Multilateralism as the Mother of a New Economic Order: Making a Case for Unity in Greater Central Asia

Central Asia is the only region in the world currently lacking a regional organization of its own, run by the states themselves and tasked with promoting members’ economic interests. Individual states in Central Asia are presently members or observers in a plethora of groupings, such as the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, and the Organization of Turkic States. But all those groupings are dominated by outside powers pursuing their own agendas.

Central Asia needs an organization of its own if the region is to realize its development ambitions. Officials in the five core Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – acknowledge that no one country in the region possesses the resources and human capital needed to achieve their stated economic aims. Together, however, their chances are much better.

Prevailing circumstances suggest that our understanding of Central Asia as a region needs to expand. A greater Central Asia should include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and, ultimately, even Pakistan. The S7+ model supports the notion of a greater Central Asia and allows for the possible inclusion of other states, such as Armenia and Georgia.

The Case for the S7+ Framework

Numerous internal challenges facing the region are so complex they require a unified response. Such challenges include needs for more efficient water resource management, a reliable electricity distribution system, lower trade barriers, robust guardrails for IT and artificial intelligence development, and a stronger educational base capable of meeting the growing demand for skilled workers and managers.

Beyond creating a framework capable of removing these regional development roadblocks, the S7+ plus format can hasten Central Asia’s integration into global trade networks, enabling a significant expansion of trade in manufactured goods, advanced technologies, and natural resources between the region and the United States and European Union.

Geography currently limits trade opportunities: the five Central Asian states are landlocked. Access to a seaport is necessary, for instance, if Central Asia wants to boost exports of critical minerals to the United States, Japan, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, any significant increase in EU-bound trade calls for a significant expansion of trans-Caspian routes.

Unified policies can enhance the sovereignty of individual states, giving Central Asia added leverage in its dealings with foreign countries and international organizations, including Western powers, Russia, and China. Instead of C5+1 formats that exist today, there would simply be CA-US or CA-EU frameworks. A regional organization would be better able to keep options open, and strike more advantageous trade deals.

The benefits of the S7+ model extend beyond the realm of economics. The framework can also enhance regional security. History shows that the emergence of a regional mechanism capable of managing competing economic interests can produce a sizeable peace dividend. The formation in 1952 of the European Coal and Steel Community is a prime example. Its creation solved a key economic challenge facing Europe’s post-war reconstruction, and wove Germany firmly into the continental fabric, dissipating the tensions that had sparked three wars between 1870 and 1939. 

The S7+ holds the same potential for regional stabilization in greater Central Asia. Afghanistan has been a hotbed of global instability for almost a half-century, since the Soviet army occupied the country in 1979. A Central Asian organization that fully integrates Afghanistan into a regional trade system carries the potential benefit of weakening the forces that have long fueled the country’s vicious cycle of poverty, radicalism, and violence.

A Gradual Unfolding

The S7+ vision is a long-term project that, given the prevailing circumstances, will need to unfold in phases.

Phase 1

First, the five Central Asian states need to keep working on setting aside decades of mutual rancor and suspicion. Central Asian leaders now constantly speak about the need to cooperate, but so far talk has far outpaced action. Even so, there were several notable signs of progress in 2025. Just three years ago, for example, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan engaged in border clashes that left scores dead. Yet, in early 2025, those two states signed a treaty to resolve a long-standing border dispute. In his state of the nation address in late 2025, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said the resolution of border questions provided “a solid legal basis for the development of the region and the continuation of beneficial cooperation.”

Regional states are now cooperating on a limited basis in areas that only recently were sources of division. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, for instance, in late 2025 were helping Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan address a shortage of heating and electricity. And Uzbekistan, which long opposed the construction of the Kambarata-1 hydropower plant in Kyrgyzstan, is now helping to complete the project.

There is also Azerbaijan to consider. Central Asian leaders themselves have already acted to bring Azerbaijan permanently into their councils. It makes sense, then, for the S7+ concept to acknowledge Baku’s inclusion in the fast-evolving understanding of greater Central Asia’s territorial scope. Azerbaijan constitutes the gateway for Europe-bound Central Asian trade. In addition, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan joined Azerbaijan in 2025 in developing an ambitious green energy project that leverages the region’s significant wind and solar resources.

