The US’ geostrategy to prevent a revival of a strong Russia is manifesting in new ways in Central Asia. US President Donald Trump is systematically attempting to penetrate the post-Soviet south.
First Transcaucasia, now Central Asia
With the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, a unique opportunity arose for the US and NATO to change the course of world events in their favor through the formation of a unipolar world order. While analyzing the consequences of the collapse of the USSR in his book “The Grand Chessboard”, the famous American geopolitician Zbigniew Brzezinski defined a new US strategy to prevent the revival of a strong Russia based on zones of its historical responsibility (i.e., the post-Soviet space).
Here, the US assigned a priority role to Ukraine, excluding all forms of Russian-Ukrainian integration, which would allow Russia to gain geostrategic resilience and revive as a new power. Excluding a union between Russia and Ukraine, Brzezinski predicted an Asian prospect for Russia. The US made exceptional efforts to change the ruling regime in Kiev and to initiate a protracted Russian-Ukrainian conflict with the aim of depleting the economic and military resources of our country (the old imperial principle of “divide and rule”).
From the mid-1990s, the US and the UK began implementing long-term projects to penetrate the Caspian energy region, firstly focusing on the oil and gas resources of Azerbaijan. Only five years passed from the signing of the first oil and gas “contracts of the century” with Azerbaijan on September 20, 1994, to the determination of the main route for new energy communications (oil and gas pipelines) bypassing Russia through Georgia and Türkiye to Europe in 1999. In 2006, this pipeline system was launched, which over time transformed into the Southern Gas Corridor.
Given its advantageous geographical position (in particular, its access to the Caspian Sea), Azerbaijan, according to Z. Brzezinski, was to become a pivotal regional player and ensure the penetration of the US and Western capital into the resource-rich Central Asia. For these purposes, the UK actively used allied relations with Türkiye and the Turkic factor in initiating broad integration of Turkic states under the leadership of Ankara, turning Anatolia into a crucial transit zone for the export of strategic raw materials from the post-Soviet south to the West.
Following Azerbaijan’s military success in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, where Türkiye played a particularly important diplomatic and military role, new opportunities for Turkic integration emerged (including the establishment of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) and the resolution of territorial contradictions between the Turkic countries of the CIS). Azerbaijan began to view itself as a regional leader and a connecting link on the path of international transit of goods from Central Asia and China to the West.
The idea of a Middle Corridor within the framework of the Chinese “Belt and Road” mega-project allowed Baku and Ankara to form new transit routes to Europe via Türkiye. Thus, Azerbaijan is trying to use its victory in Karabakh in connection with the Zangezur Corridor (through the Meghri region of Armenia) to connect with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and Türkiye.
Yerevan initially tried to resist the corridor for regional communications purposes (especially after the 10-month blockade of the Lachin Corridor and the September 2023 events with the mass deportation of Karabakh’s Armenian population). During this period, Kazakhstan, through its diplomatic mission in Yerevan, repeatedly tried to convince the Armenian leadership of the expediency and economic benefits of opening the Zangezur Corridor, which would allow Central Asian countries, considering anti-Russian sanctions, to use this route for international trade with Europe.
In the end, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan not only abandoned defending the rights of the Karabakh Armenians to self-determination and in the autumn of 2022 in Prague recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, but also, together with President Ilham Aliyev on August 8, 2025, signed the well-known Washington Agreements on the so-called “Trump Road” in Zangezur. Based on how it is expected to operate (i.e., non-stop and without controls), Azerbaijan and Türkiye call it the Zangezur Corridor. The US plans to obtain a 99-year lease on this road and 50% of the transit of all trade along the West-East line and back.
The Washington Agreements pave the way for the US to Central Asia. In recent years, under the auspices of the OTS and within the framework of regional and bilateral ties, multifaceted contacts (cultural, economic, political, military) between Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia have intensified. Particular attention is paid to energy and transit cooperation. Azerbaijan is becoming an important guest at regional forums. The leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with great optimism and hope, welcomed the Washington Agreements on the Zangezur Corridor, which, as Pashinyan noted at a recent Yerevan forum at the Orbeli Center, presents special economic prospects and benefits for all Central Asian countries.
