In early November 2025, the first meeting between the five Central Asian presidents-Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan – and the United States was held in  Washington as part of the ‘C5+1’ summit¹. This diplomatic platform is yet another illustration of  Central Asia’s strategic importance on the international stage. While this summit formalises  American ambitions in the region, it cannot hide the fact that the United States’ presence in  Central Asia is by no means a recent initiative. 

A Retrospective of the American Presence in the Region 

This region has been all the more sought after as US foreign policy has gradually evolved in the region. Whether in view of China’s rise in the region, with the launch of the  Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, with the arrival of Xi Jinping. After the war in  Afghanistan, which began under the administration of George W. Bush Jr. in 2001 and ended very recently in 2021. Or the war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022 and whose strategic repercussions should not be underestimated.  

The conflict has weakened Russia’s traditional role as a regional security provider,  opened new diplomatic and economic space for China, and compelled the United States to reconsider the relevance and sustainability of its engagement in the region. As a result,  Central Asian states now navigate an increasingly competitive environment in which the shifting balance of power between these major actors—Washington, Beijing, Ankara and  Moscow—reshapes their strategic choices, economic dependencies, and foreign policy autonomy. 

What’s the C5+1 Summit? 

Created under the Obama administration in 2015, the C5+1 platform was designed to strengthen political, economic, and security cooperation between the United States and the five Central Asian republics. The meeting on 6 November 2025 marks the 10th  anniversary of the first gathering, underscoring a decade of sustained diplomatic engagement. Traditionally, the format functions as an annual forum—held every  September—bringing together the six countries’ foreign ministers to address shared challenges such as regional connectivity, counterterrorism, climate resilience, and economic diversification.  

Although ministerial meetings form the backbone of the initiative, the platform occasionally rises to the presidential level. One notable example was the first-ever US–Central Asia leaders’ summit in September 2023, during which President Joe Biden met directly with his Central Asian counterparts, signalling Washington’s intention to elevate its strategic partnership with the region. Over time, the C5+1 has evolved into a key mechanism for dialogue, demonstrating both the growing geopolitical importance of  Central Asia and the United States’ interest in maintaining a stable, independent, and interconnected region². 

Few Important Dates of the C5+1 Meetings  

• 26 September 2015 – Creation of the C5+1 format by US Secretary of State John Kerry at the UN General Assembly.
• 1 November 2015 – First summit in Samarkand (Uzbekistan): joint declaration on cooperation in trade, transport and energy. 
• 3 August 2016 – Second summit in Washington, D.C.: launch of five cooperation projects  (counter-terrorism, business competitiveness, renewable energy, etc.). 
• 23 July 2018 – Summit in Tashkent (Uzbekistan): creation of security working groups with the US Institute of Peace. 
• 19 September 2023 – First summit at the head of state level, in New York during the UN  General Assembly. 
• 6 November 2025 – Second summit of heads of state, held at the White House  (Washington). 

Advancing Our Understanding of American Strategy  

Since the independence of the Central Asian republics (1991), the United States has sought to promote the emergence of a regional space capable of escaping the exclusive domination of Russia or China. In this context, Washington welcomed Turkey’s initiative to recognise these new states at an early stage and encourage their openness to the international system. This move helped to increase the number of actors capable of supporting the region’s political, economic and institutional transition, thereby reducing the risk of a strategic vacuum that Moscow or Beijing could have filled on their own. The gradual integration of Central Asia into a diverse global environment was therefore part of a broader American strategy: to multiply partnerships to preserve regional sovereignty and prevent the emergence of a Eurasian bloc too closely structured around its rivals. 

In a nutshell, we are seeing a revival of 20th-century American strategies: old problems call for old solutions. The idea is to prevent the formation of a Eurasian superpower  (Heartland, cf. Mackinder) without American involvement.  

The US strategy has gradually relied on the emergence of alternative players within the Eurasian space, among which Turkey occupies a special place. Although not aligned with all US positions, Ankara has, since the 1990s, promoted cooperation frameworks that are likely to reduce Central Asian countries’ historical dependence on Russia. The creation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in 1992, followed the same year by the establishment of the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) with Azerbaijan, helped to structure a space for political and economic connections stretching from the Caucasus to  Central Asia. For Washington, this regional continuum represents a lever for reconfiguring energy and trade routes, particularly through trans-Caspian projects, in order to link Europe, Turkey, and Central Asia more closely without passing through Russia. 

One of the main pillars of the US strategy is therefore based on promoting “westbound” energy and logistics infrastructure, i.e. infrastructure oriented towards Europe and, by extension, Western markets. As early as the 1990s, the United States supported major pipelines transporting gas and oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe, bypassing  Russian territory. Today, this logic continues with US support for the development of the  Middle Corridor, a vast network connecting Central Asia to Europe via the Caucasus and Turkey. This axis represents a direct geopolitical challenge to China and Russia: it provides an alternative to China’s new Silk Roads and destabilises Russian hegemony over Eurasian land routes. 

From this perspective, Central Asia is not just a buffer zone, but a pivot point in a system of interdependencies designed to reduce Western vulnerability to Russian and  Chinese pressure. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reinforced this perception:  Washington now considers Central Asia’s resilience and strategic autonomy to be a stabilising factor for the whole of Eurasia. This situation opens up new opportunities for security and defence cooperation, especially as the countries in the region pursue a multi-vector diplomacy seeking to balance Moscow, Beijing, Ankara, and Washington. For the  United States, supporting this strategy of balance means consolidating states capable of resisting coercive external pressures. 

