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Central Asia between Islam and the Great Powers:

The Implications of September 11

Since September 11, the Central Asian states have sought to emphasise the commonality of interests in the international fight against Islamic radicalism. US strategy has been well received in part because it appeared to favour the creation of an enlarged coalition against the perceived 'Islamic threat', one that would encompass Central Asia (except for Turkmenistan), the United States, Russia and China.

However, as the post-Cold War experience readily suggests, coalition-building is often fraught with difficulty. It is by no means clear that this emerging coalition in fact rests on common interests. It cannot be assumed that the priorities of the great powers are consistent with those of the Central Asian states, or for that matter that the interests of the three great powers are consistent with each other. While each of the great powers has reason to oppose the resurgence of a politically assertive brand of Islam, that opposition is guided by widely varying motives and strategies. It is this complex dynamic between Islam, geopolitics, and Central Asia which lies at the core of this research project.

This project uses a specific region, namely Central Asia, to draw more generic conclusions on the implications of Islam's increasing prominence in world politics both for contemporary challenges to nation/state building and post-Cold War realignments between smaller and greater powers. These conclusions, while they may not be directly applicable elsewhere, will be of  considerable interest and relevance to scholars and policy-makers grappling with the dynamic that is currently unfolding in other parts of Asia, the Middle East, and north Africa.

The Chief Investigators of this research project are Professor Joseph A. Camilleri (La Trobe University) and Dr Shahram Akbarzadeh (Monash University). The study is supported by an Australian Research Council discovery Grant.