Central Asia is a key node at the geographical centre of the Greater Eurasian partnership and is a vulnerable link due to the relative weakness of the countries, competition over access to their natural resources, weak political institutions, authoritarianism, corruption, religious and ethnic tensions among other problems. These weaknesses can be exploited by foreign powers in the great power rivalry centred around Greater Eurasia. Central Asia is vulnerable to both “internal” rivalry within the Greater Eurasian partnership for a favourable format and to “external” sabotage by those seeking to undermine regional integration to restore US hegemony. This article will outline the external and internal factors in terms of how Central Asia can be manipulated.
External Interference: Keeping Eurasia Divided
European oceanic powers rose to dominance from the early 16th century by physically reconnecting the world from the maritime periphery of Eurasia, filling the vacuum left by the disintegration of the ancient Silk Road. The expansion of the Russian Empire through Central Asia in the 19th century, supported by the development of railways, revived the links of the ancient Silk Road. Halford Mackinder’s development of the Eurasian Heartland thesis at the beginning of the 20th century was premised on the challenge of Russia reconnecting Eurasia by land and thus threatening to undermine the strategic foundation for Britain’s dominance as a maritime power.
Central Asia is the geographical centre where Russia, China, India, Iran and other large Eurasian powers meet. To prevent the emergence of a Eurasian hegemon, Central Asia became a key battleground. The Great Game of the 19th Century largely ended with Afghanistan being established as a buffer state to split the Russian Empire from British India.
As the US became the maritime hegemon, it adopted a strategy of preventing the emergence of a Eurasian hegemon and the cooperation of Eurasian powers. Kissinger argued that the US thus had to adopt the policies of the UK as its predecessor:
“For three centuries, British leaders had operated from the assumption that, if Europe’s resources were marshaled by a single dominant power, that country would then resources to challenge Great Britain’s command of the seas, and thus threaten its independence. Geopolitically, the United States, also an island off the shores of Eurasia, should, by the same reasoning, have felt obliged to resist the domination of Europe or Asia by any one power and, even more, the control of both continents by the same power”.
The strategy of preventing the emergence of the Soviet Union as a Eurasian hegemon dictated US policies throughout the Cold War. Russia and Germany were divided in Western Eurasia, and in the 1970s China was split from the Soviet Union. The strategy of keeping Eurasia divided was explained in the language of Mackinder in the US National Security Strategy of 1988:
“The United States’ most basic national security interests would be endangered if a hostile state or group of states were to dominate the Eurasian landmass- that area of the globe often referred to as the world’s heartland. We fought two world wars to prevent this from occurring”.
After the Cold War, the US strategy for Eurasia went from preventing the emergence of a Eurasian hegemon to preserve US hegemony. Thus, the US has sought to even prevent unipolarity from being replaced by the emergence of a balance multipolar Eurasia. The alliance system, reliant on perpetual conflict, is instrumental in dividing the Eurasian continent into dependent allies and contained adversaries. If peace were to break out, the alliance system would crumble and the foundation for the strategy of security through dominance would falter. Brzezinski argued that dominance in Eurasia relied on the US ability to “prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”.
Less than two months after the Soviet Union collapsed, the US developed the Wolfowitz doctrine for global primacy. The leaked draft of the US Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) of February 1992, rejected collective internationalism in favour of US hegemony. The document recognised “it is improbable that a global conventional challenge to US and Western security will re-emerge from the Eurasian heartland for many years to come”, yet called for preventing the rise of possible rivals. Rather than having growing economic connectivity between many centres of power, the US “must sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order”.
To advance and cement the unipolar moment in the 1990s, the US developed its own “Silk Road” concept to integrate Central Asia under US leadership and disconnect it from Russia and China. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thus prioritised a link from Central Asia to India:
“Let’s work together to create a new Silk Road. Not a single thoroughfare like its namesake, but an international web and network of economic and transit connections. That means building more rail lines, highways, energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline to run from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, through Pakistan into India”.
The objective of the US Silk Road was not to integrate the Eurasian continent; rather, the primary goal was to sever the connection between Central Asia and Russia. The US Silk Road was based, to a large extent, on the ideas of Mackinder and Brzezinski’s formula for global primacy. The two-decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, the Georgia-Azerbaijan-Central Asia energy corridor, and similar policy objectives have been based on the recognition that Central Asia must not become a node of Eurasian connectivity. Just as Ukraine served as a vulnerable connection point between Europe and Russia that could be disrupted by the US, so too does Central Asia represent a weak point in the broader framework of Greater Eurasia.
Internal Divisions: Competing Formats for Eurasian Integration
Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Iran, South Korea, and other states have developed various formats for Eurasian integration to diversify their economic connectivity and strengthen their positions in the international system. As the international economic system of U.S. hegemony is evidently no longer sustainable, Eurasian integration is recognized as a source for developing a multipolar international system. Central Asia is at the centre of most initiatives. However, many of the formats and initiatives for integration are in competition.
China is evidently the leading economic actor in Eurasia, which can spark fears of hegemonic intentions. Countries such as Russia appear to accept that China will be the leading economy but will not accept Chinese dominance. The difference between being a leading and a dominant economy is the concentration of power, which can be diffused by diversifying connectivity in Eurasia. For example, the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) between Russia, Iran and India makes Eurasia less China-centric.
China has recognised the concerns about the concentration of power and sought to accommodate other initiatives to facilitate multipolarity. China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) was, to a large extent, rebranded as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to communicate greater inclusiveness and flexibility, suggesting that it can be harmonized with other initiatives. The efforts to harmonize the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the BRI under the umbrella of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) were another attempt to avoid zero-sum formats in Central Asia.
Managing competition among Eurasian powers in Central Asia is easier than preventing sabotage by the United States as an external actor. The U.S. strategy for maintaining hegemony results in extreme zero-sum policies, as any divisions and disruptions in Central Asia can serve the objective of a US-dominated Eurasia from the maritime periphery. In contrast, Eurasian powers benefit from increased Eurasian connectivity. States like Russia, China and India may have competing initiatives, yet none of the Eurasian powers can successfully achieve their objectives without cooperation from the other. Thus, there are strong incentives to find compromise and harmonise interests around a decentralised multipolar Eurasia.
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club’s, unless explicitly stated otherwise.