Central Asia is undergoing a profound transformation, where questions of domestic development and the region’s ability to act in a coordinated way are coming to the forefront. For many years, Central Asian states were viewed as fragmented, each pursuing separate strategies that often put them in competition. Today, however, shared challenges and growing interdependence are making gradual convergence increasingly likely.
The region now confronts common pressures such as water scarcity, energy imbalances, environmental degradation, and the fallout of instability in Afghanistan — issues that no single country can effectively address in isolation. Increasingly, regional platforms such as the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC) are being leveraged to mediate water-energy tradeoffs, while joint initiatives in transport, transit, and energy infrastructure foster new integration. Moreover, leading actors like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are pushing coordinated strategies — modernizing rail and aviation links, coordinating transboundary water allocations, and exploring nuclear cooperation — that point toward a more interconnected regional future.
Shared Challenges and Points of Convergence
The region faces problems that no country can solve alone. These include water shortages, energy imbalances, environmental risks, and instability in Afghanistan. Such challenges can be seen as both threats and opportunities, since they also represent areas of overlapping interest. Joint action in these fields can deliver more than fragmented national strategies.
Water is particularly important, remaining one of the most sensitive issues in interstate relations. Yet it also offers opportunities for coordinated action through existing regional platforms, such as the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia. The “water for energy” model is increasingly seen as a practical tool, already under discussion and applied in bilateral and multilateral projects.
Environmental issues are similarly shared. The disappearance of the Aral Sea, land degradation, air pollution, and glacier melt create threats that transcend national borders. Joint monitoring, data exchange, and coordinated adaptation measures, particularly within the United Nations Regional Centre for the Sustainable Development Goals for Central Asia and Afghanistan, opened in August 2025 in Almaty, could become a new direction for regional cooperation.
Afghanistan remains another risk factor that affects the security of the entire region. At the same time, transportation and energy projects linking Central Asia with South Asia through Afghan territory can turn a challenge into an opportunity. Reducing instability and integrating Afghanistan into regional trade and transit networks serves the interests of all Central Asian states.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as leading forces
To understand how closer integration might work in practice, it is useful to examine the strategies of the region’s two key players: Astana and Tashkent. The major agreements concluded by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with the United States in transport and aviation should be viewed not as isolated deals, but as evidence of the complementary strengths of the two largest economies in Central Asia.
Kazakhstan signed its largest locomotive contract to date with U.S. company Wabtec, a $4.2 billion agreement for 300 TE33A freight locomotives to be assembled at the Wabtec Kazakhstan plant in Astana, along with servicing support. This will modernize Kazakhstan’s rail fleet as part of large-scale infrastructure investment, including plans to upgrade 11,000 kilometers of track by 2029.
These projects aim to shorten transit routes from hubs such as Khorgos, Almaty, and Astana to the port of Aktau, while creating new Northern and Middle corridors to complement the Western Europe–Western China route. Kazakhstan already handles more than 80 percent of cargo transit from China to Europe. Its strategy gives priority to developing the Middle Corridor across the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, offering faster and more cost-effective freight options than traditional routes.
Meanwhile, Uzbekistan Airways has signed a contract with Boeing for 14 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, with an option for eight more. Deliveries are set to begin in 2031.
By modernizing its fleet and investing in aviation, Tashkent is positioning itself as a central hub for passenger and cargo traffic. For a landlocked country, air transport is a vital complement to overland routes. An expanded widebody fleet will increase passenger capacity, improve schedule reliability, and broaden the route network to link Central Asia with North America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific.
Together, these two strategies form the basis of a combined model of regional integration: rail and air transport reinforce each other rather than compete. Kazakhstan anchors land transit, while Uzbekistan anchors air connectivity. Together, these strategies point to growing opportunities for regional cooperation.
Prospects for gradual convergence
Step-by-step cooperation in transport, energy, and water management is shaping broader regional collaboration, with tangible results already visible.
The water ministries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are coordinating on transboundary distribution. From October 2024 to October 2025, Uzbekistan is set to supply about 16 billion cubic meters of water to Kazakhstan, which is 1.8 billion cubic meters directed to the North Aral Sea, 120 million cubic meters more than originally projected.
Energy cooperation is also expanding. Kazakhstan is advancing two nuclear power plants: one with Russia’s Rosatom at Ulken and another under preparation with China’s CNNC. Uzbekistan is pursuing a program with Rosatom that combines large-capacity reactors and small modular units, including in the Jizzakh Region. In August 2025, the two countries met in Tashkent to discuss nuclear energy development and a joint emergency response mechanism for energy facilities.
Together, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan account for the majority of Central Asia’s GDP and act as the region’s main decision-making centers. Their cooperation reduces competition for investment and strengthens Central Asia’s bargaining power with China, Russia, the U.S., Turkey, and the European Union.
It is too early to discuss a single political body, but gradual coordination in practical areas may lead to flexible new formats of cooperation that serve all Central Asian states. The key task is to turn shared problems into drivers of convergence. Integrating logistics, energy, and water management can enhance resilience, strengthen the region’s bargaining position, and help Central Asia move from being an object of external competition to an independent player shaping its own agenda in global politics.
In conclusion, Central Asia’s path toward integration is incremental but tangible. The overlapping dangers of drought, border water disputes, energy shortfalls, environmental threats, and regional instability — especially linked to Afghanistan — are shifting incentives toward cooperation. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as the largest economies and transit hubs, are already aligning policies in transport, aviation, water sharing, and nuclear energy to reduce competition and strengthen their collective bargaining power.
Cross-border infrastructure and energy projects (from modern rail corridors to synchronized nuclear planning) are concrete testbeds for deeper collaboration. While a formal political union remains off the table, these functional alliances may evolve into flexible governance formats offering all Central Asian states a means to act collectively. If sustained, this convergence could help the region transcend external pressures, bolster resilience, and chart a course as a more coherent actor in global affairs.
