151104 Kazakhstan’s Security Policy: Steady as She Goes?

2004

Kazakhstan is becoming an important power in Central Asia by virtue of its large territory, ample natural resources, and strategic location. However, it faces political, ethnic, economic, and environmental challenges to its stability and integrity. After the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Kazakhstan granted overflight rights for U.S.-led coalition actions in Afghanistan, and in 2003 provided some troops for post-conflict rebuilding in Iraq. This report may be updated. Related products include CRS Issue Brief IB93108, Central Asia, updated regularly.

Central Asia's Affairs

The article discusses the state and prospects of practical cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to ensure regional security in the context of the Treaty on Allied Relations (December 22, 2022). It is noted that the observed difficult geopolitical situation in the world and its impact on Central Asia contributes to close interstate cooperation between Astana and Tashkent in the field of security. Thus, unlike the Declaration on Allied Relations (December 6, 2021), the Treaty highlights substantive provisions related to strengthening interaction between states in the areas of defense and security, mutual assistance in the event of direct threats. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that this topic has not yet found a proper comprehensive analysis in the publications of Central Asian and foreign authors.

2023

Russia’s foreign policy concept of the Central Asian countries is sophisticated; but nevertheless, is essentially predicated on two main approaches: - Russian policies aim both to reconstruct the relationship between the post-Soviet countries and to re-form a new union that gathers all of these countries under the leadership of Russia. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s “Near abroad doctrine” toward post-Soviet countries served as a basis for the Russian Federation’s Central Asian policy. Furthermore, the importance of Central Asian countries for Kremlin has been described in “Medvedev’s Doctrine” and “National Security Strategy” documents of Kremlin. Along with Moscow’s hegemony ambitions, Russia desires to fight against fundamental religious movements and radical nationalism in the region, which Russia considers as a threat against its national security. - Secondly, the geopolitical position of the Central Asia is of global importance in the energy arena. Recent demand growth for natural resources, for example, oil and natural gas, from the developed economies of industrialized countries, of which China is the most notable, has amplified this importance; this is not without its implications in Russian energy policy at all. From the Russian Foreign Policy perspective, the most crucial country in the region is Kazakhstan. First, there are 4 million ethnically Russian people living in Kazakhstan. Second, Kazakhstan is the locomotive state of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Especially, after Russia’s failed attempt to include Ukraine into the Eurasian Union, Kazakhstan’s position has strengthened in the union. Furthermore, Kazakhstan tries to act as a mediator between Russia and such states as Turkey and Ukraine, which are having political tensions with Russia.

Linguistics and Culture Review, 2021

The relevance of the research topic is due to a number of factors. Studying the Central Asian region as a whole, as well as the individual states within it, it is necessary to take into account that this space is a place of intersection of the interests of major world political, economic players, as well as regional powers. The influence of these countries and large multinational corporations can be expressed in a variety of ways, both military and economic, which will be discussed in this article. In addition, it is necessary to take into account a number of challenges to regional (and in the future, global) security, which were either thrown in the past or remain relevant to the present. The purpose of the article is to create a descriptive description of the foreign policy of Kyrgyzstan, which is currently being implemented by the current leadership of the state, in addition, to build a forecast regarding the further steps of the Kyrgyz leadership to build a system of strategic a...

This article examines the security policy of the Central Asian (CA) states, by comparing theory (security documents) with practice (the actual security challenges). The lack of CA regional (security) cooperation and authoritarian rule puts political and economic stability at stake. The internal and external threats are partly caused by the CA regimes themselves: political opposition groups are often described as terrorists, and/or blamed to be connected to Islamic State (IS). There is hardly any effort towards improving social-economic circumstances, which would take away grounds for (Islamic) radicalization. Moreover, the CA governments are themselves responsible for regional border, water and energy disputes. Political unrest and radicalization, IS, as well as terrorism and drugs from Afghanistan could become serious threats to the survival of CA governments.

2020

Geopolitics of Kazakhstan: theory and practice, 2014

Article analyzes geopolitics of Kazakhstan, examines how it should look like in accordance with classic geopolitical theory and how it does look in practice, in particular in case of Kazakhstan membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which reflects Kazakh geostrategy in relations with Russia and China as the main factors of stability in Central Asia. Additional value of the article is that it is purely geopolitical while geopolitical method (theory) is usually misunderstood in the discipline of international relations, used rather freely often being confused with realistic paradigm. Also Central Asia as an object of analysis is not in the centre of global academic discourse and any additional study in the field of CA geopolitics broadens understanding of the external and internal political process in the region. The study showed that Kazakh geopolitics is predetermined to be continental, Heartland oriented, because Kazakhstan is located in the closest neighborhood of Russia and is a steppe land with the conservative identity totally different to the one of see powers. Therefore its geopolitical gravitation towards strategic alliance with Moscow is very strong and even more strengthened by its president Nursultan Nazarbayev as a consistent partisan of the Russian geopolitical theory called Eurasism. Kazakhstan membership in EEU, initially initiated by Nazarbayev, supports the idea that geopolitical union with Russia is the essence of Kazakh geostrategy. At the same time Kazakhstan has good relations with China, but they are of secondary importance for Astana in comparison to cooperation with Russia. SCO is a comfortable platform for Kazakhstan to find its place in geopolitical dialogue of Moscow and Beijing. The problem is that nobody knows how Kazakh foreign policy will look like after Nazarbayev leaves the office, but classic geopolitical theory says that geopolitical orientation of Kazakhstan will hardly change in the long run because its conservative land identity is too strong.

