Review article on Japan in Central Asia: Strategies, Initiatives, and Neighboring Powers Timur Dadabaev

Abstract

The past five years witnessed a mini boom for Central Asia as a new – if somewhat nerdy – subject focus among international relations specialists and foreign policy practitioners. Between 2012 and 2013, notable publications focusing on this region, including Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia (Alexander Cooley), Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane (S. Frederick Starr), and The New Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First-Century Eurasian Geopolitics (Kent E. Calder), went on the market. Also, since the mid-2011, when the then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made a major speech on new strategy of the United States for Central and South Asia, termed a New Silk Road initiative, all major think tanks in Washington and other capitols organized seminars and workshops dealing with Central Asia in one way another, which led to a proliferation of policy reports and op-ed pieces.