NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP.
The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Portugal, Norway and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in.
Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. The officially registered population of the city in 2012 was about 2,309,300, due to its position in Central Asia, Tashkent came under Sogdian and Turkic influence early in its history, before Islam in the 8th century AD. After its destruction by Genghis Khan in 1219, the city was rebuilt, in 1865 it was conquered by the Russian Empire, and in Soviet times witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to forced deportations from throughout the Soviet Union. Today, as the capital of an independent Uzbekistan, Tashkent retains a multi-ethnic population with ethnic Uzbeks as the majority, during its long history, Tashkent has had various changes in names and political and religious affiliations. Tashkent was settled by ancient people as an oasis on the Chirchik River, in ancient times, this area contained Beitian, probably the summer capital of the Kangju confederacy. In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, the town and the province were known as Chach, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi refers to the city as Chach.
Later the town came to be known as Chachkand/Chashkand, meaning Chach City, the principality of Chach had a square citadel built around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, some 8 kilometres south of the Syr Darya River. By the 7th century AD, Chach had more than 30 towns, the Buddhist monk Xuánzàng 玄奘, who travelled from China to India through Central Asia, mentioned the name of the city as Zhěshí 赭時. The Chinese chronicles Suí shū 隋書, Běi shǐ 北史 and Táng shū 唐書, in the early 8th century, the region was conquered by Muslim Arabs. The modern Turkic name of Tashkent comes from Kara-Khanid rule in the 10th century, after the 16th century, the name evolved from Chachkand/Chashkand to Tashkand. The modern spelling of Tashkent reflects Russian orthography and 20th-century Soviet influence, the city was destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1219 and lost much of its population as a result of the Mongols destruction of the Khwarezmid Empire in 1220. Under the Timurid and subsequent Shaybanid dynasties the citys population and culture gradually revived as a prominent strategic center of scholarship, commerce, in 1809, Tashkent was annexed to the Khanate of Kokand.
At the time, Tashkent had a population of around 100,000 and was considered the richest city in Central Asia and it prospered greatly through trade with Russia, but chafed under Kokand’s high taxes. The Tashkent clergy favored the clergy of Bukhara over that of Kokand, before the Emir of Bukhara could capitalize on this discontent, the Russian army arrived. While a small contingent staged an attack, the main force penetrated the walls. Although defense was stiff, the Russians captured the city two days of heavy fighting and the loss of only 25 dead as opposed to several thousand of the defenders. Chernyayev, dubbed the Lion of Tashkent by city elders, staged a campaign to win the population over. The Tsar liberally rewarded Chernyayev and his men with medals and bonuses, but regarded the general as a loose cannon
Khwarazmian dynasty
The dynasty was founded by commander Anush Tigin Gharchai, a former Turkish slave of the Seljuq sultans, who was appointed as governor of Khwarezm. His son, Qutb ad-Din Muhammad I, became the first hereditary Shah of Khwarezm, the date of the founding of the Khwarazmian dynasty remains debatable. During a revolt in 1017, Khwarezmian rebels murdered Abul-Abbas Mamun and his wife, Hurra-ji, in response, Mahmud invaded and occupied the region of Khwarezm, which included Nasa and the ribat of Farawa. As a result, Khwarezm became a province of the Ghaznavid Empire from 1017 to 1034, in 1077 the governorship of the province, which since 1042/1043 belonged to the Seljuqs, fell into the hands of Anush Tigin Gharchai, a former Turkic slave of the Seljuq sultan. In 1141, the Seljuq Sultan Ahmed Sanjar was defeated by the Qara Khitai at the battle of Qatwan, Sultan Ahmed Sanjar died in 1156. As the Seljuk state fell into chaos, the Khwarezm-Shahs expanded their territories southward, in 1194, the last Sultan of the Great Seljuq Empire, Toghrul III, was defeated and killed by the Khwarezm ruler Ala ad-Din Tekish, who conquered parts of Khorasan and western Iran.
