By S. Frederick Starr ed.
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program
Silk Road Paper
June 2024
Introduction
Nearly all commentators on the evolution of the countries of Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan, (i.e., the “CAMCA” countries) have concentrated on older adults and ignored younger men and women. This collection focuses instead on members of the younger generation whose outlooks have been largely neglected until now.
But what, we must ask, is a generation? For a century Europeans and Americans have coined cliches to describe each rising cohort of young people. Early on they defined their subject as young men and women in their late teens and early twenties. Now the definition commonly stretches further back into the earlier teen years. At the same time, the concept of a generation has itself changed. It was once commonly defined in biological terms, which meant a period of twenty or more years. Today –at least in the West— a social and political “generation” is often shortened to only a single decade.
Why are the views of members of the rising generation in the CAMCA countries (Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan) of importance? Very simply, because their life experience differs so starkly from that of both their parents and grandparents. Their parents were raised by people born and educated in the Soviet Union or in Mongolia, under Soviet influence. In every one of these countries the current generation of parents has also been challenged by personal contact with the modern world on a global scale and by their national governments’ efforts to respond to it. As a consequence, they sit uneasily on two stools, past and present, institutional and personal, and bravely try to seek a workable balance between them. As is clear from the essays below, they do not always succeed at this. It is no exaggeration to say that parental influence on source offspring across the region has diminished.
A second and obvious issue that distinguishes the young generation in all of the countries under study is their massive access to cellphone technology and the internet. This development, which contrasts to the experience of some but not all of their elders, gives them access to world-wide “neighborhoods” of like-minded people. This constitutes second and non-institutional forms of education, which contrasts sharply with what is offered in schools, but which is very powerful nonetheless. The scale of contact with this world among members of the young generation is immense. However, it often occurs at the price of reduced communication with their more diverse physical neighbors at home. Moreover, as is clear from the reviews included in this collection, the attention of young people is also focused as much or more on music and pop culture as on the subjects that dominate traditional newspapers, radio, and TV.
All of these pressures and tensions bear directly on educational systems across the entire region and beyond. Educational reform in a post-Soviet spirit has indeed gone forward in all the countries under study, but it has been slow, tentative, and bureaucratic. Worse, to the extent it exists at all, reform has been concentrated at the university level. In some countries the rising generation has been emancipated from Soviet-type training in lower schools by the appearance of a few private institutions, but these are few in number and accessible only to the well-to-do. For the most part, younger men and women across the region are still the product of Soviet-type lower schools. While this results in high competence in mathematics and basic science, it lags in both the social sciences and humanities, leaving these fields wide open to informal learning from the internet and other non-traditional sources.
It goes without saying that the contemporary world is full of continuities that often go unnoticed. Upbringing in the family, the impact of neighbors, religion, traditional life-cycle customs, and deep-rooted musical traditions all remain much as they were in the past. Yet, acknowledging this, it is hard to imagine three generations whose life experiences differ more radically from each other than those of a typical CAMCA family over the course of recent decades.
In a first effort to map at least the outlines of the rising generation across the CAMCA region, the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute turned to its own region-wide team of experts, the 280 men and women from all ten countries who have participated in the fellowship program launched fifteen years ago by the Rumsfeld Foundation and our Institute. Now a diverse band of highly accomplished members of their societies, these leaders of business, government, the professions, and press train and hire older members of the rising generation and work closely with them on a daily basis. Many also observe the young through their own children and through their children’s friends and schoolmates.
As editors, we will resist the temptation to extract conclusions from the diverse evidence in this report or to propose implications for each of the ten societies included and for the larger region of which they are all a part. This is instead the challenge which our CAMCA contributors set before each reader. To guide such reflection, we offer the following five questions: First, is it possible to speak of this region’s rising generation as a single cohort and, if so, what are its boundary ages? Second, is it possible to speak of common generational features across the entire region, or should we focus instead on smaller groupings or even on the distinct generational identities of individual countries? Third, looking forward, what degree of discontinuity should we anticipate on a national, sub-regional, and regionwide basis? Fourth, are the CAMCA countries prepared to deal with the discontinuities and changes that the rising generation may generate? And, fifth, to what degree is the entire CAMCA region coming to participate in what French sociologist Claude Levi-Strauss called “the global monoculture”?
A US strategy for the Black Sea is long overdue. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the involvement of the US, Europe, Iran, and North Korea, have created new geopolitical realities around the area.
While a broad range of political, maritime, economic, and energy security issues have increased the need for clarity in the US approach, one particular recent development is urgent and needs answers.
