Many nations hoped that the end of the Cold War and the bipolar epoch dominated by the Soviet Union and the Union States would open up new opportunities to rebuild the world on the basis of general human values and interests. It seemed that the international community had a unique historical chance to form a new global order based on just legal principles and to herald a new era that would be free from the past’s legacy of antagonism. The course of international developments was indeed greatly impacted by the end of the bipolar system. States found themselves more vulnerable and less protected against the old threats and confronting new ones. Crucially, they did not create adequate mechanisms to ensure international stability in the face of the threats and contradictions of this new order of international relations. In fact, threats to security may even be greater in this era of increased interdependence among states. The stability of many countries and whole regions has been shaken by conflicts laden with interethnic and interconfessional tensions, religious extremism, and aggressive separatism. The danger of the proliferation of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction—as well as of their means of delivery—is particularly menacing. The gap between poor and rich countries continues to widen. The narcotics trade has grown, as has organized crime, which has in-creasingly crossed national borders and assumed truly global proportions. In this new era, Eurasia has become the key arena of international politics by virtue of both its geographical significance in the modern world and the role that it will play in determining the shape and contours of future scenarios. The transformation of the international order has contributed to the evolution of new security concepts that are significantly different from those that defined the Cold War. The new global order is characterized by a significant expansion in the range of security threats, changes in the identification of security objects, and shifting approaches to the choice of means to confront contemporary threats. All of these concepts apply to the unstable but crucially important region of Central Asia.
Ulugbeck A. Khasanov (Tue,) studied this question.