evidence: Despite the prevalence of works on the ‘discourses of danger’ in the Ferghana Valley, which re-invented post-Soviet Central Asia as a site of intervention, the literature on the conflict potential in the cross-border areas of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is fairly limited. Yet, the number of small-scale clashes and tensions on the borders of the Batken and Isfara regions has been growing steadily. Accordingly, this work seeks to contribute to the understanding of the conflict escalations in the area and identify factors that aggravate tensions between the communities. In particular, this article focuses on four variables, which exacerbate tensions and hinder the restoration of a peaceful social fabric in the Batken-Isfara region: the unresolved legacies of the Soviet past, inefficient use of natural resources, militarization of borders, and lack of evidence-based policymaking. [...] In 1924, after the initial Soviet national-territorial delimitation, the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) requested the Soviet central government to assign Isfara and Sokh administrative units to the Kyrgyz ASSR.[42] Based on the evaluation of inter-republican commissions, the central government rejected the petitions of the Kyrgyz ASSR and ruled that Isfara and Sokh would remain within the jurisdiction of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).[43] Although the Soviet central government declared that national-territorial delimitation in the Ferghana Valley was "decisively settled," both the Kyrgyz ASSR and the Uzbek SSR disputed the final settlement.