkent.
257
Catherine the Great first created a Muslim institution under state control in 1789 in the Ufa district. This
institution was renamed the Orenburg Muhammedan Spiritual Assembly in 1796. In creating the Spiritual
Assembly, Catherine also created an official Muslim clerical establishment that would be responsible to the
government and would not act in an independent manner. In other words, Karimovs state control of Islam
is a perfectly natural function to the Central Asian experience. See Shireen Hunter, Islam in Russia, The
Politics of Identity and Security (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), 8.

193

Friday sermons. President Karimov also established the Islamic State University in Tashkent.
This school teaches English, Arabic, theology and other disciplines.
Bridging the gap between spiritual and secular education, the government completely
redesigned its public education of Islam, ending in 2003. It developed a five-year plan to
comparatively review programs and textbooks from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East
and from around the world. They then developed and implemented a curriculum for the
elementary, secondary, university and graduate levels to teach Islam in public schools; including
a training program for specialists who would teach this curriculum.
Importantly, this review was initiated by the Uzbek government as the West ignored both the
threat of radical Islam, and the idea that civil society programs might include religion.
Still, these secular education efforts were not as credible as they could be, because it was so
obvious that the government controlled the clergy and the message of public Islam. In other
words, because the government seemingly believes that one cannot be fundamentally devout and
a good citizen who disavows terrorism, the efforts to re-educate Uzbeks about Islam are often
seen as one more component of a regime that seeks to control everything.
The Uzbek positionmaddening to the United Stateswas very simple: There is no way to
press from the outside.258 Uzbekistan does not change simply because an outsider wants it to.

258

Uzbek official.

194

Economy

With the U.S. security guarantee, and the destruction of its primary conventional (the
Taliban) and unconventional (the IMU) threats, there was no reason not engage in economic
reform. Uzbekistan soon reestablished its relationship with the IMF and agreed to a Staff
Monitored Program (January 2002), which it signed on 30 June 2002. The agreement touched on
the most important part of Uzbekistans domestic politics: foreign exchange rate mechanisms.
The Program stated that there would be no more than a 20% differential between the official
exchange rate and the black market rate. By 15 October 2003, the government had proclaimed
full convertibility of the Som.
Despite having all the ingredients needed to become a regional economic powerhouse to
include a dynamic, literate and entrepreneurial population and energy self-sufficiency259
there is a pervasive attitude among officials in Uzbekistan that the government must control the
economy from above.260 As always, politics and economics were intricately intertwined, with
the former forever trumping the latter.
For instance, just three months after signing their agreement with the IMF, the government
was manipulating border tariffs to be within the 20% maximum differential between official
rates and black market rates. The government allowed the official exchange rate to increase
while imposing exorbitant border tariffs that kept the black market rate lower.
For example, shuttle traders would go outside Uzbekistan to buy their goods, returning to sell
it at a higher rate in Uzbekistan. The border tariff, however, had to be paid in hard currency, a
259

Country Commercial Guide, Uzbekistan, FY03 U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service and U.S.
Department of State, Executive Summary, 2002.
260
Pauline Jones Luong, Political Obstacles to Economic Reform in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan: Strategies to Move Ahead, a World Bank paper prepared for the Lucerne Conference of the
CIS-7 Initiative, 20-22 January 2003, 19. See also Strategy for Uzbekistan, Document of the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 4 March 2003.

195

cost that the trader would pass onto the customer. The tariffs, in other words, kept hard currency
in Uzbekistan and Uzbeks buying Uzbek produced goods; even as the IMF, or so the government
thought, felt that the 20% mark being kept.261
The control of the economy, and especially the exchange rates, was not only a function of the
control mentality of the Uzbek leadership, but a necessity of controlling the Uzbek elites through
the interrelated patronage system that President Karimov has developed (remember that he had
no power base upon becoming president).
Larry Memmott, U.S. economic officer in Tashkent from 1999-2003, observes: every part
of the system will be undermined by economic reform as ones loss is anothers gain. In the
past, Memmott points out, Karimov has only been able to crush one part of the system at a time
(e.g., putting the sons of the chief of the Samarkand clan in jail). To take on the whole system at
once, however, meant that all of the vested powers would lose simultaneously; which, in turn,
meant that Karimov would lose power.262
This vicious cycle of political patronage through economic perks sustains the system
temporarily while paradoxically ensuring its eventual self-destruction.

These policies have served both to reinforce pre-existing and to create new vested interests in the
status quo, including: 1) government officials, such as central ministers, regional and local
hokims, and farm chairman, who benefit politically as well as personally from their privileged
access to economic resources and excessive administrative responsibilities, 2) state designated
importers, who are the net winners of the multiple exchange rate system that has been in
existence since late 1996 because they can purchase foreign currency at an appreciated exchange
rate, and 3) those industries included in the governments pubic investment program, as well as

261

Uzbek official; also see Martha Brill Olcott, Central Asias Second Chance (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press, 2005), 118. In this particular case, the Uzbek government reduced the tariffs
and allowed the border crossing tariff to be paid in som. Still, it is these kinds of things that nickel and dime
a country to its economic death. Another tried and true Uzbek policy is to make it very difficult for an
ordinary Uzbek citizen to withdraw cash from the Uzbek banks.
262
Larry Memmott, Economics officer, U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan, 4 June 2002, Tashkent.

196

large joint ventures with foreign investment, which receive special tax breaks and access to
subsidized credit and production inputs.263

The byproduct is a business environment that is opaque, complex and discouraging to

investors, foreign or domestic (Most Uzbek businessmen use off-shore accounts, waiting for a
day when they can trust their own banking system).264 Summing up the economic situation, one
Uzbek very familiar with how the system works said:

The real threat is that we are in a position to change but the mid-level people [e.g.
local hokims beholding to regional bosses beholding to Karimov265] dont want to
implement the change. These people operate without any punishment. They are
more dangerous than HTThe new mechanisms must allow for us to really have
money in a legal way; then we can stop holding the sparrow and start chasing the
eagle.266

The sparrow and eagle references pertain to a Central Asian proverb: Ill take the sparrow
home instead of trying to catch the eagle. In more ways than one, it is the perfect description of
the Uzbek-U.S. relationship. The Uzbeks could not help but hold onto the old ways; there was
nothing in their history or recent experience that taught them not to be conspiratorial and controloriented. Hold the sparrow now, and make it to tomorrow. This is the paradoxical mindset of
many Uzbek patriots who, like Karimov, want a better future for their country. As a result,
however, there is no way to catch the (U.S.) eagle of a better tomorrow. While events would
determine the characteristics of the demise of the Uzbek-U.S. relationship, this reality of the
sparrow-in-hand mindset essentially pre-ordained itleaving no hope until a new generation
comes to power.
263

Pauline Jones Luong, Political Obstacles to Economic Reform in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan: Strategies to Move Ahead, a World Bank paper prepared for the Lucerne Conference of the
CIS-7 Initiative, 20-22 January 2003, 10.
264
For a depressing summary of the business environment in Uzbekistan, see Martha O. Blaxall,
Economic Implications of Instability, paper for DFI conference the future of Uzbekistan, 26 May 2004.
265
See Martha Brill Olcott, Testimony before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and
the Pacific on Democracy in the Central Asian Republics, 12 April 2000, for more discussion of the link
between political patronage and (non) economic opportunity in Uzbekistan. (Accessed 9 September 2000);
available from http://iicas.org/english/Krsten_19_04_00.htm.
266
Uzbek official.

197

The Relationship Sours

After the joint consultations in Washington, D.C. (April 2003), the Uzbeks knew that the
bloom had come off the relationship. Despite the initial euphoria and great expectations, as
well as the common regional and international security concerns of terrorism, narcotics and nonproliferation, there were fundamental differences regarding human rights. These were not
geopolitical differences but they were [geo-communal] differences deeply rooted in the
sources culture and civilization. Still, this controversy was about timing and algorithms. The
U.S. wants changes strong and quick. We do not think this approach is necessary. We must take
a moderate and evolutionary approach.267 It was an understandable argument. As Zhuherrin
Husdinitov argued: Weve made progress in the last 13 years, especially compared to what took
place in the U.S. over 200 years.268
The end of the beginning, however, as well as the beginning of the end, came with Georgias
Rose Revolution in November-December of 2003. The real and perceived role of international
NGOs in the pursuit of democracy was not something that could be tolerated in any form in
Uzbekistan.

11 September 2001December 2003: An American Perspective

Whether we think of the physical, economic, military or political interconnection of things on the
surface of the globe, we are now for the first time presented with a closed system. The known
does not fade any longer through the half-known in the unknown; there is no longer elasticity of
political expansion in the lands beyond the pale. Every shock, every disaster or superfluity, is
now felt even to the antipodes, and may indeed return from the antipodes Every deed of
humanity will henceforth be echoed and reechoed in like manner.269

267

Uzbek official.
Husdinitov, 15 April 2004, Tashkent.
269
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 2, 22.
268

198

9/11 forced a rediscovery of geography, and recent history, for most Americans and
especially policy-makers. Upon his first visit to Uzbekistan in January 2002, Senator Joe
Lieberman issued an American mea culpa:

During the Cold Warwe yielded this areatotally to Soviet interests, and Soviet control. When
the Soviet Union collapsed and these countriesdeclared their independence, the United States
began to have relations with the countries, but they were, as we look back, all too halting and
limited. It is tragic but true that the horrific attacks against the United States on September 11th,
opened our eyes to the reality that what happens here in Central Asia, though it may be far from
our shores, can nonetheless have the most immediate and direct effect on usthis is a critical part
of the world, strategically, economically and politically, and I would say that our interest in this
region post-September 11th is going to be permanent, and I believe constructive both to economic
development and to the spread of democracy and freedom.270

The visit itself signaled a new period. In the two years prior to September 11th, for example,
Uzbekistan had received just two congressmen.271 By April of 2004, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld had been there three times and Secretary of State Powell twice. Meanwhile, sixty-three
congressmen and eighteen senators had found time to visit the country.272
Americans who understood Uzbekistan, however, recognized what the opportunity meant to
the Uzbeks. Despite the tragedy, it was a moment to be seized unlike any other.

9/11 change[d] everythingit is a gift from God to Uzbekistan. It destroyed their #1 threat, the
Taliban and IMU; the U.S. is too far away to force them to do things; and the U.S. balances
Russia and China. Its the best moment theyve had since independence and the best theyll have
in the next ten yearsand they know it.273

And Americans whose job it was to understand and implement policy also recognized the
moment for what it was, to include its historical context. During the late 1980s, Beth Jones had
been the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) in Pakistan. During that time, as any good DCM
would, she sided with her ambassador in support of sub-contracting American foreign policy to
270

Senator Joseph Lieberman, U.S. Senatorial Delegation Press Conference in Uzbekistan, 6 January 2002
(accessed 8 January 2002); available from
http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&=&mid=218&overview=482.
271
Memmott, 4 June 2002, Tashkent.
272
Husdinitov, 15 April 2004, Tashkent.
273
Memmott, 4 June 2002, Tashkent.

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Pakistans intelligence community (no matter the consequences and despite alternatives at the
time that suggested the policy was a mistake).274
With 9/11, however, Jones was now the administrations point person for Central Asia as the
Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia. At an April 2003 conference, she spoke
knowingly of lessons learned. Our disengagement from Afghanistan in the 1980s taught us a
harsh lesson, one that we do not want to repeat in other countries. We learned that we must
engage the regions governments and people to promote long-term stability and prevent a
security vacuum that provides opportunities for extremism and external intervention.275
In her first Congressional testimony on the issuetestifying before the new sub-committee
on Central Asia and the Caucasus, whose new creation testified to the previous non-interest of
Congress in the region while its name insisted that Central Asia and the Caucasus were actually
one regionJones stated that we are engagedseriously and for the long-termwith Central
Asia. She called for a policy that was a commitment to deeper, more sustained, and bettercoordinated engagement on the full range of issues upon which we agree and disagree.
Americas national interests included: preventing the spread of terrorism; providing tools for
political and economic reform and institution of the rule of law, and transparent development of

274

Coll, Ghost Wars, 184, 199, 235. See page 169 for context: There was no American policy on Afghan
politics at the time, on the de facto promotion of Pakistan goals as carried out by Pakistani intelligence. The
CIA forecasted repeatedly during this period that postwar Afghanistan was going to be an awful mess;
nobody could prevent that. Let the Pakistanis sort out the regional politics. This was their neighborhood.
275
Elizabeth Jones, Oil, Democracy, and Militant Islam in Central Asia, Remarks at Title VI
Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language conference on Central Asia: Its Geopolitical
Significance and Future Impact, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, 10 April 2003. Tellingly,
Jones goes on to separate Afghanistan from Central Asia, geographically, while suggesting that the U.S.
had indeed engaged Central Asia in a meaningful manner after the fall of the Soviet Union. (Jones is also
the former ambassador to Kazakhstan). In other words, U.S. policy in Central Asia had been successful and
Afghanistan was not a part of, or related to, Central Asia. Oddly enough, however, she had told the press a
year earlier that all Central Asians were very close to Afghanistan physically but they all have had
relationships with Afghanistan going way back. See Beth Jones, Briefing to the Press, 11 February 2002
(accessed 23 February 2004); available from http:/www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/7946pf.htm.

