Stephen Blank
When Central Asian states gained their independence in 1991, the expert consensus predicted a high likelihood of war among them. Thirty-three years later, not only has that war not occurred, those states have also visibly stepped onto a trajectory of regional integration and peace. One prominent example of this peaceful trajectory is the treaty making Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANWFZ) that commits all the regional governments to exempting their states. Equally, if not more importantly, this 2009 treaty led to a protocol signed by all the members of the P5 at the UN in 2014.
This protocol provides for legally binding security assurances by all the signatories that they will neither threaten nor use a nuclear weapon or nuclear explosive device against any of the parties to the treaty. Since then, all the members of the P5 have ratified the protocol except for the U.S. The U.S., however, arguable should ratify the protocol as soon as it can. There are many reasons for doing so. First, it remains the case that both Russia and China continue to depreciate the independence of Central Asian states and subject them to their neo-imperial policies and perspectives. And since Moscow has made clear its utter disregard for the arms control and nonproliferation treaties it has previously signed, the validity of its signature on the protocol is highly questionable and in doubt. A U.S. ratification of the protocol therefore deprives Moscow of potential excuses for leaving the protocol.
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