Basing us forces in Central Asia has profound implications for stability in a region where post-Soviet authoritarian regimes and radical Islamist movements seem to be the only political options available to communities searching for national identities and economic stability.
It also poses a challenge for China, which has come to regard the region as its own backyard, and on which it has exerted considerable influence in the last decade. China has no experience of any direct conflict of interest with the US in Central Asia, so the outcome is difficult to predict. The status of Russia, formerly the regional overlord and retaining a supervisory role among the governments of Central Asia even after they became independent, is also called into question.
