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The article contains an overview of the activities of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a structure aimed at creating a comprehensive mechanism for developing and reconciling the positions of Asian countries on key security issues. The CICA is a forum that many regional states have joined as permanent participants. Eight countries and five international organizations, including the U.N., currently have an observer status at the CICA, which cooperates with existing regional organizations such as SCO, ASEAN, and OIC in a number of specific areas. The current concept of CICA's work is aligned with five main spheres: military and political collaboration; the fight against new challenges and threats, including terrorism; drug trafficking; transnational crime and human trafficking; as well as the economic, environmental and human dimensions. Cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose members (including the observer countries) are all also members of the Conference, will be of great importance for the further development of CICA. The presence of both resource-producing countries and large oil and gas importers in the organization creates the preconditions for the formation of an energy block within its framework, which will increase the energy security of its member states. The authors note that the interaction between ASEAN and the CICA can be based on five points required for building a "community of common destiny," which were set forth by President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping in Jakarta: (1) adhere to the principle of trust and strive for good neighborliness; (2) adhere to the principle of cooperation and mutual benefit; (3) constantly provide mutual assistance; (4) adhere to the principle of "living in perfect harmony"; (5) adhere to the principle of openness and tolerance. The authors note that the problem of Afghanistan can become a point of contact and development of joint approaches and strategies of the CICA and the OIC in the context of international and regional security. The author concludes that the transformation of the CICA into the Organization for Security and Development of Asia, proposed by Kazakhstan, would mean an expansion of the conference format and a turn towards solving new problems. In addition, the urgent task of the CICA at present is the transition to qualitatively new levels of cooperation—preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention.

Throughout the two decades of independent development of the Central Asian states, world political science has formulated its own specific approaches to the region and acquired certain conceptions. Elaborated by the members of different schools and, particularly, of diverse political affiliations, the methods, ideas, and approaches, likewise, differ widely. From the very beginning, everything written about Central Asia abroad was stamped with ideological and geopolitical approaches, which means that all of them were politicized, albeit to different degrees. More likely than not, the roots should be sought in Sovietology: contemporary Central Asian studies (particularly in the West) have inherited too many birthmarks from it.

In 2006 and 2007, the geopolitical situation around Central Asia underwent changes, some of which were quite substantial. The great powers shifted their political accents and readjusted cooperation formats. Energy moved to the forefront to become one of the new issues and centerpiece of the EU strategy. The rapidly worsening relations between Russia and the West are another geopolitically important factor. Russia had a strong, though not always obvious, impact on the region's geopolitical context. In fact, the entire range of relations (transport, economy, energy, and the humanitarian issues) between the EU and Central Asia cannot be correctly assessed without taking into account the Russian Federation. Russia's presence in the region (either obvious or hidden from the eye) and the vector of its relations with Europe have put an energy alliance between Moscow, other important energy producers, and transit countries on the agenda. The worsening relations between Russia and the West (particularly with the United States, the EU, NATO, and OSCE) are a fact, the nature and repercussions of which look long-term and varied. It has already spread to cooperation in the economic and energy spheres, military-strategic stability, the counterterrorist struggle, and geopolitical and geo-economic cooperation between Russia and the West in Asia, Latin America, the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East and, most important, in the CIS. The wave of Color Revolutions that swept the post-Soviet expanse in 2003-2005 was in fact the first (still latent) clash of Russian and Western interests. To keep up appearances, the sides refrained for a while from openly discussing their contradictions and problems. The West interpreted the strengthening of the SCO as one of the first signs that its relations with Russia were going downhill: in 2005 this regional organization raised the question of the time limits of America's military presence in Central Asia. Since 2006 (Vice-President Cheney's speech in Lithuania), Washington has been criticizing Moscow quite openly. Planned transportation routes and pipelines for the Central Asian and Caspian hydrocarbons have become a field of open clashes and geopolitical and geo-economic rivalry. The EU, with the United States by its side, is talking about "the diversification of energy deliveries" to its markets, an undisguised anti-Russian position. This and other factors, as well as the U.S. and NATO presence in the region, suggest that the rapidly worsening relations between Russia and the West will affect the Central Asian states' international and geopolitical situation. On the whole, Russia's elites are fully aware of the fact that the relations with the CIS members are their country's absolute foreign policy priority. It is in this sphere that Russia's main economic interests and security concerns are concentrated and it is this sphere that creates the most serious threats. Russian political analysts and politicians agree that the country should retain its main role on the post-Soviet expanse and should prevent its "erosion" caused by the gradually increasing involvement of the West and its institutions. It is commonly believed that in Central Asia Russia should fully tap the possibilities offered by the CSTO, EurAsEC, and SCO. To achieve this, Russia should offer attractive, competitive, and realistic prospects for both the political elites and the public at large.

In alphabetischer Reihenfolge werden internationale Autoren vorgestellt, die zum Thema Mittlerer Osten, insbesondere Kasachstan, wissenschaftliche Arbeiten publiziert haben. Dabei folgen jeweils einem kurzen biographischen Abriss bibliographische Angaben zu den einzelnen Monographien bzw. Aufsätzen. Nach der alphabetischen Autorenliste folgen ein thematischer Index zu Grundbegriffen der Orientalistik und Turkologie sowie eine Aufschlüsselung der Abkürzungen. Den Abschluss des Bandes bildet ein in englischer Sprache verfasster Aufsatz M. T. Laumulins ('The Kazakhs: The View from Outside', S. 90-98), der die westliche Forschung zu Kasachstan und den Kasachen nach verschiedenen Aspekten zusammenfasst. (Hmp)

Review of foreign literature on Central Asia: 2020-2021.