Kazakhstan’s Middle Power Moment: From Balancer to Regional Organizer

In “What Is the Status of Middle Powers?”, Michel Duclos of the Institut Montaigne presents Kazakhstan as a test case for whether middle powers can still influence outcomes in an era of intensifying great power rivalry. Writing after the Regional Ecological Summit in Astana, which brought together nine heads of state around President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Duclos notes that Kazakhstan “plays a leadership role” among states navigating pressures between China and Russia. He also argues that Tokayev, drawing on his experience as a former senior UN official, is seeking to elevate Kazakhstan into an intermediate power on multilateral issues. That is a useful lens for understanding Tokayev’s foreign policy. Rather than treating Kazakhstan’s position between larger powers as a liability, he has sought to turn geography, energy resources, logistics, diplomatic reliability, and convening power into regional agency. The result is an emerging model of middle power leadership rooted not in confrontation, but in coordination, credibility, and practical cooperation. That assessment places Tokayev’s foreign policy in a broader category than traditional balancing. Kazakhstan’s importance does not rest only on its raw assets — uranium, oil, minerals, logistics, or its position along Central Asian land routes. It also rests on how Astana uses those assets: as a convening state, a reliable partner, and a practical organizer of regional cooperation. Under Tokayev, multi-vector diplomacy has become less a defensive posture than an operating strategy, aimed at keeping Kazakhstan open to multiple partners while building platforms others have reason to use. In that sense, Kazakhstan is being presented not simply as a state located between great powers, but as one increasingly able to give structure to the space between them. Moving from “balancer” to “regional organizer” is only possible if Kazakhstan turns geography, resources, and diplomacy into practical systems others have reason to use. The clearest operational evidence of this shift is transport. Kazakhstan’s geography has often been described as a constraint. It is landlocked, vast, and positioned between larger powers. But the growth of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, or Middle Corridor, allows Astana to recast that geography as a strategic advantage. In the first quarter of 2026, 125 container trains transited Kazakhstan via the Middle Corridor, a 34.4% increase from the same period in 2025. The Times of Central Asia also reported that freight volumes along the route through Kazakhstan have grown more than fivefold over seven years, from 0.8 million tons to 4.5 million tons annually. These figures show that Kazakhstan is not simply selling potential; it is building operational value into the corridor. This is where the idea of Kazakhstan as a regional organizer becomes concrete. A balancing state tries to avoid overdependence on any single power. An organizing state builds systems that others have a reason to use. If Kazakhstan can make the Middle Corridor faster, more predictable, more digitalized, and more commercially reliable, it is not merely balancing Russia, China, Europe, Türkiye, and the South Caucasus. It is creating connective tissue between them. World Bank analysis suggests that infrastructure...

Opinion: UK’s C6 Engagement and the Opportunity for British Geostrategic Renewal

Along with Nicholas Spykman, Sir Halford Mackinder is one of the most pre-eminent thinkers in the field of geopolitics. Whilst today geopolitics is a term used interchangeably with “world affairs,” “international relations,” and “foreign policy,” Spykman and Mackinder used the phrase to describe the narrow academic study of how geography influences international relations and the conduct of states. In the 1904 paper, The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinder theorized that the key to controlling the balance of power in the world rested in a “heartland” of Eurasia, comprising Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Mackinder described the heartland region as the “pivot region” for regional and global hegemony. The word “pivot” has recently been popularized in international relations, with examples including President Obama’s pivot to the Pacific and Britain’s Indo-Pacific pivot in the 2021 Integrated Review. In 1997, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski built on Mackinder’s ideas in his work, The Grand Chessboard. Brzezinski defined a geopolitical pivot as being “determined by their geography, which in some cases gives them a special role either in defining access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player. In some cases, a geopolitical pivot may act as a defensive shield for a vital state or even a region.” To Mackinder and Brzezinski, Central Asia was a crucial geostrategic pivot. Central Asia - comprising the five states of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, collectively termed the C5 - is located between China, Russia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Thus, the near abroad of the region is defined by conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Iran and Israel/U.S., and between Taliban-run Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pragmatic engagement is a necessity for the C5 but has not stopped them from pursuing greater diversification in security and economic arrangements, and they remain committed to U.S.-led diplomatic initiatives. Faced with a regionally assertive superpower in China, risks created by Russia’s war in Ukraine, theocratic Iran, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Central Asia has continued to show its desire to build and deepen its economic and security partnerships from beyond traditional powers – such as China and Russia – to states in the Gulf, the Caucasus, Western Europe, and elsewhere. The United Kingdom has emerged as a new and important partner. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised concerns in the Central Asian states about its regional revisionism, territorial ambitions, and Putin’s reconstruction of the Soviet Union. In 2014, Putin credited Nursultan Nazarbayev with having “created a state in a territory that had never had a state before,” adding that “the Kazakhs never had any statehood.” The remarks sparked anger in Kazakhstan and fed concern about Moscow’s view of post-Soviet sovereignty. Finally, Putin said that it would be best for Kazakhstan to “remain in the greater Russian world.” In The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski predicted that “Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians.” Central Asia has been a...