200

Caspian energy reserves. And because Central Asia is not a zero-sum game, the objective is
therefore anti-monopoly but not anti-Russian.276
Jones also stressed during this time that the United States did not want bases in Central
Asia. We dont want a U.S. base anywhere. But what we do want is access to the bases to which
we have access now for as long as we need them.277 A year later she would stress again: There
are no bases in Central AsiaThe United States does not intend to have permanent bases in
Central Asia, but we are grateful to have access to these bases.278
The question kept coming up during this period for two reasons. First, the Bush
administration was repeatedly criticized by the press for trading universal values and human
rights for the military base in (Karshi) Khanabad.279 This criticism is unfair because the Bush
team was repeatedly speaking with the Uzbeks about human rights, from Pat Davis intervention
on 28 January 2002 as they laid the foundation for the Strategic Framework in Tashkent, to the
issue being brought up at the mid-April 2003 joint consultations in Washington, D.C.280 (that is,
when the bloom came off the relationship for the Uzbeks because they realized that the
Americans were not going to back off the human rights). Indeed, just eight days before the
Strategic Framework was signed, the State Departments first sentence of its Uzbekistan country
report was quite clear: Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.281

276

Elizabeth Jones, Testimony before the Sub-Committee on Central Asia and the Caucasus, 13 December
2001 (accessed 19 January 2004); available from http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2001/11299.htm.
277
Beth Jones, Briefing to the Press, Washington, D.C., 11 February 2002 (accessed 23 February 2004);
available from http:/www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/7946pf.htm.
278
Beth Jones, Press Conference, Tashkent, 24 January 2003 (accessed 23 February 2004); available from
http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&mid=219&lid=1&overview=362.
279
For example, see the BBC question to Lorne Craner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor, 14 June 2002 (accessed 23 February 2004); available from
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/rm/11112pf.htm.
280
See United States-Uzbekistan Joint Security Cooperation Consultations, Press Statement, 15 April
2003 (accessed 31 August 2004); available from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/19665.htm.
281
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Uzbekistan, U.S. Department of State, Bureau for
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 4 March 2002 (accessed 23 February 2004); available from
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/8366.htm.

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Beth Jones summarizes the delicate but firm process of U.S. engagement with Uzbekistan on
human rights:
So the trick is to understand what we mean and they mean by engagement, because of course
what we mean is engagement in every sector that Ive mentioned, particularly especially
economic reform, democratic reform and human rights. And you know, we are very up front
about saying it means all of these things; youre not going to have this enhanced mil-mil
relationshipwithout working with us on these issues as well. We are in their office, in their
face, all the time.282

Were the Uzbeks listening? It is extremely difficult to convince Central Asian leaders that
long-term economic and democratic reforms are necessary to eliminate the roots of terrorism.283
Or, as one Uzbek official described the non-communication of the American-Uzbek relationship:
It is like the blind [U.S.] talking to the deaf [Uzbekistan].284
The second reason the base question kept coming up was the Uzbeks obvious focus on
traditional security (discussed above), and the Department of Defenses intentional expansion of
expeditionary bases around the world.285
282

Beth Jones, Briefing to the Press, Washington, D.C., 11February 2002 (accessed 23 February 2004);
available from http:/www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/7946pf.htm.
283
B. Lynn Pascoe, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, The U.S. Role in
Central Asia, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Central Asia
and the South Caucasus, 27 June 2002, Washington, D.C. (accessed 19 January 2004); available from
http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/11535.htm.
284
Uzbek official, 2002.
285

See Chris Seiple, Religion and the New Global Counterinsurgency, 2 September 2003 (accessed 19
September 2005); available from http://www.globalengagement.org/issues/2003/09/religion.htm. [The
military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq] signal the arrival of a new expeditionary age. The distance over
which U.S. forces can now conduct these maneuvers, and the speed and precision with which they can
perform them, is unprecedented. What was once the comparative advantage of the United States Marine
Corps is now the modus operandi of all the servicesindeed, the Department of Defense as a whole (and
soon, if we are to win, the entire national security establishment). Witness the redesign of American bases
overseas from huge depots and creature comforts to skeletal springboards for quick response and/or
preemptive action. These bases are conceptually reminiscent of Mahan's desire for coaling stations around
the world. They smack of both necessity and empire.
The victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, impressive as they were, involved the application of conventional
military forces against an enemy who could largely be identified in the course of battle. After each of the
"conventional" victories, howeverafter the adversary had quit the battlefield, melted away, and begun to
confront our forces with different tacticsAmerican forces found it far more difficult to bring operations to
strategic closure. It turned out that operations in these conflicts were merely battlefield victories, not
strategic ones.

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The Bush team brought a different approach to international relations than the preceding
administration. There are two kinds of engagement strategies: proselytizing democracy or
promoting national security. The Bush administrations approach was to work in the context of
common security interests, which, in turn, enable you to expand the dialogue, creating a space
for democracy. Still: Our priority is the GWOT [the global war on terrorism].286 And GWOT
was taking place amidst Secretary Rumsfelds previous intent to transform the U.S. military.
At the intersection of GWOT and transformation was the need for expeditionary bases that
quickly enabled preemption or reaction, according to the situation.

Pentagon chiefs envisage a global network of "lily pads" or "warm bases", forward depots which
would hold enough weaponry, vehicles and supplies to equip large rapid reaction forces, which
would fly in at short notice through a handful of large air hubs, such as Ramstein in Germany.
Other equipment would be kept in floating warehouses at sea.
Strike forces would head for "virtual bases", airfields in any of a wide range of countries to have
granted the United States emergency access rights. So, far from entangling the United States in
imperial alliances, the new doctrine is instead born of distrust, and America's fears of being let
down by even its oldest allies, argues Celeste Johnson Ward, a fellow of the Centre for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington.
In the long term, the Pentagon's dreams are more radical still. Its research arm recently solicited
bids for a new breed of space-based unmanned hypersonic bombers, capable of taking off from
American soil and striking targets on the far side of the globe within two hours, without waiting
for permission to use bases, or for overflight rights.

The "new" American way of war, then, focused on destruction of conventional armies, may already be
obsolete. To keep from making the same mistake that we committed in Vietnam, we must accept that
America, for the first time, is fighting a global counterinsurgency in which conventional military
capabilities must be subordinate to, and supportive of, the synergistic combination of all the elements of
power in support of our wartime policy. This is the new American way of war.
See also, Chris Seiple, Implications of Terrorism in Uzbekistan, 12 April 2004 (accessed 19 September
2005); available from http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040412.americawar.seiple.terroruzbekistan.html. It is
an expeditionary age. Not unlike the coaling stations that Mackinders contemporaries, Alfred Thayer
Mahan and Theodore Roosevelt, sought for American sea power, the Department of Defense is looking for
operating sites (as Don Rumsfeld told a Tashkent news conference here in February) or cooperative
security locations that makes its power ubiquitous. At the center of everyones backyard, especially the
surrounding nuclear powers of Russia, China, India, Pakistan and soon, perhaps, Iran, Uzbekistan is geostrategically located for such future opportunities.
286

Mira Ricardel, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Eurasia, 26 July 2002, The Pentagon.

203

The ultimate aim is to leave America's enemies in fear of a strike from a clear blue sky at any
second or, in the Pentagon's words, "to hold adversary vital interests at risk at all times".287

This footprint of American power is unprecedented in American and global history. In

other wordsdespite U.S. ignorance of Central Asias history and the influence of the Heartland
theory on American strategic culturetechnology has enabled unparalleled physical reach, and
sustained presence, based merely on the current needs of the moment (not intentional strategy or
historical awareness). This capacity has the potential to significantly alter the geo-strategic
calculus of the United States and the future of Central Asia (as well as the calculus of Russia and
China).As Andy Bacevich has observed, however, the establishment of bases by American
forces has the effect of creating new facts on the ground, facts that have a way of becoming
permanent. When U.S. troops arrive, they tend to stay.288 This observation has already begun to
take root, finding merit in the August 2002 comments of one Department of Defense official: I
believe fifty years from now [these bases in Central Asia] will be as familiar to us as Ramstein
Air Force Base [in Germany].289
In other words, because Central Asia is surrounded by great powers, most with nuclear
capacity, the capacity to project power quickly from the region becomes much more important
(especially if Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan were unstable or unwilling to support U.S. military

287

David Rennie, America's Growing Network of Bases, The Telegraph, 9 November 2003 (accessed 19
September 2005); available from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/11/wwtc211.xml. See also Stephen
Blank, Central Asias Great Base Race, Asia Times, 19 December 2003 (accessed 19 December 2003);
available from http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EL19Ag01.html.
288
Andrew J. Bacevich, Steppes to Empire, The National Interest Number 68 (Summer 2002): 42.
Bacevich echoes Lord Curzon who wrote: It may be observed that the uniform tendency is for the weaker
to crystallize into the harder shape. Spheres of Interest tend to become Spheres of Influence; temporary
Leases to become perpetual; Spheres of Influence to develop into Protectorates; Protectorates to be the
forerunners of complete incorporation. See The Right Honourable Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Frontiers,
The Romanes Lecture, 1907, All Souls College, Chancellor of the University, Delivered 2 November 1907
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 47.
289

Thomas Barnett, Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transportation at the Department
of Defense; as quoted by Nathan Hodge, Pentagon Strategist: Bases are Long-Term, Defense Week, 19
August 2002, 3.

204

action). This point is not lost on the Uzbeks, who have thought this way from the beginning.
When combined, however, the above factorsa U.S. military focus on fighting terrorism, with
media generally unaware of the State Departments behind-the-scenes efforts for human rights,
and the Uzbeks significant (for them) but less than sufficient efforts on reforming their human
rights and economic policiescreated the perception that the U.S. was still adrift in its
engagement of the Heartland through Uzbekistan.
Just ten days after the U.S. and Uzbekistan signed the Strategic Framework, Ahmed Rashid
commented that the U.S. had yet to establish a coherent aid strategy or economic plan for
Central Asia. As a result, the authoritarian regimes will have no reason to open their societies to
genuine economic reform and to foster the establishment of a stable middle class.290 This quick
but genuine criticism from a noted observer was soon followed up by a noted reporter with little
experience in the region. Writing in August 2002, Robert Kaiser warned that after five weeks of
reporting the region and extensive interviews with policymakers in Washington make clear that
the commitments, though real enough and potentially costly, remain vague.291
These views were echoed by Uzbeks as well. One thoughtful observer cautioned the U.S. to
take an integrative approach based on geography292 Another experienced official stated bluntly
that for the United States, There is still no strategic concept of Uzbekistan.293
In short, more attention did not necessarily mean more vision and/or strategy. As one
Washington think tank concluded in 2004 about Americas regional policy since 9/11: U.S.

290

Nikola Krastev, Taliban Author Says Russia To Regain influence in Unstable Region, Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 22 March 2002 (accessed 22 March 2002) available from
http://www.rferl.org/features/2002/03/22032002111939.asp. See also Rashid, Jihad, xxii: As the war
against terrorism unfolds, it is clear that the Western nationsand the United States in particularlack a
strategic vision for the region.
291
Robert G. Kaiser, U.S. Plants Footprint in Shaky Central Asia, Washington Post, 27 August 2002, 1.
292
Aziz Tatibaev, Chairman of the History Department, National University of Uzbekistan, 5 June 2002,
Tashkent.
293
Rafik Sayfullin, former Deputy Director of the National Security Council, 7 June 2002, Tashkent.

205

policy towards this potentially volatile region of the world has been more ad hoc than wellreasoned in terms of future implications for U.S. strategic interests. This must change if the
United States is to avoid getting itself enmeshed in another Iran-like situation. 294

20042005: The Dying Relationship

While both sides would officially affirm the strength of the relationship during this time, it
was a relationship in trouble. The Uzbeks were security-focused for two reasons. The popularity
of Hizb ut-Tahir was on the rise, as was the seemingly nefarious intent of foreign NGOs in their
attempt to bring about democracy in the former Soviet space (a feeling only strengthened by
President Bushs second inaugural). For their part, the Americans were increasingly perplexed.
They wanted to deepen the security relationship but could not convince the Uzbeks that human
rights were an integral part of enduring stability.
And then Andijan. By the end of 2005, the American embassy in Tashkent was considering if
it would have to shut down and the Uzbeks were working again with the Russians (much to the
chagrin of some of their own elites).

2004-2005: An Uzbek Perspective

There were three key factors to the U.S.-Uzbek relationship: First, Uzbekistan must stay
strong in the region. Second, the strategic partnership must enable Uzbekistan to stay strong in
the balance among Iran, India, Pakistan, Russia and China. Finally, the U.S. should make its
policy through Uzbekistan.295 By 2004, these goals seemed less likely, although regional
perceptions assumed them to be true. (An anonymous Kyrgyz diplomat told the Institute for War

294
295

Jacquelyn K. Davis and Michael J. Sweeney, Central Asia in U.S. Strategy and Operational Planning, i.
Uzbek official, 2002, Tashkent.

206

& Peace Reporting: Washington has appointed Tashkent as number-one wife in the Central
Asian harem.)296
Not only were the Uzbeks irritated by the U.S. insistence on human rights, the money was
not as forthcoming as a result. In the aftermath of September 11th, the U.S. had essentially tripled
its aid to Uzbekistan from $55.9 million in 2001 to $161.8 million in 2003. By 2005, annual aid
to Uzbekistan had returned to 2001 levels.297
Worse, the Uzbeks felt like they had left money on the table in their basing agreement with
the U.S. They did not receive any compensation for the use of the base except for costs
associated with services in support of the U.S. presence. By comparison, the Americans were
paying $5-7000 dollars per flight to use the airport in Manas, Kyrgyzstan. The fundamental
difference, however, was the designation of the airfield. The base in Manas was a commercial
field. The base at Karshi-Khanabad was a government-owned airfield. The long-standing U.S.
policy is not to pay for access to state-owned airfields. As the Uzbeks watched the Kyrgyz get
rich, this deal without rent or as part of a broader defense agreement298 was beginning to lose
its luster.
When the Americans cut $18 million dollars in aid in July 2004 because of the nonimproving situation in human rights, the Uzbeks were again irritated.299 It was not the loss of

296

Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Will U.S. Policy Backfire in Central Asia? (RCA No. 274), 30
March 2004 (accessed 30 March 2004); available from
http://iwpr.gn.apc.org/?s=f&o=176932&apc_state=henirca2004.
297
Martha Brill Olcott, Central Asias Second Chance, Appendix 5: U.S. Government Assistance Before
and After 9/11, 254. (Olcotts source is the Congressional Research Service).
298
B. Lynn Pascoe, Statement by Deputy Assistant Secretary B. Lynn Pascoe before United States Helsinki
Commission 24 June 2004 (accessed 19 September 2004) available from
http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&=&mid=384&lid=1.
299
Anne Penketh, U.S. Moves to cut Off Aid to Uzbekistan, The Independent, 14 July 2004.

