This comprehensive exploration of the international environment examines not only traditional political-military concerns but also economic, ethnic, and environmental issues and the role of crime, terrorism, the drug trade, and migration in the security environment of Russia and its neighbours to the south. This approach takes account of both the internal and external aspects of security problems and their interplay. The participation of international authors facilitates the consideration of each problem from all relevant points of view.

Since the demise of Soviet power, the newly independent republics are redefining their identities and their relations with the world at large. In Central Asia, which lies at the crossroads of several cultures, the emerging trends are complex and ambiguous. In this volume leading experts explore factors that have driven the region's historical development and that continue to define it today: Overlapping Islamic, Russian, and steppe cultures and their impact on attempts to delimit national borders and to create independent states; the legacy of Soviet and earlier imperial rule in economic and social relations', and the competition between Uzbek, Tajik, and other group identities. The authors make few predictions, but their original and thought-provoking analyses offer readers new insight into those aspects of Central Asia's past that may shape its future.