Tajikistan is a small land-locked country tucked away in southeast Central Asia. Its capital, Dushanbe, is almost equally distant, at approximately 4,500 kilometers, from Beijing, Moscow, Istanbul and Dubai. For Western governments and major corporations, the country has never been of much interest, although it is very familiar to many in the Pentagon because of Tajikistan’s 1,500-kilometer border with Afghanistan.
https://www.neglobal.eu/tajikistan-the-battle-for-middle-earths-resources/