207

money so much as the international stigma that accompanied the U.S. decision in the world
press.300
The real problems, however, were destabilizing issues at home that threatened the Karimov
regime. (Needless to say, dealing with these issues had a direct impact on Karimovs
international action and strategy). Foremost among these problems was a centralized economy
not capable of creating enough jobs. The result was an unemployment rate of around thirty
percent in a country of twenty-six million where 60% of the population was less than twentyfive. Adding to the demographic and economic crunch, Uzbekistans population was growing at
2.9% per year (or 400,000 births per year), and expected to double in the next fifty years.
Meanwhile 60% of the people were engaged in agriculture despite the fact that only 15% of the
land is arable.301 Many were living on bread and tea.
Exacerbating the situation was Karimovs continued crackdown on extremists. The threat
was certainly real as Hizb ut-Tahrirs popularity increased, even as there was evidence that some
HT adherents were dissatisfied with HTs non-violent approach.302 As one Uzbek official
poignantly admonishes: I served in the Middle East and watched the early stages of Hezbollah
and Hamas. Do you want us to wait until HT moves to violence?303
Yet the governments wrongful imprisonment of thousands of alleged terrorists created
something the real terrorists could never do for themselves: sympathy among the general
populace. This sympathy was real for two reasons. Most knew someone who has been thrown

300

Various interviews with Uzbeks officials.

Various interviews with Uzbeks; Also see: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/europe_eurasia/car.
302
See, for example: Alisher Khamidov, Hizb-Ut-Tahrir Faces Internal Split in Central Asia, 21 October
2003 (accessed 23 October 2003) available from
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav202103.shtml; and Ariel Cohen, Have
American Officials Identified a New Threat in Central Asia? 24 June 2003 (accessed 24 June 2003)
available from http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav062403_pr.shtml. Cohen reports
in this article that HT had declared the U.S. a global threat that only a caliphate could stop.
303
Uzbek official, 2004.
301

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illegally in jail. Second, in the absence of any other mechanism for grievance about their
economic condition, Uzbeks increasingly viewed the terrorists as opposition groups taking a
stand against a corrupt government that did not provide for them. As a result, the Uzbek people
were increasingly positioned to do something they had not done in their history: have a voice in
the organization of their society. It is in this context that a number of significant events took
place between February of 2004 and March of 2005. In February of 2004reacting to the role of
international NGOs in fomenting the recent Rose Revolution in GeorgiaKarimov signed
Decree No. 56 in order to crack down on money laundering. In reality, it forced NGOs to
transfer funds from international donors to an Uzbek bank where a government committee would
decide on whether those funds could be used for certain activities.
On 11 March 2004, the world was rocked by al Qaedas bombings in Madrid. Later that
month, Uzbekistan experienced a female suicide bomber for the first time in its history. The
target was government representatives (policemen) at the Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent (when the
bazaar was closed). Accounts vary, but the attack seemed to be homegrown, and the government
was not sure what to do.

The government is scared by the soft power of democracy, which brought down the authoritarian
Georgian government (e.g., the Rose Revolution); and it is scared of the hard power of
terrorism, which brought down a democratic government in Spain. In this context, it is almost
guaranteed that the government will not take any meaningful action. Why change when both
roads lead to a loss of control? The devil known is always more comfortable than the devil
unknown.304

On 30 July 2004, Tashkent was against rocked by terrorists. This time, three suicide attacks
took place outside the American and Israeli embassies. A relatively unknown group, The Jihad
Islamic Group, took credit for the attack. Then in late November and December confirming

304

Chris Seiple, Implications of Terrorism in Uzbekistan, 12 April 2004 (accessed 19 September 2005);
available from http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040412.americawar.seiple.terroruzbekistan.html

209

Karimovs worst fears about western NGO action in the former Soviet spacethe Orange
revolution took place in the Ukraine. In his second inaugural address, President Bush told the
repressed people of the world that the United States of America would no longer excuse your
oppressors.305
In February, President Karimov transferred his Foreign Minister, Sodyq Safaev, to the Uzbek
Senate. This decision was an unmistakable signal to the U.S. as Safaev had been widely regarded
as the architect of the American partnership. Later that month, however, the Tulip Revolution
began in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, resulting in the removal of President Akaev from power.
There was certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence that Karimov might be next. Rumors
circulated in early 2005 that Karimov would soon sack his nearest rivals in order to consolidate
power. He did not move, however, because he was too weak, or because of the impact of the
March 2005 events in Kyrgyzstan next door.
It is a much different time now, a very vulnerable time for all those in power. The result
was a bilateral relationship in strategic limbo. The relationship had to be improved, otherwise
Russia will press hard on us. In order to make the relationship better, three things were
necessary. First, there had to be the political will from the U.S. to see the relationship through.
Second, the U.S. had to compromise, to include paying for the K2 base, like Manas. And
finally, there needed to be a new geo-cultural engagement, establishing the U.S.-Uzbekistan
friendship as an example of U.S.-Islamic relations.306
However well-intentioned, it was too little, too late from too few. And then the events of 1213 May 2005 in Andijan.

305

President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Speech, 20 January 2005 (accessed 20 January 2005)
available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html.
306
Uzbek officials.

210

In the summer of 2004, the Uzbek government jailed 23 businessmen from Andijan for
Islamic extremism. Although they were members of Akramiya, a splinter group that broke
with HT in the late 1990s, to date there has been no conclusive evidence linking them to
terrorism. Many in Andijan viewed these 23 as pious businessmen of faithmen who treated
their employees with justice, paying them well and taking care of their families. Many thought
that the new mayor of Andijan had tried to muscle in on the successful businesses, demanding a
cut; when rebuffed (or not given enough), he threw them in jail. In any event, peaceful protests
were taking place regularly before 13 May.
On the night of 12 May, an undetermined number of coordinated assailants attacked
Andijans police station and army garrison, seizing weapons, killing unarmed men and taking
hostages. (Simultaneous attacks on the local offices of the National Security Service and the
Ministry of Interior failed). The assailants then stormed the towns high security prison (that is,
someone on the inside helped them in), releasing hundreds of prisoners, the 23 among them.
As they took control of downtown Andijan on the morning of 13 May, they called friends
and relatives. By morning word had spread and Babur Square was filled with thousands of
mostly curious people who were not active sympathizers. A public address system was set up
and the insurgents made speeches calling for jobs and justice, and an Islamic Republic.
President Karimov rushed to Andijan. He remembered Namangan in 91 and 97; he had
watched a listless President Akaev refuse to proactively engage the events that had led to his
downfall in Kyrgyzstan just two months before; and he probably was not sure exactly who he
could trust in his own chain-of-command. After several hours of negotiationsalong with
Minister of the Interior Almatovgovernment troops moved in with armored personnel vehicles
(BTR-80s). The assailants positioned themselves behind the crowd and their remaining hostages.

211

We do not know who fired first, but soon the BTR-80s 7.62 mm coaxial machine guns were
firing indiscriminately into the crowd. No one seems to know how many were killed, but
estimates range from 200 to 800 people.
The international community immediately called for an independent investigation. The
Karimov regime balked, even refusing to meet with Senator John McCain who visited Tashkent
soon thereafter. On 29 July 2005, Uzbekistanquitting before it was firedofficially notified
the U.S. that it would be evicted from the airbase at Karshi-Khanabad. (Karimov also ended the
bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism).307 By the fall of 2005, the government was blaming
the United States government for inciting the revolt, naming U.S. diplomats at the Uzbek
governments show trial of the perpetrators.308
The trial, however, was very important as, strangely, one woman spoke the truth. Mabuba
Zokirova spoke of citizens waving white flags before being killed by government troops.
Absolutely unexplainable, some felt that her testimony revealed the increased fissures among
Uzbekistans ruling elites about Karimovs continued leadership; i.e., someone allowed her to
testify.309 As one Uzbek summed up: Everyone knew that Andijan needed surgery, it was just a
question of what instrument was usedand Karimov used the wrong instrument.310
In other words, the government had the right and responsibility to respond to the terrorist
insurgents. The way in which it was done, however, was unforgivable. Adding insult to injury,

307

Robin Wright, Rice, on Way to Central Asia, Reprimands Uzbekistan, Washington Post, 11 October
2005, A13.
308
Various interviews throughout 2005 in Washington, D.C. and Tashkent. One unconfirmed report
suggested that Ministry of Defense troops refused to fire on the crowd, forcing Karimov and/or Almatov to
call in Uzbekstans delta force.
309
For a discussion of Zokirovas testimony, go the best Central Asia blog site, http://www.Registan.net.
310
Uzbek official familiar with the situation.

212

Karimovs response to the international communitys outrage forced Uzbekistan back into
Russias arms; which most believe is not in Uzbekistans long-term interest.311
In keeping with time-tested tactics, Karimov was soon doing what it took to get to tomorrow.
On 25 May 2005, he flew to Beijing to sign a Treaty of Friendly Cooperation Partnership
between China and Uzbekistan signing a $600 million dollar oil deal as well. 312 On 5 July
2005, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met in Astana, Kazakhstan. They displayed
enthusiastic support for Karimov by calling for the establishment of a timetable by which the
U.S.-led coalition would withdraw from the region. Karimov told a press conference that the
presence of the SCO in global affairs would soon be felt.313
On 14 November 2005, Karimov signed a new security pact with Russia, stating that Russia
is our most reliable partner and ally.314 The agreement provides for mutual defense against
third-party attack, and the mutual use of the others military bases.315

2004-2005: An American Perspective

U.S. policy objectives remained largely the same during this period: security; energy; internal
reform.316 Unfortunately, however, the U.S. had reached a point where the Uzbek government
311

Reading the tea leaves of Uzbekistans elites, and clans, is virtually impossible and certainly not
documentable. As one embassy official said to me: The clan issue is there in Uzbek internal politics but
its not the Hatfields and McCoys. Its still about power politics. However, its possible to discount because
its so impenetrable. U.S. embassy official, 24 August 2000.

312

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Kong Quan's Press Conference, Beijing, 26 May 2005, (accessed 19
September 2005); available from http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/fyrth/t197470.htm.
313

Sergei Blagov, Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit Suggests New Russia-China links, 6 July
2005 (accessed 19 September 2005); available from
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?volume_id=407&issue_id=3391&article_id=2369975.
314

Sarah Shenker, Struggle for Influence in Central Asia, BBC News, 28 November 2005 (accessed 28
November 2005); available from
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/44677.
315
Erich Marquardt and Yevgeny Bendersky for PINR, Uzbekistans new Foreign Policy Strategy, 24
November 2005 (accessed 28 November 2005); available from
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13618.

213

listened more to the Department of Defense (it has more money, it is philosophically more
consistent with the Uzbeks geopolitical perspective on the world and they fight a common
enemy every day) than it did to the State Department.
On the one hand, senior U.S. State Department officials were working hard for human rights.
They made a big mistake [on 12 March 2002]: they thought they could sign something and it
would be a CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] agreement; when the U.S. signs
something it means it.317
On the other hand, the Pentagon was seemingly working at cross purposes. For example,
when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Meyers, visited Tashkent on 10
August 2004just one month after the State Department did not release $18 million dollars
because of Uzbekistans continued human rights violationsMeyers announced that the
Department of Defense would give an additional $21 million dollars in non-proliferation
assistance, as well as fourteen river patrol boats (worth $2.9 million).318 (This money had been
approved before the State Department de-certification of Uzbekistan; additionally, this money
was directly related to the U.S. national interest of preventing the proliferation of WMD).
It was a widely held opinion among Uzbek officials that the Pentagon understood them, and
had the money to support their common security objectives. It was also the collective opinion of
most Uzbek officials that the State Department did not understand Uzbekistan and sought to
embarrass Uzbekistan through its constant attention to human rights (not to mention that the
State Department had little money to begin with).

316

U.S. official, 26 May 2004, 6 October 2004.

U.S. embassy official, 15 April 2004.
318
Top U.S. General Tours Central Asian Capitals, Dispenses Aid to Uzbekistan, Eurasia Insight, 13
August 2004 (accessed 28 September 2004); available from
http://www.eurasianet.org/insight/articles/eav081304a.shtml.
317

214

Simply, the Uzbek government will not budge on economic and political reform unless it receives
a strong and unambiguous message from all the elements of national power, especially DOD.
That message must be a simple one: Unless there is tangible economic and political reform in
Uzbekistan, then the United States will take its expeditionary base at Karshi-Khanabad elsewhere.
Immediate economic reforms include, but are not limited to: the limitation of border tariffs so that
regional trade is encouraged, and the creation of a transparent and consistent contract law
environment which attracts investors. Immediate political reforms include, but are not limited to:
allowing for a modicum of free press; implementation of the UNs plan to stop torture and the
revision of the May 1998 religious freedom law.
We either act at the intersection of our values and interests in shrewd manner, or we can whistle
happily past the graveyard as we repeat the mistakes of the Cold War, especially of Vietnam and
Iran.
If we can be a catalyst to reform, then we will have a stable and friendly ally for the 21st century.
Importantly, it will be an ally who, in an Uzbek way, develops a rule-of-law society consistent
with its own values of tolerance and religious freedom, which is the cornerstone of civil
society.319

Throughout 2004 and 2005, well-informed Uzbeks repeatedly warned about the risk America
was running by being associated with the Karimov regime. One said bluntly: The Americans
are losing credibility. They come talking about democracy but I dont believe them.320 After all,
ordinary Uzbek people could not help but associate a corrupt and unjust government with the
United States. Every American visit since September 11th was portrayed on TV as supportive of
President Karimov and the Uzbek government.
In discussing one of the tragic events of 2004-2005, one Uzbek official simply said: [his
governments] response was a complete disaster.321
The solution of divergent values and interests came on 20 January 2005. In his second
inaugural, President George W. Bush made the American vision quite clear:
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The
best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. America's vital interests
and our deepest beliefs are now one All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the
United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressorsThe leaders of

319

Chris Seiple, Implications of Terrorism in Uzbekistan, 12 April 2004 (accessed 19 September 2005);
available from http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040412.americawar.seiple.terroruzbekistan.html
320
An Uzbek familiar with the situation.
321
Uzbek official.

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governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust
them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.322

The question, of course, was how to make this vision into practical strategy. After Andijan
and the concomitant U.S. pullout from K2, however, it did seem, at least on the surface, that
Uzbekistan presents a rare and welcome convergence of the U.S. national interest and its
ideals.323
But had the U.S. lost its seat at the table? Or was it an irrelevant question as there was no one
to speak with anyway?
The State Department did try to keep the dialogue open as the relationship got colder. The
new Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Dan Fried, traveled to Tashkent in late
September to meet with President Karimov, but got nowhere.324 Secretary of State Rice visited
the region the next month, making a point not to go to Uzbekistan. Speaking from Kazakhstan
(the Uzbeks arch-rival), Secretary Rice stated:

The United States continues to hope that the Government of Uzbekistan will turn back from its
current course and make a strategic choice in favor of reform. But we will not wait idly by for
that day to come. We will move forward with our partners in central Asia who seek stability
through freedom, regardless of whether Uzbekistans leaders choose to isolate themselves and
their country.325

322

President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Speech, 20 January 2005 (accessed 20 January 2005);
available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html.
323
The Los Angeles Times, editorial, A Happy Convergence, 8 August 2005 (13 August 2005) available
from
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/878763041.html?dids=878763041:878763041&FMT=ABS&F
MTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+8%2C+2005&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&edition=&st
artpage=B.10&desc=EDITORIALS.
324
I would describe the conversation with President Karimov as intense, substantive, open, respectful, and
we concluded that we should continuethat the two governments should continue the dialogue on all of
these issues. I think it is fair to say that we did not agree on all issues. See Press Conference of Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, 27 September 2005 (accessed 16
October 2005); available from
http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&=&mid=429&overview=1346.
325
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Remarks at Eurasian National University, 13 October 2005 (accessed 16
October 2005); available from http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/54913.htm.

216

The secretary also secured a commitment from the new Kyrgyz President for continued
access to the Manas airfield to support operations in Afghanistan.326
Shortly after Secretary Rices visit to the region, President Vladimir Putin praised the SCO
during his meeting with Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao. Its an organization that is
gathering momentum and acquiring increasing international weight.327 It was a predictable
comment from, for the time being, predictable partners. As Wang Jianping observed in July
2003: The difference between the U.S. and Chinas engagement of Uzbekistan is that the U.S.
offers advice on transition, China doesnt.328
As the third phase of U.S.-Uzbekistan relations ended, the website of the U.S. embassy in
Tashkent said it all: The tumultuous events in Andijan in 2005 and the subsequent U.S.
condemnation of President Karimovs actions render the future relationship between the nations
uncertain.329
Or, as one frustrated U.S. embassy official summed up in October 2005: We havent hit
rock bottom yetbut the U.S. is now viewed as a greater threat than the IMU.330

326

Robin Wright, Kyrgyzstan Agrees to Continuing U.S. Military Presence at Key Air Base, Washington
Post, 12 October 2005, A10.
327
Vladimir Isachenkov, Putin Praises Clout of Security Group, The Associated Press, as printed in The
Moscow Times, 27 October 2005, p.3 (accessed 3 November 2005); available from
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/10/27/013.html.
328
Interview with author, 28 July 2003, Beijing. Wang is the Deputy Director of Eastern Europe, Russia
and Central Asia Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. See Roger McDermott, Putin
Pledges to Back Up Karimov in a Crisis, Eurasia Daily Monitor, 16 November 2005 (accessed 18 January
2006); available from http://eurasiadaily.org/article.php?article_id=2370477.
329
U.S. State Department, Background Note: Uzbekistan (accessed 19 September 2005); available from
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2924.htm#relations.
330

U.S. embassy official, 14 October 2005, Tashkent.

217

CHAPTER FIVE
Summary & Conclusions:

My aim is not to predict a great future for this country, but to make a geographical formula into
which you could fit any political balance1If we are fortunate, that formula should have a
practical value as setting into perspective some of the competing forces in current international
politics.2
Halford Mackinder, 1904

Democracy refuses to think strategically unless and until compelled to do so for purpose of
defenseDemocracy implies rule by consent of the average citizen who does not view things
from the hilltops, for he must be at work in the fertile plains.3
Halford Mackinder, 1919

The Heartland provides a sufficient physical basis for strategical thinkingMy concept of the
Heartlandis more valid and useful today than it was either twenty or forty years ago. 4
Halford Mackinder, 1943

Does Sir Halford John Mackinders geo-political thinking provide a suitable basis for
examining and explaining the bilateral relationship between the United States and the Republic
of Uzbekistan, 19912005? Mackinders Heartland Philosophy may be summarized as follows:

As recorded in Harm J. de Blij, ed., Systematic Political Geography, Second edition, (New York: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1973).285-286. [From the Q & A after Mackinders 1904 presentation at the Royal
Geographical Society.]
2
Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University
Press, 1996), 176. In 1996, the National Defense University (NDU) republished several of Halford
Mackinders works as Democratic Ideals and Reality. These works include: The Scope and Methods of
Geography, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 9, No. 3 (1887): 141-160 [hereafter cited as
Scope and Methods]; The Geographical Pivot of History, Geographical Journal 23, No. 4 (1904): 421444 [hereafter cited as Pivot]; Democratic Ideals and Reality (London: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,
1919) [hereafter cited as Ideals and Reality]; and The Round World and Winning the Peace, Foreign
Affairs 21, No. 4 (July 1943): 595-605 [hereafter cited as Round World]. All page references to these
works are found in the NDU re-publishing.
3
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 17.
4
Mackinder, Round World, 198, 203.

218

The Heartland possessed rich resources, interior lines (internal communication and transport
facilitated by the railroad) and was inaccessible to seapower, making it a natural fortress.

The tenant who controlled the Heartland would eventually have the capacity to dominate
Asia by flinging its power from side to side.

The unchanging heart of the Heartland was that geographic area east and southeast of the
Caspian Sea. Formerly known as Turkestan, it includes Western China, Central Asia
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistanand the
northern parts of Iran and Pakistan. This area was the geographic pivot upon which the
Heartland Concept literally rested. Today, Uzbekistan is at its center.

The Heartland Philosophy required balance and the long-view to create happiness:
o A balance between the geo-communal view of mans local interaction with and
perception of geography (i.e., the going concern of civil society), and the geostrategic view of a states understanding of, and interaction with, the Heartland (i.e.,
the going concern of international politics).
o A long-view that re-viewed and understood the geo-communal and geo-strategic
patterns of the past in order to pre-view the future if the pattern continued.
Where there was balance, there was a civilization worth living in, a place where
citizens could render service to one another.

Mackinder expected this philosophy to be applied to each new strategic era as a practical
formula for understanding and examining global balance.

In re-visiting Mackinders thinking, this dissertation concludes that it is a living and

comprehensive philosophy consisting of two mutually dependent perspectives. These
perspectivesthe geo-communal view of mans local interaction with and perception of

219

geography (i.e., the going concern of civil society), and the geo-strategic view of a states
understanding of, and interaction with, the Heartland (i.e., the going concern of international
politics)were meant to be applied in tandem at the beginning of a new strategic era. The
analytic narrative that results from these perspectives, as discussed in the previous two chapters,
demonstrates the suitability of Mackinders thinking as a basis for examining and explaining the
U.S.Uzbekistan relationship from 1991 to 2005.
Described and understood as such, Mackinders Heartland Philosophy also generates several
general hypotheses which further serve as both summary and illustration of Mackinders geopolitical work as applied through the U.S.Uzbekistan relationship; even as they point the way
toward future refinement and research. Those hypothesesincluding their discussion and
resulting conclusionsfollow below.

1. If the world is increasingly globalized, then a holistic approach and analysis is necessary.
Mackinder anticipated the globalized world in his 1904 presentation to the Royal Geographic
Society. He told his audience that they lived in a closed political system, and none the less that
it will be one of world-wide scope. Every explosion of social forces, instead of being dissipated
in a surrounding circuit of unknown space and barbaric chaos, will be sharply re-echoed from the
far side of the globe, and weak elements in the political and economic organism of the world will
be shattered in consequence.5
While the twin tyrannies of geography and ignorance will always exist, they do not prevent
events that happen over there from impacting us here. Senator Joe Lieberman acknowledged
as much upon his January 2002 visit to Tashkent. September 11th, he said: opened our eyes to
the reality that what happens here in Central Asia, though it may be far from our shores, can
5

Mackinder, Pivot, 176.

220

nonetheless have the most immediate and direct effect on usthis is a critical part of the world,
strategically, economically and politically.6 If this is the case, then policy-makers should
actively seek to understand and integrate the dual perspectives that Mackinder expects, abroad,
and at home. As Mr. Spencer Wilkinson suggested during the question and answer period
following Mackinders 1904 remarks:
I myself can only wish that we had ministers who would give more time to studying their policy
from the point of view that you cannot move any one piece without considering all the squares on
the board. We are very much too apt to look at our policy as though it were cut up into water-tight
compartments, each of which had no connection with the rest of the world, whereas it seems to
me the great fact of today is that any movement which is made in one part of the world affects the
whole of the international relations of the world.7

In other words, Mackinders comprehensive approach and analysis is also a suitable basis for
defining geo-politics. Geopolitics, this dissertation suggests, is the capacity to think globally
about the interrelated nature of various going concernsfrom a geo-communal and geo-strategic
perspectiveand then apply that thinking practically pursuant the grand strategy of a state, or
non-state, actor.

2. If a new strategic era occurs, then the Heartland must be geographically re-envisioned and
defined.
Geography is not static and changes with each new era, impacting strategy as a result.
Since Geography, in its broadest sense, is constantly changing, and since movement mirrors these
changes, we dare not rely upon concepts of the past, but must be continuously on the alert to
examine the changing geographical scene, and to interpret the impact of these changes in the
formation of strategy. This is the approach through which we can genuinely understand
geographys influence upon strategyan influence that we may try to ignore, but that will not
ignore us.8
Saul Bernard Cohen, 1963

Senator Joseph Lieberman, U.S. Senatorial Delegation Press Conference in Uzbekistan, 6 January 2002
(accessed 8 January 2002); available from
http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&=&mid=218&overview=482.
7
Blij, Systematic Political Geography, 282.
8
Saul Bernard Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided (New York: Random House, 1963), 87.

221

Mackinder sought principles that transcended particular periods of time precisely because of
their practical relevance in each. Only then could a living formula exist into which you could fit
any political balance, 9 thus providing a practical value and perspective for understanding
the competing forces in current international politics.10
With the demise of the Soviet Union, the Heartlands primary tenant from 1865-1991,
Russia, witnessed Central Asia become a region of five independent states. Obviously, we
cannot know what Mackinder would have thought about this situation. We do know, however,
that he would recognize the transition of strategic eras for what it was and would, consequently,
try to understand the new geography and its impact on global balance.
We also know that the Uzbeks quickly grasped their 1991 reality, as they found any means
they could to balance domestic, regional, and international politics pursuant the survival of their
new state. They twisted and turned, talking with anyone relevant today to ensure their
sovereignty tomorrowfrom the United Tajik Organization to the Taliban, from the Russians to
the Americans. They would find a way to balance the forces of the moment.
The Americans, under no such threat, made no such effort. They did not have to. They had
won the Cold War. It was the unipolar moment and soon, era. There was seemingly no need to
re-conceptualize geography and grand strategy, as a result (beyond focusing on Russia and its
nuclear weapons). Accordingly, the existing foreign policy bureaucracy remained the same,
organized as it always had been. As the Post Cold War era began, and continued, the U.S.
engaged the Former Soviet Union space as just that, an East-West place of the past era that was
very hard to put anywhere else in the pre-existing bureaucracy.

As recorded in de Blij, ed., Systematic Political Geography, Second edition, 285-286.

Mackinder, Pivot,176.

10

222

As a result, a Russia-First policy de facto dominated. In fact, the U.S. interagency grouped
the South Caucasus with Soviet Central Asialeaving Afghanistan disconnected from Central
Asia and any policy whatsoeverfor no other reason than their common Soviet roots. By 1996,
however, the Heartland Hinge was serving again as the greatest natural fortress for militant
Islam, as its adherents spread heroin and terrorism to the world.
Afghanistan, of course, had been used by the U.S. according to a containment policy rooted
in a two-dimensional understanding of Mackinder. If there had been any attempt to re-think the
Heartland according to the political geography of the new eraunderstanding the important role
Uzbekistan had to playperhaps this evolution of events could have been avoided. Because
democracies do not think strategically, however, this turn-of-events was probably inevitable.

3. If a new strategic era occurred, then Mackinder would look for a new fulcrum point of
integrated states, or region, adjusting the Heartland Concept accordingly to achieve global
balance.
Although this hypothesis, along with the next one, is impossible to prove, it is nonetheless
quite reasonable. Mackinders 1919 expression of the Heartlandwhere he sought to balance
German and Slav through an integrated zone of Eastern European statesprovides the
conceptual logic. Moreover, Mackinders 1943 expression of the Heartland states explicitly that
Russia would combine with Europe and North America to balance China and India. There is only
one place for that balance to take place: Central Asia. Given the fragile and fragmented status of
Central Asia between 1991 and 2005 (not unlike Eastern Europe, 19191939), Mackinder
would seek the same for Central Asia in 1991 as he did for Eastern Europe in 1919, and as he
predicted in 1943.

223

4. If the new fulcrum-region were surrounded by competing powers, then Mackinder would
focus on the political and geographic center of the in-between region to anchor the balance.
If Russia no longer dominated the entire Heartland, as was the case when the new strategic
era began in 1991, then it was Mackinders instinct to focus on the political and geographic
center of the in-between region to anchor the balance. In 1919, that country was Poland.
It is a vital necessity that there should be a tier of independent states between Germany and
RussiaThe most important point of strategical significance in regard to these middle states of
East Europe is that the most civilized of them, Poland and Bohemia, lie in the north, in the
position most exposed to Prussian aggression. Securely independent the Polish and Bohemian
nations cannot be, unless as the apex of a broad wedge of independence extending from the
Adriatic and Black Seas to the Baltic; but seven independent, with a total of more than sixty
million people, traversed by railways linking them securely with one another, and having access
through the Adriatic, Black, and Baltic Seas with the ocean will together effectively balance the
Germans of Prussia and Austria, and nothing less will suffice for that purpose.11

In 1991, that country was Uzbekistan by sheer virtue of its geographythe only state contiguous
to all the countries of Central Asiaand because of its population, natural resources and abiding
identity.

