ProjectLandlocked — the future of Central Asia

Nobody is choosing

Five landlocked states are being courted by three Western powers, two rival technology blocs, and the two neighbours they cannot leave. The striking thing is how few of them are picking a side — and how well that is working for them.

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Tap any territory for its current alignment position.

Boundaries from Natural Earth 1:50m public-domain data, projected equirectangular with a standard parallel at 45°N and simplified for display. Route alignments are indicative, drawn through real waypoints rather than surveyed.

The argument

Since November 2025 this region has acquired a United States leaders' summit, an EU strategic partnership, a British ministerial format, an Abraham Accords signatory, and seats in both of the world's competing technology blocs. Read as a run of headlines, it looks like a pivot westward.

Read against what happened with Moscow over the same months, it looks like something less dramatic and more interesting. In the year Tokayev publicly asked Putin to stop the war in Ukraine, Kazakhstan also recorded its highest-ever trade with Russia, signed a currency swap, and agreed to have Rosatom build two nuclear units. Nothing was traded away. The Western gains were additions, not substitutions.

So the organising question of this brief is not whether Central Asia is turning west. It is not. The question is what a middle power should do with a region that has become very good at accepting offers from everyone — and whether the West's current instinct, which is increasingly to demand exclusivity, is the right response or precisely the wrong one.

The argument is set out across , published as it developed. This page is the standing summary.

Why the brief is called Landlocked

Every state here is landlocked, and Uzbekistan is one of only two countries on earth that is doubly landlocked — every one of its neighbours is landlocked too. That is not trivia. It means no government in the region can reach a customer without a third country's consent, which is why Kazakhstan can criticise Moscow publicly and still be unable to act on the criticism. Geography sets the ceiling on how far any realignment can go, and most commentary on this region ignores it.

≈80%of Kazakh oil exports run through one Russian-transiting pipeline
$29bnrecord Russia–Kazakhstan trade in 2025 — the year Tokayev broke with Moscow in public
4 of 5Central Asian states that joined China's AI bloc in July 2026
1 of 5that joined America's

The five states are not moving together

A structural divergence is opening up. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have the diplomatic bandwidth, the reserves and the reform record to be courted. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan largely do not, and Western concentration on the top two risks pushing the other three toward Moscow and Beijing by default. The country data behind that divergence is set out in the next section.

Five states, one label, very little in common

Treating Central Asia as a bloc is the first analytical error. A country where remittances are half of GDP and one that supplies two-fifths of the world's uranium do not have the same interests, the same leverage, or the same room to manoeuvre.

The comparison that matters

Remittances and growth: World Bank open data, 2024 values. Median age: UNICEF, Generation 2050 in Central Asia, November 2025, 2025 values. Turkmenistan remittance data is not published by the World Bank and is shown as unavailable rather than estimated.

CountryMedian age (2025)Remittances, % GDP (2024)GDP growth (2024)Defining endowment
Kazakhstan29.70.1%5.0%Uranium, oil, rare earths, the transit landmass
Uzbekistan27.014.4%6.5%Population, gold, copper, the most diversified economy in the region
Turkmenistan26.9not published6.3%Natural gas — reserves ranked fourth in the world
Kyrgyzstan25.426.6%9.0%Hydropower, gold, and an unusually open political system by regional standards
Tajikistan22.247.9%8.4%Hydropower — and the deepest labour dependency on Russia anywhere in the region

The single most important number on this page

Remittances were 47.9% of Tajikistan's GDP in 2024 and 26.6% of Kyrgyzstan's. Over 80% of migration flows from both countries went to Russia as of 2023. No Western package of any plausible size substitutes for that. Any strategy that ignores labour mobility is not addressing the binding constraint on those two states.

Uzbekistan is the region's largest population at over 38 million, one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world, and the only state bordering all four other Central Asian countries as well as Afghanistan. Real GDP grew 7.7% in 2025, exports rose 24% led by gold, copper, zinc, uranium goods, food and fertilizers, and international reserves reached $70bn.

World Bank country overview · worldbank.org

Kazakhstan produced about 25,839 tonnes of uranium in 2025, roughly 40% of world output, and is moving deliberately up the value chain — a fuel pellet fabrication plant opened in 2021 and reached its 200 tU/year design capacity in 2024. In an October 2024 referendum, 70% of voters backed new nuclear energy.

World Nuclear Association country profile · world-nuclear.org

Turkmenistan holds proven gas reserves ranked fourth globally after Iran, Russia and Qatar, with the Galkynysh field alone accounting for the large majority of the national total. Reserve estimates vary widely between auditors and official statements, and Ashgabat has at times claimed figures far above independent assessments.

