With the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, Central Asia could become an arena of increased great power competition. Russia and China, each with their own vested interests in the region, are now likely to fill the power vacuum of great power influence.

The responses of the ex-Soviet states of Central Asia – Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan –  suggest they are intent on ensuring that instability and the looming terrorist threat in Afghanistan does not spill beyond its borders. In the wake of American forces leaving Afghanistan, how will great powers navigate relations with the historically volatile Central Asian region? What spill-over effects will the rise of the Taliban have on its regional neighbours?

Dr Shuhrat Baratov teaches at the University of Canberra and the Australian National University. He has a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the Australian National University, and a Masters from the University of Tsukuba. He has a keen academic interest in International Relations theories, Foreign Policy Analysis, Regional Security, Eurasia and Central Asia, and has previously worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

Dr Raihan Ismail is an ARC DECRA fellow and a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, ANU. She was the co-recipient of the Max Crawford Medal in 2018, awarded by the Australian Academy of the Humanities for ‘outstanding achievement in the humanities by an early-career scholar’. Her research interests include Political Islam, sectarianism, and the intertwining nature of religion and politics in the Middle East.

Dr Johan Engvall is a Deputy Research Director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). He is a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with Johns Hopkin’s School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C. and the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP). He holds a PhD in Government from Uppsala University.

Dr Kirill Nourzhanov is a Senior Lecturer and Convenor of PhD Studies at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University. His main research specialisation is on Central Asian politics and international relations, but his interests also cover Islamic radicalism, Eurasian geopolitics and the history of the former USSR.

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