Donald Trump, who often confuses the names of Armenia and Azerbaijan, likes to take credit for achieving Armenian-Azerbaijani peace in a couple of hours. In reality, a declaration of peace was signed in Washington, peace itself was not achieved. However, the US has begun studying the technical details of implementing the “Trump Road” in Armenia and has increased cooperation with the leaders of Central Asian countries to conclude new economic deals.
Possible regional security risks of the US’ strategy of hegemony
As a rule, major world conflicts sprout from insurmountable economic contradictions between key players. In this context, important international transit routes often become a subject of disagreement and confrontation.
In October 2022, at the Summit of Central Asian Countries and Russia in Astana, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon noted that in recent years the region’s rich resources have attracted close attention from various external players; however, no investments followed. In 2025, though, Central Asia again became an object of special attention from the West, namely the EU and the US.
On April 4, Central Asian countries and the EU met at a summit in Samarkand to discuss issues of economic, energy, trade, and investment cooperation, as well as the development of transport infrastructure. Brussels promised Central Asia 12 billion euros for projects in the field of transport (development of the Trans-Caspian transport corridor via Azerbaijan), energy, rare earth raw materials (uranium, lithium, manganese), and digital technologies.
Seven months later, on November 6, a similar summit was held in Washington, where Central Asian leaders and the US discussed more or less the same issues. Ahead of the summit, Kazakhstan tried to lobby for Azerbaijan’s participation given its key regional and transit role. The idea of transforming the C5+1 into C6+1 was also proposed by US diplomat Richard Hoagland, a prominent member of the Caspian Policy Center, but Trump decided otherwise.
In Washington, a number of economic and political agreements were signed (for example, an agreement with Uzbekistan on $35 billion worth of investments in the US economy, with Kazakhstan on investing $1 billion in tungsten deposit development, Astana’s accession to the Abraham Accords with Israel, etc.).
Trump called this summit a historical event for Central Asia’s development, again criticizing his predecessors for their political short-sightedness and insufficient attention to the richest resources of this region. In turn, the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, mirroring their colleagues from Azerbaijan and Armenia, tried to show their willingness to comply and did not spare praise for Donald Trump (calling him a “great leader,” “sent by God,” “president of peace,” etc.).
Usually Washington generously dishes out promises to its partners on investment and security, but does not always keep them. Ukraine is a clear example of this.
Meanwhile, the US consistently tries to eliminate potential threats to the advancement of its interests towards the raw material resources and transit routes of the post-Soviet south. The US is waging a hybrid war, combining economic, information, and military methods. The protracted Russian-Ukrainian military-political crisis was initiated by the US to deplete Russian resources and to divert Moscow’s attention from the post-Soviet south. The joint American-Israeli strike on Iran in June 2025 was aimed at weakening the regional capabilities of the Islamic Republic. The US trade and tariff war with China is designed to divert Beijing’s attention from Moscow, bringing the land route for transit of goods through Central Asia and Transcaucasia to Türkiye and Europe under American control.
The US already had a negative experience of entering Central Asia militarily (2001–2021), i.e., the airbase for transporting equipment for the fight against international terrorism in Afghanistan (Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, organizations banned in the Russian Federation). Now Trump has changed the reasoning for re-engaging with Central Asia from military to economic.
However, in practice, there is a certain lag between the declaration of plans and agreements and their implementation. Russia, Iran, and China remain the largest actors in Eurasia. Attempts to bypass the economic and geopolitical interests of this triad will objectively create new threats to regional and global security, as no one will want to lose an 80-million-strong market (Central Asia + Transcaucasia), as well as access to rich resources and communications. Moreover, the US and Europe view the post-Soviet south not only as a raw material appendage and transit infrastructure but also in terms of a cordon sanitaire between Russia and the countries of the Global South, where NATO forces will be stationed.
As these summits and agreements between the EU and the US with the countries of the Transcaucasia and Central Asia have shown, the issue of transport corridors remains sensitive. The fate of the 42 km transit section in the Zangezur mountains in southern Armenia, where Russian FSB border troops are stationed near the border with Iran, is particularly delicate.
Alexander SVARANTS—Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Turkologist, expert on Middle Eastern countries
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