The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

F O C U S O N C E N T R A L A S I A I N C ENTRAL A SIA , THERE IS PLENTIFUL EVIDENCE THAT NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS OF THE U NITED S TATES ARE CREATING FERTILE GROUND FOR I SLAMIST RECRUITERS . B Y E DWARD S CHATZ ot long ago, most policy-makers referred to the ex-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as examples of distant, geostrategic backwaters. The “stans” were metaphors for irrelevance — at least to core American interests. Before energy resource development intensified in the region, and before a military campaign routed the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, this was natural. In fact, ever since the advent of the steamship marginalized overland transport routes centuries ago, Central Asia had seemed unimportant to inter- national politics. 36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 3 N Josh Dorman I SLAM & THE U.S. IN P OST -S OVIET C ENTRAL A SIA