CMENAS and CREES Lecture. Between Russia and China: Central Asia's Relevance

The speaker will address the changing geopolitics of Eurasia, particularly the Central Asia-Russia-China relations. He will assess the political, economic, and security motivations and implications of initiatives such as China's Belt and Road and Russia's Eurasian Economic Union for the countries of Central Asia and those countries' likely roles and reactions over the next few years. How is Central Asia relevant in today's world 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and what has changed? 
    
Dr. David Abramson is a senior analyst on Russian foreign policy in the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He has worked on Central Asia for 25 years in academic and government capacities and also worked to promote religious freedom in the Department's Office of International Religious Freedom. Dr. Abramson received his PhD from Indiana University's Department of Anthropology and has published numerous articles on state and society, Islam, and gender in Central Asia. His most recent publication is a chapter edited by Dr. Pauline Jones and co-authored with Noah Tucker titled “Engineering Islam: Uzbek State Policies of Control in Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia.”