Oil & Gas Journal · ogj.com — note this assessment is a decade old; VOA has separately documented the gap between Turkmen claims and audited estimates.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan hold no significant fossil fuel reserves but sit on the bulk of the region's hydropower potential; Central Asia as a whole accounts for around 5.5% of world hydropower potential, most of it undeveloped. This is the basis of the region's water–energy bargain: upstream states hold the water, downstream states hold the gas.

Peer-reviewed analysis in Economic Analysis and Policy · sciencedirect.com; World Bank Central Asia Energy-Water Development Program.

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LandlockedBy Harry Pye3 September 20267 min read

The Taliban Express

Uzbekistan is planning a railway across Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and through an active war zone. The strange part is this may be exactly what they intended.

Taliban fighters beside rolling stock in northern Afghanistan. Composite by deKilpeck.
Taliban fighters beside rolling stock in northern Afghanistan. Composite by deKilpeck.

In February, the Pakistani air force struck Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, Paktika and Nangarhar. The UN said around 143 people died in a single strike on a drug-treatment centre in the capital, with the Taliban putting the death toll as high as 400. It was the first time Islamabad had gone after the Taliban itself rather than the militants it harbours.

On 4 February, in the middle of all this, Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree launching the feasibility study for a railway from Termez in Uzbekistan, through Kabul, to the Pakistani border. Three weeks ago he and Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif met at the SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan and agreed to speed it up.

So why is a $7 billion railway being built by three countries, while two of them are at war?

An escape route from geography

Uzbekistan is one of only two doubly landlocked countries on earth: every one of its neighbours is landlocked too. Uzbekistan’s exports must cross at least two sovereign borders to reach a ship, and the existing options run through Russia, through Iran, or the long way west across the Caspian. For a country trying to become a manufacturing hub, that is more than an inconvenience, it’s a ceiling to its ambitions.

The proposed Termez–Naibabad–Maidan Shahr–Logar–Kharlachi line, roughly 650 to 760km, would run to the Pakistani ports of Karachi, Gwadar and Port Qasim. Officials reckon it would cut transit times from around 35 days to three to five, reduce transport costs by at least 40% and eventually carry up to 20m tonnes of cargo a year.

The Astana Times, 21 July 2025 · astanatimes.com · Ariana News, June 2026 · ariananews.af

The gold line is the 75km Uzbekistan built in 2011 and is now restoring. Both proposed corridors are drawn along their announced alignments; neither is under construction. Toggle any route off to compare.

Thirty-five days to five is not an incremental gain. It is the difference between being a peripheral economy to being connected to global trade, and with Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO coming up soon, it’s why Tashkent has spent eight years refusing to let the idea die.

There is already a train

Most coverage misses that Afghanistan has about 104km of working railway in the entire country, and the most important stretch of it is Uzbek.

The 75km Hairatan–Mazar-i-Sharif line was built by Uzbekistan and opened in 2011. In August 2024, under a contract between Uzbekistan Temir Yullari and the Afghanistan Railway Authority, Uzbek specialists began restoring it; Naibabad station was rebuilt and reopened to receive freight wagons, and volumes on the corridor are rising.

Logistics Cluster, Afghanistan railway assessment · lca.logcluster.org · Afghanistan International, April 2026 · afintl.com

So Uzbekistan is not proposing to build an entirely new railway in Afghanistan. It has already built one, and is quietly upgrading it while the bombs fall further south. Hairatan is the northern end of the grand corridor which has a modest line that already runs. That makes the project harder to dismiss as just a fantasy, and it is the strongest card Uzbekistan currently holds.

The Taliban have their own reasons to want the rest of it. Control of construction zones and transit nodes would eventually let Kabul levy fees, lease land and attract investment. More immediately, it gives them something far scarcer: people obliged to talk to them. Someone has to survey the route, settle the gauge, secure the sites and agree where the stations go. The Taliban have no embassy in Tashkent or Islamabad. But they now have a railway authority, with a chief executive in post since March 2022 and a cabinet that has met to decide track gauge.

Functional recognition

Central Asia has found a way of dealing with the Taliban that the west hasn’t. Not diplomatic recognition, which is expensive and hard to reverse, but the technical sort, which is cheap and accumulates. You can run a border crossing without opening an embassy, sign a railway contract without recognising a government, send engineers instead of an ambassador. Kazakhstan struck the Taliban from its list of terrorist organisations, Uzbekistan signed an agreement on managing the Amu Darya, and Russia sent its security council secretary to Kabul. None of it is recognition, but of it makes dealing with Kabul progressively easier.

Mind the war

The difficulty is that the railway's route is also the war's.

  • July 2023

    The three governments agree the Termez–Naibabad–Maidan Shahr–Logar–Kharlachi alignment, dropping the earlier route through Torkham.

  • 17 July 2025

    Transport ministers sign a framework agreement in Kabul on a joint feasibility study. Uzbek officials say the Taliban have given them security guarantees.

  • October 2025

    Pakistani airstrikes on Kabul trigger the deadliest border clashes since 2021. Border crossings close for more than three months.

