توسعه ژئوپلیتیک در آسیای میانه: از “ناحیه فراموش شده” به ناحیه “بازی عالی”

ABSTRACT From the “forgotten region” to the “great game” region: On the development of geopolitics in Central Asia

After the collapse of the USSR, Central Asian countries that were not well known to the general international community have increased their role on the international economic and political landscape. There is a Chinese proverb that it is a great happiness and unhappiness simultaneously to be born when empires collapse and are created. The collapse of the Soviet regime opened new alternatives for the development in the post-Soviet world. However, in addition, instead of entering a new era of post-cold war stability and cooperation, the former Soviet countries of Ukraine, Georgia, and Central Asia are more increasingly defined as transforming into regions of competition for the leading world powers (Lukyanov, 2010). In a recent Swiss paper with the engaging title of “Central Asia: Great Game or Graveyard?”, for example, readers were asked, “Could it be that the Great Game Rudyard Kipling described a century ago in Central Asia is back?” (Feiertag, 2009). References to the region as a potential source of international conflicts, due to its unique geopolitical position and substantial natural resources are becoming increasingly common. However, the regional transformations are accompanied by numerous problems that complicate not only Central Asian foreign relations, but general development processes. Kirghizia political and social revolutions, Andigan and Fergana valley events, Uzbek–Kyrgyz border tensions, Kozak–Kazakh tensions in the northern territories of Kazakhstan during the first years of independence, potentially explosive investment agreements on oil exploitation and export in Kazakhstan, and the increased threat of drug-trafficking and terrorism spreading from Afghanistan are some of new problems that appeared in post-Soviet Central Asia. The 2010 coup in Kyrgyzstan prompted concerns that such revolutions could lead to increased international confrontation between the global powers involved. These concerns are due to the tension between Russian and US military and economic interests, along with broader factors, where geopolitics does play an influential and critical role. The Central Asian region is also of immense interest to China, which has been trying to increase its role in the region through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and by increasing investments in Central Asian countries. In fact, new concerns are now being expressed that new international confrontations will emerge which may involve China also; while at the same time these powers have been trying to form alliances so to enforce its power.

In this paper, firstly, new geopolitical theoretical frameworks will be examined, addressing new social, political and economic challenges in the region.5 It will be argued that two countries in the Central Asian region in particular present the most vivid case studies related to the rise of a new geopolitics: oil-abundant, currently stable Kazakhstan versus explosive Kirghizia, one of the poorest states in the CIS. These two cases are helpful in providing insights into strategic transformations in the region, and the geopolitical dimensions of the region’s development. These two states nevertheless have much in common – multilateral foreign policies, and strategically important geopolitical locations; hence presenting the most vivid cases in the recent regional geopolitical developments. Particular emphasis will be placed on the case of Kazakhstan, focusing in particular on the country’s relations with its foreign partners in both oil and security. Consideration of these two cases requires examining some existing trends in regionalism, and the role of regional organizations versus international organizations in the foreign relations of these countries. The number of problems and threats that the region is confronted with speak in favor of the increased necessity of international cooperation between the regional and international organizations. This, in turn, demonstrates that purely geopolitical priorities in the foreign policies of the world powers toward the region and in the foreign policies of the regions’ countries themselves are misleading and counter-productive in the long-term perspective.