In 1200, Tekish died and was succeeded by his son, Ala ad-Din Muhammad, following the sack of Khwarizm, Muhammad appealed for aid from his suzerain, the Qara Khitai who sent him an army. With this reinforcement, Muhammad won a victory over the Ghorids at Hezarasp, Ala ad-Din Muhammads alliance with his suzerain was short-lived. He again initiated a conflict, this time with the aid of the Kara-Khanids, and defeated a Qara-Khitai army at Talas and he overthrew the Karakhanids and Ghurids. In 1212, he shifted his capital from Gurganj to Samarkand, by 1218, the empire had a population of 5 million people. In 1218, Genghis Khan sent a mission to the state. Genghis Khan demanded reparations, which the Shah refused to pay, Genghis retaliated with a force of 200,000 men, launching a multi-pronged invasion. In February 1220 the Mongolian army crossed the Syr Darya, the Mongols stormed Bukhara and the Khwarezmid capital Samarkand. The Shah fled and died weeks on an island in the Caspian Sea. The son of Ala ad-Din Muhammad, Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu became the new Sultan and he attempted to flee to India, but the Mongols caught up with him before he got there, and he was defeated at the Battle of Indus.
He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi, iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abbasid caliphs. Returning to Persia, he gathered an army and re-established a kingdom and he never consolidated his power, spending the rest of his days struggling against the Mongols, the Seljuks of Rum, and pretenders to his own throne. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains, escaping to the Caucasus, he captured Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up his capital at Tabriz
Shaybanids
The Shaybanids were a Persianized dynasty of Turco-Mongol origin in Central Asia. They were the descendants of Shiban, the fifth son of Jochi. Until the mid-14th century, they acknowledged the authority of the descendants of Batu Khan and Orda Khan, the Shaybanid led grey horde, known as the Uzbegs, was converted to Islam in 1282. At its height, the khanate included parts of modern-day Iran and their rivals were the Timurid dynasty, who claimed descent from Jochis thirteenth son by a concubine. Several decades of strife left the Timurids in control of the Great Horde and its states in Europe, the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan. Under Abul-Khayr Khan, the dynasty began consolidating disparate Ozbeg tribes, first in the area around Tyumen, another state ruled by the Shaybanids was the Khanate of Sibir, seizing the throne in 1563. Its last khan, was deposed by the Russians in 1598 and he escaped to Bukhara, but his sons and grandsons were taken by the Tsar to Moscow, where they eventually assumed the surname of Sibirsky.
Apart from this branch, several other noble families from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan petitioned the Russian imperial authorities to recognise their Shaybanid roots. Khans of significance highlighted in Bold, René The Empire of the Steppes, a history of central Asia Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, pp. 478–490 et passim, ISBN 0-8135-0627-1 Bosworth, C. E. “The Poetry of the Nomads and Shaybani Rulers of Transition to a Settled Society”, in, Central Asia on Display, Proceedings of the VII. Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies
Early Muslim conquests
The early Muslim conquests referred to as the Arab conquests and early Islamic conquests began with the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. He established a new unified polity in the Arabian Peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun, the resulting empire stretched from the borders of China and the Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees. The Muslim conquests brought about the collapse of the Sassanid Empire, the reasons for the Muslim success are hard to reconstruct in hindsight, primarily because only fragmentary sources from the period have survived. Most historians agree that the Sassanid Persian and Byzantine Roman empires were militarily and economically exhausted from decades of fighting one another, in the case of Byzantine Egypt and Syria, these lands had only a few years before being reclaimed from the Persians. The estimates for the size of the Islamic Caliphate suggest it was more than thirteen million square kilometers, the last of these wars ended with victory for the Byzantines, Emperor Heraclius regained all lost territories, and restored the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629.
According to George Liska, the unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine–Persian conflict opened the way for Islam, in late 620s Muhammad had already managed to conquer and unify much of Arabia under Muslim rule, and it was under his leadership that the first Muslim-Byzantine skirmishes took place. The province of Syria was the first to be wrested from Byzantine control, on the heels of their victory, the Arab armies took Damascus in 636, with Baalbek and Hama to follow soon afterwards. However, other fortified towns continued to resist despite the rout of the army and had to be conquered individually. Jerusalem fell in 638, Caesarea in 640, while others held out until 641, the Byzantine province of Egypt held strategic importance for its grain production, naval yards, and as a base for further conquests in Africa. The Muslim general Amr ibn al-As began the conquest of the province on his own initiative in 639, the province was scarcely urbanized and the defenders lost hope of receiving reinforcements from Constantinople when the emperor Heraclius died in 641.
