Fostering Fundamentalism: Terrorism, Democracy and American
Engagement in Central Asia. By Matthew Crosston. Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2006. 186p. $89.95 cloth.
In his book, Matthew Crosston lays out an interesting and worthwhile
argument: that by focusing on short-term security assistance and long-term
democracy building in authoritarian regimes, the United States is
unwittingly creating conditions for extremism and anti-American sentiments
throughout the world. His case study is the region of Central
Asia—one that had largely been ignored by policymakers until the
need for non-OPEC energy that increased in the 1990s and the military
actions in Afghanistan that began in October 2001. According to Crosston,
given the newfound strategic importance of Central Asia in its
“global war on terrorism,” the U.S. government has all but
abandoned the notion of advocating democracy in the region. He
emphatically states, “There has been no real oversight to gauge
whether vibrant democracies are being established [in Central
Asia]. And there has certainly not been a process where regimes have
been singled out and denounced for the fact that they have consistently
denied their citizens the right to chose their leaders and engage their
governments in peaceful opposition and open debate” (p. 18). This
particular theme runs throughout the book under the moniker “Wonka
Vision of Democracy”—a reference to the children's tale
of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—which suggests that
U.S. policymakers ignore the “reality of democracy” while
professing “admiration for the fantasy democracy supposedly
emerging.” Crosston quotes excerpts from various public statements
of U.S. government officials in a variety of settings to show that this is
a “bipartisan effort” to avoid the difficult challenges raised
by providing assistance to authoritarian regimes.