Europe Isn’t The Only Region Defying Russia

As we continue through the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it is obvious that the war is far from over. Early in the war, when Russia begrudgingly accepted it wouldn’t gain rapid victory, it weaponized its energy sector to freeze Ukraine and Europe. This tactic backfired. Europe’s victory in its energy war has left Russia with reduced leverage and financial ruin. Europe’s successes combined with China’s aloofness have inspired resistance from former Russian allies and clients, especially in an area erroneously seen as Russia’s backyard – Central Asia.

While Europe’s resistance against Russia’s attempts at coercion is obvious, Central Asia’s opposition has by necessity been more nuanced. Economic dependency on Russia and its colonial designs isn’t easily shaken for a region so geographically isolated sharing an indefensible border with Russia and China. Nevertheless, today it is absorbing Russian refugees, expanding economic cooperation with the EU, complying with sanctions, liberalizing, and challenging Putin.

The West must understand the groundswell of anti-Russian sentiment that is sweeping Central Asia while understanding the structural constraints facing these governments. An Atlantic Council event “How can Kazakhstan and Central Asia power and feed the world?”, for a forthcoming report by Margarita Assenova, Ariel Cohen, and Wesley Alexander Hill elucidates many of these problems and solutions.

The biggest issue is that the existing transit infrastructure and corridors connecting Central Asia to Europe pass through Russia. Alternative routes through Iran, Afghanistan, and China are all geopolitically unpalatable. The only remaining route is west, over the Caspian Sea and through the Caucasus into Turkey and beyond. This Middle Corridor and the associated Trans-Caspian Pipeline finally have the political will for implementation.

This idea has languished for decades since Kazakhstan’s first president Nursultan Nazarbayev pushed for the Middle Corridor via his multi-vector foreign policy strategy. Russia’s ephemeral cooperation with the West and Europe’s conscious dependency on cheap Russian gas blocked its implementation.

The time for regrets and geopolitical pondering about the Middle Corridor is over. Now it is time for action. If Central Asia and especially Kazakhstan can augment its energy production, gas infrastructure, and uranium conversion and enrichment facilities through Western investment, while utilizing the Middle Corridor, the West would gain a tremendous advantage over its authoritarian challengers. For their part, the investors which facilitate this would enjoy the considerable profits that come with connecting developing regions to the European markets, as Western companies like Boeing, General Motors, Chevron, and ENI have already discovered.

The Middle Corridor will not arise overnight. In the meantime, the West must carefully tend to its advantage. A total ban on all exports from Russia would close off the main trade route for Central Asia, including exports of oil, gas, and uranium ore. This would not only further drive up energy prices in Europe and contribute to global inflation but also inadvertently reinforce the region’s dependency on Moscow and possibly Beijing.

The region has simultaneously conformed to the West’s sanctions regime, voiced its displeasure of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and continued to mitigate Russian influence and the ominous expansion of Chinese influence by inviting Western influence and investment. With Russia’s influence waning, closer ties with the West are creating a favorable business environment for new actors in Kazakhstan. This requires increased engagement from the West. Europe has seized this opportunity; the U.S. is slow to follow despite US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent visit to Astana.

Despite its enormous economic potential, a groundswell of democratic enthusiasm and anti-Russian sentiment, and a desire to cooperate with the West, Central Asia is still overlooked by many US policymakers and investors. This underappreciation for a region with not only great profitability but also strategic relevance for the West could inadvertently reinforce Russian influence or pave the way for greater Chinese influence.

The West should invest in Kazakhstan and the rest of the region to balance Russia and China on its own terms, cover the vacuum left by Russia, and pose greater competition to the Chinese presence. This requires a strategic commitment from key Western actors; government, financial and industrial. The West on both sides of the Atlantic needs to find its “strategic spine” to define and defend its geopolitical and geoeconomic interests– or throw in the towel in the great power competition, something the U.S. cannot afford to do.