Political and Economic Implications of the Northern Distribution Network in Central Asia

Clark Adams is the director for Central Asia in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSDP). In the position since January 2007, he and his team are responsible for the management of U.S. defense relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In spring 2008, Adams was temporarily detailed to the National Security Council to serve as the director for Central Asian Affairs, where he was responsible for all matters related to U.S. relations with the five Central Asian states. 

Prior to his current position, he was the director for U.S. capabilities development for the deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations in OUSDP.  He holds an MS in national security strategy from the National War College, an MA in international relations from The Pennsylvania State University and a BA in economics and political science also from The Pennsylvania State University.

As an Open Society Fellow, Cooley researched the impact of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on regional integration in Central Asia. His particular interest was whether the SCO sidelined Western actors by providing an alternative source of legitimacy to member states. His book on US-Russia-China competition in Central Asia, based on research he conducted as a fellow, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

Cooley is Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College in New York City. He is the author of three previous books, including Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States and Military Occupations, (Cornell, 2005), which looks at how Soviet administrative legacies shaped the formation of Central Asian states; and Base Politics: Democratic Change and the US Military Abroad, (Cornell, 2008), which examines the political impact of U.S. military bases in overseas host countries, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Cooley serves on the Board of Advisors of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Foundations. He has contributed policy-related articles and opinion pieces to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and The Washington Quarterly. Cooley earned both his MA and PhD from Columbia University.

Andrew Kuchins is a senior fellow and director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program. He codirects the CSIS project "The Northern Distribution Network and Afghanistan: Economic and Geopolitical Challenges and Opportunities."

He is co-author of two major reports from this project, The Northern Distribution Network and the Modern Silk Road: Planning for Afghanistan's Future (CSIS, 2009) and The Northern Distribution Network and Afghanistan: Geopolitical Challenges and Opportunities (CSIS, 2010). From 2000 to 2006, he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has also held senior management and research positions at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Kuchins currently teaches at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has also taught at Georgetown and Stanford universities. He holds a BA from Amherst College and an MA and PhD from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Anthony Richter is the associate director of the Open Society Institute, and director of the OSI Central Eurasia Project and Middle East & North Africa Initiative.

Richter is chairman of the governing board of the Revenue Watch Institute and serves on the board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the World Policy Journal, and other publications. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He received a BA, with high honors, from Wesleyan University and an MA in Slavic languages and literatures from Columbia University. He speaks Russian, French, and Persian.