5. If the heart of the Heartland were indeed Eurasias security fulcrum, then it was in the selfinterest of the relevant great powers to ensure that no one dominated the Heartland.
This logic is the foundation of Mackinders Heartland Concept, as well as the Cold War
policy of containment as seen in the actions of Russia and the United States from 1991-2005.
During this period, Russia consistently welcomed back Uzbekistan, no matter what was said or
done by Karimov in the meantime. A function of Russias weakness and Uzbekistans noncontiguity to Russia, both countries used each other during this time in the name of their
contradictory goalsfor Russia, to gain Central Asian influence through Uzbekistan, preventing
other penetrations of the region, especially American; and for Uzbekistan, to maintain its primus
inter pares status in Central Asia in the absence of other partners.

11

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 111, 116-117.

224

The Americans, lacking any real interest in the region except for the potential energy
reserves, had but one policy: anti-monopoly. Working only to preserve the non-restoration
of the U.S.S.R., Central Asias importance was defined accordingly. While echoing Mackinders
desire to prevent domination of the heartland, anti-monopoly was not a strategic concept
designed to shape the future. It was, however, a good enough goal for the moment, occupying the
day-to-day while ignoring tomorrow. Implicitly, and understandably (to some degree), the policy
stated that there were other more pressing priorities besides Central Asia.

6. If a successful policy toward the Heartland were developed, it would depend upon the geostrategic and geo-communal going concerns of the Heartland itself.
This is the one hypothesis that does not directly flow from Mackinders own work; it does,
however, flow from his conceptual approach. In other words, chapters two, three and four
examine and organize Mackinders own words in such a way that is simultaneously consistent
with their intent and, arguably, more coherent. As a result, this dissertation divides Mackinders
geo-political logic into the geo-communal view of mans local interaction with and perception of
geography (i.e., the going concern of civil society), and the geo-strategic of a states
understanding of, and interaction with, the Heartland (i.e., the going concern of international
politics).
By applying these mutually dependent perspectives to the Heartland itselfsomething that
neither Mackinder, his critics, or U.S. policy-makers have ever donethis dissertation reveals
different approaches that, by definition, are not used by Mackinders critics, or by U.S. policymakers. Understood as suchwith particular emphasis on the inclusion of the voices and
worldview of the Uzbeksthis dissertation suggests that Mackinders geo-political thinking is

225

also a suitable basis for developing a regional policy that addresses individual states, as well as
the surrounding powers.

7. If the geo-strategic component of a policy were developed, then this going concern would
be rooted in the Heartlands historic role in international politics, to include the geography
and flow of present day threats.
To ignore the vital role that the heartland has played in international affairs is to beg history
to repeat itselfsomething the U.S. has successfully encouraged, much to its own detriment. It is
abundantly clear that because the U.S. failed to understand the intellectual roots of containment,
it also failed to re-imagine Central Asia according to the new strategic era.
For example, one intelligence officer familiar with the region stated comfortably in 2005: in
three years, Uzbekistan will be the next Afghanistan.12 As chapters three and four detail, the
U.S. is right on track to repeat the mistake of 1989 in Uzbekistan because democracies do not
think strategically. To think strategically, the U.S. should provide linear extrapolations of Central
Asias (and especially Uzbekistans) current going concerns and develop scenarios that reflect
potential future combinations of those going concerns. This process should be the beginning of
policy-making in the region.

8. If the geo-communal component of a policy were developed, then this going concern
would be rooted in the Heartlands historic interaction between man and his local
environment and that interactions impact on present day notions of civil society, regionally
and internationally.
What does the ordinary man want? It is for opportunity to realize what is in him, to live a life of
ideas and of action for the realization of those ideashe wishes for the glow of intelligent life, and
incidentally for a recognition of his human dignity That is precisely what the real freedom of men
requiresscope for a full life in their own locality. 13

12

USG official, 2005.

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 132-3, 137. Mackinder had written seventeen years earlier that rooted
provincialism, rather than finished cosmopolitanism, is a source of the varied initiative without which
liberty would lose half its significance (British Seas, 15). [italics added]

13

226

This timeless desire takes place in every culture and country around the world. Yet, without
an understanding of the local culture, U.S. policy often denies the very principles it purports to
promote. For example, U.S. public diplomacy often speaks of freedom to the Muslim world. In
the absence of a geo-communal perspective, however, this public diplomacy campaign has no
effect on Muslim minds who do not understand freedom as the West does; instead they think
in terms of such Quranic concepts as justice (as we do not).
In similar fashion, American development aid in Uzbekistanalso lacking the perspective of
a geo-communal viewwas hopelessly incapable of understanding, let alone respecting, the
local culture. Focused on its own cultural concept of civil society, the U.S. could not come to
grips with the basic realities of Uzbek culture: namely, religion and traditional social structures,
from the role of the mahalla to the role of the elites. While looking past the pre-existing Uzbek
culture, U.S.A.I.D. officials were doing things for the [western] donor while having no impact
on the [Uzbek] peopleWashington would always say: What have you done? Do something.
Do something.14 Or as one Uzbek observed: You [Americans] spend billions on civil
society, but nothing on economic development. Democrat is now a slanderous wordbut if
you say youre a democrat, youll get money.15
The U.S. inability to understand Uzbek culture, however, does more than damage its local
reputation by spending money in an irrelevant manner. The absence of a geo-communal
perspective of Uzbekistan among U.S. policy-makers clearly endangers their own geo-strategic
understanding of Karimovs regimeespecially its potential to implode, or explode.
On the one hand, the U.S. still does not have any comprehensive understanding of, or
systematic means of measuring, the traditional structures of authority found in the elite clans. As

14
15

U.S.A.I.D. official, Tashkent.

Abdummanob Polat, 16 May 2001, Washington, D.C.

227

a result, U.S. policy-makers are largely unaware of the lose-lose situation that Karimov and the
clans have created for themselves. Under the guise of nationalism, the clans have preserved their
capacity to divide and feed on the resources of the state. Karimov is not strong enough to take on
the clans simultaneously to implement the economic reform necessary to provide for
Uzbekistans future. Uzbekistans internal situation, in other words, will only continue to
worsen, forcing, at some point, regime change.
If the geo-strategic of regime change takes place in Uzbekistan, it will more than likely come
from within the structure of the clans because they feel that Karimov no longer serves their
purposes. (For example, some elites felt that Uzbekistans long-term interests were not wellserved by the international isolation and strategic partnership with Russia after Karimovs
crackdown at Andijan). As a result, for the first time, there is talk of a post-Karimov era from
among the elites themselves. This implosion of Karimovs power would probably shed the least
blood, but not provide any immediate and substantive change.16
On the other hand, the absence of a geo-communal view also prevents U.S. policy-makers
from understanding the potential for explosion; that is, a galvanized people who feel the
principles of their culture have been violated. Mackinder thought that the desire for human
dignity could be met if there was an opportunity for a full life in [ones] own locality.17 For
this to take place, good neighbors were needed. It is for neighborliness that the world to-day
calls aloud Neighborliness or fraternal duty to those who are our fellow-dwellers, is the only

16

Various interviews. This movement within the clans might also push Karimov to accelerate the development of
his own clan. As one Uzbek familiar with the clan structure wrote in 2004: It is time for Karimov to think of
creating his own clan made of trusted younger officials who will push away old elite to secure safety for his
daughters. Karimov may think that his strategy to divide and rule by managing 2 big clans is dangerous for amateur
successor and it is much safer to have just one strong team. (Personal email to author).
17

Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 137.

228

sure foundation of a happy citizenship.18 A western articulation, to be sure, it is also an accurate

description of what an ordinary Uzbek expects from the mahalla and the state.
At this point, a minimalist definition of neighborliness is a daily subsistence on tea and
bread. If this most basic threshold is threatened, the traditionally very passive Uzbek people will
take to the streets (as they often have when bread prices are increased). In short, if the
government (Karimov) reaches a point where it cannot provide tea and bread for its citizens, then
the absence of the other components of a full lifeeconomic and educational opportunity
without the threat of going to jail for taking ones faith seriouslyaccelerate a terrible situation
to a point beyond predictions.

9. If the geo-strategic and the geo-communal were effectively integrated into a policy, then
that policy will require the promotion of three issuesreligion, region and economicsthat
bridge the geo-strategic and the geo-communal.
Religion, region and economics are each an issue of identity whose success depends upon
being rooted in one another. Tolerant Islam gains respect by respecting people of other faiths; the
regions countries are able to provide water, energy and food for their people by working
together; and an integrated regional economy creates the jobs necessary for the individual human
dignity that Islam demands. In other words, these geo-communal issues of self-perception, selfworth and dignity carry geo-strategic implications. Understood correctly, these issues increase
mutual identity and therefore enhance mutual stability. On the other hand, these same issues can
just as easily act as vectors of instability (as witnessed in the rise of Hizb ut-Tahrir).

9a. Religion: If the Heartlands civil society is rooted in a tolerant Muslim culture, then a
robust pluralism, consistent with the culture, is required for social stability.
Most America policy-makers simply do not grasp this reality.

18

Ibid., 145.

229

The sweet dream of American political thoughtreborn in each generation, it seemsis that
cultural factors like religion will shrink into insignificance as blessed pragmatism finally comes
into its ownIt is an oft-repeated truism that democratic capitalist states do not make war on
other democratic capitalist states in the pursuit of political or economic power. This can be
expanded to include religion: societies in which there is freedom of religion do not make religious
war on other religiously free societies. It must be stressed, though, that the unit of comparison
here is not the state but the society. But how does a state engage a society about the societys
religion? State-to-state diplomacy, even as it touches upon religion, is well enough understood.
Informal society-to-society diplomacy or public diplomacy is equally well understood;
religious delegations undertaking people-to-people missions are increasingly familiar. But
asymmetrical, state-to-society diplomacy with religious reform as its target is virtually without
precedent in the modern West.19

Taught not to speak of religion and politics in polite company, American foreign policy elites
are now forced to understand a part of the world where religion is politics (especially among the
people). This process has not been easy or fun. And it certainly has not been successful.
In Uzbekistan, to be Uzbek is to be Muslim. Islam permeates the culture, generally
according to the rich and historic roots of tolerance and respect that one experiences in every
Uzbek home. American engagement of this country cannot help but begin with this simple fact,
but U.S. policy has consistently ignored the fundamental tenets of Uzbekistans pre-existing civil
society.
It is in the American self-interest to better understand Muslim culture and Islamic beliefs,
given our post September 11th world. In Uzbekistan, as one Uzbek official put it, there is the
chance for geo-cultural engagement, establishing a model of U.S.Muslim relations to share
with the world.20 Islam is a natural ally, especially in Uzbekistan, the cradle of tolerance and
respect. But our cultural traditions prevent us from recognizing those of others.21 But what
programs have been established to engage in such comprehensive manner? There are none.

19

Jack Miles, Religion and American Foreign Policy, Survival 46, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 25, 32-3.
Uzbek official.
21
Zeyno Baran, DFI Conference, 26 May 2004, Washington, D.C.
20

230

The United States is always on transmit. Were not very good at listeningthis battle is
theological and ideological, but were not outfitted to fight that kind of war, conceptually or
organizationally.22
Islam is necessarily the foundation for Heartland and Uzbek stability. Yet the American
response is to ignore this reality while the Uzbek answer is to crack-down on its extremist form.

9b. Region: If the Heartlands independent states cannot depend on anyone but themselves,
then it is in their self-interest to become more neighborly.
There have been two major problems in developing the region of Central Asia. First among
them is the U.S. inability to determine what the region is. From the U.S. Congress to the U.S.
State Department, Central Asia has been grouped with the South Caucasus as a part of the EastWest context, while leaving Afghanistan out of that construct (Afghanistan is traditionally
grouped with Pakistan and South Asia). As a result, there have been too few projects that insist
on regional cooperation among the six countries of Central Asia. The sole exception to this has
been CENTCOM, which, by definition, takes a regional approach in its interactions. (The
Department of State did, however, group Central Asiathe five former Soviet republics
with South Asia, which includes Afghanistan, at the end of 2005).
The second problem has been the Central Asians, especially Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has
consistently done what it wants to do with its foreign and economic policy, making little to no
effort to coordinate with its neighbors, even as it has promoted protectionist trade policies that
hurt itself and the region. Nonetheless, it is in everyones interest in and around the region to
have a cohesive group of integrated states that is geo-strategically strong enough to absorb the
competing influences of the surrounding powers, yet geo-communally strong enough to deny
internal subversion through a robust and respectful Islam.
22

U.S. official, 6 October 2004.

231

A regional approach of integrated bilateral strategies is needed to produce such balance.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking has not yet taken hold in Washington. Lacking a regional
vision and coordinating structures based on such a vision, Washington has allocated its resources
mechanically and often inadequatelythe geographical delineations used by the U.S.
government[impede] the development of a coherent Central Asia policy.23 The West
[needs] a strategy that [considers] the region as a whole rather than as a series of local
problems.24 More precisely, the United States should consider two strategies: promoting a
larger vision of regionalism and exploring possible ways to reconcile democracy and Islam.25

9c. Economics: If there is no local economic opportunitybetween and among the regions
within each of the Heartlands states, and between and among the Heartland states
themselvesthen young men will agitate for change.
Uzbekistan, despite its natural riches, cannot provide for its people. This unfortunate
situation, as discussed in chapter four, is the direct result of a Karimov-controlled patronage
system rooted in balancing the various and competing elites. It is these forces that feed from
Karimovs hand while the country starves. These clans are the real security threat, more so than
HT. While other authoritarian countries in the region grow their GNP at 9% per year, Uzbekistan
drives itself into the ground. As Mackinder reminds us:
Nationalist movements are based on the restlessness of intelligent young men who wish for scope
to live the life of ideas and to be among those who can because they are allowed to doAre
you quite sure that the gist of the demand for Home Rule in Ireland, and in a less degree in
Scotland, does not come mainly from young men who are agitating, thought they do not fully
realize it, for equality of opportunity rather than against the assumed wickedness of England?26

And as the Economist confirms:

23

S. Frederick Starr, A Partnership for Central Asia, Foreign Affairs 84, no. 4 (July/August 2005), 167.
Rashid, Jihad, 232.
25
Charles William Maynes, America Discovers Central Asia, Foreign Affairs (March/April 2003), 131.
26
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 133-4.
24

232

Thousands of young men in this volatile region may be ready to join a rebellion that holds out the
promise of a government less oppressive and incompetent than the present onealthough few of
Central Asias traditionally moderate Muslims share the [Islamic Movement of Uzbekistans]
passion to build an Islamic state.27

Ordinary Uzbeks do not seek human rights and ballot-box democracy. They seek tea and
bread; they want jobs and justice. And if they do not receive it, they will turn to any organization
capable of providing those two essential elements. While the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) is
completely alien to Uzbek culture, its message is not. HTs popularity continues to rise because
of its capacity to speak to local issues in the language of Islam; that is, the language of social
justice.

