StrategEast president Anatoly Motkin’s article “Western tech can protect Central Asia from the Afghan scenario” has been published by The Observer Research Foundation (ORF) – India’s premier non-government think tank.
According to Mr. Motkin, what is happening in Afghanistan can have a direct impact on Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—six moderate Muslim states with a population twice as large as that of Afghanistan. Now they are at risk of becoming six more “Islamic emirates” if the West does not promptly develop and launch a program to protect them from the influence of the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist organizations.
Mr. Motkin sees the development of the digital economy of these countries as a means for solving the problems accumulated in society: “The new digital economy of Central Asia and Azerbaijan will assist in resolving the issues related to the inclusiveness of economic development. It will allow the residents of remote areas to find work, eliminate gender inequality, and contribute to the integration of ethnic minorities. ”
The author of the article calls on the West to immediately launch a program to create a “new middle class of IT specialists” in these countries: «It doesn’t take US $2 trillion to build an army of knowledge-driven and western-minded middle-class people. The entire training programme for a million Uzbek programmers will cost about a thousand times cheaper. But this “army” may prove to be a more effective defence against the threat of Islamic radicalisation in the region. A targeted programme of digitalisation of Central Asia and Azerbaijan initiated by the western governments in cooperation with international financial institutions would conceivably yield significant returns. Perhaps, even more important is the fact that it shows the ability of the West to make a critical contribution to global stability and prosperity».
