Caspian Report: Balochistan & Khorosan

A rising geopolitical analysis force.

During the 2013/2014 time period I focused on food and water security in the lands associated with the former Ottoman Empire. This included attention on the hinterlands to the east, and I paid some attention to Balochistan during those years. The Durand Line was a convenience for the British Empire, but it’s left the world with a real mess.

This video from Caspian Report caught my eye - during my prior digging in this area I did not encounter anything about Khorosan. Both Balochistan and Khorosan are not proper countries (yet) but there are separatist movements for each.

I went looking for more information and I did find a couple of nice maps. The first is a theoretical map of what Khorosan might look like, if Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan simply hung up closed signs one day.

This map isn’t correctly labeled, but it’s Michael Izady’s work, except the pie charts.

This a map of ethnicity for the area. Where I live now I often encounter Sikhs from Punjab, and less regularly I meet Tajiks who came here after working for NATO during the occupation of Afghanistan.

I think Caspian Report is a good source. The fact that they’ve garnered 1.6 million subscribers is comforting. Yesterday, for the first time, I asked some of my associates who focus on geopolitical matters what they thought of it. If they come back with a thumbs up, perhaps there will be more. If there are concerns, which may have escaped me, since this is a dizzingly complex region … I guess I’ll hunt for another source to balance this one.