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students are proposed to read the books on scientific atheism, including works of classics of Marxism-Leninism. The students should read the works on scientific atheism written by well-known authors in Soviet epoch.
As it is shown by practice, the comprehension of Islam is being formed in societies of Central Asia under the influence of theology. Thus, conservatism in teaching Islam in the higher education institutions inevitably starts to be in contradiction with the perception of Islam by society, while the search for new methodological approaches for evaluation of Islam remains one of the main problems, which confront those, who take part in the process of disseminating knowledge about Islam.
"Izuchenie prepodavaniya Islama v Evrazii", M., 2010, pp. 236-251.
Nurlan Abdulov, political analyst (RANHIGS) PROCESSES OF REGIONALIZATION, INTEGRATION AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION IN CENTRAL ASIA
The trend to regionalization in the contemporary world development coincides with development of globalization processes. Regionalization may be considered both as a display of general integration processes (leading in perspective to globalization) and as a protection's reaction of the countries being behind (protecting their economy and its positive dynamics from one of globalization's direction).
There are two different types and one sub-type of regionalization in contemporary practice: the renaissance (rebirth) of regional powers,
formation of regional (integration) groups and emergence of "triangles of development". The emergence and existence of a regional power originally supposes a considerable inequality of economic might of adjacent states, which allows this power to impose its will on small countries by peaceful political, economic and diplomatic methods. The sustainability of such entities is explained by existence of external threats, formation of mutually profitable economic cooperation, by existence of elements of common economy and by reciprocal supplementation. The regionalism of the second type is more efficient, since the unity raises the relative equality of potentials of the participating states, creates a more stable legal basis for cooperation and promotes an easier refusal by the participants from a part of sovereignty for the benefit of transnational bodies.
Central Asia as a definition is firmly incorporated in the contemporary lexicon of the science of international relations and politics' research. In geopolitical context, it is known that five postSoviet republics are united within the given regional framework. The historic collisions in Central Asia, transformation of former administrative borders into state borders, creation of a new geopolitical situation has an effect on the contemporary notion "Central Asia". The decision on the united term "Central Asia" comprising five post-Soviet republics was taken at the meeting of the leaders of former Soviet Middle Asia and Kazakhstan, held in Tashkent in 1993. It seemed that this decision was caused by the political attempts to define the geopolitical basis of the region's countries. The external borders of the countries in the Central-Asian region on the perimeter of borders with China, Afghanistan and Iran were drawn in the period of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and in many respects coincide with natural mountain ridges and rivers. These borders (except the Kazakh-
Russian border) were received by the states in Central Asia as a heritage of the epoch of geopolitical rivalry of the powers.
There exist different views on the processes of the region's formation in Central Asia. Some researchers deny existence of the signs composing the region, while others are inclined to see a wider regional framework. At the same time, such discussion was a reaction to the challenges appeared before the countries of Central Asia for the postSoviet period and to the search for a non-traditional response to them. To a large extent the contemporary geopolitics in Central Asia is based on the criteria worked out before disintegration of the USSR. Most researchers in terms of methodology both in the post-Soviet space and outside its borders stick to the parameters determined by western researchers. In the global matrix of regions with various criteria, geographic, ethnic-confessional, geo-economic etc., Central Asia is positioned as a region and sometimes as a sub-region (within the framework of CIS or "New Eurasia", as defined by some American researchers). Such determination of groups is always a relative division. The question only is, in what context it is considered. The dissimilar characteristic of new notions was comprehended at the level of political elites in countries of Central Asia. From the middle of the 1990s, big states of Central Asia were looking for an optimal formula of mutual action with regional neighbors and the external environment seeing the conceptual indetermination of new geopolitical constructions.
The cultural-civilization's factors of region's emergence are rather substantial, since they are able to have a certain impact on formation of the regional identity. In this aspect Central Asia seems to be a zone of not only cross geopolitical and geo-economic interests but also a space for cultural-civilization's competition. According to some Chinese researchers, China is unable to have a great influence on the region's countries partially because culture and the political model of
the PRC is not so alluring for elites of the countries of Central Asia, and they mention also the fact of the Russian dominance in Central Asia for one-and-a-half century, the spread of the Russian language, of Russian mass media, the absence of barriers between elites of the region's countries and Russia, as well as the specifics in style of thinking.
