A "Greater Central Asia Partnership" for Afghanistan and Its Neighbors

6. Absence to Date of Other Region-Wide Structures for Multi-Faceted
Development and Security. 
Thanks to recent investments by the U.S., Japan, the Asia Development Bank, Saudi 
Arabia, Iran, India, China, and Russia, the first crucial steps towards the renewal of 
regional transport have already been taken. Notwithstanding their regional impact, 
all of these initiatives have been carried out on a bilateral basis.
Several initiatives are more regional in character, but none is truly comprehensive in 
its approach, embracing the whole region of which Afghanistan is the core. Japan’s 
impressive new “Six Plus One” program (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz 
Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Japan) takes a region-wide 
approach to development but, for bureaucratic reasons, excludes Afghanistan. The 
Asia Development Bank’s framework embraces the region as a whole but does not 
touch upon issues of security and political development. The Shanghai Cooperation 
Organization combines security and economic concerns but ignores political 
development and excludes Afghanistan. The Economic Cooperation Organization 
includes all the GCA countries plus Turkey and Iran, but has been largely ineffective.
Russia’ vigorous demarche to Central Asia deliberately avoids issues of political 
development and democratization and equally deliberately functions mainly on a 
bilateral basis.
NATO is active throughout the region, through Partnership for Peace in former 
Soviet countries and ISAF in Afghanistan, but it deals mainly on a bilateral basis and 
has no strategy or structure for the region as such. The U.S.’ Central Command and
its subordinate Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A) do treat the six 
countries as a single region but their writ is confined mainly to military issues. 
To summarize, not one country or international agency has in place a program which 
1) embraces both security and multi-sided development , and 2) treats Afghanistan 
and the five former Soviet states as a single region.

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S. Frederick Starr 
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