Joshua Kucera

Russia, U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan And The "New Silk Road"

I have had a couple of new stories on The Atlantic's website over the last week. One is on Russian fears over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan:

When the U.S. starts its scheduled troop pullout from Afghanistan in 2014, it will represent the end of America's bloody decade-plus engagement there, and the fading away of Americans' attention to Central Asia. But to Russians, 2014 instead marks a beginning: when Afghanistan becomes their problem again.

And the other is on the U.S.'s post-Afghanistan economic stabilization plan and the doubts surrounding it:

But hope may be the only thing driving on the New Silk Road. The State Department has few good options in Afghanistan, and the U.S. doesn't want to leave (or at least wants to seem like they won't leave) a disaster behind once it starts pulling troops out in 2014. So it cast about for ideas and found the New Silk Road proposal, which had been bouncing around the post-Soviet think tank circuit in Washington since the mid-oughts.

Kazakhstan Rising

Slate has published a series of my dispatches from Kazakhstan. A sample from the introduction:

ASTANA, Kazakhstan—If Guinness were to keep a record of Greatest Number of Heads of State To Attend the Opening of a Shopping Mall, it's safe to assume that the standard was set last summer at the grand opening of the Khan Shatyr in Astana, the capital ofKazakhstan.

To be sure, this was not an ordinary mall. The Khan Shatyr (its name means king's tent in Kazakh) is a spectacular, shimmering silver structure sweeping up from the steppe. Designed by celebrated British architect Norman Foster to evoke the nomadic tradition that is only a couple of generations removed from today's Kazakhs, at 500 feet tall it qualifies—in a record that apparently does exist—as the tallest tent in the world.

Its inauguration was several years behind schedule and had been eagerly anticipated as the most impressive addition (to date, anyway) to this city that has sprouted up, with improbable speed and verve, here in the middle of nowhere. But it was not contemporary architecture that attracted the heads of state, including Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, King Abdullah of Jordan, Abdullah Gul of Turkey, and the presidents of Ukraine, Tajikistan, and Armenia.

The date of the Khan Shatyr's opening also happened to be the 70th birthday of Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who hosted the other six heads of state at the gala. Nazarbayev's 20-year rule has made extensive use of the grand spectacle. And although he is sensitive to the perception that he is fostering a cult of personality and had said publicly that he did not want an elaborate celebration for his 70th, it was obvious that this event was, implicitly, a birthday party....

Kazakhstan's history and geography would not seem to provide the ingredients for becoming a rising power. It's stuck in a location that is about as out of the way as you can get, in between Siberia, far western China, and the other 'stans. Kazakhs are traditionally nomads whose language wasn't written until the 19th century, and today the country's population stands at less than 16 million.

In spite of all those disadvantages, Kazakhstan is both far more modern and more dynamic than people think. But it is also highly sensitive about how it's seen abroad. Kazakhstan's effort to rope so many world leaders into attending a mall opening is of a piece with its ambitious—often shameless—desire to take a place on the world stage.

There are five parts, covering the new capital, some ambitious educational efforts, ethnic and socioeconomic tension, and the president's emerging cult of personality. And there's a photo gallery with a few of my photos. 

Georgia's Dangerous Quest for American Weapons - The Atlantic

I have a piece on The Atlantic's website on Georgia's attempts to buy, or be given, U.S. weapons:

But the issue of American weapons has now come to define the state of the U.S.-Georgia relationship, with Georgia and its allies in Washington arguing that if the U.S. doesn't give Georgia weapons, it's kowtowing to Russia for the sake of a wishful-thinking "reset." U.S. Senator John McCain is the leading advocate for weapons provisions; in March he told a Congressional hearing, "It is hard for me to understand, since the Russians still occupy territory that is clearly Georgian territory and continue to threaten Georgia, and yet we're not even giving them weapons with which to defend themselves. It is not comprehensible."

Georgia's last ambassador to Washington was relieved of his duties, it was reported, because of his failure to get arms from the U.S. Georgia spent about $1.5 million on four top D.C. lobbying firms last year alone, far outpacing comparable countries. Those lobbying efforts include an aggressive press campaign arguing that the State Department is enforcing a "de facto embargo" by quietly blocking Georgia's attempted arms purchases, although there is no evidence of such an embargo.

Read the whole thing here.

No One Rigs an Election Quite Like Kazakhstan - The Atlantic

This is old news by now, but a couple weeks ago I had a story on TheAtlantic.com on Kazakhstan's presidential election:

It may sound like a typical post-Soviet sham election, but it's not quite. Most autocrats, post-Soviet and otherwise, just quietly go through the motions of elections, trying to draw as little attention to them as possible. Not Nazarbayev. Three days before the vote, he published an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "Kazakhstan's steady progress toward democracy." He sent an adviser on a tour of Western capitals to promote the election; in Washington, the adviser -- modestly, it turns out -- predicted Nazarbayev would win between 80 and 92 percent of the vote.

Foreign election observers found evidence of ballot box stuffing and apparent multiple votes, charges that the government quickly denied. "I believe that it is the most ideal election ever in the history of all the elections," said one presidential adviser, Yermukhamet Yertysbayev. 

Read the whole thing here.