Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 04/2010

Central Asia: Living in Afghanistan's shadow

Martha Brill Olcott

November 2009

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Abstract

The absence of a functional government in Afghanistan has been creating economic and security challenges for the Central Asian states since their founding in 1991. Long frustrated by the international community's failure to end the Afghan civil war through negotiation, the 2001 September 11 attack created the expectation among these countries that the US would intervene successfully in Afghanistan, leading to an economic recovery that would advance the development of all the states in the region.