ABSTRACT
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the pre-eminent global power. A permanent member of the UN Security Council, along with Russia, China, France, and the UK, the US has a theoretical responsibility for “maintaining international peace and security” throughout the world. In practice, however, the US has traditional and emergent priorities in extending its protections. These are largely determined by its history, its geographical position, its democratic and multi-ethnic culture, and the ambitions of its private enterprises for profit and control. The US shares no significant history of engagement or ethnic ties with the five remote Central Asian states which emerged from the wreckage of the USSR. However, Washington does have an ideological and security interest in strengthening these independent states on the southern border of the Russian Federation, which is a post-Cold War partner in some respects, yet also a rival and conceivably a future enemy. Moreover, as a democratic and notably religious society, Americans – particularly Christian evangelicals, Mormons, and Jews – want the 60 million people of Central Asia to be citizens of republics enjoying the guarantees of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. 1 These include “freedom of thought, conscience, and religion,” (Art. 18) “freedom of opinion,” (Art. 19), and “the right to take part in the government of [one’s] country, directly or through freely chosen representatives” (Art. 21). In addition, American energy and resource companies want to participate in the extraction and processing of the oil, natural gas, uranium, and non-ferrous metals abundant in the region. Obviously, these various interests and objectives sometimes conflict, and US foreign policy since 1991 reflects the varying attention paid to each of these, depending on circumstances in the region and the priorities of the three US administrations which have made foreign policy since 1993. That conflict is the theme of this survey.
