ABSTRACT
The extensive involvement of key world powers (USA, Russia, China and the European Union – EU) in Central Asian affairs is a key driver of the development of modern regionalism in this part of the world.1 This is a specificity of this region as compared to all other parts of the world. This involvement usually takes the form of different geopolitically motivated ‘projects’ of regionalism that somehow shape or re-shape the borders of the region (Kazantsev 2008). These ‘geopolitical projects’ are designed to isolate Central Asia from some parts of the world, and merge it with the other parts in accordance with the interests of the interested world power. Since there are many great powers involved and since one world power can support more than one project (for example, the USA has supported some ‘Silk Road’ projects, the ‘Wider Central Asia’ project linking Central and South Asia, the ‘Turkic world’ project centred on Turkey, development of cooperation with the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and so on), geopolitical pluralism between many partially realized, partially virtual projects arises (Kazantsev 2008). In my earlier publications I described this geopolitical pluralism as ‘geopolitical uncertainty’ (Kazantsev 2008, 2011). Uncertainty is always connected to different risks and inevitably creates serious obstacles for developments in this part of the world.
