BISHKEK – For the first time in centuries, there is an opportunity to connect Central and South Asia via modern transport and energy corridors through Afghanistan. Once completed, these projects would transform Eurasian security, significantly increase regional economic activity, and potentially bring peace at last to Afghanistan. They may even revive the Great Silk Road.
Progress on the planned schemes should therefore interest the region’s influential neighbors — Russia, China, and India — and the United States, which has spent at least $2 trillion in Afghanistan over the last 20 years. But most of the world regards Central Asia as terra incognita, and has so far paid little attention to significant recent developments.
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