The last major center to fall into Arab hands was Alexandria, according to Hugh Kennedy, Of all the early Muslim conquests, that of Egypt was the swiftest and most complete. Seldom in history can so massive a political change have happened so swiftly, after an Arab incursion into Sasanian territories, the energetic king Yazdgerd III, who had just ascended the Persian throne, raised an army to resist the invasion. However, the Persians suffered a defeat at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 636. As a result, the Arab-Muslims gained control over the whole of Iraq, including Ctesiphon, the Persian forces withdrew over the Zagros mountains and the Arab army pursued them across the Iranian plateau, where the fate of the Sasanian empire was sealed at the Battle of Nahavand. In the aftermath of their victory over the army, the invaders still had to contend with a collection of militarily weak. It took decades to bring all under control of the caliphate. The rapidity of the early conquests has received various explanations, contemporary Christian writers conceived them as Gods punishment visited on their fellow Christians for their sins.
Early Muslim historians viewed them as a reflection of religious zeal of the conquerors, according to Chase F. Robinson, it is likely that Muslim forces were often outnumbered, unlike their opponents, they were fast, well coordinated and highly motivated
Abbadid dynasty
For the Baghdad dynasty, see Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbadies dynasty or Abbadies was an Arab Muslim Dynasty which arose in Al-Andalus on the downfall of the Caliphate of Cordoba. After the collapse, there were multiple small Muslim Caliphates, the Hammudids, the Zayrids, the Jahwarids, the Dhul-Nunids, the Amirids, the Tojibids, of all of these small groups, the Abbadies were the strongest and most of them were absorbed by them. Abbadies rule lasted from about 1023 until 1091, but during the period of its existence it exhibited singular energy. Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, the qadi of Seville, founded the house in 1023 and he functioned as the chief of an Arab family settled in the city from the first days of the conquest. The Beni-abbad had not previously played a role in history, though they were of noble pedigree, hailing from Bani Lakhm. The family did have considerable wealth, Al-Qasim gained the confidence of the townsmen by playing a major role in the successful resistance to the Berber soldiers of fortune who had grasped at the fragments of the caliphate.
After the Berbers were forced out, he was, by unanimous voice of the people and prompting of the merchant and nobles. Initially, he refused the position, worried of the repercussions that could follow failure or the changing of the voice of the people. At first, he professed to rule only with the advice of a council formed of the nobles, al-Qasims first order of business was to rebuild the military of Seville, which had, in recent times, disappeared. This, he accomplished by first creating recruiting posts in all settlements controlled by Seville, the promise of substantial pay along with promises of unrestricted looting brought many able men to him. Second, he opened the ranks to all races and social class, as Berbers, Christians, Al-Qasim, to show his people his trust in the situation, offered his own son as solitary collateral. This show of bravery, convinced his population to follow him with near zeal, from this point on, he was able to make small inroads into the small principalities surrounding him.
This began with an alliance forged with the governor of Carmona and his first conquest was Beja, followed by the plunder and subsequent control of the coastal regions from Cadiz west. The Berbers continued to be a thorn in the side of Al-Qasim, as they now recognized Yahya as their supreme leader, aq-Qasim was able to procure an imposter that resembled the caliph Hisham II. This man, who was a mat-maker by trade had previously involved in an unsuccessful attempt at trickery. This time the deception was successful and the coalition formed starting with Cordoba, followed by Dénia, Balearic Islands, angered by the growing forces against him, Yahya was lured into an ambush and along with the larger portion of his command killed. When al-Qasim died in 1042 he had created a state, though weak in itself and he had made his family the recognized leaders of the Andalusian Muslims against the neo-Berber element arrayed under the king of Granada
Hairatan
Hairatan is a border town and a port in the north of Balkh province, Afghanistan. It sits along the Amu Darya river in the Kaldar district of Balkh province, the river forms the border with neighboring Uzbekistan, and the two nations are connected by the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. The city of Termez in Uzbekistan is close to Hairatan, the altitude of Hairatan is 300m. Hairatan became one of the transporting and receiving location for Afghanistan. In the early 1990s, Hairatan was the location of the 70th Division of General Abdul Momen, after Momens death by an RPG missile attack on 5 January 1994, the 70th Division split and Dostam loyalist Colonel General Helaluddin took command. After the removal of the Taliban government and the establishment of the Karzai administration, the new NATO-trained Afghan National Security Forces established bases to provide security and maintain border activities. The Afghan Border Police are in charge of protecting the border while the Afghan National Customs regulate and they are backed by the Afghan Armed Forces and members of the International Security Assistance Force.
