The Countries of Central Asia
Every time I hear someone talk about "Asia" I think of China, Japan, the Koreas, and Indochina (Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma). But there is more to Asia than these countries. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh all make up "southern Asia" or the "Indian subcontinent". Images of Gunga Din and crowded trains fill my mind when I think of these names. Of course, India and Pakistan are modern countries with a lot of great tourist vistas, huge investments in education and technology, and considerable wealth in resources.
But when people talk about "Asia" I rarely think of the nations of "central Asia", the so-called "Five Stans": Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Since September 11, 2001 the "Five Stans" have been associated with terrorism and the war in Afghanistan, but that is hardly fair to the peoples of those nations.
The "-istan" part of each nation's name (including Pakistan) is supposed to mean something like "the place of" or "people" or "nation". Pakistan's name is said to be derived from an acronym. But there are really Kazakhs, Tajikhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Uzbeks. These ethnic groups are subdivided into tribal groups and/or tribes. They border Afghanistan, which has close ethno-historical ties with Pakistan through the Pashtun peoples.
The peoples of central Asia have been known by many names throughout the past few thousand years. Hordes of central Asian horsemen have swept both east and west to topple empires and usher in new ages of warfare. But one fact I never knew until recently was that the horse-breeding cultures of central Asia became conservative and traditional. Whereas 1500 years ago the horsemen of central Asia were the most feared warriors on Earth, only 500 years ago European horse-breeders had reversed that trend by breeding up to 200 new types of horse.
The horse has dominated central Asian history for many centuries because it has provided food, transportation, and draftage. The horse has served as the central focus of tribal economies that transformed the world up until the 20th century. It was only as the industrial revolution made it possible for nations to transform their transportation systems and agriculture through the use of machines that central Asian horse-economies began to slip behind.
Just over 100 years ago there may have been as many as 20 million horses in countries like Kazakhstan (sometimes called "the heartland of horse-breeding"). Now there are fewer than 1,000,000 horses there. Horses, though beautiful creatures that have marched through history alongside men, are no longer important. Now as Kazakhstan experiments with democracy it is building up its modern industrial economy.
The great war on terror in Afghanistan has set in motion forces of economic, educational, and political change throughout central Asia. The United States and its allies have had to invest in the transportation and communication infrastructure in several countries. But as the fighting has threatened to drive terrorist groups into neighboring countries each member nation of the region has tightened security and built up its technology.
Enter into all this also the strategic needs of the Russian Federation. Once the heart of the former Soviet Union, Russia has remained a vital trade and security partner in the region. The "Five Stans" are all former members of the Soviet Union who now try to work together for mutual growth and security; but they also retain close ties with the government in Moscow, where democracy is as experimental as ever.
We don't know what the 21st century holds for central Asia but I believe that eventually the "Five Stans" will form an important economic and regional bloc of nations that won't be ignored by the world around them. Some of these countries sit atop vast mineral and petroleam resources. They also possess huge tracts of land that are suitable for agriculture and settlement. There may be a new migration period where millions of people flow into central Asia to seek the benefits of stability, democracy, and economic expansion.