Rethinking the Implications of NATO’s Afghanistan Operation and Its Partnership for Peace in Central Asia: Is It the End of NATO’s Presence in Central Asia?

NATO’s partnership policy, including its Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, which aims to develop cooperation and dialogue with non-NATO countries, represents the first steps for an essentially Euro-Atlantic alliance to establish an institutional relationship with Central Asian states. The war on terror discourse after the September 11 attacks, the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, and NATO’s takeover of the ISAF mission in 2003 made it easier for NATO to establish institutional relations with Central Asian states. This study first discusses the effects of the end of the Afghanistan operation on NATO’s approach towards Central Asia in light of current developments, such as the Russia-Ukraine war and NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept. It then explains why the PfP program did not produce the desired results in developing relations with Central Asian states.