In June 2011, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), an influential Eurasian regional grouping consisting of Russia, China and four Central Asian Republics (CARs)—Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan—formally approved a ‘memorandum of obligation’, which will now enable non-member countries to apply for SCO membership. India is an observer in the SCO and has expressed its desire to play a larger and more meaningful role as a full member of the organisation.

• Meena Singh Roy
• July 2012
• Strategic Analysis

This article develops the message that the artificially introduced administrative borders during the Soviet era, which were subject to the processes of re-delimitation after 1991, whether for reasons of security, administration, mutual distrust or the population's ethnic attachment, have become results and means of political manipulation and pressurisation. This has resulted in further pushing regional states to follow mutually exclusive policies.

• Timur Dadabaev
• July 2012
• Strategic Analysis

We must prove to the world community that a new political culture takes root in Kyrgyzstan and a new political strategy supported by people will have a future. A return to the past will imminently lead to the restoration of totalitarianism and a clannish government. We must learn a lesson from the past. Life will show how suitable the parliamentary system is for our community. Our people had lived in the conditions of a nomadic democracy for thousands of years, preserving their traditions and values in difficult times of history.

• Meena Singh Roy
• March 2011
• Strategic Analysis

This article examines the strategic importance of Turkmenistan for India in respect of: energy resources; transit potential; and proximity to Afghanistan and Iran. It argues that India's economic potential, its liberal-democratic values, its pluralistic structure, secular fabric, military strength, strong financial, scientific and technological capabilities make it the most desirable partner for all the five Central Asian republics.

• Meena Singh Roy
• July 2011
• Strategic Analysis

Everything is geopolitical in Central Asia where the newly independent state (NIS) Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are located. In other words, the major international political events in the region and most fateful political turns in regional developments bear, or are saturated with, geopolitical essence.

• Farkhod Tolipov
• July 2011
• Strategic Analysis

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.

• Farkhod Tolipov
• January 2010
• Strategic Analysis

The expiry of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty-1 (START-1) in 2009 and an urgent need to conclude a new US-Russian agreement on strategic nuclear weapons so that the oldest and biggest nuclear powers demonstrate some progress in implementing Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in proximity of the 2010 NPT Review Conference has drawn international attention to the interface between the progress/crisis in nuclear disarmament and strengthening/weakening of the NPT regime.

• Alexander Nikitin
• March 2010
• Strategic Analysis

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to India on March 11–12, 2010 signifies the beginning of a new phase in Indo-Russian friendship. In fact, this visit needs to be viewed in the context of the changing geopolitical and geo-economic realities in the international system.

• Meena Singh Roy
• July 2010
• Strategic Analysis

The energy sector since the mid-2000s has acquired top priority in Russian state affairs, but since late 2008 it has also become the epicentre of the economic disaster that still continues to affect Russia. President Medvedev has effectively discarded the notion of Russia as an 'energy super-power' and is now focusing on 'modernisation' for Russia's development. But coherence of this course is problematic because the bulk of new investments must go into the energy sector in order to sustain the high revenues.

• Pavel K. Baev
• November 2010
• Strategic Analysis

• P. Stobdan
• January 2009
• Strategic Analysis

The Central Asian states have had to deal with significant economic and security challenges in the wake of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

• Jason Wahlang
• April 27, 2022
• IDSA Comments

The Russia–Ukraine conflict has put Kazakhstan’s foreign policy to a severe test. Though there are similarities between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the NATO factor doesn’t exist in the case of the latter. In Kazakhstan’s approach to the Russia–Ukraine conflict, it is possible to discern a distinct tilt towards Russia.

• Gitesh Sarma
• April 12, 2022
• IDSA Comments

Bilateral relations between India and Greece have grown steadily over the years. A few additional steps can further enhance and deepen the strategic cooperation between the two countries.

• Ioannis E. Kotoulas
• April 07, 2022
• IDSA Comments

While the end state of the Russia–Ukraine conflict is still afar, an analysis of the conflict and war fighting so far, shows that there are enough early lessons for the strategic and military practitioners to decipher and take note of.

• Deepak Kumar
• March 28, 2022
• Issue Brief

The Ukrainian crisis is less about Ukraine, its national politics and foreign policy, and more about redefining the rules not only of the European security but also the international order and the simmering rivalry between great powers in particular.

• Swasti Rao
• February 15, 2022
• Issue Brief

China’s growing military presence in Central Asia through military exercises, trainings, extending arms assistance and building military infrastructure, has an impact not only on the region but also its neighbours, especially Russia and India.

• Deepak Kumar
• February 03, 2022
• Issue Brief

The French Presidency has come at a time when the EU needs a liberal and strong nation at the helm of affairs, which can fine-tune relations with other European countries and stand strong for its principles and values. France fits the deal.

• Anandita Bhada
• January 25, 2022
• IDSA Comments

Emmanuel Macron has been aiming high for the EU to reiterate its global positioning through a series of policy reforms. With him at the helm of the Council of the EU, there exists an opportunity to translate it into reality.

• Swasti Rao
• January 24, 2022
• Issue Brief

In order to maintain a semblance of balance in its ties with its two key strategic partners, Kazakhstan would perhaps have to leverage its geo-strategic importance for both Moscow and Beijing to navigate the new Arctic route.

• Jason Wahlang
• January 19, 2022
• IDSA Comments

Triggered by the recent hike in auto gas prices, the current crisis in Kazakhstan appears to be an expression of the long-term frustrations of common Kazakhs with the political system.

• Deepak Kumar
• January 12, 2022
• IDSA Comments