History of Central Asia

[1] Periodically, tribal leaders or changing conditions would cause several tribes to organize themselves into a single military force, which would then often launch campaigns of conquest, especially into more 'civilized' areas.

The Soviet areas of Central Asia saw much industrialization and construction of infrastructure, but also the suppression of local cultures and a lasting legacy of ethnic tensions and environmental problems.

In all of the new states, former Communist Party officials retained power as local strongmen, with the partial exception of Kyrgyzstan which, despite ousting three post-Soviet presidents in popular uprisings, has as yet been unable to consolidate a stable democracy.

The Turkic peoples slowly replaced and assimilated the previous Iranian-speaking locals, turning the population of Central Asia from largely Iranian, into primarily of East Asian descent.

[19][20] In the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Chalcolithic cultures develop in the second half of the 5th millennium BC, small communities in permanent settlements which began to engage in agricultural practices as well as herding.

Scattered nomadic groups maintained herds of sheep, goats, horses, and camels, and conducted annual migrations to find new pastures (a practice known as transhumance).

The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex of the early 2nd millennium BC was the first sedentary civilization of the region, practicing irrigation farming of wheat and barley and possibly a form of writing.

[42] Civil war in China was almost totally diminished by 626, along with the defeat in 628 of the Ordos Chinese warlord Liang Shidu; after these internal conflicts, the Tang began an offensive against the Turks.

[48] The expansion into Central Asia continued under Taizong's successor, Emperor Gaozong, who invaded the Western Turks ruled by the qaghan Ashina Helu in 657 with an army led by Su Dingfang.

[54] There was a long string of conflicts with Tibet over territories in the Tarim Basin between 670–692 and in 763 the Tibetans even captured the capital of China, Chang'an, for fifteen days during the An Shi Rebellion.

Large-scale Islamization however did not begin until the 9th century, running parallel with the fragmentation of Abbasid political authority and the emergence of local Iranian and Turkic dynasties like the Samanids.

[citation needed] The steppe peoples quickly came to dominate Central Asia, forcing the scattered city states and kingdoms to pay them tribute or face annihilation.

Using superior military techniques, the Mongol Empire spread to comprise all of Central Asia and China as well as large parts of Russia, and the Middle East.

Another important limit was that the armies, for the most part, were unable to penetrate the forested regions to the north; thus, such states as Novgorod and Muscovy began to grow in power.

While the Mughals were never able to conquer Babur's original domains in Fergana Valley, which fell to the Shaybanids, they maintained influence in the Afghanistan region until the late 17th century even as they dominated India.

The forces of the khanates were poorly equipped and could do little to resist Russia's advances, although the Kokandian commander Alimqul led a quixotic campaign before being killed outside Chimkent.

After the fall of Tashkent to General Cherniaev in 1865, Khodjend, Djizak, and Samarkand fell to the Russians in quick succession over the next three years as the Khanate of Kokand and the Emirate of Bukhara were repeatedly defeated.

Because of the American Civil War, cotton shot up in price in the 1860s, becoming an increasingly important commodity in the region, although its cultivation was on a much lesser scale than during the Soviet period.

In the long term the development of a cotton monoculture would render Turkestan dependent on food imports from Western Siberia, and the Turkestan–Siberia Railway was already planned when the First World War broke out.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Governor Sheng Shicai of Xinjiang gambled and broke his links to Moscow, moving to ally himself with the Kuomintang.

In the Second World War several million refugees and hundreds of factories were moved to the relative security of Central Asia; and the region permanently became an important part of the Soviet industrial complex.

The Virgin Lands campaign, starting in 1954, was a massive Soviet agricultural resettlement program that brought more than 300,000 individuals, mostly from the Ukraine, to the northern Kazakh SSR and the Altai region of the Russian SFSR.

Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingushetians, Kabardians, and Crimean Tatars were all deported to Central Asia for their supposed fraternisation with occupying German forces.

Additionally, cities like Tashkent became overwhelmed at the sheer volume of people arriving at its gates and had great difficulty supplying the food and shelter necessary for evacuees.

[77] Some analysts, such as Myers Jaffe and Robert A. Manning, estimate however that US' entry into the region (with initiatives such as the US-favored Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline) as a major actor may complicate Moscow's chances of making a decisive break with its past economic mistakes and geopolitical excesses in Central Asia.

[79] Russia and Kazakhstan started a closer energy co-operation in 1998, which was further consolidated in May 2002, when Presidents Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a protocol dividing three gas fields – Kurmangazy, Tsentralnoye, and Khvalynskoye – on an equal basis.

Following the ratification of bilateral treaties, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan declared that the northern Caspian was open for business and investment as they had reached a consensus on the legal status of the basin.

Soon after the Central Asian states won their independence, Turkey began to look east, and a number of organizations are attempting to build links between the western and eastern Turks.

Small Islamist groups have formed in several of the countries, but radical Islam has little history in the region; the Central Asian societies have remained largely secular and all five states enjoy good relations with Israel.

Central Asia is still home to a large Jewish population, the largest group being the Bukharan Jews, and important trade and business links have developed between those that left for Israel after independence and those remaining.