  • 28 January 2026

    Kazakhstan's ambassador in Islamabad offers to finance a rival link to Pakistani ports through Afghanistan.

  • 4 February 2026

    Mirziyoyev decrees the launch of the joint feasibility study.

  • February 2026

    Pakistan strikes five Afghan provinces, hitting the Taliban government directly for the first time.

  • May 2026

    Russian Railways says it will conduct the technical studies jointly with Uzbekistan.

  • August 2026

    Pakistan’s Sharif and Uzbekistan’s Mirziyoyev meet at the SCO summit and agree to accelerate.

Sources: The Times of Central Asia; Eurasianet; The Astana Times.

That pattern is odd. Every acceleration since 2023 has come within weeks of an escalation. February 2026 contains both the heaviest strikes of the war and the decree that formally started the study.

The closures were not just symbolic either. Some 10,000 containers sat stranded between October 2025 and April 2026 at demurrage of about $120 per container per day; Pakistan lost around $106m. Nor is the alignment incidental to the fighting: the route runs through Logar and into Kurram and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, precisely the ground at the heart of Islamabad's quarrel with Kabul over Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. The corridor requires Afghan–Pakistani co-operation, but its route journeys directly through the most contested regions.

What the corridor promises

  • Transit from 35 days to three to five, and costs down by at least 40%.
  • Up to 20m tonnes a year, and a direct Central Asian route to the Arabian Sea.
  • A working Uzbek-built railway already running from Hairatan to Mazar-i-Sharif.
  • Political commitment from all three governments, sustained through open war.
  • Afghanistan's first real transit revenues; Pakistan's way into Central Asian markets.

What stands in the way

  • No construction financing has been secured.
  • Estimates have run from $4.6bn to $8.2bn.
  • The route passes through the insurgency at the centre of the war.
  • Development banks and Gulf investors will not move while Kabul and Islamabad are hostile.
  • No railway across a front line can be insured.

Nobody has bought a ticket

Figures reported at different dates by different governments.

The money to lay the track has not been committed. Uzbekistan hopes China might contribute; Russia has been discussing options; talks with development banks continue. Analysts expect the Asian Development Bank and Gulf investors to hold off while Pakistani–Afghan relations remain hostile.

Train of Thought railway analysis · trainof-thought.com · Caspian Post, March 2026 · caspianpost.com

A feasibility study is a commitment to investigate, not to build. This railway has been remarkably good at producing the former without securing the latter.

The race with Astana

Kazakhstan isn’t just going to wait on the platform; it's going to build an alternative.

Astana is promoting a western corridor from Turgundi through Herat and Kandahar to Spin Boldak: more than 900km, but over largely flat ground, against an Uzbek route that must cross the Salang Pass. Kazakhstan has committed around $500m, starting with the 115–120km Turgundi–Herat section, a logistics hub at Herat intended as a dry port for Kazakh cargo, and fibre-optic cable along the route. A joint railway company with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan has also been proposed, headquartered in Astana.

Jamestown Foundation, June 2025 · jamestown.org · CACI Analyst, March 2026 · cacianalyst.org · The Times of Central Asia, December 2025 · timesca.com

The Uzbek route is the strategically better one, because it serves Uzbekistan's economy rather than merely passing through it. The Kazakh route is flatter, avoids Kabul and Kurram, and is funded.

Iran, meanwhile, is finishing the Khaf–Herat line and would like Afghan freight routed to Chabahar, their port in the Gulf of Oman. Turkmenistan has already broken ground at Torghundi for this. Afghanistan has been folded into the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, with everyone building towards the same country from a different direction. The contest is not whether Afghanistan gets a railway; it’s which railway gets Afghanistan.

A train to nowhere

Interestingly, the project may not be surviving the war so much as feeding on it.

Feasibility studies are cheap; $7bn of track is not. Yet the scheme pays Tashkent before the track is built. It keeps Uzbekistan useful to Islamabad and Kabul, and keeps Beijing, Moscow and Astana attentive to Uzbek needs. It pays for Kabul too, in officials, engineers and businessmen who must treat the Taliban as an institution, and as a legitimate government. The political returns arrive well ahead of the trains, which would explain a project that is never cancelled and never begun.

Three things are worth watching: whether any lender is ever named, whether the border crossings at Torkham and Chaman stay open for the year (because investors will not believe in trains crossing a border that lorries cannot), and whether Kazakhstan breaks ground at Turgundi before Uzbekistan builds south of Mazar.

The first kilometre of track will say more than any feasibility study. Until then the Taliban Express remains what it has been since 2018: delayed.

Written 3 September 2026. Sources: The Times of Central Asia, Eurasianet, The Astana Times, Jamestown Foundation, CACI Analyst, Geopolitical Monitor, Ariana News, Caspian Post, the Logistics Cluster and Afghanistan International.

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