The Race to Secure Tajikistan's Afghan Border

Sustained protests and altercations with security forces in southwestern Tajikistan highlight the great challenges the Central Asian state faces in ensuring the withdrawal of U.S. troops in nearby Afghanistan doesn't prompt a surge of violence within its own borders. Hampered by limited domestic security capabilities, as well as longstanding cultural rifts with the local populations who inhabit large portions of the country's Afghan border, President Emomali Rahmon's government in Dushanbe will be forced to increasingly draw on Russia in order to protect its internal security and territorial integrity amid the heightened risk of unrest to the country’s south.  ...