Finally, the United States attaches increasing importance to the economic and legal conditions for regional development. Beyond infrastructure, the challenge is to create a more predictable investment environment capable of attracting Western capital.  Initiatives such as those in Kazakhstan—through dedicated institutions in Astana that facilitate FDI and bring local norms closer to international standards—are perfectly in line with the American vision. A more connected Central Asia, with greater legal transparency and integration into global value chains (critical minerals, agriculture, railways, port logistics), is, in Washington’s view, a Central Asia that is less dependent on Russified or Sinicised Eurasia. 

In this way, the depth of the US position in Central Asia is based on a combination of objectives:

• Preserving the political independence of states,
• Promoting alternative corridors,
• Facilitating Western investment,
• Supporting security, stability and encouraging diversification of regional partnerships.

Far from being reduced to a simple geopolitical rivalry, this strategy aims to integrate Central Asia into an open, pluralistic, and connected international order, in which the United States remains a key partner³. 

Beyond Immediate Horizons: Central Asia as a Rear Corridor to Indo-Pacific  

The relationship between the United States’ engagement in Central Asia and its strategic posture in the Indo-Pacific goes beyond immediate regional considerations.  Although policy documents and scholarly literature often treat the two spaces separately —one primarily continental, the other maritime—recent work shows that the marginalisation of Eurasia in traditional Indo-Pacific frameworks masks a geopolitical reality: the strategic depth offered by Central Asia can, if occupied by a rival, extend the reach of extra-regional actors to the margins of the Indo-Pacific. In other words,  controlling or influencing logistics, energy and infrastructure hubs in Central Asia indirectly contributes to strategic positioning in the Indo-Pacific region, via land corridors and  Eurasian supply networks⁴. 

Clearly, this dynamic is particularly tangible through the expansion of China’s BRI. The  BRI is not limited to economic infrastructure projects; it creates physical and institutional links that reduce logistical friction between China and Europe via Central Asia, increasing  Beijing’s strategic ‘depth’ on the continent. As Beijing promotes rail corridors, pipelines and energy projects, it is building levers of geo-economic influence that can be converted, in scenarios of enhanced cooperation between civilian actors and strategic interests, into logistical or diplomatic support capabilities for large-scale operations. The literature on Sino-American competition thus emphasises that China’s projection of influence towards the West is altering the balances that also shape security in the Indo-Pacific. 

For Washington, supporting the ‘resilience’ of Central Asian states (economic diversification, governance, energy security, access to critical technologies) is not just a matter of local stabilisation: it is also about preventing the creation of a continental space that a competitor could use to bypass or weaken key maritime and trading partners.  American diplomacy has institutionalised this objective through the C5+1 format and sectoral initiatives (critical minerals, economic governance, connectivity), which aim to offer investment alternatives and regional capacity partnerships. By strengthening the strategic autonomy and economic resilience of the Central Asian republics, the United  States is therefore seeking to reduce the ‘strategic depth’ exploitable by Beijing and, in turn, to protect the lines of communication and supply relevant to the Indo-Pacific. 

Presenting Central Asia as a ‘back corridor’ for the Indo-Pacific makes it possible to move beyond unproductive geographical divisions and integrate Eurasian risk management into a more holistic Indo-Pacific strategy. However, two methodological caveats are necessary: first, Central Asian states are actors with their own agency who actively negotiate between major powers; second, the conversion of economic advantages into geostrategic capabilities is neither mechanical nor inevitable—it depends on political and institutional choices and mutual perceptions. The most useful policy for  Washington and its partners will be one that combines structured assistance, respect for local sovereignty and credible offers of alternative investment. 

Final Note

The key ingredient that any power seeking to exert lasting influence in Central Asia—whether the United States, the European Union, China, Turkey, or even Russia —must confront the same fundamental reality: geopolitical ambition is unsustainable without an economic and legal environment capable of attracting and retaining investment. In a region where political stability coexists with administrative complexity, the creation of transparent, predictable, and internationally compatible regulatory frameworks becomes the decisive factor that separates symbolic engagement from genuine strategic footholds. 

Foreign investors, regardless of their origin, require trust in the place where they deploy capital. This trust depends less on rhetoric and more on the credibility of legal norms, the efficiency of institutions, and the fairness of dispute-resolution mechanisms. Central  Asian states that successfully adapt their business environments to global standards position themselves not only as recipients of investment but as indispensable partners in emerging Eurasian supply chains. 

Sooner or later, let us not forget that the real challenge for Central Asia is to move from being an object to a power, to have, as Raymond Aron said, “the ability to impose (or be able to impose) one’s will on other units”⁵.   The power that invests the most in the region while taking this aspect into account will surely be the one that benefits the most from the many riches that result.  

Title Image Courtesy: https://jamestown.org/

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of India and the Defence Research and Studies

References

1. https://www.state.gov/c51

2. https://www.rfi.fr/fr/asie-pacifique/20251106-asie-centrale-qu-est-ce-que-le-c5-1-réuni-pour-la- première-fois-à-washington-par-donald-trump 

3. I would particularly like to thank Ambassador Mehmet Fatih Ceylan for his insightful remarks on American interests in Central Asia at the conference organised by The Atlantic Council on 20  November 2025  

4. https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/101/4/1177/8178341? 

5.  Raymond Aron, Paix et guerre entre les nations, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 2004.