Central Asia

By lowering its sights and concentrating on order, the international community has helped to stabilize Tajikistan. The same cheap, simple approach could work in Afghanistan, too.

The September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath have spurred a renewed U.S. interest in Central Asia. Despite official rhetoric, America is likely to remain militarily engaged there for some time. To manage this relationship effectively, Washington needs a better grasp on the realities of this complex and troubled region.

The Caspian basin holds enormous oil and gas deposits that could play a critical role in the world's economic future. But getting them out of the ground and onto the market requires overcoming formidable political and geographic problems. For its own sake as well as the region's, Washington should do whatever is necessary to ensure the emergence of secure and independent routes for Caspian energy to reach the outside world.

The next great oil boom is on: four former Soviet republics on the Caspian Sea are sitting atop an economic bonanza. But they should remember the fate of OPEC, whose members squandered their 1970s windfall. Where did all the money go? The state took on too dominant an economic role and wasted the wealth at home in a rash of boondoggle projects and military buildups. All OPEC members came down with "quick-money fever." They became addicted to supposedly limitless oil revenues even as boom turned to bust. The Caspian states, too, risk going from riches to rags if they do not resist the temptations of petromania.