Журнал фронтирных исследований, 2022

The article identifies the main areas of cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in the Caspian Sea region. As the most promising, we see cooperation in fuel and energy industry, military cooperation and humanitarian cooperation in science and higher education. Yet, Russia now has to compete with Turkey and China for the influence in the region, as Kazakhstan tends to promote multi-vector foreign policy. Moreover, the US and the EU share a strong determination to keep Kazakhstan's fuel and energy industry under their total control, and this is the reason why they maintain sanctions policy in this territory. We conclude that Russia-Kazakhstan relations have a potential for constructive cooperation.

Security in Central Asia Russian policy and military posture, 2019

DIIS Report, 2013

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2009

Although published in 2002, Cutler's work devotes a scant two pages to Kazakhstani foreign policy after 1995, and his claim that 'The preliminary choices made. .. in favor of the priority of Russia and China, have only been underlined since then. .. ' ignores the close cooperation Kazakhstan has had with the USA, the EU and NATO since the terror attacks of 11 September 2001. The Kazakhstani government has generally supported the US military effort in Iraq, and is the only Central Asian state to send troops to Iraq.

U K Defence Forum , 2006

Even before the events of 11th September 2001, Kazakhstan was the one Central Asian Republic the West couldn't afford to ignore. Territorially huge, covering an expanse roughly equivalent to the size of Western Europe, and bordering Russia, China, the Central Asian states and the Caspian Sea, Almaty * was always going to be viewed as an important strategic ally. But what makes Kazakhstan a vital partner is its vast mineral resources. From this position of strength, Almaty has not been as eager as its CAR neighbours to engage US military cooperation at any cost, viewing it as part of a longer term strategy to cement international defence, and especially commercial, cooperation. Original published October 2002 Completely updated November 2006

2023

From ancient times, there are signs of intelligence and counter-intelligence activities whose primary duty is to maintain the stability of the national security of the state of belonging. According to the mentioned directions, as the analysis of the developed processes shows, the stability of the country's national security is based on the neutralization/minimization of the intelligence influence of foreign countries within the country, and on the international arena, the implementation of the strategic interests of one's own country. The research topic is related to the organization of state security in the post-Soviet space, the country-Kazakhstan, and the signs of intelligence and counter-intelligence activities used in this process.

Kriter Yayınevi, 2020

In the security area, Central Asian states’ policies are determined by the geopolitical location of the region and its internal dynamics in the region. In this sense, the Central Asian States' security policies emerge in two levels. Security policies carried out with/within the framework of the foreign and/or powerful states of Central Asian countries, which we can call macro level and the micro level: that is the threats/challenges that might affect the security of the regional states and their relationships in accordance with their national interests. When addressed on macro level, most of the time, the first thing that comes to mind is military security when security is in question. The region, which includes Central Asian countries, is viewed as a turbulent zone in terms of military security in the period after independence and before and after September 11. This is the paradoxical status of Central Asia, which gains ground through external pressure as the integral region, but at the same time retains its “split” character/ nature. Due to this ambiguousness, Central Asian region is viewed as a turbulent zone with high risks and unpredictable nature. The problem of borders, the Fergana Valley, ethnic enclaves etc. only increase fragmentation, but the same "Afghan issue" and hypothetical attack of the Taliban movement on the countries of the region push these states to develop a common vision/position. This vision is important because it allows external players to consolidate the Central Asian countries around themselves and their geopolitical interests. In this regard, we can talk about the influence of Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization -CSTO, China and Shanghai Cooperation Organization- SCO, the United States and NATO. These countries and international structures close to their interests realize their “high status” through “the discourse of threats”.3 In other words, Central Asian States' security policies are carried out institutionally within the framework of regional and international organizations together with other intra-regional and non-regional actors. On this macro-level, while policies regarding the solution of the security problem due to nuclear weapons in the post- 1990 region are at the forefront, since 2001, the terrorism-related concern has prompted the countries in the region to develop policies against threats at international (regional/non-regional major powers) and regional levels. On the micro level, while the security of regional countries is in question, threats and challenges towards regional countries for Central Asian security, attempts of regional countries and the formation of regional integration without external actors, events in the region after the 2000s in terms of political security will be analyzed. Also, unemployment and labour migrant issues will be considered in terms of economic security.