CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Le, Jeffrey Duong |
|---|---|
| Title | DRIVING WITHOUT MIRRORS - U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN POST-9/11 CENTRAL ASIA: EXPLANATIONS FROM THE INSIDE |
| Summary | This work aims to explain why, despite the fact that Central Asia (CA) is an important region in global security in the post-9/11 world, is it that CA is still not a top-tier regional priority, despite pressing political and geo-strategic elements? I evaluate the post-9/11 bureaucratic and policy shift of Central Asia from the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) to the Bureau of South Asian Affairs (SA) through two lenses: bureaucratic politics and power; and misperceptions and the use of analogical explanation. I use Nelson Michaud’s (2002) power model to operationalize the events that took place that created a failed attempt for a CA bureaucratic and policy shift towards SA in 1992 in comparison to the successful effort to shift CA in 2006. I compile evidence through personal and telephone interviews with career diplomats, civil servants and political appointees from the State Department, the Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Congress, and the National Security Council (NSC). In addition, I use official government statements and briefings, newspaper commentary and academic literature to substantiate my claims. I conclude that the Central Asian bureaucratic and policy shift to South Asia, due to disuniting bureaucratic policy perspectives as well as psychological misperceptions, such as overestimation, wishful thinking, and cognitive dissonance, and historical analogue reasoning, both rhetorical and strong analogies related to the Tajikistan Civil War, Afghanistan, and Central Asia’s pre-Russian historical linkages to South Asia actually undermined Central Asia’s intended high-level priority in U.S. foreign policy and created unintended consequences. Finally, I present recommendations on how to better reflect Central Asia’s importance bureaucratically and argue that regional integration is not necessarily the strongest strategy. |
| Supervisor | Meszerics, Tamas |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/le_jeffrey.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University