The cultural-civilization's dominant is one of the main factors in the strategy of Turkey and Iran relating to post-Soviet Central Asia. With due account of the contemporary situation in the countries of Central Asia, the cultural-historic pivot of their relations with southern neighbors is not dominant. Taking into account the development trends of the Muslim world and its potential, as well as internal tendencies in the countries of Central Asia, it is quite possible to foresee consolidation of factors, which draw the region together with the Islamic world. At the same time, most researchers mention a rather great spread of western values among city dwellers and the youth. They may be regarded as western in a relative sense, since the Soviet-Russian sub-culture, which was dominant for a long period of time and had influence on some generations, including the present elites of Central Asia, seems to represent mainly transitional, although great influence of European cultural-civilization's environment.
The lack of understanding of the complex situation in Central Asia, its cultural-civilization's aspects was the cause of the erroneous western strategy in the region's countries. The American policy was based on the supposition that the countries of Central Asia, having attained independence, would urge towards American standards of democracy.
The attempts made for schematic presentation of dynamics of changing geopolitical processes in Central Asia caused emergence of various conceptions of the region's formation. As a whole, they were not in full directed to different targets, but it was evident that they
represented an attempt to change the geopolitical structure of the vast space of the Central Eurasia.
The new trends in international relations in "vast space" of East Asia, such as the intensified activities of the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East, the new "western" strategy of the PRC, the rising role of India and Pakistan promoted formation of a new geopolitical region and, consequently, of the new sub-system of international relations -Central-Eastern Asia. Central-Eastern Asia represents the united political-strategic space from the Caspian region to the Pacific coast of China, considers A. Bogaturov.
The first factor as a basis of the construction, mentioned by A. Bogaturov, following disintegration of the USSR, is composed of ethnic-demographic, geographic and political-strategic "bond" Pakistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan, which was consolidated and in this way conditioned the complicated reciprocal dependence in the sphere of security between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. At the same time, the mutual dependence between Pakistan and Afghanistan was further strengthened. The security of former Soviet Middle Asia depends on solving the Afghan-Pakistani problem ("Duran" line) and the Indo-Pakistani problem (Kashmir).
The second factor is composed of the intensified activities of Beijing on its western and north-western borders. For the 1990s, the PRC started a large-scaled campaign aimed at creation of the multilateral structure of cooperation in the form of ShOS.
The third factor is the military presence of the U.S. in Central
Asia.
The fourth factor is the change of the foreign policy priorities of Moscow, its "European trend" and increased attention to problems of economic cooperation and security in Eastern Eurasia. Like
re-integration of Eastern Europe with its western neighbors and emergence of the Central-Eastern Europe, Central-Eastern Asia is the outcome of "drawing up" of two "old" regions.
A. Bogaturov named the region as Great Central Asia, including southern neighbors of Central Asia (Iran and Afghanistan), partially supporting the American conception of Great Central Asia. The essence of the latter consists in the extension of geopolitical, economic and cultural limitations of Central Asia at the expense of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The conception of Great Central Asia, made public in March 2005, did not become a valuable alternative to other conceptions of region's formation in Central Asia.
The most significant objectives in the sphere of external relations of the countries of Central Asia after acquiring independence are as follows: creation of favorable climate in the sphere of foreign policy and economy and formation of the foundations of stable and safe development on the international arena.
For the 1990s, the geopolitical trends in Central Asia demonstrated the growing interest of the great powers and big countries in the regional situation. On the one side, the interest was stipulated by the rise of energy resources' deliveries from Central Asia to the world market and, on the other side, it was conditioned by problems of international security. The group of active players in the region, namely, Russia, the U.S., the PRC, Turkey and Iran was supplemented by Pakistan, India and a group of countries, actually or potentially related to transportation routes from Central Asia to the external markets, as well as interested in new markets and concerned about problems of regional stability. The problems of regional stability and security in Central Asia connected, inter alia, with untraditional threatening challenges became the key problems in signing of various inter-state agreements and creation of international organizations.
