Central Asia

The Guantanamo Countdown

President Obama promised to close the facility within a year, but eight months later, the path is looking rockier. Here's what the administration needs to do to meet its deadline.

BY SARAH MENDELSON | OCTOBER 1, 2009

How to Save Lives by Breaking All the Rules

How former U.S. Global AIDS coordinator Mark Dybul ditched the bureaucracy, stopped intergovernmental turf wars, pushed for results, and helped create an anti-poverty machine that actually works.

BY MARK DYBUL | SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Think Again: The Green Revolution

Noble Prize-winning scientist Norman Borlaug died Sept 12, but his ideas and the green revolution they produced are still transforming agriculture in Asia. Next stop: Africa.

BY PETER HAZELL | SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Is Afghanistan the New Africa?

U.S. dollars and a shiny new airport are not signs of success.

BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER | SEPTEMBER 21, 2009

The Nightmare Scenario in Afghanistan

The Afghan electoral crisis threatens to destabilize the country and further erode confidence in the Karzai government. But thankfully, a solution exists.

BY WILLIAM MALEY, MARVIN G. WEINBAUM, RANI D. MULLEN | SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

The Musharraf I Know

Amjad Shuaib knew Pervez Musharraf as a hotheaded Army officer and a reactionary Pakistani leader. Could he now know him as one executed for treason, given the country's new judiciary renaissance?

BY AMJAD SHUAIB | SEPTEMBER 9, 2009

Is Turkey Renaming Istanbul Constantinople?

Chances of Turkey and the Kurds reaching a rapprochement are at their highest in 25 years. But what does that mean for Turkification -- and what concessions are the Turks willing to make?

BY NICK DANFORTH | SEPTEMBER 4, 2009

It's Not About Us

The United States need not be Miss Congeniality to win the war of ideas. We just need to make moderates hate extremists more than they dislike us.

BY JAMES K. GLASSMAN | SEPTEMBER 1, 2009

The Real Winner of Afghanistan's Election

Meet Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the unsavory Tajik warlord whose grip on Afghanistan just got a whole lot tighter.

BY HILLARY MANN LEVERETT | AUGUST 31, 2009

Russia's Brutal Guerrilla War

How the crisis in the North Caucasus could go global.

BY PAUL QUINN-JUDGE | AUGUST 31, 2009

How High Will It Go?

How the price of oil might superspike once again.

BY THE MCKINSEY GLOBAL INSTITUTE | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

Playing With a Full Deck

Lessons about nuclear deterrence from the poker table.

BY JAMES MCMANUS | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

The Great Pipeline Opera

Inside the European pipeline fantasy that became a real-life gas war with Russia.

BY DANIEL FREIFELD | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

Meet Afghanistan's Biggest Blogger

How 26-year-old Nasim Fekrat helped create Afghanistan's blogosphere out of thin air.

BY ANNIE LOWREY | AUGUST 12, 2009

Why the "Merchant of Death" Might Not Stand Trial

Today, a Thai court refused to extradite Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer, to the United States. Something is rotten in Bangkok. 

BY DOUGLAS FARAH | AUGUST 11, 2009

The New Iran Sanctions: Worse Than the Old Ones

The U.S. Congress is considering cutting off petroleum-products shipments to Iran -- a useless sanction, and a distraction from real solutions.

BY GAL LUFT | AUGUST 11, 2009

Aiding the Future

Does U.S. foreign assistance really work?

BY MICHAEL WILKERSON | JULY 20, 2009

LiveStrong for Make Benefit of Kazakhstan?

Why one of the world's most bankable athletes is competing for an autocratic former Soviet republic.

BY JOE LINDSEY | JULY 14, 2009

Mute Muslims

Why doesn't the Islamic world speak up about the Uighurs?

BY MOISÉS NAÍM | JULY 13, 2009

The Russification of Kyrgyzstan

How Russia pushed the U.S. out of a Central Asian stronghold.

BY BAKTYBEK ABDRISAEV | APRIL 9, 2009

The List: Globalized Motors

As sagging demand in the United States and Western Europe has pushed General Motors into bankruptcy, the auto behemoth has actually been expanding in emerging markets and building new factories.

BY JOSHUA KEATING | APRIL 1, 2009

9/11 + 5

Five years ago, 19 men sparked a global war. They were far from the first to commit acts of terrorism. But the devastation they wrought led U.S. President George W. Bush to declare a war "unlike any other we have ever seen," not simply against al Qaeda, but against every organization capable of terror. Today, the world faces increased terrorism on nearly every front. Attacks and fatalities are on the rise not just in the Middle East, but around the world -- everywhere, it seems, but where the war was first declared. The United States may be footing many of the costs for the war on terror, but the rest of the world is paying with their lives.

BY KIM CRAGIN, ANDREW CURIEL | AUGUST 8, 2006

What They're Reading: Dushanbe's Living History

The West has long enjoyed romanticizing notions of Central Asia's so-called Great Game. But few are familiar with how the region's people view their own culture and literary scene. FP sat down with Alii Muhammadi Khorasoni, author, poet, and critic at the Tajik Academy of Sciences, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to discuss what Central Asians are reading.

JANUARY 4, 2006

Silk Inroad

BY VERENA RINGLER | MARCH 1, 2005

Catching the Shanghai Spirit

BY MATTHEW ORESMAN | MAY 1, 2004

Ashkhabad's Agitprop

SEPTEMBER 1, 2003

The Terrorist Notebooks

During the mid-1990s, a group of young Uzbeks went to school to learn how to kill you. Here is what they were taught.

BY MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT, BAKHTIYAR BABAJANOV | MARCH 1, 2003

Iraq: The Past as Prologue?

Iraqis have suffered a 33-year night­mare, with 23 of those years dominated by Saddam Hussein. The experience has been sufficient to persuade them to guard any chance they have to establish a true democracy.

BY AHMAD CHALABI | JUNE 15, 1991