BACKGROUND: Kazakhstan has since independence struggled to build a strategic balance in Central Asia. Its leaders have consistently supported the establishment of a multiple-level security system with as many international players as possible, although Kazakhstan has remained a member to the CIS Collective Security Treaty. However, the painful economic transformation has greatly undermined the economic and military potential of the state. Moreover, the recession has affected Kazakhstan’s standing in regional politics in several ways. After the disintegration of the USSR, Kazakhstan possessed a nuclear weapons arsenal that easily matched that of France and Great Britain combined. International pressure from the U.S. and other major powers, together with the inability Kazakhstan’s army and national security agencies to protect the nuclear weapons, forced President Nazarbayev to agree to give up the nuclear arsenal, though part of the elite fiercely resisted this move. This nuclear weapons transfer weakened Kazakhstan’s position vis-à-vis its historical adversary, Uzbekistan. This rivalry has deep historical, political and cultural roots, and it was not subdued even during the Soviet era. In the post-Soviet era, the Kazakh-Uzbek rivalry has been fueled by personal contentions between Presidents Karimov and Nazarbayev, despite official rhetoric of ‘perpetual friendship’. Initially, Tashkent was on the winning track. As it has the largest population in the region, it was able to build the largest and strongest army in Central Asia. Having no borders with Russia, Uzbekistan was less vulnerable to the Kremlin’s pressures and could leave the Collective Security Treaty in 1999 to join the pro-western GUAM alliance (consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova). Uzbekistan also managed to avoid a steep recession, preserved its industrial base and military-industrial enterprises, and became self-sufficient in oil and gas supply and refinery capacities. However in the late 1990s, Kazakhstan gradually managed to achieve a strategic balance. It attracted more foreign investment than all other Central Asian states combined, and gradually the cash flow from the oil revenues greatly improved Kazakhstan’s economic situation. Astana managed to reform its national army and build a small but capable defense force. Moreover, it was able to build good working relations with Moscow, Washington as well as Beijing, unlike Uzbekistan. The tables turned after 9/11 after a radical change in the U.S. approach to Central Asia. Although both Tashkent and Astana condemned the terrorist attacks and expressed their full support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan immediately offered its rusting former Soviet bases for permanent U.S. military bases in Central Asia. In November 2001 first 1,000 U.S. military personnel and U.S. military airplanes arrived to Uzbekistan’s Khanabad airport. In early 2002 Washington doubled its assistance package to Tashkent from $83 million to about $160 million, half of which for the modernization of the Uzbek armed forces. This immediately sparked a debate in Kazakhstan on whether or not to establish U.S. military bases on Kazakhstan’s soil. Kazakhstan made its first steps during the recent visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Astana by signing an agreement on providing its airports for the U.S. military aircrafts for emergency landing. IMPLICATIONS: The war in Afghanistan and the U.S. military presence have radically changed the strategic environment in the region and the place of Central Asia in international relations, with important implications. Firstly, the establishment of U.S. military bases in Central Asia has had a huge impact on the strategic balance within the region, as Uzbekistan became a de facto strategic partner of the U.S. The establishment of U.S. bases in Uzbekistan and increased military aid have boosted Uzbekistan’s stance in Central Asia. The large economic aid and credits from the U.S. has strengthened the country’s economic position and significantly improved its economic situation. Secondly, the establishment of U.S. military bases in Uzbekistan ay have fueled personal rivalries between the Kazakhstani and Uzbekistani leadership. President Karimov of Uzbekistan has become increasingly ignorant of the need for cooperation with his neighbors. The recent collapse of Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan commission’s negotiations on the border’s delimitation might be considered as one of the indicators of the rising tensions between these two countries. Thirdly, the changes in the region’s strategic balance have also fueled debates on Kazakhstan’s foreign policy in security issues and in the relations with neighboring countries. The strengthening relations between the U.S. on the one hand and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on the other hand might leave Kazakhstan as a peripheral player in the regional politics and on its own in its dealings with Russia and China. However, there is deep disagreement within the ruling elite on the response to these changes, especially on the issue of U.S. bases. Proponents argue that establishment of the military bases would restore the lost strategic balance in the region, and as President Putin still fully supports the U.S.-led war against terrorism, there is no risk of jeopardizing Kazakhstan-Russia relations. Opponents claim that U.S. military presence in Kazakhstan may jeopardize its political relations with Russia and China, as the leaderships in both of those countries find themselves under the increasing domestic pressure to spell out and defend their geo-political and security interests in the region. CONCLUSIONS: The U.S. military bases in Central Asia are here to stay in Donald Rumsfeld’s words ‘as long as it takes to finish off al-Qaida terrorists and the radical Taliban militia’. However, this statement sends a confusing message to the Central Asian policy makers. Clearly there is a need to spell out the U.S. plans about the future of the bases by answering the question whether they are going to be permanent? And if the answer is yes, in what form and at what scale will U.S. military presence continue in the region? There is also a need to be very careful with arms transfers to accidental allies in order to avoid regional arms race and future armed confrontation in the region. There is also a need for the U.S. to promote a regional security dialogue by assisting the Central Asian republics to adjust their present and future regional foreign and security policies to the new realities and to the new security environment. AUTHOR\'S BIO: Rafis Abazov, PhD, is a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute at the Columbia University in the New York city. He is an author of The Formation of Post-Soviet International Politics in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (1999), the Freedom House report on Kyrgyzstan (2002) and a contributor of an article ‘Building fortress Kazakhstan’ to Brassey’s Eurasian Security Yearbook (2002). Copyright 2002 The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst. All Rights Reserved.