Roman Muzalevsky

Assessing longer term trends may seem like a manageable task. But in the world of rapid technological innovations and growing complexity, it turns into a more difficult enterprise. Yet this is what Mr. Roman Muzalevsky, a strategic affairs analyst, achieves in his visionary assessment of a strategic landscape and operational threat environment likely to emerge by 2050. Muzalevsky contends that, absent major policy failures, the U. S. military will remain the strongest in the coming decades, although a series of functional and regional megatrends will prove a monumental challenge, exposing the United States to "crises and opportunities on the battlefield and in the market." The U. S. military, he continues, will need to adapt to and shape these dynamics to retain its edge. Among other developments, the author especially highlights the emerging military revolution, which will feature transformations across multiple domains and face a counter-revolution...

China's global rise has prompted numerous discussions and studies of this historically monumental phenomenon and its implications for the world. On the one hand, China's emergence as a global player has generated a lot of optimism for global development and economic convergence. On the other, it has spurred concerns about possible collisions on the world stage as existing and emerging powers seek to retain and redesign their roles and influences. Related opportunities and fears have been especially pronounced in countries neighboring China, including in Central Asia where the newly independent and post-Soviet republics face a possibility of yet another imperial expansion due to strategic advances of the "Middle Kingdom." As the strongest power on the planet, the United States has a major stake in China's and the region's future because both directly affect the U. S. global standing and the U. S.-led global economic and security order.

As a region with abundant resources and rapidly growing transit potential surrounded by nuclear-armed powers, Central Asia is increasingly drawing the attention of global players. Russia is actively seeking to rebuild its economic influence via the newly created Eurasian Economic Union. China is expanding its reach through a recently launched Silk Road Economic Belt. Other actors are jockeying for their share of the region's pie, as well. But the United States and India are enjoying only very limited presence in what is increasingly becoming a critical part of the world. In this comprehensive and insightful account, Mr. Roman Muzalevsky, an author of a book and several monographs on global trends, great power politics, grand strategy, and connectivity issues, explains why India lags behind other actors in the region and what needs to be done to unlock its potential as a rising great power and shore up its strategic presence in Central Asia.

Locked in a confrontational stance lasting more than 3 decades, the United States and Iran have failed repeatedly to transform their hostile relationship. The ongoing nuclear talks, however, offer better prospects of not only addressing Iran's nuclear program challenges, but also developing a mutually beneficial strategic relationship between the United States and Iran in the long term. Why are these prospects better today? According to Mr. Roman Muzalevsky, the coming to power of new presidential administrations in both countries, the additional sanctions under the Barack Obama administration, game-changing regional trends, as well as U. S.-Iranian economic and security cooperation imperatives, have all facilitated an interim nuclear deal, prompting talks of a promising start in U. S.-Iranian ties that, if cultivated, could turn into a strategic detente by 2030.

Once sealed off from the rest of the world during the Soviet times, the states of Central Asia today are rapidly integrating with the global economy. The opening up of China in the 1980s, the demise of the Soviet Union a decade later, and the ongoing globalization have all served as grand forces facilitating this highly monumental development. The U. S. regional military involvement after September 11, 2001, and engagement by other actors have further enabled these countries to reconnect with the world, this time as sovereign units. Today, more than 2 decades after they gained their independence, the Central Asian countries, along with the rest of the world, face a great challenge and an opportunity-the rise of China, India, and resurgence of Russia. These neighboring powers are investing and facilitating internal and external links of the region and profoundly shaping the region's external connectivity at the very time as the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan...