Inspired by the Nagorno-Karabakh War: The Central Asian War

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Banned
What I'm thinking of is a war between Uzbekistan on one side and Kyrgyztan and Tajikistan on the other. Kyrgyzstan has a substantial Uzbek minority, and there were some serious ethnic clashes in Osh in 1990. There's a Tajik minority in Uzbekistan, and they form majorities in the 2 classical cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Yet there is also a substantial Uzbek minority in Tajikistan - apparently a quarter of the population.

Add Russian, Chinese, US, Iranian, Turkish, Indian, and Pakistani interests, authoritarian rulers, the nuclear weapons still in Kazakhstan, natural resources, other ethnic minorities besides the ones mentioned in the 1st paragraph (Russians in all the republics; Uyghurs in China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; Uzbeks in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan; Karakalpaks in Uzbekistan; Pamiris in Tajikistan; Tajiks in Afghanistan; Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in China), Islam, narcotics and arms smuggling, Soviet/Russian troops in the republics, communications routes between Central Asia and the rest of the world, the attitude of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, defective economies, the drying up of the Aral Sea, the dispute between China and Tajikistan over their border in the Pamir, and the closeness of Afghanistan.

Could such a war get started in the last years of the Soviet Union? I'm frankly a little surprised that it didn't in OTL.
 
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Analytical Engine

Apparently there are more Tajiks living in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan. :eek:

And the fact that the Tajiks are Indo-European (Indo-Ayran to be more precise). I think they are most closely related to the Iranians.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Even closer than Russians and Poles. At least as close as Russians and Ukrainians, I'd guess. Today Turkish TV broadcasts programs in simplified Turkish that can be understood everywhere in Central Asia. Despite the fact that Stalin tried to divide the people, by introducing different words into the republics' respective languages.
 

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Banned
Max Sinister said:
Even closer than Russians and Poles. At least as close as Russians and Ukrainians, I'd guess. Today Turkish TV broadcasts programs in simplified Turkish that can be understood everywhere in Central Asia. Despite the fact that Stalin tried to divide the people, by introducing different words into the republics' respective languages.
Click to expand...

Which is besides the point. The Turkic peoples of Central Asia have very different historical and cultural backgrounds.
 

Wendell

This actually has the potential to be a great TL. Then again, it coulf make all of northern Asia a radioactive desert:(

Most importantly. however, is that the leaders of independent Central Asia understood little about statecraft at the time of independence in 1991.
 
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