10. If the center state of the Heartland possesses one-third of the population and is the only
state touching each of the Heartlands members, then that state is necessarily the political and
economic focus of any policy.
Central Asias geography is quite clear: If you literally want to move from one destination to
anotheras a pipeline, a terrorist, or the Shanghai Cooperation Organizationyou need
Uzbekistan. It is impossible to avoid Uzbekistan as primus inter pares in Central Asia. Although,
in Mackinders words, it merely possesses the highest nodality,28 the success or failure of a
regional strategy begins and ends with Uzbekistan. It is the heart of the heartland.

11. If democracies do not think strategically, then the U.S. will always have difficulty
understanding and engaging the Heartland.
There is no US policy toward Central Asia.29
Henry Kissinger, 1993

27

Central Asia: A New Holy War, Economist, 4 September 1999 (accessed 15 October 1999); available
from LexisNexis.
28
Mackinder, British Seas, 331.
29
Henry Kissinger, presentation at University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Tashkent, 1993
(according to one eyewitness).

233

[In 2002] U.S. leaders and those from other Western governments talked a great deal about the
importance of increased engagement with the Central Asian statesIn the end, however, this
proved to be little more than talk. 30
Martha Brill Olcott, 2005

Chapters three and four demonstrate the lack of both a geo-communal and geo-strategic
perspective, resulting in an essentially ineffective policy toward the region, and Uzbekistan in
particular. Worse, America still sees no need to re-conceptualize, let alone consistently address,
the heartland along these lines. Not until Uzbekistan becomes the Afghanistan of the 1990s, will
American policy-makers come up with a comprehensiveand, by definition, reactivepolicy
toward Central Asia, necessarily centered on Uzbekistan. In this regard, the U.S. and Uzbekistan
are consistent. The former does not think strategically, the latter does, as both act according to
deep patterns of predictability.

Conclusion
Why should the United States be concerned with an area that [is] of so little importance to
usan area in which we have relatively minor economic relations, whether of trade or of
competition, an area that has never produced a political or military power that could seriously
endanger us?
Theoretically there was one basis on which security might have been established in this region of
small statesnamely the maintenance by the great powers bordering it of a large buffer zone
against one another In contrast the United States [was] geographically and psychologically
so remote that [it] gradually lost interest That the new politico-geographic system would
inevitably face great difficulties was certainly not unknown to the statesmen who took part in its
establishment. Just because it was almost completely new, they recognized that for a long time it
would suffer the insecurity of immaturity. But they were dealing with a part of the world that had
never known political security, that had never developed mature, well established states loyally
accepted by the peoples included in them.
Stabilitycannot be achieved by absorption from the outside, whether from west or from east,
nor by the reestablishment of free but hopelessly small units, but only by integration into a free
association of free peoples, capable of providing a major element of its own self-defense. Such an

30

Martha Brill Olcott, Central Asias Second Chance (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press,
2005), 173.

234

organization within this area is not in conflict with plans for a larger-scale organization of the
states of Europe, or of the world, but on the contrary would be supplementary to it.31

As Mackinder had written twenty-five years before him, Richard Hartshorne had a 1944
vision for Eastern Europe and the role the United State could play in securing that future. It was
not to be, however, just as it was not to be for U.S.Uzbek relations from 1991 to 2005.
Strategic eras come and go. There will be, undoubtedly, another opportunity for the United
States to engage Uzbekistan and Central Asia with such promise, and for Uzbekistan and Central
Asia to engage the United States. After all: If it took 70 years of criminal behavior to get in, it
stands to reason that it will take 70 years to get out.32 Indeed, it is fair to suggest that,
irrespective of U.S. policy, geography determines foreign policy in Central Asia. All the
precedents of history indicate that in the long run one of two things must happen to them: they
will be forcibly subjected to either Russia or China, or they will voluntarily gravitate toward
either Russia or China.33 There is no reason to thinkand certainly no U.S. policy to suggest
otherwise.
Still, Mackinder had a vision for the heartland. He sought to weld together the West and the
East, [so that we might] permanently penetrate the Heartland with oceanic freedom.34 It is a
vision consistent with the American idea of democracy. The U.S. position is very
understandable. Any ideology has a propensity to spread its fundamentalsit is the nature of an
ideology. The United States cannot be a civilization and a superpower if it does not try to spread

31

Richard Hartshorne, The United States and the Shatter Zone of Europe, in Compass of the World: A
Symposium on Political Geography, ed. Hans W. Weigert and Vilhajalmur Stefansson (New York: The
MacMillan Company, 1944), 203-214.
32
Richard Armitage, Former Ambassador to the NIS for Technical and Humanitarian Assistance, Rosslyn,
VA, 17 February 2000.
33
Owen Lattimore, The Inland Crossroads of Asia,in Compass of the World: A Symposium on Political
Geography, ed. Hans W. Weigert and Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Vilhjalmur (New York: The MacMillan
Company, 1944), 387.
34
Mackinder, Ideals and Reality, 122.

235

its ideas, the freedoms of its ideology.35 Yet the application of that ideology without a geostrategic and geo-communal understanding of the heartland and its most significant state almost
prohibits that ideologys progress.
The horse-men came for a thousand years out of China through Central Asia penetrating both
the Iranian plateau to the Middle East as well as the lowland gap between the Ural Mountains
and the Caspian Sea to Europe. In the process they forced the West, such as it was, to defend
itself; that is, to become the West and the home of the worst political system except for all the
rest: democracy. Today, the West proceeds east across the Eurasian frontier to establish the
empire of an ideanamely, that people can choose a system of government for themselves that
is consistent with their culture and the rule of law.
If this is the goal of the Westthat is, the continued geo-political vision of Mackinderthen
there will have to be a vision of geo-communal values and geo-strategic balance that Mackinder
describes in his Heartland Philosophy. Eventually, Uzbekistan must be the reliable forepost36
of this vision.
The people of Uzbekistan and Central Asia will inevitably make the choice that their ancient
proverb asksto hold onto the sparrow of todays misery, or chase the eagle of tomorrows
promise. So too must the West make a choice in its understanding of Mackinder. It can hold onto
the petrified geo-strategic construct of yester-century, or, as originally intended, it can re-apply
his geo-political thinkingwith its geo-communal and geo-strategic perspectivesaccording to
the new strategic era. In other words, the West should acknowledge, deepen, and expand
Mackinders geo-political thinking as a suitable basis for examining and explaining its
interaction with Uzbekistan, Central Asia, and Eurasia in the 21st century.
35

Sodyq Safaev, Uzbek Ambassador to the U.S., 4 November 1999, Washington, D.C.
George Dobson, Russias Railway Advance into Central Asia: Notes of a Journey from St. Petersburg to
Samarkand (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1890), 425.

36

236

Kant once wrote We understand a map best when we are able to draw it out for ourselves.37
By re-visiting the geopolitical thinking of Sir Halford John Mackinder this dissertation enables
us to better understand, and plan for, the balance that the heartland demands.

37

As quoted in J. A. May, Kants Concept of Geography, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970),
133.

237

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258

GOVERNMENTAL, & NON-GOVERNMENTAL REPORTS &

UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL
U.S. GOVERNMENT
Baker, James, America and the Collapse of the Soviet Empire: What has to be Done.
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Bush, President George W. Second Inaugural Address. 20 January 2005. Accessed 20 January
2005. Available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/200501291.html.
Cavanaugh, Cassandra. Human Rights Watch, Europe and Central Asia Division. Testimony
before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Washington, D.C., 18
October 1999.
_____ Silencing Central Asia: The Voice of the Dissidents. Congressional Testimony,
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The Declaration of the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation between the United States of
America and the Republic of Uzbekistan, 12 March 2002. Available from U.S. State
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Fried, Daniel, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Press Conference,
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Goble, Paul A. Uzbekistan, Human Rights and American National Interests.
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Available from http://www.house.gov/csce.

259

Hill, Fiona. Contributions of Central Asian Nations to the Campaign Against

Terrorism. Testimony to the Subcommittee on Central Asia and South Caucasus,
Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate. 13 December 2001.
Jones, Elizabeth. Testimony to the Subcommittee on Central Asia and the Caucasus,
Committee on Foreign Relations, 13 December 2001. Accessed 19 January 2004.
Available from http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2001/11299.htm.
Lieberman, Joseph. Floor speech given just prior to the passage of the International Religious
Freedom Act, 9 October 1998.
Lieberman, Joseph. U.S. Senatorial Delegation Press Conference in Uzbekistan,
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The National Defense Panel. Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st
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and Cooperative Activities with the New Independent States of the Former Soviet
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Official letter from the Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the U.S.
Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, 22 August 1999.
Olcott, Martha Brill. The Central Asian States: An Overview of Five Years of
Independence, Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign
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Olcott, Martha Brill Caspian Sea Oil Exports, Testimony before the Subcommittee on
International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion, U.S. Senate Foreign
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Olcott, Martha Brill. Democracy in the Central Asian Republics, Testimony before the
House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Washington, D.C.,
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Pascoe, B. Lynn, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs.
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Rosenberg, Christoph B. Unpublished paper, 14 Arguments about Current Account
Convertibility Frequently Heard in Uzbekistan, February 2001, Tashkent.
Safaev, Sodyq. The Geopolitics of Energy Development in the Caspian Region: Regional
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1999. Provided by Sodyq Safaev.
Seiple, Robert A. Memorandum for the Files, unpublished, 7 June 1999.
Sestanovitch, Stephen. Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for
the New Independent States, Remarks to the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, House
International Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., 17 March 1999. Accessed 3 April
1999. Available from
(http://www.state.gov/www/policy_remarks/1999/990317_sestanovich_hirc.tml
Shields, Acacia. Testimony before the House Committee on International Relations,
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. Hearing on the State
Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2000. 7 September
2000.
Starr, S. Frederick. The War Against Terrorism and U.S. Bilateral Relations with the
Nations of Central Asia. Testimony to the Subcommittee on Central Asia and
South Caucasus, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate. 13 December
2001.
Talbott, Strobe Promoting Democracy and Prosperity in Central Asia, U.S. Department
of State Dispatch 5, no. 19, 1994.
Talbott, Strobe. A Farewell to Flashman: American Policy in the Caucasus and Central
Asia. Presentation at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
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261

Talbott, Strobe. A Farewell to Flashman: American Policy in the Caucasus and Central
Asia. Presentation at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies, Baltimore, Maryland, July 1997. Available from
http://www.treemedia.com/cfrlibrary/library/policy/talbott.html.
U.S. Policy in Central Asia. Transcript of Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle
East and South Asia of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives,
107th Congress, Washington, D.C., 6 June 2001.
U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service and U.S. Department of State. Country
Commercial Guide, Uzbekistan, FY03, 2002.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Country
Report on Human Rights Practices, Washington, D.C., 4 March 2002. Accessed 23
February 2004. Available from http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur8366.htm.
United States Department of State Fact Sheet. U.S. Engagement in Central Asia:
Successes, Accessed 19 January. Available from
http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/15561.htm
United States Department of State, Office of Research. Opinion Analysis: Central
Asians Differ on Islams Political Role, But Agree on a Secular State. 6 July
2000.
U.S. Department of State. 2002 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom:
Uzbekistan, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. September 2002.
Available from http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/13990.htm.
United States-Uzbekistan Joint Security Cooperation Consultations, Press Statement,
Washington, D.C., 15 april 2003. Available from
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/19665.htm.
Uzzell, Lawrence. Director, Keston Institute. Statement before the Helsinki Commission,
Washington, D.C., 18 October 1999.
Strategy for Uzbekistan. Document of the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, 4 March 2003.
Tashkent 2185. Unclassified Department of State cable from the American Embassy in
Tashkent to Washington, D.C., 281145Z, May 1999.
Tashkent 3418. Unclassified Department of State cable from the American Embassy in
Tashkent to Washington, D.C., 201318Z, August 1999.

262

NON-GOVERNMENTAL REPORTS
The Atlantic Council of the United States. New Priorities for the United States in Central Asia
and the Transcaucasus. 15-29 May 1997. Accessed 13 June 2000. Available from
http://www.acus.org/InternationalSecurity/CentAsiaTripRpt1.html.
The Atlantic Council of the United States. U.S. Policy Priorities in Central Asia: Views
From the East and South. Report of an Atlantic Council delegation visit to
China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and India. 14 June
4 July 1998. Accessed 13 June 2000. Available from
http://www.acus.org/InternationalSecurity/CentAsiaTripRpt2.html.
The Atlantic Council of the United States. Central Asia and the War on Terrorism.
Transcript of a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council of the United States, moderated
by Joseph A. Presel. 30 November 2001.
Baran, Zeyno. The Challenge of Hizb ut-Tahrir: Deciphering and Combating Radical
Islamic Ideology, Conference Report; Washington, D.C.: The Nixon Center, September
2004
Hizb

ut-Tahrir: Islams Political Insurgency. Washington, D.C.: The Nixon Center, December
2004.

Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. CACI Forum Summary: Terrorism Comes to

Uzbekistan. 3 March 1999. Accessed 1 May 2000. Available from
http:www.cacianalyst.org/Forum%20Summaries/Mar%203%20Uzbek%20terror
ism.htm.
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. CACI Forum Summary: Central Asia Security. 19
June 1999. Accessed 1 May 2000. Available from
http:www.cacianalyst.org/Forum%20Summaries/June%2019%20Brezinski%20t
he%20lesser.htm.
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, The Nitze School of Advanced International Relations,
Johns Hopkins University CACI Forum Summary: Political Islam and
Terrorism in Central Asia. 1 December 1999. Accessed 1 May 2000.
Available from
http:www.cacianalyst.org/Forum%20Summaries/Dec%201%20mufti.htm.
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. CACI Forum Summary: The Emergence of Religious
Extremism in Central Asia and the Caucasus. 11 April 2000. Accessed 1 May 2000.
Available from
http://www.sais-Jhu.edu/caci/forum_summaries/april_11_2000.htm.