Various countries demonstrated alternative models of development and options of solving appearing problems. Nevertheless, to the mind of most experts, Russia kept the key positions in the region. There were economic, political, cultural and other reasons for this conclusion. Since the period of getting independence the countries of Central Asia and Russia participated in activities of many bilateral and multilateral structures. At the same time, the diversity and a large specter of international organizations in CIS and in Central Asia, in particular, demonstrate different functional directions of the latter and washed away platforms, which, if not alternative, at least were very complicated.
The integration models on the Islamic foundations were not supported by the region's countries. The same attitude was displayed to the ideas of Turkic unity. Due to objective economic and geopolitical reasons Turkey would not be able to assume the role of the integrator. The enter of the countries of Central Asia in the Organization of Economic Cooperation (OEC) and further practice of this structure functioning showed weak economic reciprocal connections of the region's states with the states-founders of OEC (Iran, Turkey and Pakistan). The PRC as a leading player in Central Asia turned out to be involved in the multilateral process, which initially concerned safety of the border zone and regulation of territorial disputes and further, as it is known, the activities within the framework of the structure, such as ShOS.
The U.S. presence in the region was soon marked after disintegration of the USSR, first as a politico-economic player and after 11 September 2001 - as a military actor. The activities of the U.S. were not limited with protection of the interests of American energy companies and problems of nuclear security. The most important task of the U.S. in Central Asia, like in other regions of the former Union,
consisted in preventing emergence of potentially unfriendly to Washington coalitions, in neutralizing probable imperial Russian ambitions, in detaining Iran and, as far as possible, China. The military presence of the U.S. in Central Asia attached a new impulse to a discussion by American politicians and analysts about the role of the U.S. in the region. According to experts of the Institute for National Strategic Research, the U.S. might play three probable strategic roles in Central Asia: the restrict partner, the leader and the manager in the sphere of security. The first role was tested by the U.S. in the period of Clinton Administration. He refuted the strategy of the previous Administration and Talbot doctrine. According to some American analysts, the U.S. should chose for itself the role of "manager for security affairs", to avoid transformation in "the leader" and to carry out its policy taking into account the interests of Russia, China and Iran.
The creation of the strategic barrier in the post-Soviet space is one of the most significant aims of Washington, Legvold thinks. This barrier should include the key republics, such as Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic countries, as well as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The consolidation of these countries' ties with NATO in various forms and at different levels should become an instrument for realization of such strategy. The U.S. should be prudent in its relation with Russia, since Washington confronts in this case the double task. On one side, the U.S. should not permit dominance of Russia in this space or creation of the alliance between Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, and, on the other side, Washington is in need of cooperation with Russia to prevent destabilization of Eurasia. Thus, the U.S. and Russia will keep balance of their relations on the brink of partnership-rivalry.
The role of the U.S. is reduced to maintenance of "geopolitical pluralism" in Eurasia and to prevention of Russian dominance in the
geopolitical space of the region, to the mind of American geo-strategist Z. Bzhezinski. The primary interest of the U.S. is as follows: to ensure the situation, when neither power is able to keep the given geopolitical space under its control, while the world community would have an unimpeded financial-economic access to it. As is known, as a result of some changes and of technological progress the significance of certain geopolitical factors characteristic for traditional geopolitics and of some forms of communications was reduced, while the role of military factors became subject to transformation. Nevertheless, the geopolitical pluralism will become a sustainable reality when the circuit of oil pipelines and transport routes connects the region directly with big centers of the world economic activities via the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea as well as by land.
The conception of geopolitical pluralism contains the challenges for Russia, the PRC and Iran, which promotes rapprochement of positions and views of Russia, China and Iran on a number of problems of international security with key significance for the region of Central Asia. Russia is a dominant actor in the region, and the policy of Moscow is based on this fact, according to British expert R. Allison. The vulnerability of the countries of Central Asia resembles the vulnerability of the countries of the third world for the period of "cold war", according to him.
