Introduction

The continuities in US policies allow case studies derived from the Bush administration’s experiences to also provide important insights into the policies of his successor. For example, while the Obama administration has avoided its predecessor’s controversial ‘war on terror’ terminology, it still inherited the problem of Islamist militancy. In this sense, the war on terror has not ended and is due to continue for some time yet. The early years of this conflict offer lessons about how the US views these issues and balances its security interests with other concerns. Although the themes of security, democracy, and energy predate the Afghanistan war, the start of this conflict stands out as a turning point for both Washington’s regional policies and for Central Asia itself. ‘America Discovers Central Asia’, declared the title of a 2003 Foreign Affairs essay. The author, ex-diplomat and Eurasia Foundation President Charles W. Maynes, opined that September 11 had lifted the region from obscurity to a high position on the US agenda.10 It was no small thing for a neglected part of the world to attract, however briefly, the attention of the world’s only superpower. Any attempt to understand the current and future state of this region has to take this period into account. There are other reasons to analyse Bush’s Central Asian policies. In addition to the Afghanistan war and other interests, the Obama administration also inherited a set of relationships, ideas, actors, and contexts. These include but are not limited to its tense relations with Russia, interdependence with Central Asia, the region’s authoritarian and patronage-driven political contexts, and ideas about the effectiveness of assertive human rights advocacy. Washington’s relations with Moscow have both affected and been affected by its policies in this region. The current crisis in US-Russian relations is, in part, a result of the Russian government’s conspiracist interpretations of Western democracy promotion in the post-Soviet sphere. The events of the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan contributed to Moscow’s misperceptions. Finally, this publication is intended to contribute to the reassessment of the Bush presidency. It is meant to provide an analysis of how this administration understood and balanced its most controversial interests – democracy, energy, and the war on terror – in an important but under-examined part of the world.