Eric Rudenshiold
Foreign policy experts prefer continuity to change, stability to volatility, the familiar to the unknown. International relations scholarship reinforces this preference by clinging to established archetypes: balance of power, spheres of influence, and the seemingly self-evident axiom that small states are inevitably pawns in the struggles between great powers.
Few regions are so habitually pigeonholed as Central Asia. Since independence, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been cast in Washington, Brussels, Moscow, and Beijing alike as vulnerable prizes in a “new Great Game,” more acted upon than acting.
Persisting in antiquated assumptions risks missing not only the newfound agency of the Central Asian states themselves, but also the opportunities their assertiveness creates for Western allies. These countries increasingly define themselves as “middle powers” – actors with enough weight, resources, and diplomatic creativity to resist Russian or Chinese domination, to negotiate with multiple players, and to pursue independent development strategies.
Nowhere is this more apparent than Central Asia’s reaction to Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine.
Not cowed into deference, Central Asia is instead accelerating a realignment that is diversifying the region away from the limitations of Soviet legacy infrastructure and Russia’s market stranglehold. Moscow’s border treaty abrogation and invasion of Ukraine compelled Central Asian leaders to reinvest in their self-styled concept of “multivectorism” by engaging simultaneously with multiple partners and not subordinating themselves to the interests of large neighbors.
This pursuit of sovereignty and regional integration is exemplified in the region’s organic creation of a “Middle Corridor” trade route that redirects freight away from Russian infrastructure and connects Central Asia to China in the east and Europe via the Caspian, the South Caucasus, and Turkiye to the west. Supporting this shift is not just an economic matter but a geopolitical imperative: it is the surest way to reduce Russia’s coercive tendencies, to blunt China’s monopolization of connectivity, and to secure a more prosperous and independent Eurasia.
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