Geopolitical Stipulation of Central Asian Integration

Farkhod Tolipov

Farkhod Tolipov is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at The National University of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. read more

The overall post-Soviet and post-Cold War transformation of the five Central Asian countries is multifaceted and complicated. New geopolitics has penetrated into almost all critically important spheres of post-Soviet transformation. Geopolitics even influences spheres such as national self-identification, which is traditionally regarded as having nothing to do with geopolitics. That is why one can assume that geopolitics stipulates regional integration as well. More precisely, regional integration for Central Asia is its response to geopolitical pressure from outside the region and its way of creating its new geopolitical status from within.