US policy advisers see Central Asia as new geopolitical hotspot, urge closer ties

At a gathering in Washington this week, prominent US regional experts and foreign policy advisers sent a clear message to their government: pay closer attention to Central Asia.

This underlines the tremendous increase in Central Asia’s geopolitical importance to all major international players as a new bridge between East and West, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the military escalation in the Middle East.

The event was organised by George Washington University’s Central Asia Program and called “Central Asia: Multi-Vector Policy for the 21st Century — Strategy and Development”.

The current geopolitical turmoil has clearly made the West appreciate Central Asia’s post-independence choice of multi-vector foreign policy – with Kazakhstan setting the trend and leading the way.

The approach has allowed the region to maintain friendly relations with Russia and China, without losing sovereignty and also to attract Western investment, the event organisers noted.

“Central Asians are pretty good at geopolitics. Their neighbourhood demands nothing less,” former US ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan John Herbst said at the live online discussion.

Herbst, who is currently Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Centre, described Central Asia as “a neighbour to two of the United States’s principal adversaries”.

“In theory if you have sound geopolitical leadership, that would be reflected in American foreign policy, which it is not,” he said.

“The West needs to be far more active in Central Asia than it is,” Herbst added.

Ariel Cohen, an expert on energy policy, Eurasia and the Middle East, said that the West was far behind Russia and China in terms of economic and high-level diplomatic engagement with the region.

He noted that French President Macron’s visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan last year was not followed up with anything tangible – “like multi-million investment”.

Meanwhile, other significant regional players are also making inroads in Central Asia, or are expected to begin doing so, Cohen said.

“Turkey is an important player and is increasingly interested in projecting its influence and power to the region, that is majority Turkic and absolute majority Sunni,” he said, noting, in particular, increasing military cooperation between Ankara and the regional capitals.

India will “sooner or later” play an increasing role in the region, and Pakistan too is interested in entering the game. At the same time, Arab countries are emerging as serious economic investors in the region, Cohen added.

Given its escalating rivalry with China and Russia, the West must expand security and military cooperation with Central Asia — “walking away from Central Asia does not make sense”, Cohen said.

Frederick Starr, a distinguished fellow for Eurasia at the American Foreign Policy Council, agreed that “the list of players” vying for influence in Central Asia “has expanded” and they are getting “hyperactive”.

“The Indians have not made their move yet, but they are ready to do that,” Starr said. “And it will change the configuration of the balances [in the region].”

Starr noted that India has deep cultural links with Central Asia, “in a way that China cannot match”.

Starr, however, warned that to be able to continue its multi-vector game, Central Asia needs more regional unity, i.e. its own regional political and economic structures.

“None of it is going to work unless the Central Asians themselves are able to effectively link arms – not under a meeting with Biden, Xi or Putin, any outsiders, but alone, among themselves,” Starr said.

He said the Central Asian countries had not been able to do that yet because of Russian pressure.

“Why? Because divide and conquer still works,” he said.

Kamran Bokhari, of the New Lines Institute, warned that the Central Asian governments’ diplomatic skills and foresight are facing serious tests in the current “360-degree environment that is in flux”.

The biggest problem is having to adjust to a Russia under various pressures from its war on Ukraine and a China facing an economic downturn, which is expected to be long-term, according to Bokhari.

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