Greater Central Asia has played an outsized role in ancient world history and now could be poised to play a critical role again. “World conquerors” from the region, such as Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane, swept through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, laying waste to the cities of great civilizations. Control of Eurasia - the huge land mass encompassing Europe and Asia - meant control of the known world. 

But the world moved on, and - while certainly Russia was expanding eastwards into the steppe in the 16th and 17th centuries - the commercial and colonial expansion of the rising powers in Western Europe was built on maritime routes and naval power, biting at the edges of Eurasia rather than controlling the interior. The United Kingdom, in particular, developed the world’s most extensive empire ever seen, earning the sobriquet, “The empire on which the sun never sets.”

But in 1904, British geographer Harold Mackinder challenged the concept of naval dominance that underpinned British global power. He posited, instead, a “Heartland Theory” that focused on the importance of land control in Eurasia. As he saw it, the proliferation of railways was allowing countries like Germany and Russia to move troops over great distances at greater speed, far faster than ships. This was, after all, the same year that the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed.

For many, the two World Wars proved Mackinder’s point: these were largely fights for control of the Eurasian landmass. However, in 1942 Nicholas Spykman, a Dutch-American political scientist, offered an alternative view - the “Rimland Theory.” In his telling, global power lay in controlling coastal Eurasia from Western Europe to Southeast and East Asia--the rim of Eurasia. For him, whoever controlled the ocean then controlled world trade and, hence, the world. Trade, not territory, was the key, with the most productive economies all located near the oceans.

Spykman’s theory played a part in the development of the U.S. containment policy of the USSR, and U.S. international dominance post-WW2, globalization and the collapse of the Soviet Union perhaps reinforced Spyker’s point. But even Spyker argued that a Eurasia under autocratic control would pose an unacceptable threat to U.S. security. 

In recent years, Mackinder’s Heartland Theory and the concept of Eurasia have received a new hearing. The rise of Communist China and its alliance with an increasingly autocratic, aggressiv Russia have started to ring alarm bells in Western capitals. In fact, Mackinder foresaw this. In his pivotal paper, he warned that a rising China might one day pose a supreme danger to “the world’s freedom” because it could combine its “oceanic frontage” with the resources of Eurasia.

China has for many centuries had a “frontier policy,” seeking to create strategic depth and defenses to nullify threats to China’s lands. The Great Wall of China is well-known, and control of Tibet and Xinjiang are two more recent obvious examples. 

In the modern era, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - as well as having commercial imperatives - provides a similar function in Central Asia. China is pushing back its frontier and expanding its influence into Eurasia.

Meanwhile, Russia is invading Ukraine and, thus, casting a shadow not only over Europe, but also the former Soviet states. There is clear concern in Caspian and Central Asian capitals about how the outcome of the Ukraine war will affect Russia’s attitudes towards them. And within the European Union, a sense of increasing illiberalism and pro-Russia attitudes in a number of countries is making a coherent EU policy towards Russia increasingly difficult.

Some of the renewed focus on Greater Central Asia stems from its potential role as a source of critical minerals that are needed for the green transition and for modern defense equipment, and in demand by the West as a way to break Chinese dominance of the supply of these minerals. China has repeatedly shown it is willing to use this dominance for broader reasons by imposing export curbs. 

Additionally, the Middle Corridor, a new overland rail route between China and Europe, designed to avoid Russia, draws comparison with the ancient Silk Route, with Central Asia a region that again connects, rather than divides, East and West. And just as the Silk Road helped the development of the towns and regions on its route, so the hope is that the Middle Corridor will provide an opportunity for the countries of Greater Central Asia, or the Greater Caspian Region, to trade with each other more and support their economic development.

But just as Mackinder worried about the impact of railways on control of Eurasia a century ago, so the West needs to avoid the Middle Corridor becoming a vehicle for China to increase its influence. There are already significant BRI investments in railways, roads and ports in the region, as well as the energy sector.

Equally, Western countries will need to work to ensure that the region becomes an alternative source of critical minerals rather than simply adding to Chinese domination. How can Western private firms compete fairly with state-owned or state-supported Chinese and Russian companies?

As for energy resources, while the focus nowadays tends to be on opportunities for green energy exports, the EU and the United States also need to take a view on how important the region’s oil and gas resources are. While Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan export to the west, the EU - despite its wish to wean itself off Russian gas - remains ambivalent about supporting the expansion of the Southern Gas Corridor from Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan export gas to China, and Kazakhstan to Russia and China, creating significant dependence. 

And so, while the EU - in the recent summit with the Central Asian 5 - has started to think more strategically about its interests and its leverage, with a focus on critical minerals, green energy, the Middle Corridor, and digital connectivity, it needs to ensure it remains engaged and focused. It needs to think about its offer. The Global Gateway investments are important. The plans to improve digital connectivity are important. But can the EU - and the West more generally - find ways to avoid Chinese domination of the telecoms sector and ways to avoid Russian and Chinese control of the information space? U.S. distraction and the cuts to support for media, including plans to defund  Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, feel like a strategic mistake at a time autocratic regimes are increasing their funding for propaganda and disinformation. There needs to be more engagement in the area of media and education, not less, together with access to objective information, as well as a stronger focus on promoting the English language.

It seems Türkiye recognizes the geopolitics at play in the region, and the establishment of the Organization of Turkic States will hopefully provide support for the states to look elsewhere than Russia and China. The West should be supporting this, as well as other initiatives that give the countries of the region more choices, more opportunities to connect to the outside world. 

In summary, Eurasia and Heartland Theory are back. The West needs to ensure that history pivots in its direction, and not in the direction of creeping autocratic control of the region.

This means taking a more coherent, more joined-up approach, looking at the Greater Caspian region, not separating the South Caucasus and Central Asia. This means focusing on interests. This means recognizing that the countries of the region have more choices in this era of multi-polarity, so the West needs to have a convincing - and positive - offer. And this means being more strategic, more geopolitical, looking for ways to counter the impact of China and Russia.

Of course, the countries themselves need to take view on what they want. A multi-vector or multi-aligned approach to foreign and security policy is understandable; the question for them is whether they have enough freedom of maneuver to achieve this, and what they need to do to preserve this freedom.