SIPRI Policy Briefs

While securing a total of 2387 kilometre river-border from the potential trespassing of traffickers, extremists and terrorists forms part of the national security agendas of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, for the border communities living along the Amu Darya and Panj rivers, concerns stem not just from these traditional threats but from broader aspects of human insecurity: access to decent livelihoods, quality healthcare and education, and adequate water for irrigation. These everyday challenges require a rethink of the question of border security.

In recent years, Central Asia and the South Caucasus have seen a number of gradual trends in the development, transfer and use of law enforcement equipment, increasing the range of devices available to law enforcement and security personnel.

As the drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan has accelerated in the run-up to their withdrawal by the end of 2014, attention has come to focus on the extent to which military equipment will be left behind for the use of the Central Asian states.

Parallel extra-regional integration projects in the South Caucasus culminated in June 2014 with Georgia’s conclusion of an European Union (EU) Association Agreement and in January 2015 with Armenia’s accession to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Azerbaijan remains outside either project. The implementation of these projects risks an increase in regional fragmentation and a further destabilization of the South Caucasus, notably the protracted conflicts of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

It is often claimed that contemporary United Nations peace operations perform their functions in increasingly dangerous environments and are therefore more likely to suffer casualties than in previous years. Yet the data on deaths among UN peacekeepers between 1990 and 2015 indicates that fatalities have not become more frequent, neither in absolute terms nor, especially, in relative terms.