Phase 2

A second phase of the S7+ will tackle the challenge of integrating Afghanistan into Central Asia’s core. Efforts to boost Central Asia’s trade and engagement with Afghanistan are already well underway, led by Uzbekistan. Tashkent, in late 2025, reopened its sole border crossing with Afghanistan at Termez to civilians and traders for the first time since the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021. Elsewhere, Turkmenistan and the Taliban government are making slow progress in building a long-planned natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. Regional contacts are poised to continue expanding in 2026.

The last phase of the S7+’s formation would see Pakistan’s eventual inclusion as a full member of the regional organization. From a trade standpoint, Pakistan represents one of the shortest routes to the sea, and thus, like Azerbaijan, is essential for realizing greater Central Asia’s export ambitions. Economic and political contacts between Central Asian states and Pakistan have experienced rapid growth during 2025, but trade turnover numbers remain low in real terms.

A great deal of trust-building will have to occur before fundamental teamwork can take place. The legacy of Afghanistan’s years of conflict – especially during the Taliban’s first stint in power from 1996-2001, when Central Asian states and Pakistan fought a proxy war against each other – remains a source of mutual suspicion. There is a long way to go before the spirit of substantive cooperation can develop deep roots, but at least the first shoots are visible. Central Asian states and Pakistan are quickly realizing they have common economic interests.

The Challenge of Afghanistan and Pakistan

The thorniest issues confronting the S7+ framework concern the Taliban and Pakistan, and the fallout from decades of conflict in Afghanistan.

As underscored by border incidents in late 2025 that left five Chinese nationals dead in Tajikistan, Central Asian states remain wary of Afghanistan, viewing it as a source of instability. The Taliban denied involvement in the incidents, blaming them on radical Islamic elements beyond their control. But the denial only heightens uncertainty about trade relations.

Until the Taliban government can demonstrate it can uphold agreements, meet contractual deadlines, and ensure order across all of Afghanistan, economic cooperation with Central Asia will remain at a level that precludes major infrastructure projects seen as prerequisites for the S7+. One such necessity is the expansion of trans-Afghan rail links capable of handling large volumes of Central Asian exports.

There is also the matter of the Taliban’s rights record, especially its draconian policies towards women. The rights issue is a major reason why most foreign governments have withheld formal recognition of Taliban leadership in Kabul. The absence of foreign recognition has not stopped Central Asian states from engaging the Taliban, but it does inhibit the ability of other major foreign states and entities, in particular the United States and the European Union, as well as many international financial institutions, from providing substantive development assistance that can enhance the S7+’s prospects.

The deep reserves of distrust hovering over Central Asian-Pakistani relations have already been referenced. But another issue now clouding the S7+ vision is the spike in tension in late 2025 between the Taliban and their erstwhile Pakistani sponsors. Kabul and Islamabad as of late 2025 can be considered engaged in a low-intensity conflict rooted in Pakistani assertions of Taliban support for Islamic militants active in Pakistan.

Chinese and Russian Influence

One practical geopolitical consideration working against the S7+ framework, at least from a U.S. and EU perspective, is China’s control of the Pakistani port of Gwadar, along with Beijing’s generally strong economic presence in Pakistan. China would appear to have lots of leverage to disrupt plans to expand West-bound trade, if it so desires. Gwadar is the closest and most-convenient port that could handle an expansion of Central Asian exports. Bypassing Gwadar would lengthen transit times and likely require an expansion of port facilities in and around Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city.

Another practical consideration for the S7+ is the current membership of some Central Asian states in the Moscow-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), a free trade vehicle that has fallen far short of meeting its trade goals, but which keeps the door open for the Kremlin’s heavy involvement in Central Asian economic and political affairs. The EAEU’s existence stands to significantly complicate efforts to forge a uniquely Central Asian entity dedicated to promoting Central Asian trade interests.

ASEAN as a Role Model

There is no shortage of obstacles standing in the way of realizing the S7+ concept. But developments are trending in the right direction – at least for Central Asia’s core five states. A need to reconcile the harm done by decades of Soviet communism with economic ambitions for the future is bringing regional leaders together.

There are several examples that Central Asian states can strive to emulate as they consider building out the structures of an S7+. One can be seen in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has proven especially effective in facilitating the emergence of a common internal market among member states, and in promoting the organization’s global trade interests.

Over the course of 2026, the Central Asia Center at the New Lines Institute will publish a series of reports, each providing detailed analysis of a key development issue in Central Asia in need of a collective response. The reports will also offer recommendations to address existing challenges. In this way, the CAC aims to promote debates that can help S7+ emerge over time.  

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of New Lines Institute.