ABSTRACT
The dramatic terrorist attacks, which were executed and directed by Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, drew the attention of the USA and the West generally to Central Asia. Uzbekistan and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, have lent valuable assistance to the American war against Al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors. As to economic problems and security within the region, the countries of the area will have to deal with their latent conflicts on their own, as they have, or apply cooperative arrangements which so far have been mostly rhetorical. This chapter explores the economic and security resources of the countries of the area and their recent efforts to assure their own welfare, both by exploiting the residual interests of the great powers and by pursuing a foreign economic policy of "export globalism." It shows how the latter policy, which implies worldwide multilateralism, as distinct from regional integration, bears on these countries' foreign policy decisions.
