Around the same time, Uzbekistan began conducting military preparedness exercises and sent more troops to the border, while Tajikistan called up reservists to fortify its 1,344 kilometer border with Afghanistan. Turkmenistan reportedly rushed military forces to the Afghan border on July 10 as the Taliban captured nearby towns. Preparing for the FallĪs the Taliban quickly gained control of Afghanistan’s borders with Central Asia at the beginning of July, neighboring states seemed to be taken by surprise. These summits have been organized in parallel with international conferences meant to attract investments in Central Asia connectivity, including a conference in Tashkent in July that gathered 44 countries and 30 international organizations. With these interests in mind, Central Asia has significantly increased its efforts to create a more united regional front, with three summits of Central Asian heads of state since 2018. However, given the group’s reliance on the heroin trade as a cash crop, it seems most likely that things will remain business as usual. If the Taliban do follow through on their promises to eliminate production of heroin in Afghanistan, it could enormously impact Tajikistan’s economy. Of the three Central Asian countries bordering Afghanistan, the largest amount of narcotics pass through Tajikistan en route to China, Russia, and Europe, and drug trafficking is now estimated to comprise 30% of Tajikistan’s GDP. More important than these problem-laden projects is the narcotics trade. For these projects to achieve sufficient investment and execution, however, Central Asia needs to prove that it and Afghanistan are sufficiently stable. Several major infrastructure projects are currently planned to run through Afghanistan, including the Central Asia-South Asia Electricity Transmission Project (CASA-1000), a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan Power Interconnection Project (TAP), and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline Project (TAPI). In addition, while Afghanistan is less of a lucrative market for trade with Central Asia, with less than $2 billion in trade per year, it is crucial to connecting the region with the 1.5 billion-person combined markets of Pakistan and India. Central Asian governments desire a stable and secure government in Afghanistan that can prevent the spillover of a destabilizing conflict across their borders. The swift fall of the Afghan government and Taliban takeover over the past few weeks poses challenges for the countries to the north.
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