Hooman Peimani, a consultant with United Nations agencies in Geneva and an independentresearcher on the Middle East, West Asia, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, haswritten an ambitious work based on the premise that the Central Asian states (Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) share geographical, societal, political,economic, and military factors, combined with common concerns. These commonalties mean thatthe individual states are linked so closely that their national-security concerns cannot beconsidered independently. Thus, one has a “security complex” in which there isinterdependence, rivalry, and shared interests.