Central Asia in Uncharted Territory
Russia’s decline marks the next stage in the Soviet Union’s implosion.
By: Kamran Bokhari
Russian influence in Central Asia in recent years has been waning.
Moscow’s war in Ukraine has accelerated that process.
The resulting vacuum will be part of a familiar cycle, during which no external power is able to impose order.
The region – a land bridge connecting Europe with Asia – will be subject to long-term instability at a time when its countries are experiencing historic domestic transformations.
Central Asia has been under Moscow’s hegemony since the late 18th century. Russia’s domination of the region survived two major regime changes: from the czarist empire to the Soviet Union in 1917, and to the Russian Federation following the Soviet implosion in 1991.
Yet even after their emergence as sovereign states, the five Central Asian countries remained under Russian tutelage.
Even Kazakhstan, the strongest of the five, has pursued a flexible foreign policy, trying to establish relations with the United States and China while maintaining close ties with Russia.
Much of this had to do with the Central Asian states’ own weakness to resist Russian influence.
Furthermore, despite the economic turmoil of the 1990s, Russia remained a military power.
After Vladimir Putin assumed leadership of the country in 2000, Russia embarked upon economic revitalization, largely through energy and commodity exports.
These developments played a key role in Russia’s ability to maintain influence in Central Asia (and other parts of its near abroad, such as the Caucasus).
What helped was the absence of any other power to challenge Russia.
China has certainly tried to push into the region through its Belt and Road Initiative, but it is constrained by domestic political-economic factors (especially given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to personalize an institutional autocracy) and its limited military power projection capabilities.
As for the United States, Central Asia is the one region in the world where Washington has very little influence.
The Kremlin’s Slow-Motion Decline
Russia, however, suffers from an ineluctable internal problem: The process that led to the implosion of the Soviet Union did not end there; it just slowed down.
When the bloc dissolved, Moscow was having a tough time retaining influence over not only the former Soviet republics but also areas that it wanted to retain as part of its post-Soviet federation.
Chechnya, which came under Russian control in the early part of the 19th century, is a key example.
From the time of its absorption until the 1950s, Chechnya periodically produced resistance movements that challenged Kremlin domination.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Chechens fought two wars for independence (1993-96, 1999-2009) before Russia was able to reestablish its control.
Elsewhere, through the creation of intergovernmental organizations such as the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union, the Russians fashioned instruments through which they could maintain influence in the independent ex-Soviet republics.
Of course, there were also areas where Moscow lost complete control, such as the Baltic states, which didn’t just secede but joined NATO.
Even in the South Caucasus, the Russians tried to prevent Georgia’s tilt toward the West through the creation of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
That proved to be insufficient, so Russia invaded Georgia in 2008.
Though Georgia remains Western-leaning, Moscow maintains coercive leverage over the country.
Similarly, until the 2020 Azerbaijani-Armenian war, Russia was the security guarantor in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Sensing an opportunity, Turkey backed Baku and successfully altered the balance of power with Yerevan and thereby carved out space for itself in what was long part of the Russian sphere of influence.
Ukraine, however, best exemplifies the challenges that the Russians have faced in maintaining their influence in the former Soviet Union.
The country is the most significant piece of geopolitical real estate for Russia.
Ever since the 2005 Orange Revolution, Ukraine had been struggling to free itself from the Kremlin’s grip.
Almost a decade later, in 2014, Ukrainians were finally able to oust the pro-Moscow government, with Russia retaining control over Crimea and the eastern Donbas region.
Russia’s decision to go to war in Ukraine earlier this year was an attempt to reverse the loss of a crucial buffer with the West.
Eight months later, Moscow has not only failed, but it is staring at the further weakening of its ability to shape events in its near abroad.
Regardless of how the war comes to an end, the Kremlin will increasingly be concerned about its western flank with Europe.
This means it will have decreasing bandwidth for its strategic rear, Central Asia.
Implications for Central Asia
The region at the heart of Eurasia will thus increasingly be left to its own devices.
Kazakhstan will have to take the lead in creating a new order for the region, which has long been dependent on Moscow for security and stability.
It is, after all, the largest economy in the region, and it has a huge interest in securing itself and its southern neighbors from the effects of the weakening of Russia’s geopolitical writ – especially since the region has been linguistically, culturally and economically tethered to Moscow for such a long time.
The situation with Russia comes at a time when each country in the region is undergoing significant domestic change.
Kazakhstan itself went through a bout of violent unrest that was brought under control only weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev – who succeeded his long-time predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, barely three and a half years ago – has been trying to consolidate power and usher in political and economic reforms.
Even after giving up the presidency, Nazarbayev, who ruled the country from the days of the Soviet Union, held on to power through the chairmanship of the country’s Security Council.
He was removed from the post at the start of this year, as Kazakh security forces were trying to quell the unrest.
In the months since, the government has been engaged in a delicate process of introducing reforms to assuage the public while maintaining stability.
Likewise, Uzbekistan has also been moving to open up civil society.
Turkmenistan last March tapped a new president, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, the son of former President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who ruled the country for 15 years.
The new president is expected to introduce some reforms.
Kyrgyzstan, which has seen three political uprisings (2005, 2010 and 2020), also remains mired in uncertainty.
Then there is the ethnically non-Turkic nation of Tajikistan, which has been ruled by Emomali Rahmon since shortly after independence and is perhaps more dependent than anyone in the region on Russia for its security, as evidenced by the 7,000 Russian troops stationed in the country.
While Central Asian states warily look toward the northwest, at the weakening of their former liege, they are also deeply concerned at their southeastern flank.
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year left the Taliban in charge of the Southwest Asian country.
Bordering three of the five Central Asian nations, and close to the most heavily populated parts of the region, the Taliban regime has the potential to upset the ongoing domestic transitions.
For this reason, most of the Central Asian nations have adopted a policy of pragmatic engagement with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers in the hope that this strategy will prevent any spillover into their territories.
It was not too long ago that the Kremlin withdrew from Afghanistan.
In early 1989, it did not expect that within three years it would no longer control Central Asia either.
It did, however, retain influence in the region – and for close to three decades.
But that too is becoming a thing of the past.
Central Asia is in uncharted territory.
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