Description
This paper analyses the evolution of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev within the broader debates on small and middle power strategies in International Relations. Existing scholarship is divided between viewing Kazakhstan’s post-2022 diplomacy as continuity in multi-vectorism, a recalibration of foreign policy priorities, or a qualitative doctrinal shift. I argue that these approaches remain insufficient to capture the distinctive logic of Tokayev’s statecraft. Instead, the paper conceptualises Kazakhstan’s diplomacy as strategic agility—a framework adapted from management studies that emphasises the capacity to sense systemic disruptions, seize emerging opportunities, and reconfigure partnerships at speed.
Empirically, the paper examines Kazakhstan’s diversification away from Russian-controlled energy corridors, its embrace of digital and connectivity diplomacy, its calibrated neutrality in the Russia–Ukraine war, and its normative self-positioning as an emerging middle power. These cases illustrate how strategic agility enables Kazakhstan not merely to survive external shocks but to transform structural vulnerabilities into sources of agency and influence.
Theoretically, the paper contributes to ongoing IR debates by distinguishing strategic agility from multi-vectorism (defensive diversification) and hedging (ambiguity-based insurance). It proposes agility as a proactive capability particularly relevant for emerging middle powers in a multiplex order. In doing so, the study refines our understanding of how secondary states navigate volatility, balance normative commitments with pragmatic adaptation, and convert systemic turbulence into opportunities for recognition and leadership.
