Jan 14, 2026 - AFPC Senior Fellow Svante Cornell quoted in The Caspian Post [link]
That vacuum is now being filled by the region’s own middle powers: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. As Svante Cornell has argued, the OTS has become the vehicle through which these states are asserting themselves as security providers rather than security consumers. This is a profound shift. It means that Eurasia is no longer waiting for great powers to determine its fate. It is beginning to do so itself.
The transformation did not happen overnight. It began quietly at the Samarkand summit in 2022, when discussions of cultural cooperation gave way to talks on military ties and defense industries. It gained momentum in Astana in 2023, when Aliyev bluntly stated that “defense potential becomes the main guarantor of security.” And it became irreversible in Gabala in 2025, when “regional peace and security” were elevated to the organization’s central theme.