ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the roots of the civil war, the Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) military involvement in the interior of the country, and also their border-guarding undertaking along the 1200-kilometre border with Afghanistan to the south. It utilizes the term "region" to denote parts of Tajikistan and the entire Central Asian region. Tajikistan is situated between the five historic empires of Asia: Russia to the north, Turkey to the west, Iran and India to the south, and China to the south-east. Afghan Ismailis supported the communist government brought to power by the Soviets, and so their brothers in faith across the border in Tajikistan received a new card to play in their local power struggles inside Tajikistan. Since trouble along its borders with other CIS states may also further weaken Tajikistan and thus aggravate the situation in general, in assessing the border situation it should be noted that Tajikistan's border with Uzbekistan constitutes a trouble-spot.
