Some Flavors of Russian Neocolonialism in Central Asia

Abstract

Abstract The term “neo-colonialism” is attributed to Kwame Nkrumah, who considers it to be the last stage of imperialism and means “the exercise of power but not of responsibility by the powerful exploiters without alternatives for the dominated”. An introspection at the level of the specialized literature allows to find that there are many definitions of this concept, being able to speak even about a series of regional versions of the term (African, Asian or Latin American). Research by many analysts has revealed the deep vulnerabilities of the state of fact that can be categorized as a neo-colonial type. In this paper we start from the hypothesis that the states of Central Asia are in a unique situation because it is not possible to speak of complete independence if most of their resources are still used in the interest and development of those who are in the vicinity of the region or at distances greater than this. Throughout this paper, sustainable arguments are made in support of the idea that some factual states attributable to neocolonialism can be attached to the relations that Russia has today with the former components of the USSR that have declared their autonomy and are developing as independently as possible. The analysis is focused on aspects such as: the great difficulties encountered by the states in this region during the processes of capital accumulation, endowment with modern technologies and the approximation of the most sustainable managerial practices; the almost complete repatriation of the profits obtained by the foreign investors in these regions which are so deprived of important own sources of financing, determining them to remain dependent on the foreign investors and vulnerable to the seismic or asymmetric economic shocks; the special sensitivity of the external debt vector used with great ability by both international financial institutions and the commercial banking system in developed countries to radically influence macroeconomic and sectoral policy decisions; the continued use of these states as a field of confrontation between the great powers.