Russia’s Black Sea fleet has taken a beating from Ukraine. In all, 15 warships have been sunk and 12 damaged in the past two years, most recently the missile corvette Ivanovets on January 31.
That has forced Russia to look for harbors further east, such as Novorossiysk and Tuapse. But there is no safety from Ukrainian aerial and maritime drones there either, as indicated by a January 28 strike on the latter port’s oil refinery.
Recognizing the risk, Russia plans to reactivate a small Soviet-era military facility in Ochamchire in Abkhazia, a Georgian region illegally occupied by Russia. Currently, Ochamchire is a base for Russian FSB patrol boats and is not capable of harboring large naval vessels.
The decision has significant implications for Georgia and its Black Sea-Caspian neighbors, threatening the viability of important trade routes.
Here, some context is necessary. Georgia’s Black Sea ports are in close proximity to Ochamchire and are already serving as connecting links between Europe and wider areas of Central Asia, which includes a range of countries stretching from the South Caucasus to China’s western Xinjiang region.
Ochamchire is also fairly close to the potential point of entry for the planned subsea power cable connecting South Caucasus sources of green energy to the European Union (EU) countries of Romania and Hungary.
This strategic role of the Eastern Black Sea is frequently missing from EU and US policy documents.
Non-EU littoral states are not included in the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), for example. At the same time, the Black Sea ports of Georgia and the so-called “Middle Corridor,” linking the South Caucasus to Central Asia, provide Europe with access to vast resources of energy, metals, coal, cotton, and other goods, as well as to growing markets in an emerging region.
This latter role is particularly important; for Central and Eastern European states, saddled with a decades-long dependency on Russian resources and Russia-linked infrastructure, the South Caucasus and Central Asia can serve as a major potential alternative. This importance may only grow with the post-war development and reconstruction of Ukraine that will follow the current war.
The Middle Corridor, running between Kazakhstan and Georgian Black Sea ports and the Mediterranean ports of Turkey, allows Central Asian states to bypass the geopolitically unstable Russian route.
Some of the claims for this route are overblown. It’s unlikely it will become a major corridor connecting China and Europe. There are significant geographic, political, economic, and governance issues associated with this, meaning it will be unable to match maritime, or other land-based transportation options between China and the EU.
At the same time, the Middle Corridor is extremely important for the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
According to multiple studies, (see World Bank study, EBRD) the transshipment potential of the Middle Corridor between Europe and Asia via the Caspian Sea will continue to grow and play an increasingly important role between the growing economies of Central Asia/South Caucasus and EU and Mediterranean markets. This will require a combination of investment and efficiency measures and more vigorous intra-regional coordination.
The only suitable outlet for this route is Georgia; the other countries are landlocked and need to transit neighboring states to reach open seas and markets.
But the absence of firm security guarantees from NATO or other military allies also makes Georgia and its Black Sea ports vulnerable.
Russia’s willingness to use military force and gray zone attacks in the Black Sea increases political risk. One way to mitigate this is to engage as many countries as possible in trade and transit via Georgia. Once Georgian ports are important to others, such as Turkey, China, India, and the Gulf States, the pressure for peace can balance potential threats.
Georgia also needs to develop naval defense capabilities with drones and air defense systems and rebuild civil defense and military reserve systems to create at least a basic level of deterrent to Russian aggression.
The US Black Sea Strategy should incorporate support for the free flow of goods and mineral resources between Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mamuka Tsereteli, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council/Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
By Dr. S. Frederick Starr, ed.
January 18, 2024
Experts' Scenarios on Russia's Future
What does Russia’s future hold? Of course, we don’t know. For a century determinists of various persuasions claimed to be able to predict future developments. They believed that a very few key economic or social indicators determined humankind’s future evolution. Nowadays all but the most diehard determinists accept that a broad range of factors contribute to the direction of change. We acknowledge that along with economic and social change, factors as diverse as the values and personalities of leaders, the dynamics of groups and bureaucracies, changing sources of energy, group and national psychology, and even changes in climate can all shape the future.
These and many other factors could affect the outcome of Russia’s current war on the Ukraine and developments within the Russian Republic immediately thereafter.
consensus? And if there is consensus in any area, does it acknowledge the possible importance of what Donald Rumsfeld called the “unknown unknowns”?
the good intentions of the many others who were not able to do so.
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S. Frederick Starr, Ph.D., is the founding chairman of the Central Asia- Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, and a Distinguished Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: S. Frederick Starr, is a distinguished fellow specializing in Central Asia and the Caucasus at the American Foreign Policy Council and founding chairman of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute.