Biden Takes Aim at Putin’s Soft Underbelly in Central Asia

Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year sent shock waves round the world, particularly in Russia’s immediate neighborhood, where many countries feared they could be next. 

The five Central Asian nations that, like Ukraine, were once part of the Soviet Union have refused to endorse the war while also pursuing a delicate balancing act as they seek to avoid antagonizing the Kremlin. China, for its part, continues to seek economic and security inroads into what has been Moscow’s backyard for two centuries. For the United States, the jolt to the global chessboard brought about by the war has created a fresh opening to deepen ties with Central Asia as the region seeks to fend off its two increasingly assertive giant neighbors.

This was on full display at the United Nations this week as U.S. President Joe Biden sat down with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan on the sidelines of the General Assembly. It marked the first time that the group had met at the presidential level since the inception of the so-called C5+1 format in 2015. The leaders discussed security issues and regional economic connectivity as well as governance and rule of law, according to a readout by the Biden administration. 

“I suspect the Central Asian leaders will appreciate that they finally are getting highest-level attention from this U.S. president for the first time,” said George Krol, a retired U.S. diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. “The administration is trying to up its image in the region after basically ignoring it after the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” he said. 

For decades, the U.S. approach to Central Asia was seen through the prism of the war in Afghanistan, with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan hosting U.S. air bases and logistics hubs to support the war effort. The ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 sparked concerns about a broader retreat from the entire region. But if Central Asia was the doorstep of the war on terror, which defined U.S. foreign policy for two decades, its geography today places it squarely within the locus of the great-power competition playing out in Eurasia’s heartland.

Washington has, wars on terror aside, spent years ginning up ambitious plans to play a bigger role in a region long dominated by its two main geopolitical rivals. Under former President Barack Obama, hopes of forging a New Silk Road that would tame terror and bring prosperity went nowhere. The Trump administration gave it a go, issuing a Central Asia strategy in 2020 as it sought to lock horns with China. Now it is the Biden administration’s turn to try its hand at the great game.

No sitting president has ever paid a visit to the region, but Biden told Central Asian leaders, “I look forward to seeing you soon, possibly in one of your countries.” (A senior administration official said that there were no plans in the works for Biden to visit the region.) But a flurry of high-level engagements this year suggests that Washington sees an opening to finally and fully deepen its engagement with the region. Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan earlier this year, becoming the first cabinet-level official of the Biden administration to visit the region. USAID Administrator Samantha Power is also expected to visit the region shortly, said the senior U.S. official, speaking on background under ground rules set by the administration. 

“It’s definitely an opening for the United States and Europe to build stronger relations and try to revitalize security cooperation and try to attract investors from the West and Europe to come to Central Asia,” said Erica Marat, an associate professor at the National Defense University. “I think there is a general sense among the political class that Russia is a declining power,” she said. 

Central Asian leaders have long sought to balance their neighborhood superpowers Russia and China, with an increased U.S. presence providing useful leverage, if not a lifeline. 

“Central Asia doesn’t want to become overwhelmed by Russia and China,” said Nargis Kassenova, the director of the Central Asia program at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. 

Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine in 2022 upped the ante significantly. With a shared history in the Soviet Union and strong cross-border economic and security relationships, Moscow had long taken the region for granted, said Kassenova. Despite extensive ties, Central Asian leaders have distanced themselves from Russia’s assault on Ukraine, with Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek leaders voicing their support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. None of the Central Asian states supported Moscow’s assault on Ukraine during a series of landmark votes at the United Nations last year, even if they did not go so far as to reject it outright, opting to abstain instead. 

As Russia contends with international isolation and punishing Western economic and financial sanctions, its relations with the region have become all the more important for Moscow, Krol said. Just this week, Russia announced sharp curtailments of exports of gasoline and diesel products—with a carve-out for Central Asia.

“The war in Ukraine has made the region more vital to Russia because of the flows of goods and services to Russia to compensate for sanctions, boosting the economies of nearly all the states,” he said. 

Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan in particular, has served as an important backdoor for sanctioned military equipment to make its way to Russia to support the war effort. It’s unclear to what extent governments are privy to or able to stop the flow of blacklisted goods into Russia, particularly from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which are part of a customs union with Moscow. 

Biden raised the issue with Central Asian heads of state at the summit on Tuesday, said the senior administration official, who described sanctions evasion as a “complicated picture.”

 “I think we’ve seen a broad desire across the region not to get on the wrong side of U.S. and other G-7 sanctions on Russia,” they said.

While the shifting balance of power in the region may have created an opening for Washington, many of the constraints are coming into play are the same ones that defined the region during the war on terror. While the Biden administration talks up human rights and democratic reforms, none of the countries Biden met with this week are poster children for democracy or civil liberties. Freedom House described four of the five as “consolidated authoritarian regimes,” while Turkmenistan continues to be one of the world’s most closed countries. Liberal impulses may become a casualty of U.S. desires to restore its influence in a crossroads region and curb encroachments by major rivals.

“They and the U.S. will pay lip service to such reforms and human rights,” Krol said. “But in the end, the Central Asian leaderships are statist to the core, and the U.S. strategically does not want to estrange the Central Asians in its competition with China and its conflict with Russia, and consign them over to their big neighbors.”