Wedged between Russia and China—the two biggest powers in Eurasia—Kazakhstan also manages to play the role of the United States’ biggest partner in Central Asia. In maintaining consistently good relations with Russia, China, and the United States all at the same time, Kazakhstan is performing a unique diplomatic balancing act. Yet as the confrontation worsens between the global powers, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Kazakhstan to maintain that geopolitical balance without getting drawn

Georgia’s main political vectors in the South Caucasus are cooperation for peace and stability as well as maintaining good neighbourly relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan

On June 10th 2021, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a decree to improve the country’s human rights record. He emphasised the rights of citizens with disabilities and victims of human trafficking as priority areas, in addition to ensuring the right to freedom of association, expression, and ‘public order’. The decree comes on the heels of two years of heightened dissent and protests in Kazakhstan, so what are the prospects for reform in the realm of civil liberties?

The countries of Central Asia have reason to be concerned about Afghanistan in the wake of the Western withdrawal. Yet it remains unclear how they will mitigate the security risks, and what major power support to do this might look like.

Kazakhstan’s focus on improving investor dispute resolution and prevention mechanisms has been an essential element of this success. A great deal has been done in recent years. Many countries around the world, especially those that have passed through similar transitions from other non-capitalist economic systems in their recent history, can draw useful lessons from Kazakhstan’s experience.

In Kazakhstan this week, the film director Oliver Stone presented his latest documentary, Qazaq: History of the Golden Man, an eight-hour hagiographic ode to the autocrat Nursultan Nazarbayev—a particularly grotesque move in a country where the government has been systemically stifling media ever since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

From the very beginning, Ukraine’s post-Soviet nation-building journey has been defined by competition between rival narratives that have sought to place the country within Russia itself. Conversely, the Western world has never quite managed to make up its mind about Ukraine and has generally adopted a cautious approach.

War is good for business, goes the old saying This adage is applicable to more than just defense industries. Some of the longest running international conflicts – between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Israel and the Palestinians, Morocco and Algeria-backed separatist organization Polisario, and India and Pakistan, all share several common denominators despite different cultures, histories, geopolitical positions, and political and economic climates.

Georgia has effectively abandoned its efforts to advance on the membership issue. True, the work on cooperation and various partnership packages, in itself important, continues. But the membership issue itself has been put on the back burner.

Mine contamination in the Karabakh region significantly affects the reconstruction process as well as killing civilians and servicemen. Azerbaijan has already started demining operations in the liberated areas using modern mine clearance techniques and technologies.