Russias Policy Toward Central Asia PDF Download

Essay from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Russia, grade: 1,0, Central European University Budapest, 34 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper analyzes the conditions of Russia's strategic reassertion in Central Asia since 2002 after a decade of relative neglect of the region. I start by assuming that Russia's power-before it can materialize as influence in distinct policy outcomes on the political-military, cultural and economic fields-has to go through certain "filters." These filters are, first, Russia's domestic process of policy formulation towards Central Asia; second, the process of state and nation-building within the region; and, third, the impact of policies pursued by other influential players in the region, most notably the U.S. and China. My main argument in this paper is that Putin's policy of a strategic reassertion has the biggest impact on the first filter (formulation of Russia's policy towards Central Asia) that leads to the reinvigoration of Russia's Central Asia policy. The structures of the second and third filters are far less effected by this policy change, but they provide levers Russia can use to exert its influence in the region. It is only after the first filter has been changed by Putin that Russia is now in a position to make more effective use of the levers provided by the second and third filter. The paper is structured as follows: in the first section, the conditions shaping the filters will be more precisely outlined, giving also consideration to changes that have occurred under Putin. In section two, the impact and interplay of the filters on fields such as security, culture and economic relations will be analyzed. Further, it will be scrutinized how Putin's strategic reassertion has altered this interplay. The final section looks what possible implications my argument has for the prediction of Russia's influence in Central Asia in the short- and mid-term future