20. KAZAKHSTAN’S SECURITY CHALLENGES IN A CHANGING WORLD

Abstract

Since the first days of its independence, Kazakhstan has been overwhelmed by security issues involving its neighbors. It also recognized a number of conventional and unconventional security threats that might undermine stability and development in the region, as well as in the republic. One of the first official documents produced by the Kazakhstan government was the Strategy of Establishment and Development of Kazakhstan as a Sovereign State, initiated by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in May 1992.³ Although specific security threats in Kazakhstan were obvious (as the direction post-Soviet security, military arrangements and the CIS had yet to be determined), three sections of this document dealt specifically with security issues, albeit in relatively vague form.⁴ In the document, President Nazarbayev highlighted the fact that the national security of Kazakhstan had a regional dimension, and that relations with CIS members and other states with interests in Central Asia were very important.⁵ He stressed particularly that his country needed a military doctrine to “prevent and defend against (external) military threat.”⁶ It took several years for this concept of national security to be clarified and conceptualized in a comprehensive document, the Law on National Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan.⁷

Citation

Abazov, R. (2005), "20. KAZAKHSTAN’S SECURITY CHALLENGES IN A CHANGING WORLD", Intriligator, M.D., Nikitin, A.I. and Tehranian, M. (Ed.) Eurasia (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 229-242. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1572-8323(04)01020-3