The attachment to the regional dominant force, which is Russia, ensures at least the partial participation of the countries of Central Asia in various structures of CIS. This circumstance has led to regionalism supported by the regional dominant force. At the same time, the regional dominant forces avoid assuming great liabilities in the organizations, which reduce their freedom of actions. The activities of the Anti-terrorist Center of CIS turned out to be not efficient, since the responsibility for security in Central Asia was divided among
Moscow, western states and China. As another aspect of the closeness of the dominant force was the policy of balance, which may have a positive impact on the regional cooperation for security affairs. The multilateral approach used by Moscow is quite adequate, since it covers bilateral relations of Russia with countries of Central Asia, to the mind of R. Allison.
In this case, it is logical that some leaders of countries in Central Asia prefer the defense structures and bilateral agreements instead of multilateral structures or joint military structures without participation of the principal centers of force. The states of Central Asia cherish faint hopes for regional structures, which are characterized by weak institutionalized basis and may become short-lived. It is possible to agree with the meaning that the cooperation of the region's states is marked by greater attention to the issues of internal security than to traditional forms of external defense. In this context, the main question for the leaders of countries in Central Asia consists in security of their
own regimes, to the mind of Allison.
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Thus, the region of Central Asia became a cross-road in the geopolitical and civilizations' zone. In essence, the global competition became a reflection and projection of these relations at the regional level. The researchers in the countries of Central Asia as "patriots" of the region often raise the question on regional community and look for the formula of the space's integrity.
The regional integration processes are complicated and diverse. The integration defined as "the whole complex of the efforts exerted by the mankind and directed to mutual supplementation of economies and on application of reciprocal achievements as well as the passage in perspective to the world economy is marked by the contradictory
characteristic", Y. Gavrilov notes. The contradictions are caused by essential difficulties connected with adaptation to new realities under conditions of integration's construction.
The integration's construction in the post-Soviet space will be more efficient, if it will be based on a number of principles, Russian political analyst A.N. Mikhailenko considers.
The first principle - the principle of strategic partnership means that the states carrying out their policy should proceed not from daily wishes but should see the future and take orientation to the long-term national interests.
The second principle - the principle of systematic approach regarding regional and sub-regional integration entities as elements of the global system characterized by efficiency, which depends a lot on political coordination in various spheres of cooperation of the integrating countries.
The third principle - the principle of transparence, which means close mutual action of the state and society with due account of its point of view in order to comply with the laws and the established order of administrative actions.
The fourth principle is the principle of versatility, which consists in ability of accommodation to the changing circumstances, to settlement of the emerging issues in the course of integration's development. The important principle of integration activities consists also in combination but not opposition of processes in the field of governance and self-organization, optimization of their reciprocal action at the different stages of formation and development of integration.
Central Asia, unquestionably, has the capacity for becoming a regional entity. In this context, Central Asia is not only the roster of five countries but a complex of historic-cultural, political-geographic
and social-economic conditions, which determine both the similarity and the differentiation of development potentials.
"ENDISI: Analiticheskiy Byulleten", M, 2011, N1, pp. 90-102.
"FOR MANY YEARS WE LIVED IN ONE STATE"
For Russia, Central Asia (CA) is a strategic region. And it is so not only because it has an impact on keeping stability and security of its southern boundaries. The economic capacity, the mineral wealth and labor resources of CA are of great significance for the RF. Finally, it is impossible to ignore the fact that for many decades we lived in one state: first - in Russia and further - in the USSR. The recently published monograph "Russia in Central Asia" (Almaty, 2010), written by D.Sc.(Ec.), Corresponding Member of RAS G.I. Chufrin, is devoted to the most important problems of development of Russia's relations with the CA countries for the period after disintegration of the USSR. The author marks out three large groups of problems. The group, connected with problems of regional security, is devoted to non-traditional threats to security: religious extremism, terrorism, narcotics business and illegal migration. Beyond question is the author's assertion that the main reason of emergence of these threats is as follows: economic instability in the region's countries, the high threshold of poverty and the critical level of social stratification of the population. The author marks out the other very significant problem, which threatens stability in CA - the permanent disagreements among the region's states.
Considering the struggle against these threats, G. Chufrin pays special attention to the struggle against terrorism and narcotics business. The significant work is carried out in these two directions not 76
