ABSTRACT
T he disintegration of the Soviet Union affected the Middle East primarily through its impact on the security environment. However, it contained some important economic implications, many of them related to the changes in the geostrategic situation. Consistent with the focus of this volume, this chapter will discuss the economic impact on the Middle East of the Central Asian states. That should not be taken as an indication that Central Asia is the most important part of the former Soviet Union (FSU) from an economic perspective. Quite the contrary: the Central Asian nations are a relatively small part of the FSU economy, and they are not likely to affect the Middle East economies anywhere near as much as does the rest of the FSU. The analysis here also excludes what was arguably the most important economic effect on the Middle East of the fall of the Soviet Union – the migration of some 581,000 ex-Soviet Jews to Israel in 1990–95. In brief, that migration brought Israel a wealth of human resources which has provided an important impetus to the economy. Of course, there were the usual transitional problems associated with a sharp change in the ratio of labour to capital, especially higher unemployment and a need to mobilize additional capital. But, on the whole, the absorption process proceeded as well as for previous immigration waves.
