By Roger N. McDermott (6/27/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

There are growing indications that the ongoing transformation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) from a more narrowly focused collective security organization into a body capable of meeting a much wider set of modern threats is trying to fill potential voids in Central Asian security after the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. As the CSTO positions itself as the main multilateral vehicle for the Central Asian states to bolster regional security it appears to focus on several key areas: border security, developing rapid reaction and peacekeeping capabilities, reforming its legal mechanisms to act across a wider range of mission types and promoting its image as a genuinely strong political-military alliance.

By Jan Šír (6/27/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In May, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov publicly reviewed the construction plans for a new architectural complex to be built in the capital Ashkhabad commemorating the Turkmen national heroes of the war against Nazism in 1941-1945 and the victims of the devastating Ashkhabad earthquake of 1948. The president’s endorsement came only two weeks following the nationwide celebrations of the Day of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, referred to by Turkmenistan's media for the first time omitting the Soviet epithet “Great Patriotic.

By Jacob Zenn (6/27/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has shown interest in Central Asia through its statement on the riots in Xinjiang in 2009 and its demand in 2012 for the release of a female Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) and German Taliban Mujahideen (GTM) financier incarcerated in Germany. AQIM and IJU both aim to create a global Islamic Caliphate and share enemies, such as the U.