Chief political result of the year: US hegemony weakened

Such conclusion can be drawn from the results of the round table "US Policy in Central Asia" that recently was carried out by the "Institute of Analysis and Prognostication Kazakhstan-USA."

This research centre is among the most conservative Kazakhstani institutes and study groups on foreign politics. It was created by representatives of the elder generation of national political scientists and economists, therefore some of their conclusions can sound harsher, than among other, "younger" expert collectives. It shows that there are varying points of view on the most important political issues in the expert community of Kazakhstan.

A headline speech of the round table was delivered by professor Orazaly Sabden, State premium laureate, president of the"Institute of Analysis and Prognostication Kazakhstan-USA." A natural departure point in the analysis of any aspect of relations with America is stating the dependence of the Central Asian region on the US geopolitical hegemony. Moreover Central Asia is traditionally regarded as an arena at which US interests encounter interests of other powers aspiring to dominate in this region - Russia and China, - professor Sabden noted.

The complicated geopolitical situation is aggravated for Kazakhstan in this context by US attempts to fulfil a famous thesis of creating a "strategic barrier" around Russia from other CIS republics and Baltic states on the territory of the ex-USSR.

Due to the fact that this "barrier" includes according to classical schemes of the US political technology also some our Central Asian neighbours, Kazakhstan is finding itself in this scheme on the border between the US and Russian zones of influence.

That is the geopolitical situation in which big powers are competing is being generally reproduced in this concrete geopolitical scheme.

The situation is getting more and more complicated. On the one hand, Americans do not want Russia to strengthen its influence in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, on the other hand this Russian influence counterbalances China and the Islamist movement. "Washington faces a difficult task in this region," - professor Sabden observed. It is also aggravated by the traditional rivalry between the Pentagon and the State Department that has always existed in foreign politics. "The state department politics is optimal and well-founded," - Mr. Sabden said.

In general the picture sketched by the professor, has existed more or less stably for several years already. So why are national experts paying attention and attracting public to it only now? One of the most important reasons is that the United States has committed a number of serious errors in the region, it's attitude to Uzbekistan included.

- The Americans were carrying out a double game with regard to Uzbekistan, but their politicians and analysts got mistaken in their prediction, so the US policy on this country ended up in a complete fiasco. The usage of double standards in their approach is far from causing a growth of confidence of our peoples in the United States of America, - the expert believes.

This moment can be regarded as a point of departure for those cautiously conservative attitudes in the Kazakhstani expert community that were expressed at the round table. The fiasco of the Americans with regard to Uzbekistan, when first a gradual modernisation of the republic had been declared, then after the Andijan events the official relationship with Tashkent worsened, showed to all that the American politics and expert estimations were far from being omniscient and always successful. It is nothing special in theory - who is safe from mistakes? But at the practical level it is a very important moment for the regional countries: all observers note that the geopolitical situation around Central Asia and Kazakhstan is directly connected to contradictions between big powers.

And serious errors in the policies of one of them cannot avoid provoking rupture of the established geopolitical balance in the region.

This balance is the most important thing for Kazakhstan among other political results of the year.

At the same time the official rapprochement between Astana and China, their intensifying co-operation on infrastructural projects look much more justified and timely with regard to the American errors.