In August 2025, President Trump named Sergio Gor, a 38-year-old Soviet-born MAGA loyalist, as U.S. Ambassador to India and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs. This raises a couple of questions in the mind. Is this about soothing India’s tariff-hit nerves? Or is it a calculated move to exploit a volatile region stretching from the Central Asia’s steppes to the far East, and beyond the Himalayan Range? Gor’s informal reach is quite impressive. He can oversee Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the “stans”. This positions him as a linchpin in Washington’s strategy to weaponize the region’s youth bulge. Important here to remember that half the population in this region is under 30. And many among them are itching for upheaval.
From Tashkent to Trump-Enforcer
Born Sergey Gorokhovsky in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1986, Gor fled the Soviet collapse to Malta, then landed in the U.S. in 1999. No silver-spoon diplomat, this one. He is a scrappy operative who has been forged in the American ecosystem. He has remained a spokesman for Steve King and Michele Bachmann, and a deputy to Rand Paul. As White House Presidential Personnel Office director, he vetted thousands for Trump loyalty. He also axed “disloyal” picks, like Elon Musk’s NASA nominee. This he did based on their past Democratic ties. Branded a “snake” by Musk, Gor’s real asset, at least in this posting, is his Central Asian roots and age. He looks quite a fit for infiltrating the region’s restless under-30s.
Why His Age Matters
South, Southeast, and Central Asia have around1 billion-plus people that are under their 30s. They could be a damn handy demographic bomb. If Nepal could be taken up as an example, then unemployment and inequality (especially compared to the political elites’ “nepo-kids”) seem like quite an effective mass-rage generator. Is it his age (40), that makes him a good bet to connect with the youth, from Pak-Bangladesh jihadi hotbeds to Nepal’s Gen Z? And beyond?
Programs like the Young South Asian Leaders Initiative (YSALI) channel American funds into “leadership” training, priming youth to demand “democracy” that aligns with American interests. In my offensive realism’s lens, this is power projection without boots. Use the young to destabilize regimes blocking U.S. access to resources, routes, pipelines, or whatever is considered important within the Beltway.
Stats Are A Worry
Nepal’s September 2025 meltdown is the blueprint. With a median age of 25 and 20% youth unemployment, Gen Z erupted over elite corruption, sparked by TikTok exposés of “nepo kids” flaunting wealth amid $1,400-a-year poverty. Protests turned deadly: we all have an idea by now. Then there is Bangladesh. The Jamaat and BNP resurgence has been largely fuelled by the young radical Islamists. Polls show BNP leads at 39% among youth. Jamaat displays 21% among urban males under 35. These are people driven by 25% unemployment. To top that up, Jamaat’s unbanning in 2025 unleashed their student wings. They are professionals in extortions, rape-murders, and for pushing Sharia-lite chaos.
The Colour Revolution Playbook
This is quite an ideal mix. Take a trail along Eurasia and you’d see Uncle Sam quietly courting these “opposition” forces. Either by pushing millions through NED into Ukraine, or through Freedom House in Kyrgyzstan, this is the colour revolution formula, perfected since the 2000s. Serbia’s Bulldozer (2000): U.S.-trained Otpor youth toppled Milosevic. Georgia’s Rose (2003): $42 million in “democracy aid” bought Saakashvili’s pro-West pivot. Ukraine’s Orange (2004): Nuland’s cash and NED’s $14 million fuelled mayhem.
Each follows the script: youth mobs, foreign funds, media hype, and “non-violent” facades masking regime change. And make no mistake; the playbook is alive. Belarus in 2020 and Kazakhstan 2022 prove that. Even if you discount the HTS terrorist that rules Syria now.
The Central Asian Connection
Gor’s Tashkent birth, under this light doesn’t look trivial, it looks strategic. He knows Central Asia’s underbelly. He understands the Islamist currents and the clans from his lived experience. No India expertise? Under that same light, does it really matter? Is he here for trade summits? Or to groom youth cadres through exchanges, scholarships, “grants” and stuff?
Trump’s tariffs have already strained his India ties. He is trying a fresh approach. Or that’s what he wants us to believe. But with the Gor appointment, the suspicion, that this is just a façade, gets stronger. That aside, rehyphenating India with Pakistan reflects the Holbrooke-2009 misstep. And it is well-known that Trump’s personnel purge skills translate to curating local “loyalists”: the ones that will parrot his lines on China, India, or Russia.
The Empire of Encirclement
Washington is pivoting from Middle East quagmires and into Eurasian encirclement. The flashpoints along the Rimland, is being pressed inwards as I observe in my recent book Contours of the Greater Game. Chaos in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the ones that look ready to erupt in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, look laser focussed on undermining the coming together of RIC. Nepal’s chaos undermines China’s dams. Bangladesh’s Islamists hobble India’s northeast. Myanmar’s Rohingyas put a spanner in India and China’s Rakhine enterprises. Pakistan’s jihadists tighten the noose on CPEC. With Gor as the latest promoter of this game in the region, what if the Central Asian “stans” have this uncontrollable urge to “democratize”? And reroute pipelines from Russia, or jam the BRI as a result?
Offensive realism doesn’t negotiate; it breeds storms to rule the wreckage. And so, if by 2026, there are more “spontaneous”, “youth uprisings”, you all can be rest assured who’s lighting the matches.