A freight terminal in Hairatan is the terminus of one of three lines in Afghanistan - a 10 km link to Termez. On January 22,2010, the construction was started of a 75 km rail link from Hairatan to a terminal at Gur-e Mar near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistans second largest commercial center. The project, part of the strategy and action plan of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program, is contractually scheduled for completion by June 2011. The United States and Japan are the two largest shareholders in ADB, the grant of the ADB covers 97% of the total project cost of $170 million, with the Afghan Government contributing $5 million. This rail link is the first phase of a rail network planned for the country, including further links to Herat in the west. At Herat the line will connect to Iran and at Shirkhan Bandar with Tajikistan, torghundi Aqina Sher Khan Bandar Demogan Islam Qala Zaranj Torkham Spin Boldak WetterProfi German
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia.
Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France and Serbia, against the German and Ottoman empires.
The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
Samanid Empire
The Samanid Empire, known as the Samanid dynasty, Samanid Emirate, or simply Samanids, was a Sunni Iranian empire, ruling from 819 to 999. The Samanid state was founded by four brothers, Ahmad, Yahya, in 892, Ismail ibn Ahmad united the Samanid state under one ruler, thus effectively putting an end to the feudal system used by the Samanids. It was under him that the Samanids became independent of Abbasid authority, the Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the Islamic world. This would lead to the formation of the Turko-Persian culture, the Samanids promoted the arts, giving rise to the advancement of science and literature, and thus attracted scholars such as Rudaki and Avicenna. While under Samanid control, Bukhara was a rival to Baghdad in its glory, scholars note that the Samanids revived Persian more than the Buyids and the Saffarids, while continuing to patronize Arabic to a smaller degree.
In a famous edict, Samanid authorities declared that here, in region, the language is Persian. The eponymous ancestor of the Samanid dynasty was Saman Khuda, a Persian noble who belonged to a dehqan family, the latter is more probable since the earliest appearance of the Samanid family appears to be in Khorasan rather than Transoxiana. Originally a Zoroastrian, Saman Khuda converted to Islam during the governorship of Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri in Khorasan and this marked the beginning of the Samanid dynasty. He was defeated at a battle near Pushang in 857, and fled to Nishapur, the Tahirids thereafter assumed direct control over Herat. In 839/40, Nuh seized Isfijab from the nomadic pagan Turks living in the steppe and he thereafter had a wall constructed around the city to protect it from their attacks. He died in 841/2—his two brothers Yahya and Ahmad, were appointed as the joint rulers of the city by the Tahirid governor of Khorasan. After Yahyas death in 855, Ahmad took control over Shash and he died in 864/5, his son Nasr I received Farghana and Samarkand, while his other son Yaqub received Shash.
Nasr I used this opportunity to strengthen his authority by sending his brother Ismail to Bukhara, when Ismail reached the city, he was warmly received by its inhabitants, who saw him as one who could restore order. Although the Bukhar Khudahs continued to rule in Bukhara for a few more years. After not so long, disagreement over where tax money should be distributed, started a conflict between the brothers, Ismail was eventually victorious in the dynastic struggle, and took control of the Samanid state. However, Nasr had been the one who had invested with Transoxiana. Because of this, Ismail continued to recognize his brother as well, but Nasr was completely powerless and he thereafter forced the Abbasid caliph to recognize him as the ruler of those territories, which they did. In the spring of 900, he clashed with Ismail near Balkh, Ismail thereafter sent him Baghdad, where he was executed
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks and others.
A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south.
Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
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Uzbekistan
