The role of the Central Asian states in support of ISAF military operations in Afghanistan has been crucial, and the regimes have received unprecedented levels of external military assistance over the years. With the end of operations in Afghanistan, what will the long-term impact of this assistance be? Has foreign military assistance left local armed forces more capable of withstanding external threats, or merely provided them with new means to suppress internal dissent?
The Open Society Foundations host a discussion of these issues with Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg, author of the working paper “External Support for Central Asian Military and Security Forces,” a joint publication of the Open Society Foundations and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Speakers
- Dmitry Gorenburg is a senior research scientist in the Strategic Studies division of CNA, a not-for-profit research and analysis organization. Dr. Gorenburg is the editor of the journals Problems of Post-Communism and Russian Politics and Law and is an associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He blogs on issues related to the Russian military at russiamil.wordpress.com.
- Scott Horton is a contributing editor covering legal and national security affairs for Harper’s Magazine, a practicing attorney with the international law firm of DLA Piper, and a lecturer at Columbia Law School. Horton served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union.
- Michael Hall (moderator) is a senior policy analyst for the Open Society Eurasia Program.