A new report from the bipartisan Central Asia Study Group, chaired by former Deputy Secretary of State,  Richard Armitage, offers a timely opportunity to review America’s interests in Central Asia. The paper is important on its merits because it presents the consensus view of a distinguished — and bipartisan — group of former senior US diplomatic and defence officials with responsibility for, or interest in, Central Asia. I am the principal author of the study group report, Strengthening Fragile Partnerships: An Agenda for the Future of US-Central Asia Relations, which was issued yesterday by the Project 2049 Institute.

Notwithstanding impressive growth rates, most Central Asian economies are weak and underlying fiscal fundamentals are poor. Governance has been only weakly responsive to popular demands and is disproportionately influenced by national elites. The influence of criminal groups has grown across the region. And a combustible mix of corruption, narcotics, poverty, and terrorism threatens all five states in Central Asia.

Forces within Central Asia — as well as neighbouring powers — now challenge American interests in the region as never before. What are those interests? Our group believes they are four:

• To preserve not just the independence of the five Central Asian states but also their ability to exercise sovereign political and economic choices, free from external coercion.
• To diversify transit options, thus reducing the dependence of Central Asian economies on a single market, infrastructure link, and/or point of transit.
• To build institutional capacity, so that states can govern effectively and justly, deliver services, and resist pressure from those who seek to overthrow legitimate institutions; more than one Central Asian state has the potential to fail within the next decade.
• And to reconnect this landlocked region to the global economy, thus increasing the prospects for sustainable economic progress.

But an honest appraisal needs to acknowledge the many shortcomings of twenty years of American effort in pursuit of these interests. To date, and in nearly every respect, the United States has failed to achieve its initial, ambitious, strategic objectives in Central Asia.

Central Asian states have retained their independence — and this has been the first, and most important, objective of US policy. But trade and commercial ties to the United States remain very thin indeed. There is no trans-Caspian oil or gas pipeline, despite nearly two decades of American effort. Millions of dollars spent to encourage transnational water sharing have failed to produce agreement. Democracy promotion efforts have failed utterly, although US assistance has made a difference at the margins with respect to education, civil society, the media, and local governance.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Central Asia is neither the most significant nor most pressing foreign policy challenge faced by any US administration. Yet its fragile and even volatile nature increases the urgency for American action. US policy toward Central Asia requires greater strategic direction.

Evan Feigenbaum is head of the Asia practice group at the Eurasia Group and adjunct senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. An earlier version of this piece was originally published here, on Asia Unbound, by the Council on Foreign Relations.