National and Regional Security Concerns in Central Asia: Security Communities or Security Dilemmas?

The post-Soviet Central Asian states have increased in visibility recently, in particular regarding the evolving relationship of the external great powers - the United States, Russia, China, and to a lesser extent India. Varying forms and degrees of multilateral security regimes are under experimentation, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The United States, meanwhile, has chosen to maintain a bilateral approach to its relations in the region. In this paper, I explore the current status of security relations in the Central Asian region, seeking to determine those conditions and patterns of behavior consistent with the construction of a security community, and those consistent with an emerging security dilemma, adopting in particular the notion of "cooperative security dilemmas" as put forth by Holger Moelder in his study of the Baltic States. The paper also considers potential costs and benefits of the United States taking a more multilateral approach in the region, particularly in inter-institutional relations between NATO and the SCO. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]