Several days ago I argued here that Kazakhstan’s diplomacy had begun to try to move from survival-mode balancing into a more entrepreneurial phase, testing its accumulated diplomatic capital on the world stage. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s September 24, 2025, speech to the United Nations General Assembly confirms this. It was a statement of intent, marking a departure from decades of careful multivectorism toward a doctrine of initiative and responsibility.
The speech sought to anchor a claim that Kazakhstan is not only balancing among vectors but weaving them into a systemic position of leverage to support active participation in the agenda-setting of global affairs. The multivector line, crafted under Nazarbayev, kept Moscow, Beijing, and Western capitals equidistant during a period when Kazakhstan’s priority was survival and gradual integration. The price of that prudence was that the distinct voice that Astana was trying to cultivate could not be heard.
The country appeared more like a venue for great-power competition rather than an autonomous actor in favor of its own interests. On the UNGA stage, Tokayev did not abandon the old formula outright. Instead, he pressed it into service as a platform for what he called “bridge building,” but which looks in practice like a bid to shape the rules of the international order, instead of merely accommodating them.
Railways, Corridors, and Diplomacy in Motion
Tokayev declared to the Assembly: “Kazakhstan today carries eighty percent of all overland freight between Asia and Europe. By 2029, we will build five thousand kilometers of new railway to strengthen the Middle Corridor.” These words accompanied the announcement, only a few days before, of a multibillion-dollar deal with the American company Wabtec for the purchase of three hundred locomotives over ten years.
Timed with his UN appearance itself, the announcement highlighted Tokayev’s view of infrastructure as diplomacy. In systems terms, railways are not discrete projects but nodes in a meso-level build-out capable of reconfiguring macro-level flows. By embedding a commercial contract into the theater of UNGA, Tokayev gave it a transformational headline. The “Middle Corridor” now functions in two registers. In one, it is freight tonnage, Caspian ferry capacity, Azerbaijan–Georgia transit. In the other, it is a political instrument.
Only weeks before UNGA, Astana hosted talks that facilitated the U.S.-backed Armenia–Azerbaijan declaration. By enabling that dialogue, Kazakhstan projected itself into the South Caucasus as an intermediary claiming credibility with both sides. Hosting the South Caucasus dialogue projected Astana’s view of itself as a systems-level creator of interdependence at the infrastructural level. From there, the loop feeds back to the structuration of political behavior.
Economically, Kazakhstan remains the only Central Asian state with diversified sources of foreign direct investment (FDI). The Netherlands and the United States together still outpace China and Russia in cumulative FDI. Uzbekistan, despite rising visibility, remains structurally dependent on its two large neighbors. By contrast, Astana uses diversification to demonstrate optionality. The locomotive deal is one example; the C5+1 dialogues with Washington are yet another.
Reforming the Global Order
Tokayev spoke about a “crisis of trust” and argued for an enlarged Security Council with places for Asia, Africa, Latin America, and select Middle Eastern powers. This demarche, which positions Kazakhstan as a potential leader of coalitions for systemic change, goes significantly beyond the country’s previous multivectorism, which is not dead but rather reframed. At the same time, he reinforced Kazakhstan’s profile as a convenor by offering to host renewed nuclear disarmament talks and a standing body for biological safety.
Naming nuclear weapons, climate change, and uncontrolled digital technologies as existential threats, Tokayev warned that they “must be treated together as one category of danger.” Kazakhstan has long claimed nonproliferation credentials, with Semipalatinsk as historical foundation. Likewise he framed “the fate of the Aral and Caspian Seas is not a regional issue” as “part of global water security,” suggesting that local ecological crises in Central Asia carry systemic consequences.
By aligning Kazakhstan’s environmental legacy with contemporary climate debates, Tokayev moved to reposition Kazakhstan’s normative claims for itself. Taken as a whole, the speech captures the arc of Kazakhstan’s diplomacy from defensive balancing to active participation. Tokayev’s vocabulary, recalling Kazakhstan’s reputation for mediation and its willingness to engage multiple partners, was one of grounded optimism, claiming that Central Asia can offer not just stability but innovation in governance. The UN Secretary-General’s own commendations in recent months confirm that this is not wishful thinking but recognition earned.
Diplomatic Balancing and Regional Reach
When Tokayev gave his support to the normalization effort between Azerbaijan and Armenia under U.S. auspices, some eyebrows rose, as the old Kazakhstan would never have made such an uncharacteristically direct intervention. It was a performative gesture intended to enable Kazakhstan to claim a status as impartial broker in conflicts bracketing its neighborhood.
Political multivectorism was also on display when Tokayev met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and stated that “Kazakhstan will continue to act as a reliable partner for dialogue, supporting territorial integrity and peaceful settlement through humanitarian engagement.” He avoided direct condemnation of Moscow but sent a signal of availability as a channel, avoiding alignment and urging concessions from all sides.
However, this call differs from the older balancing game; it is forward positioning. Kazakhstan is putting itself forward as a participant in setting the terms of integration. The recontextualization supports its attempts to leave behind its old image as merely a junction between other systems. At the same time, Kazakhstan’s outreach to Uzbekistan and the mediation overtures in the South Caucasus also seek to put Central Asia itself forward on the global scale; Kazakhstan would naturally be its principal diplomatic voice.
Synthesis, Risks, and Conclusion
Tokayev’s New York appearance stitched together what had been discrete threads. From setting Central Asian water issues into a global environmental diplomatic context, he moved to the One Water Summit (with France, Saudi Arabia, World Bank) and the hosting of a Regional Ecological Summit in April next year, to nuclear risks in the same speech.
It would be possible to read Guterres’s August visit, the Armenia–Azerbaijan mediation, the Wabtec locomotives, the Zelensky bilateral, and the UN reform agenda as separate issues, but at UNGA they were presented as systemically linked. Kazakhstan is thus seeking to retool its multivectorism from passive balancing to systemic action through agenda-setting, enable a claim to the title of middle power.
Whether this shift consolidates depends on feedback loops that are only now being tested. The CPC pipeline, the Caspian ferries, the EU’s willingness to invest, and Russia’s tolerance of mediation are all parameters determining the outcome. By balancing meetings with Western leaders against continued caution with Russia and China, Tokayev succeeded in articulating a vision of Kazakhstan but as an operator: a middle power prepared to claim initiative and responsibility in global affairs.