{"id":1059,"date":"2020-03-03T12:03:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T16:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/?p=1059"},"modified":"2022-01-19T08:27:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T12:27:44","slug":"russia-as-a-regional-hegemon-dr-eugene-huskey-on-linkages-and-leverages-in-central-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/2020\/03\/03\/russia-as-a-regional-hegemon-dr-eugene-huskey-on-linkages-and-leverages-in-central-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia as a Regional Hegemon: Dr. Eugene Huskey on Linkages and Leverages in Central Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Nancy Pellegrino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, February 24th, the\nHavighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies welcomed its second guest\nlecturer of the semester, Dr. Eugene Huskey, a professor emeritus from Stetson\nUniversity and expert on Kyrgyzstan. His talk focused on how Russian relations\nin Central Asia contribute to the Spring Colloquia\u2019s theme of \u201cRussia in the\nWorld\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes up Central Asia? The five\ncountries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan\nare fixed between Russia, China, and the Middle East and are rich in minerals,\nwater, and other natural resources. These predominantly Muslim countries\noperate under different forms of government, ranging from the staunchly\nauthoritarian Turkmenistan to the unstable democracy in Kyrgyzstan. However,\nnot too long ago, these countries welcomed the modernization, healthcare, and\npolitical stability that their admittance into the USSR provided them. Their\nhistory from Soviet times provides context for the multilateral relations in\nthe region now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central Asia is of great\ngeopolitical strategic value to Russia. Its location acts as a buffer zone\nbetween Russia and the Middle East. Its amount of migrant workers and students\nin Russia and the presence of Russian populations in capital cities makes the\nregion a \u201csphere of privileged interest\u201d. Russia involvement in\nCentral Asia<\/a>n\neconomics, political events and organizations, and military has created the\nsystem of linkages and leverages. Huskey defined linkages as \u201cthe stable\nconnections binding people and institutions of one country to another\u201d, and\nleverages as the \u201cuse of advantages and vulnerabilities\u201d to exploit smaller\npowers at the will of the other\u2019s leader. This system is so formidable, Huskey\nargued, that Russia will likely remain the region\u2019s \u201cindispensable guarantor\u201d\nin the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strengthening cultural and\nlinguistic ties has been a big source of Russian soft power in Central Asia.\nDespite the recent revival of titular languages (languages native to the people\nthe countries are named after), Russian is still the lingua franca of the\nregion and among elites. Huskey shared that Russian language schools often tend\nto offer better instruction and there has been increased efforts by Russia in\nthis area and in providing scholarships for migrant students. Though Russian\nand Chinese presence leaves little room for American influence, there is a\nsmall American university in Kyrgyzstan. Russia also acts as a gatekeeper for\nworld culture to Central Asia since most of their media about the world is\nfiltered through a Russian state-media broadcast. Separate from this exposure,\nRussia uses their military and financial support to forcefully encourage their\nCentral Asian partners to align their regional and international interests with\nRussia. Though Russia is the major power in most inter-governmental\norganizations that Central Asian countries prescribe to, like the Collective\nSecurity Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Agreement, there have\nstill been questions about China’s future role in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To end his lecture, Huskey addressed these questions about the threat of Chinese investment and interests in Central Asia to Russia\u2019s sphere of influence. He first argued that Chinese linkages in the region are predominantly impersonal and economic. While China has expanded Confucius institutions for Chinese language and culture, they have not been received like Russian efforts. China\u2019s foreign policy towards Central Asia does not involve rhetoric similar to creating the \u201cRussian World\u201d or appealing to their \u201ccompatriots abroad\u201d, and therefore, will not be as effective. In conclusion, the international community should anticipate a continuation of Russian-Central Asian partnership in the years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nancy Pellegrino is a second year student majoring in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and Diplomcy and Global Politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nancy Pellegrino On Tuesday, February 24th, the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies welcomed its second guest lecturer of the semester, Dr. Eugene Huskey, a professor emeritus from Stetson University and expert on Kyrgyzstan. His talk focused on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":781,"featured_media":1060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colloquium-talks","category-lecture_reviews","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}