’STAN BY YOUR STRONGMAN

entral Asia, the land of the ’Stans, is obscure to most outsiders, with the entire expanse merging into one giant Generikhstan, a backwards, post-Communist ‘Borat Country’ of scant importance to the wider world. This cartoon image is not wholly fair, however. In reality, this vast, arid, yet resource-rich region occupies an increasingly crucial space between rival major nations like China, Russia, Iran and India, with its huge oil and natural gas reserves poised to play an ever-larger role in geopolitics over coming decades, hopefully bringing wealth to some currently very impoverished people. Yet the area’s proximity to those rogue ’Stans, Afghanistan and Pakistan, provides obvious potential for disaster should energy prices continue their recent fall and Talibanstyle Islamic fundamentalism ever take root there, while Vladimir Putin’s clear territorial designs to restore the old USSR’s sphere of influence in the region provide further cause for caution. The Great Game of Kipling’s continues to be played in the ’Stans, and the most commonly chosen way of keeping a lid on things is to have pitiless strongmen in charge, whose repressive ways do win some genuine support among populations resigned or realistic enough to realise autocracy is at least preferable to anarchy. While often appearing absurd to Western eyes, these Little Emperors seek to make themselves seem indispensible to their own subjects (‘citizens’ really