Central Eurasia Project Open Forum. Experts Testify on Central Asias Democracy
263

Shortfalls. 13 April 2000. Available from

http://www.soros.org/cen_eurasia/eav041300.html.
Davis, Jacquelyn K. and Michael J. Sweeney. Central Asia in U.S. Strategy and
Operational Palnning: Where do we go from here?, The Institute for Foreign Policy
Analysis. February 2004.
Humans Rights Watch, Republic of Uzbekistan: Crackdown in the Farghona Valley:
Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination, Vol. 10, No. 4 (D) 1999. Accessed 2
November 1999. Available from http://www.hrw.org/reports98/uzbekistan/.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Will U.S. Policy Backfire in Central Asia? RCA
No. 274, 30 March 2004. Accessed 30 March 2004. Available from
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200403_273_1_eng.txt.
International Crisis Group. Incubators of Conflict: Central Asias Localised Poverty
And Social Unrest. ICG Asia Report No 16, Osh/Brussels, 8 June 2001.
International Crisis Group. Central Asian Perspectives on 11 September and the
Afghan Crisis. Central Asia Briefing, Osh/Brussels, 28 September 2001.
International Crisis Group. Central Asia: Drugs and Conflict. ICG Asia Report No.
25, Osh/Brussels, 26 November 2001.
Kamilov, Abdulaziz. Uzbekistan and the Reconsturction of Afghanistan. International Institute
for Strategic Studies (IISS) conference report on Central Asia and the Post-Conflict
Stabilization of Afghanistan. 14-15 June 2002.
Safaev, Sodyq. Regional Development and Afghanistans Post Conflict Recovery.
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) conference report on Central Asia and
the Post-Conflict Stabilization of Afghanistan. 14-15 June 2002.
Seiple, Chris. Strategic Objectives, Institute for Global Engagement. 19 September
2001, Accessed 8 January 2002. Available from
http://www.globalengage.org/issues/2001/09/cseiple-uzbek-strategy-p.htm.
Yes Uzbekistan. Institute for Global Engagement. 28 September 2001.
Available from
http://www.globalengage.org/issues/2001/09/cseiple-yes-uzbek-p.htm.
Seeing Uzbekistan: From Clich to Clarity. Institute for Global
Engagement. 7 January 2001. Available from
http://www.globalengage.org/issues/2002/01/cseiple-clarity-p.htm.
Engaging Complexity, Institute for Global Engagement. 21 January
2001. Available from
264

http://www.globalengage.org/issues/2002/01/cseiple-uzbek.htm.
Driving in the Fog: An Uzbek Election. Institute for Global Engagement,
7 March 2001. Available from
http://www.globalengage.org/issues/2002/03/uzbek.htm.
Religion and the New Global Counterinsurgency. Institute for Global
Engagement. 2 September 2003. Available from
http://www.globalengage.org/issues/2003/09/religion.htm.
Implications of Terrorism in Uzbekistan. An Enote publication distributed by the
Foreign Policy Research Institute, 12 April 2004. Available from
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040412.americawar.seiple.terroruzbekistan.html.
Heartland Geopolitics and the Case of Uzbekistan, an Enote distributed by the
Foreign Policy Research Institute. 25 January 2004. Available from
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040125.asia.seiple.mackinderuzbekistan.html.
Understanding Uzbekistan. an Enote publication distributed by the Foreign Policy
Research Institute. 1 June 2005. Available from
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20050601.centralasia.seiple.uzbekistan.html
Shields, Acacia. Class Dismissed: Discriminatory Expulsions of Muslim Students.
Human Rights Report, Vol. 11, No. 12 (D) October 1999.
Shields, Acacia. Leaving No Witnesses: Uzbekistans Campaign Against Rights
Defenders. Human Rights Report, Vol. 12, No. 4 (D) March 2000.

UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS
Abramson, David M. Civil Society and the Politics of Foreign Aid in Uzbekistan.
Article originally delivered at the Tenth Annual Naval Lecture in Central Asian
Studies on 30 November 1999 at Georgetown University. Paper presented at
Harvard Universitys Davis Center on 20 March 2000.
A Critical Look at NGOs and Civil Society as Means to an End in Uzbekistan. unpublished
paper.
Blaxall, Martha O. Economic Implications of Instability. Unpublished paper for Uzbekistan
Futures conference, 26 May 2004.
Jones, Elizabeth. Oil, Democracy, and Militant Islam in Central Asia. Remarks at Title
VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language conference on Central
Asia: Its Geopolitical Significance and Future Impact, University of Montana, Missoula,
265

Montana. 10 April 2003. Accessed 19 September 2005. Available from

http://www.umt.edu/caconf/keynote.htm.
___ Briefing to the Press, Washington, D.C., 11 February 2002. Accessed 19 January 2004.
Available from http://www.state.gove/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/7946.pf.htm
___ Press Conference, Tashkent, 24 January 2003. Accessed 23 February 2004. Available from
http://usembassy/uz/home/index.aspx?&mid=210&lid=1&overview=362.
Luong, Pauline Jones. Political Obstacles to Economic Reform in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan: Strategies to Move Ahead. World Bank paper prepared for the Lucerne
Conference of the CIS-7 Initiative. 20-22 January 2003.
Polat, Abdumannob. Islam in Uzbekistan: From Seventh Century to Liberal Reforms in
1989. 1 July 1999.
Uzbekistan: Does Islamic Fanaticism Threaten Stability?
The Islamic Revival in Uzbekistan: A Threat to Stability?
U.S. Dilemma Toward Uzbekistan: Defining Priorities. Panel Presentation to the Forum on
the Role of Islam in Central Asia, The Center for Political and Strategic Studies and The
Nixon Center, 26 September 2000.
E-mail to author, 30 September 2000.
Rashid, Ahmed. The Resurgence of Islam: The Next Eruption. Remarks at Title
VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language conference on Central
Asia: Its Geopolitical Significance and Future Impact, University of Montana, Missoula,
Montana. 10 April 2003. Accessed 19 September 2005. Available from
http://www.umt.edu/caconf/keynote.htm.
Safaev, Sodyq. Energy Development: Catalyst for Conflict or Cooperation? A Central
Asian Perspective. Remarks at a Stanford University Conference Report on
The Geopolitics of Energy Development in the Caspian Region: Regional
Cooperation or Conflict? 13-15 May 1999.
Seiple, Chris. Questions and More Questions: The IMU, Uzbek National Security and
U.S. Policy, unpublished paper, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy. 11
December 2000.
Implications of Instability for U.S. Interests, unpublished paper presented at Uzbekistan
Futures conference, 26 May 2004.
Seiple, Robert A. An unofficial Memorandum for the Record. 7 June 1999.

266

Stevens, Daniel John. Conceptual Travels Along the Silk Road: On Civil Society Aid in
Uzbekistan. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London, 2004.
Zettelmeer, Jeromin, The Uzbek Growth Puzzle, Working Paper of the International
Monetary Fund, September 1998 (WP/98/133), 31.

INTERVIEWS WITH AUTHOR

(Listed Chronologically)
Telephone
2000
Voll, John. Professor of Islamic History, Georgetown University.

15 January

Zinni, Anthony. Commanding General, Central Command.

7 March

Taylor, William. Ambassador for the Coordination of U.S. Government

Assistance to the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union.

10 March

Thompson, Mark. Department of State/Counterterrorism Office

2 October

Herbst, John. US Ambassador to Uzbekistan.

20 October

2002
Taft, Dorothy. Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Congress Helsinki Commission.7 January
Oaks, Michael. Senior Analyst, U.S. Congress Helsinki Commission.

11 January

2004
Starr, Jeffrey. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Eurasia.

15 June

2005
Meppen, Kurt. Former Executive Assistant to the Assistant Secretary
Of Defense for Eurasia.

2 September

Zinni, Anthony. Retired General, USMC.

15 September

267

Personal Interviews*
*And other Eurasian and United States officials and Non-Governmental workers who chose not to be identified.

1999
Seiple, Robert A.U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Intl. Religious Freedom, 3 November
Washington, D.C.
Safaev, Sodyq. Uzbek Ambassador to the U.S., Washington, D.C.
Abdullaev, Sherzod M. Deputy Chief of Mission, Uzbekistan Embassy.
Abdumannob, Polat. Chairman Human Rights Council of Uzbekistan,
Washington, D.C.

4 November
4 November
4 November

2000
Pandya, Amit. Policy & Planning Staff, Department of State,
Washington, D.C.

16 February

Birsner, Edward P. Country Officer, Uzbekistan, Department of State,

Washington, D.C.

16 February
26 October

Talwar, Puneer. Policy & Planning Staff, Department of State,

Washington, D.C.

16 February

Safaev, Sodyq. Uzbek Ambassador to the U.S., Washington, D.C.

17 February, 10 July
26 October

Azamatov, Alisher. First Secretary for Economics, Uzbekistan Embassy

Washington, D.C.

17 February

Armitage, Richard. Former Ambassador to the NIS for Technical and

Humanitarian Assistance, Washington, D.C.

17 February

Elkind, Jonathan. Director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs,

The National Security Council, Washington, D.C.

17 February
23 March

Brzezinski, Mark F. Director Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia,

The National Security Council, Washington, D.C.

17 February

268

Soumbadze, David. Deputy Chief of Mission, Georgian Embassy,

Washington, D.C.

17 February
22 March

Gold, Richard. Deputy Director, Central Asia & the Caucasus, U.S.
Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C.

18 February

Dirks, Delphia. Country Officer, Uzbekistan, U.S.A.I.D.

Washington, D.C.

18 February

Levin, Joel. Director, NGO Support Programs, Central Asia

Counterpart International, Washington, D.C.

18 February

Bishop, Edward. Pentagon Liaison for Central Command,

the Pentagon.

22 March

Lynch, Michael, Pentagon Liaison for European Command

the Pentagon.

22 March

Kirakossian, Arman. Armenian Ambassador to the U.S.,

Washington, D.C.

22 March

Kiesling, Brady. Deputy Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh,

Department of State, Washington, D.C.

23 March

Bryza, Matthew J. Senior Advisor, Office of the Special Advisor to the

President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy,
Department of State, Washington, D.C.

23 March

Squire, Margo. Director, Democratic Initiatives, Office of Coordinator

of NIS Assistance, Department of State, Washington, D.C.

23 March

Kiem, Ted. Director, Civil Society, Office of Coordinator of NIS

Assistance, Department of State, Washington, D.C.

23 March

Hefright, Brook. Country Officer, Georgia, Department of State,

Washington, D.C.

23 March

Watters, Kate. Director of Programs, Initiative for Social Action and

Renewal in Eurasia, Washington, D.C.

23 March

Rocca, Christina B. Professional Staff Member, Office of Senator

Sam Brownback (R-KS), Washington, D.C.

24 March
10 July

Pashayev, Hafiz M. Azeri Ambassador to the U.S., Washington, D.C.

24 March

Taghi-Zadeh, Tahir T. First Secretary (Political), Embassy of

24 March
269

Azerbaijan, Washington, D.C.

*Note: My May 2000 interviews in the South Caucasus (see below) resulted from an earlier form of the dissertation
when I was considering the role of GUUAMGeorgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova. These
interviews have proven extremely useful for me in my present work. I include them here because they provided a
better understanding of the former Soviet South as a space; of the Souths two sub-regions, Caucasus and Central
Asia, in relationship to one another; their inter-related security issues; and their relationship to the U.S. in a pre-9-11
context.

Oakley, Nikolos. Deputy Director, Horizonti , Tbilisi, Georgia.

(repeated interviews)

12 May

Tsereteli, Maka. Deputy Head of Policy Department, Ministry of the

Environment, Tbilisi, Georgia.

12 May

Nino Chkhobadze, Minster of the Environment, Tbilisi, Georgia

12, 13, 30
May

Todua, Lia. Division Head, International Programs, Ministry of the

Environment, Tbilisi, Georgia.

12 May

Lomaia, Alexander. Country Director, Georgia, The Eurasia Foundation, 12 May

Tbilisi Georgia.
Kirvalidze, Nato. Executive Director, Regional Environmental Centre
for the Caucasus, Tbilisi, Georgia.

12 May

Rondeli, Alexander. Director, Foreign Policy and Analysis Center,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tbilisi, Georgia.

13, 29 May

Vashakmadze, Giorgi. Chairman of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee

On the Eurasian Corridor (Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline), Tbilisi, Georgia.

13 May

Bashirov, Elchin. U.S./Canada Desk Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 15, 17 May
Baku, Azerbaijan.
Amirbekov, Elchin O. Director, International and Regional Security
Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Baku, Azerbaijan.

15 May

Khasyev, Kamil. Director, Political-Military Division, Ministry

of Foreign Affairs, Baku, Azerbaijan.

15 May

Norberg, Derek. Country Director, Azerbaijan, The Eurasia Foundation,

Baku, Azerbaijan.

16 May

Safar-zadeh, Enver. Environmental Specialist/Trainer, Initiative for

16, 18 May
270

Social Action and Renewal in Eurasia (ISAR), Baku, Azerbaijan.

Rundquist, Vicki L. Second Political Secretary, U.S. Embassy, Baku,
Azerbaijan.

17 May

Szadek, Stephen A. Supervisory General Development Officer,

U.S.A.I.D., U.S. Embassy, Baku, Azerbaijan.

17 May

McKinny, William D. Country Coordinator, U.S.A.I.D., U.S. Embassy,

Baku, Azerbaijan.

17 May

Biondich, Mitchell S. Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy, Baku, Azerbaijan. 17 May

Sulthansoy, Chinghiz. Executive Director of the Azerbaijan Press Club,
Baku, Azerbaijan.

18 May

Perlow, Kim. Country Director, Azerbaijan, ISAR, Baku, Azerbaijan.

18 May

Turner, Tim. Programme Coordinator, Caspian Environment Programme 18 May

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Baku, Azerbaijan.
Zhugarov, Tevfik. Former Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Baku,
Azerbaijan.

18 May

Akhundov, Bakhtiyar. Administrative Manager, UNOCAL

Baku, Azerbaijan.

19 May

Huseynov, Rauf. Deputy Chief, Foreign Relations Department,

& Presidential Translator, Office of the President, Baku, Azerbaijan.

