Central Asia, Ten Years into the Future

Since 2002, geopolitical struggle in Central Asia has become a multifaceted affair. Alongside the formerly hegemonic Russia, China has become a regional economic force, and the United States is trying to balance the game with its military supremacy. The struggle for influence that determines Asia today will become more concrete over the next 10 years.

Apart from these two nations, the presence of second tier powers pursuing their own strategic interests in the region both demonstrates the region’s strategic significance and suggests that the future will see Central Asia become the arena for even larger struggles, since interests to be achieved in dynamic multiple interactions include geopolitical power, national and religious influence, security and economic opportunities. Currently, the struggle in this region, which can be seen as the heart of the world, focuses on the factors that connect the region to the outside world: roads, pipelines and the management of natural resources, as well as political issues. Whoever can control these factors will be the region’s geopolitical and economic conqueror.

For political and economic reasons, the Russian Federation still has imperial designs on its former territories, and it is seriously concerned about the United States’ goals in the region since the occupation of Afghanistan made that nation the second force in the region. For this reason, Russia established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with China and the four nations of Turkestan in 1996. In 2001, Uzbekistan joined the organization.

This organization has made successful moves in recent years, proving its ability to maintain security in Central Asia and to resolve border disputes, and increasing its political significance during the process. Major Asian powers such as India, Pakistan and Iran felt a need to join the organization as observers, and this significant fact is proof of the SCO’s increasing power.

However, the organization, which came on the international scene with the slogan of “Eurasia for Eurasians,” has as a primary deficiency for becoming a balancing mechanism against the US and NATO superpowers, and it has have always been known: its lack of a joint military force.