CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 50

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE: WHAT IS BISHKEK’S HEDGING STRATAGEM?
As the investigation has stated, Russia and China have emerged as two
distinctive contenders for the dominant position over Central Asia, both with
contrasting designs of political order. The re-emergence of Russia has
specifically focused on its geographical periphery, tasked with reviving as
much influence over the former Soviet territories. This constitutes large scale
geopolitical re-structuring for what has been dubbed the ‘Russia-plus’
apparatus, insinuating the re-emergence of a Kremlin-centric order insulated
by subordinate buffer states under a tight or significantly dominant security
arrangement with overlapping economic dependency, largely fuelled by
cognitive insecurity of buffer failure in the Second World War. 18 Following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been striving to regain its global
power status, legitimising this post-Cold War grand strategy by putting forth
its “privileged interests”. In this context, Dmitri Trenin observes that Russia
has reiterated its engagement strategies with the “near abroad” and claims
geopolitical supremacy. The Kremlin clearly emphasises its leading role in
regional institution-making and military presence, despite a significant
dearth of power capabilities. 19 Taken as a paradigm, it can be suggested that
a Kremlin-centric hegemony desires a high degree of authority over
subordinates in matters of security and economy. 20 China, on the other hand,
was historically focused on establishing tributary relations as a radial
hierarchical order, thereby establishing insulator states that protect the inner
core of the empire, as outlined by Zhang Yongjin and Barry Buzan. 21
18
Dmitri Trenin, The End of Eurasia, 109-110; Raymond Pearson, The Rise and Fall of the
Soviet Empire (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1998), chapters 1, 6 and 7.
19
Dmitri Trenin, “Russia’s Spheres of Interest, Not Influence”, Washington Quarterly, Vol.
32, No. 4 (October 2009): 3-22.
20
Nikolas Gvosdev, “The Sources of Russian Conduct”, 34; Dmitri Trenin, Post-Imperium,
15; Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Premature Partnership”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 2
(March/April 1994): 67-82, here 80; Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Reborn: Reimagining Moscow's
Foreign Policy”, 64-78; Robert Donaldson, Joseph L. Nogee and Vidya Nadkarni, The
Foreign Policy of Russia. Changing Systems, Enduring Interests, 5 th Edition (New York and
London: Routledge, 2015); Bobo Lo, Russia and the New World Disorder (London: Chatham
House, 2015); Hanna Smith, “Statecraft and Post-Imperial Attractiveness: Eurasian
Integration and Russia as Great Power”, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 63, No. 3
(2016): 171-182; Inessa Baban, “The Transnistrian Conflict in the Context of the Ukrainian
Crisis”, NATO Defence College (Research Paper No. 122, December 2015): 1-12; Nataliya I.
Kharitonova, “Pridnestrovskie Stsenarii: Perspektivy rasresheniya pridnestrovskogo konflikta
[Pridnestrovian Scenarios: Perspectives on Resolving the Pridnestrovian Conflict]”, Problemy
Natsional’noy Strategii, No. 5 (2015): 147-167, here 152; Andre W. M. Gerrits and Max
Bader, “Russian Patronage over Abkhazia and South Ossetia: Implications for Conflict
Resolution”, East European Politics, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2016): 297-313; John Berryman,
“Russian Grand Strategy and the Ukraine Crisis: A Historical Cut”, in Power, Politics and
Confrontation in Eurasia. Foreign Policy in a Contested Region eds. Roger Kanet and
Michael Sussex (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 186-209; Rilka Dragneva and
Kataryna Wolczuk, Ukraine between the EU and Russia: The Integration Challenge
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
21
Yongjin and Buzan, “The Tributary System as International Society in Theory and
Practice”, 24.
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