19 May

Muradov, Bakhtiyar. Regional Coordinating Officer, UNDP,

Caspian Environment Programme, Baku, Azerbaijan.

19 May

Sigler, J. Michael. Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy, Yerevan, Armenia.

22, 23 May

Grigorian, Alexander. Senior Analyst, Center for International and

National Studies, Yerevan, Armenia.

22, 25 May

Zardaryan, Ukrtich H. Senior Analyst, Center for International and

National Studies, Yerevan, Armenia.

22, 25 May

Barseghyan, Mihran. Publisher, Macmillan, Yerevan, Armenia.

(repeated interviews, 22-26 May) Yerevan, Armenia

23 May

Wickberg, Paul. Political Officer, U.S. Embassy, Yerevan, Armenia.

23 May

271

Tauber, Mark. Political/Economic Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Yerevan,

Armenia.

23 May

Boyle, Erik. Catholic Relief Services, Yerevan, Armenia.

24 May

Bayandour, Anahit. Co-Chair of the Armenian Committee of the

Helsinki Citizens Assembly, Yerevan, Armenia.

24 May

Tsitsos, Dianne C. Mission Director, U.S.A.I.D., U.S. Embassy, Yerevan, 24 May

Armenia.
Berns, Deborah. Democracy Officer, U.S. Embassy, Yerevan, Armenia.

24 May

Shahinian, Gulnara. Programme Officer, International Organization

Of Migration, Yerevan, Armenia.

24 May

Sarkissian, Gegham. National Democratic Institute, Program Director,

Yerevan, Armenia.

25 May

Aivazian, Armen M. Senior Researcher, Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, 25 May

Yerevan, Armenia.
Ararktsian, Babken. Former Speaker of Armenian Parliament, Yerevan,
Armenia.

25 May

Papian, Simon. Armenian Deputy Minister for Nature Protection,

Yerevan, Armenia.

26 May

Darbinyan, Nune. Director, International Cooperation Department,

Armenian Ministry for Nature Protection, Yerevan, Armenia.

26 May

Shugarian, Rouben. Deputy Foreign Minister, Yerevan, Armenia.

26 May

Shahnazarian, David. Former Armenian Minister for National Security,

Chairman of the Democratic National Party, Yerevan, Armenia.

26 May

Mnashakanian, Zorab. Director, Foreign Affairs, Office of the President, 26 May

Yerevan, Armenia.
Tevzadze, David. Minister of Defense, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Tbilisi, Georgia

28 May

Naneishvili, Michael. Chairman of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee,

Tbilisi, Georgia.

29 May

Nodia, Ghia. Chairman, The Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy

30 May
272

And Development, Tbilisi, Georgia.

Bakradze, David. Director, Disarmament and Arms Control Division,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tbilisi, Georgia.

30 May

Maisuradze, Alexander. Second Secretary, Disarmament and Arms

Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tbilisi, Georgia.

30 May

Melikadze, Nikoloz. Director, The Strategic Research Center,

Tbilisi, Georgia.

30 May

Kartozia, Alexander. Minister of Education, Tbilisi, Georgia.

30 May

Newcomb, Tom. Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi, Georgia.

31 May

Remler, Philip. Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi, Georgia. 31 May
Clark, Sandra. Political-Economic Chief, U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi, Georgia. 31 May
Cheever, Francis. Political-Economic Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi,
Georgia.

31 May

Chkonia, Irakli. Senior Assistant to the Speaker of the Parliament for

International Relations, Tbilisi, Georgia.

31 May

Schutte, John Paul. Second Secretary, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan (repeated, daily interviews).

24 August
4 September

Karimov, Furkat. Director, Medical Diagnostic Services

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

23 August.

Ahmedov, Alexandr. America Desk, Uzbek Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

25, 29
August

Abdullaev, Sherzod M. Senior Advisor to the Minister of Foreign

Affairs, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

25, 29
August

Minovarov, Shoazim. First Deputy of Chairman, Cabinet of

Ministers Committee on Religious Affairs, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

28 August
4 September

Gulamov, Kadyr. Commandant of the Uzbek War College, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

28 August

Karimova, Alla. Head of UN & International Political Organizations

Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tashkent, Uzbkeistan.

29 August

273

Brand, Matthew. Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

31 August

Akhmedov, Durbek K. Tashkent State Economic University,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

31 August

Presel, Joseph. U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

3 September

Aripov, Eldor. Analyst, Institute for Strategic & Regional Studies,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

4 September

Nurullaeva, Shafoat. Analyst, Institute for Strategic & Regional Studies,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

4 September

Azamat, Seitov. Analyst, Institute for Strategic & Regional Studies,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

4 September

Badalgaev, Alisher. Analyst, Institute for Strategic & Regional Studies,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

4 September

Muzafarov, Damir. Analyst, Institute for Strategic & Regional Studies,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

4 September

Childers, Al. CENTCOM liaison to the Pentagon, the Pentagon.

25 October

Burke, Thom W. Central Asia Desk Officer, Joint Staff, the Pentagon.

25 October

Bibbins, Nicole. Special Assistant to the US Ambassador-at-Large

For Counterterrorism, Department of State, Washington, D.C.

25 October

Cooper, Laura K. Policy Planning Officer, Office of Counterterrorism,

Department of State, Washington, D.C.

25 October

Olcott, Martha Brill. Senior Carnegie Fellow, Washington, D.C.

25 October

Hastings, Tom. Office of Counterterrorism, Department of State,

Washington, D.C.

25 October

Polat, Abdumannob. Chairman Human Rights Council of Uzbekistan,

Washington, D.C.

25 October

Bond, Clifford G. Director, Office of Caucasus and Central Asian Affairs, 26 October
Department of State, Washington, D.C.

2001
274

Tom Greenwood, USMC Colonel, The National Security Council

1 February

Sodyq Safaev, Uzbek Ambassador the US

2 February

Polat, Abdummanob. Human Rights Council of Uzbekistan,

Washington, D.C.

16 May

Ahmedov, Alexandr. Consular Officer, Embassy of Uzbekistan

16 May
20 December

Ishankhovdjaev, Ulegbek. Deputy Chief of Mission,

Embassy of Uzbekistan, Washington, D.C.

16 May
20 December

Presel, Joseph. Former U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan,

Newport, Rhode Island.

25 July

Safaev, Sodyq. Deputy Foreign Minister, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

6,8 September

Penner, Richard. Country Director, World Concern, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

7, 19 September

Duggleby, Robert. Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

10, 20
September

Burkehalter, Ted. Political Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

10 September

Davis, Catherine. BBC Reporter, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

11 September

Gulamov, Kadyr. Minister of Defense, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

11 September

Farrell, Jannice. Director of BBC Monitoring Unit, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

12 September

Abdullaev, Sherzod. Senior Advisor to the Foreign Minister,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

12 September

Alimov, Ravshan M. Director, Institute for Strategic & Regional

Studies, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

12 September

Aripov, Eldor. Analyst, Institute for Strategic & Regional Studies,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

12 September

Timcke, Michael. Honorary South African Consul, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

14 September

275

Berdze, Colonel. Commander Uzbek Special Forces , Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

14 September

Sayfullin, Rafik. School of Advanced Strategy and Analysis, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

18 September

Kayumov, Akmal. Deputy Minister of Defense for International Affairs,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

20 September

Herbst, John. U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

20 September

Weldon, Curt. U.S. Congressman, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

3 December

Bibbins, Nicole. Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for

Global Affairs, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.

19 December

Kramer, David. Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Global

Affairs, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.

19 December

Baccam, Titi. Uzbekistan Desk Officer, U.S. State Department,

Washington, D.C.

19 December

Sibilla, Christopher. Deputy Director, Bilateral Affairs,

Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State
Department, Washington, D.C.

19 December

Davis, Patricia. Central Asia Desk Officer, Bureau for Democracy,

Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.

19 December

Farkas, Evelyn. Professional Staff Member, Senate Armed Services

Committee, Washington, D.C.

19 December

DeBobes, Rick. Professional Staff Member, Senate Armed Services

Committee, Washington, D.C.

19 December

2002
Bukharbayeva, Galima. Reporter, Institute for War & Peace
Reporting, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

24 January
5 June

Burkehalter, Ted. Human Rights Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

24, 29 January
30 May

Memmot, Larry. Economics Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

24, 29 January
276

Uzbekistan.

4 June

Davis, Catherine. BBC Reporter, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

25 January

Safaev, Sodyq. Deputy Foreign Minister, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

26 January
10 June

Miruamilov, Dilmorod. First Secretary, America Desk, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

29 January

Abramson, David. Special Fellow, Office of International Religious

Freedom, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

20 March

Ahmedov, Alexandr. Consular Officer, Uzbekistan Embassy,

Washington, D.C.

22 March
19 December

Ishankhovdjaev, Ulegbek Deputy Chief of Mission,

Embassy of Uzbekistan, Washington, D.C.

22 March
15 October
19 December

Abduvakhitov, Abdujabar .Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment

For International Peace, Washington, D.C.

22 March

Hill, Kent. Assistant Administrator, U.S. A.I.D., Europe & Eurasia,

Washington, D.C.

25 April

Steele, Gloria. Director, Central Asia, U.S. A.I.D., Washington, D.C.

25 April

Patterson, David S. Lieutenant Colonel, J-5 Action Officer for

Central Asia, The Pentagon.

26 April

Brady, Thomas. Professional staff member, office of Senator Sam

Brownback, Washington, D.C.

26 April
26 June
15 October

Wolff, Jay. U.S. Army National Security Fellow, Office of Senator

Sam Brownback, Washington, D.C.

26 April
26 June
15 October

Thiliveris, Thomas. U.S. Army Major, Security Officer, U.S. Embassy,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

27 May

Achmedov, Durbeck. Economics Professor, Tashkent State University,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

28 May
11 June

Abduvakhitov, Abdujabar. President, Westminister International

29 May
277

University in Tashkent, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

5 June

Goggin, Jim. U.S. A.I.D. Country Director, Uzbekistan, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

2 June
11 June

Farrell, Bill. Program Officer, U.S. A.I.D., Uzbekistan, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

2 June
11 June

Brink, Jennifer. Program Officer, U.S. A.I.D., Uzbekistan, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

2 June

Smith, Adam. Program Officer, EastWest Institute, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. 3 June

Farrell, Janice. Director, BBC Regional Monitoring Unit, Tashkent,
Uzbekistan.

4 June

Penner, Richard. Country Director, World Concern, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

4 June

Gulamov, Hundamir. Vice Rector for International Relations,

National University of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

5 June

Aziz, Tatibaev. Chairman, History Department, National University

Of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

5 June

Kholliev, Aziz. History Professor, National University of Uzbekistan,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

5 June

Djamshed, Fayazov. Ph.D. Candidate, National University of Uzbekistan, 5 June

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Timcke, Michael. Honorary Consul, South Africa, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. 6 June
Anderson, Michael. Danish news reporter, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

6 June

Anderson, Wendy. British lecturer at the University of World Economy

And Diplomacy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

6 June

Minovarov, Shoazim. Chief of Staff, Cabinet Religious Affairs

Committee, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

7 June

Sayfullin, Rafik. School of Advanced Strategy and Analysis, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

7 June

Rotar, Igor. Keston News Reporter, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

10 June

278

ONeil, Molly. Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

10 June

Murat Zakhidov, President, Human Rights Organization, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

11 June

Liverman, Jeff. President, Central Asia Free Exchange, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

11 June

Hall, Jim. Chairman of the Board, Central Asia Free Exchange, Tashkent, 11 June
Uzbekistan.
Davis, Catherine. BBC Reporter, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

12 June

Kadirov, Rahmjon. Vice Rector, Institute for Strategic & Regional

Studies, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

12 June

Tschenkel, Sheila. U.S. Treasury Department Advisor to the Uzbek

Ministry of Finance, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

13 June

Abdullaev, Sherzod. Senior Advisor to the Foreign Minister,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

13 June

Bergne, Paul. Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

15 June

Bingham, Christopher. British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

15 June

Jianping, Wang. Deputy Director of Eastern Europe, Russia

and Central Asia Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
Beijing, China.

July

Pascoe, Lynn. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia,

U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

25 July

Ricardel, Mira. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Eurasia, the Pentagon. 26 July
Brand, Matt. Former Defense Attache to the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan, 14 October
Washington, D.C.
Starr, Jeffrey. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Eurasia 19 December
Office of the Secretary of Defense/Special Operations/LIC
Baccam, Titi. Uzbekistan Desk Officer, U.S. State Department,
Washington, D.C.

19 December

279

2004
Abdulaziz Komilov, Uzbek Ambassador to the United States,
Washington, D.C.

19 February

Timcke, Michael. Honorary Consul, South Africa, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. 5 April

McKane, John. Political officer, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

6 April

Gulamov, Kadyr. Minister of Defense, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

7 April

Abdullaev, Sherzod. Special Advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 8 April
Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Bukharbayeva, Bagila. Associated Press, Regional Representative,
Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

10 April

Joann Hale, U.S.A.I.D. Mission Director, Uzbekistan, Tashkent,

Uzbekistan.

12 April

Stoddard, Rick. U.S.A.I.D. Program Officer, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

12 April

Recht, Linda. Economics Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

12 April

Bukharbayeva, Galima. Director, Institute for War & Peace Reporting,

Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

14 April

Achmedov, Durbeck. Tashkent State University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

14 April

Zhuherrin Husdinitov, 2004 Special Advisor to the President for Religion, 15 April
And, Rector of Islamic State University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Khassanoff, Ulugbeck. Professor, University of World Economy and
Diplomacy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

15 April

Purnell, John. U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

15 April

Polat, Abdumannob. Human Rights Council of Uzbekistan,

Washington, D.C.

24 August

USAID Mission Director, Joann Hale

31 August
280

2005
Sherzod Abdullaev, political officer, Uzbek Embassy,
Washington, D.C.

4 March

Sylvia R. Curran, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent

13 October

Rick Stoddard, U.S. Agency for International Development,

Tashkent.

15 October

David Hunsicker, U.S. Agency for International Development,

Tashkent.

15 October

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, first Deputy Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, New York City.

26 October

James F. Collins, Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the

Secretary of State for the New Independent States from 1994-1997,
U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997-2001,
Washington, D.C.

1 December

281