Gives a lot to think about. The most interesting thing that the real objectives of US are not really clear.

The initial thought I had was that they are trying just to come up with some kind of exit strategy from Afganistan. Military presence in Afganistan is going nowhere. The only progress this country has is in opium trade. It's just too far and too poor. And somebody comes up with yet another great idea (tm) to take all those *stans (they all end with "stan" they must have something in common, mustn't they?) put them together and direct all "trade" through Afganistan.

In other words somebody needs to create there some kind of comotion. Otherwise at some point the people (and I mean American people) will ask "what the fuck are we doing there?". Because the day of reconning is coming. With all those deficits piling up White House eventually will need to come up with really good justification of military and other american presence there.

But at the moment and in the near future. It does not seem feasible. That group of countries does not have (and will not have for a while) a distinct leader (a center of gravitation that would unite them). There is plenty of gravitational centers right next to them, however, like Russia, Iran, China or may be even Pakistan.

By themselves US cannot stay there forever. Too far. So they need a proxy. A good one. Problem is current administration does not have a good idea to create it. Time has changed and US has changed. It would be much easyer to acomplish such task in 70s or 80s of XX. "Spreading democracy" they way they are doing right now almost automatically means direct military involvment. Which US already cannot afford.

So I guess that's not it. Creating a center of stability the way US would want to have is highly unlikely. How about creating instability there. That would tie up all those regional powers mentioned above for years to come and eventually would give that desireable proxy there. In this case the most important country to destabilize is Kasakhstan. But I don't think they know yet how to do that. Politically it is probably not yet possible. That could be one of the reasons for Rice's visit (just to look around and see what is going on). There is always ethnical/religious way. We should watch now if there is going to be an increased inflow of missionaries from Mid East (muslims) and US and Korea (christians).

So my point is. Technically US is interested in democracy in Central Asia as much as in democracy on the Moon. They cannot control it directly. So if they cannot have it let nobody else have it as well. We'll see.

I would like to appoligize for writing in english. I type in Russian one word per minute (real pain in the ass).

Good article. Look forward to read more.

Забавно. Только кажется мне напрасно все это. Не с того конца. Хотя умно всё и хорошо написано.

А с какого конца правильно? Напишите нам:)

Would it be OK in English?

Вряд ли...

Я имею в виду, можно ли Вам в журнал coments писать по аглицки? У меня почему-то после чтения (неск. посл. месяцев) Вашего журнала есть впечатление что Вы им довольно свободно владеете. Я вслепую по русски печатать ещё не умею. Минуту искал где вопроосительный знак.

Я неплохо читаю, хотя не могу сказать, что владею им в совершенстве. Давайте, пишите по английски, если чего не пойму - спрошу:)