The Water Crisis in Central Asia and its Impacts on Culture, Geopolitics, and Missions

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/09/afghanistan-water-supply-central-asia   

Generally speaking I'm not a fan of the Carnegie Center or the many think-tanks like it. On one level they are all in service to the Establishment, producing work for policy makers and yet very much affected by values, commitments, and sometimes stated agendas connected to powerful interests in government and finance.

Nevertheless, they have many scholars in their ranks who produce fine and helpful work that is informative. One must simply be conscious of some of the underlying assumptions (which are not always clearly spelled out and consciously held), as well as the nature of the conclusions - which are often couched in the language of bureaucracy and diplomacy.

All that said, this article touches on an issue that I think both interesting and important. The Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, the Jaxartes and Oxus rivers of antiquity are the main sources for the Aral Sea which today is but a shadow of what it once was historically - only about 10% of its historical volume. Most modern maps are completely deceptive showing its historical contours. The lake is almost entirely gone and the situation has only begun to be addressed in the past 10-15 years with minor but minimal improvement.

The cause for this was a series of irrigation schemes by the Soviets who wanted to develop agriculture in the desert-lands of Central Asia, and in particular cotton which is considered a water-intensive crop. They re-directed the water from these rivers and the lake has almost dried up as a result. In the immediate post-Soviet era, little was done to remedy the situation apart from talks and attempts to formulate a plan. A campaign of global awareness and subsequent alarm let to active efforts at correction in the 2010's.

Now the Taliban government in Afghanistan wants to tap into the Amu Darya (which passes through their borders) in order to supply water to parched districts in the north of the country. This will of course reverse efforts at saving the Aral Sea and exacerbate the problem.

The loss of the Aral Sea isn't just about losing the third largest freshwater lake in the world (after the Caspian Sea and Lake Superior), but an entire ecosystem which affects everything from regional weather to the destruction of cultures. Whole towns and economies have disappeared leading to social upheaval and tensions - and thus refugees.

While the American Right continues to push for population growth, the situation in Central Asia is but one of many that demonstrates the problems with this model. Yes, you can fit more people on the Earth, but there are problems when it comes to resources and sustainability. It's not so cut and dry.

And yes, it's a man-made problem but at this point fixing it (with man-made solutions) is not easy. It would take generations and an additional episode of social upheaval as the agricultural sectors created by the canals would come to an end.

The move by the Taliban is hardly surprising as they are desperate to supply their own population with water. We see this kind of water-related stress in the Colorado basin as well (with virtually no water actually reaching the Gulf of California), but in this case it's in the context of a rich nation with abundant resources and infrastructure-oriented know-how.

By all accounts the Taliban engineers are incompetent and without outside aid they may not be able to complete the project. But if they do, and the diverted water starts flowing south it will harm downstream Uzbekistan's economic and resource-related interests. This will in turn led to geopolitical tensions which more powerful players will be able to leverage.

On paper, these problems are easily solved and the Right which likes to rely on such Ivory Tower arguments is often dismissive of these problems. But in real life, where the rubber meets the road (so to speak) these are huge problems, significant obstacles that play into larger equation of resource stress, social upheaval and crisis, refugees, and war - and these factors continually interplay, repeat, and amplify each other.

One thinks of 2015 and the flood of refugees fleeing these very factors - many of which were created by Western policies. The response led to the rise of the new European Right which even now a decade later is waxing bold and stands ready to completely transform EU politics. I suppose America's Christian Right would view this as a net positive - the return of fascism to Europe.

Birth control is not the solution to the world's problems and I'm not at all suggesting that as a moral solution. As a Christian I have definite opinions regarding such matters and yet at the same time I do not expect the nations of the world to approach these issues in a Christian way, nor do I fret when they do not - nor do I think the Church must seek to shape and influence their policies. There's no fixing the world. Would we repair the world system? The only way to repair it is to tear it down and that would lead to even worse conflagration, suffering, and mass death.

That's not our task nor our concern - our meaning the Church, not America, the West, Christendom, or some other distortion of the covenant people's identity. The only solution is the gospel of Christ and yet we're given no reason to believe (in the New Testament) that this will lead to the transformation of the world and its cultures and the ushering in of some kind of golden age. Such efforts have led to the creation of Christendom - the matrix of the Dragon-speaking lamb and Antichrist and their armies of crusaders, inquisitors, colonizers, and mammon-men.

Those who use the Old Testament to justify such agendas have misread the Bible on a massive scale and rely on a Judaizing hermeneutic which in the end subverts and corrupts the Kingdom. The New Testament reveals that such 'triumph' passages are eschatological. It is the age old battle for the Church. Even so come Lord Jesus.

But for the world in this present evil age under the god of this world (whose doom has been proclaimed), there is no hope to be offered in terms of human governments or man-made solutions. There are dark days ahead. History testifies to this and this will not change until Christ returns.
At the very least we can be truth-tellers. Let us avoid foolish misguided alliances with political forces that seek to profit from people's pain and manipulate them for gain. Let us avoid trying to impose moral principles that unbelievers cannot grasp or benefit from for that matter. Apart from the Spirit, these things do not please God and only breed contempt for the Church when they don't work. And they won't. We have no reason to think covenantal ethics will work among the unregenerate of the world.

And finally what will such efforts do in terms of Christian missions in these places of spiritual darkness? If missionaries bring a gospel of cultural transformation and the reverence of wealth - how will these messages be received? On the one hand the Western Church seems to treasure wealth, education, and middle-class status. The only way people (let's say Christian converts) in places like Uzbekistan will achieve this is by having fewer children, and seeing that they're educated in order to raise the status of their family in the next generation. Then they can become (in theory) influential in terms of the culture.

The Christian Right's message is riddled with internal contradictions - especially among those who advocate for power and wealth. And so far the 'outbreeding' agendas expressed by the fringe groups that inhabit this circle have not worked - it's not even working within their own circles let alone the wider culture. In fact I would argue that in many respects it's blowing up and risks creating a generation of apostates hostile to the gospel. Thus far (in my admittedly limited experience) the various Dominionist-Birther families I've encountered have taken bad turns. I can think of a couple of (modified) exceptions - if I'm being charitable. I can't think of one situation in which the kids all turned out as the parents hoped or as they had originally intended. I've seen several instances in which the whole thing turned disastrous and has left these kids (now adults) in a bad place. Many are dysfunctional, arrogant, and filled with frustration and rage. Others have turned to promiscuity, homosexuality, Neo-Nazism, and other things.
But when it comes to the garden variety of American missionaries, they bring a message of humanist-type empowerment and prosperity (even if toned down in comparison to the Charismatic movement). This will involve fewer children and an emphasis on education - which in turn leads many of these people to migrate in order to live in liberal Western societies and make some more serious money.

If they brought a gospel message that called for separation from the world, the embrace of second-class status and thus a rejection of the middle class and all it stands for, then a discussion could be had about standard of living and faithfulness in a world that looks down with scorn on such people. But that's not part of the gospel message of Western Evangelicalism (Dominionist or not) even though it is frequently spelled out and assumed within the New Testament. This is why I also have little hope in modern day missions. Once again, a new Reformation is needed and this will in turn re-orient Christian thinking toward the world and will prove better able to deal with the various cultural crises and how they relate to Western power.