From Balancing to Active Hedging: The Transformation of Kazakhstan’s Multi-Vector Foreign Policy After 2022

Abstract

The outbreak of the 2022 military crisis in Ukraine significantly redefined Kazakhstan’s geopolitical setting, highlighting the limits of its established foreign policy model and steering it toward a proactive hedging approach emblematic of middle powers. Based on the concepts of equidistant diplomacy and hedging, the article illustrates how Astana simultaneously reduces exposure to any single power center and converts participation in the multilateral forums into economic and political gains. Six hedging tracks are examined: Russian, Chinese, European, American (the United States), Turkic, and Southern (Gulf states), as well as an autonomous transit track represented by the Middle or Trans-Caspian Corridor. Drawing on legislative texts, policy declarations, and development frameworks from 2022–2025, the analysis traces Kazakhstan’s evolution from geographic balancing to rules-based portfolio management of interdependence in trade corridors, capital flows, and regulatory standards, highlighting the ongoing institutional entrenchment of Eurasian regionalism. Although Kazakhstan’s bargaining leverage has expanded, its hedging behavior remains limited by the need to coordinate with the C5 group (the five Central Asian states), manage asymmetries with larger economies, and ensure conformity with the institutional norms of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).