ABSTRACT
There are a number of other states hostile to the United States (US), who might be recruited to a countervailing power alignment but who remain of nuisance value than significant obstacles to US power. Pakistan is both a major US ally and a major breeding centre for the terrorist opposition. US influence in Central Asia is unlikely to be enduring since the Russians have the proximity, ethnic affinities and historical ties, and the People's Republic of China the neighbouring strategic weight to resist US influence. Central Asia faces numerous threats to its stability, including Islamic extremism, a population, the post-Soviet legacy of authoritarianism, public perceptions of injustice, and high levels of corruption. Islam was spread to the region by Arab traders in the fourteenth century, and expanded by force and conversion to dominate much of the Malay Archipelago and some of the mainland, including what are now Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Philippines, Brunei and southern Thailand.
