Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Catherine Markus
Water rarely makes headlines until it becomes a source of conflict. In Central Asia, where rivers cross borders, glaciers feed agricultural valleys and growing cities compete for limited supplies, water is becoming one of the region’s most consequential geopolitical questions. The challenge is not simply how much water each country receives. It is whether governments can trust one another to manage a resource that no country can secure alone.
The five Central Asian states — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — inherited a complex water system from the Soviet Union. Its rivers, reservoirs and irrigation networks were designed to serve an integrated economy, not five independent states pursuing their own national priorities. Since independence in 1991, the region has tried to preserve elements of that system while accommodating competing demands for electricity, agriculture and economic development. The results offer an important lesson: cooperation becomes possible when governments see practical benefits in working together, but it remains fragile when one country fears that another will control its future.
That lesson is increasingly urgent. Population growth, urbanization, climate change and new industrial demands are placing pressure on water supplies. Meanwhile, major infrastructure projects are altering the strategic calculations of both upstream and downstream states. Central Asia’s experience shows that institutions can help manage these tensions, but institutions alone cannot create the political trust needed to make agreements endure.
When a Dam Becomes a Geopolitical Question
The history of Tajikistan’s Rogun Dam illustrates the stakes. Planned during the Soviet era, the project was suspended after the collapse of the Soviet Union and later resumed in 2016. For Tajikistan, the dam represents a path toward greater energy security and the possibility of exporting electricity. For downstream Uzbekistan, however, the prospect of greater Tajik control over the timing and volume of river flows has raised concerns about water availability for agriculture.
These competing priorities are not inherently incompatible. Upstream countries need reliable energy supplies and the ability to develop their resources. Downstream countries need predictable water flows to sustain farms, communities and food production. The difficulty arises when decisions made in one capital create uncertainty in another.
Under former Uzbek President Islam Karimov, opposition to Rogun was sometimes expressed in stark security terms. In 2012, Karimov warned that unresolved water disputes could lead to serious confrontation, even war. The relationship changed after his death in 2016. His successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, pursued a more cooperative approach, culminating in a 2018 visit to Dushanbe that helped reset relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The two countries expanded engagement on water and energy, and Uzbekistan moved away from its previous resistance to the dam’s completion.
This shift did not eliminate every disagreement. It demonstrated something more useful: disputes that once appeared inseparable from national security could be managed through a broader calculation of shared interests. Uzbekistan’s efforts to diversify its economy and reduce dependence on water-intensive cotton production also helped create room for a different relationship with Tajikistan.
The lesson is not that diplomacy can erase competing interests. It is that political choices determine whether those interests become a permanent source of hostility or the basis for negotiated arrangements. Infrastructure can create dependence, but it can also create incentives for cooperation when governments recognize that the costs of confrontation outweigh the benefits.
Afghanistan Changes the Equation
The next test may be more difficult. Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Canal is reshaping the region’s water calculations by bringing a country long peripheral to Central Asian water diplomacy into the centre of a shared dispute.
Construction began in 2022 on a canal planned to extend roughly 285 kilometres and irrigate hundreds of thousands of hectares in northern Afghanistan. Once completed, the project could divert a substantial share of the Amu Darya’s annual flow, raising concerns in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, whose agriculture depends on the same river system.
Afghanistan has a legitimate interest in developing its water resources. Decades of instability and limited institutional capacity left it largely outside the arrangements through which its northern neighbours coordinated river use. That exclusion was easier to sustain when Afghanistan’s withdrawals were relatively limited. A project of Qosh Tepa’s scale makes continued exclusion increasingly difficult.
The political complication is that the Taliban authorities regard the canal as a domestic development project and maintain that Afghanistan should determine how its resources are used. The Central Asian governments, meanwhile, have limited institutional leverage because Afghanistan is not fully integrated into their existing water-governance arrangements. None of the five states formally recognizes the Taliban government, yet the practical need for cooperation is encouraging engagement.
This is a problem that diplomacy cannot solve by pretending political differences do not exist. Nor can it be resolved by treating Afghanistan as though it has no legitimate development needs. The question is whether governments can establish a framework in which Afghanistan’s agricultural ambitions are considered alongside the consequences for downstream communities.
That will require more than general declarations of goodwill. It will require reliable information about river flows, transparent assessments of the canal’s impact, technical dialogue on water efficiency and a willingness to discuss how shortages should be managed. Without such mechanisms, every change in water availability could be interpreted as evidence of bad faith. With them, the parties would have at least a basis for negotiation.
Climate Change Is Shrinking the Margin for Error
The urgency of these disputes is magnified by climate change. Glaciers in the Tien Shan mountains help sustain the river systems on which Central Asia depends. Their retreat is expected to alter both the quantity and timing of water flows, complicating a system in which upstream reservoir releases must be coordinated with downstream irrigation needs.
Climate change does not automatically lead to conflict. But it reduces the margin for political miscalculation. When supplies become less predictable, governments may be tempted to secure water unilaterally, particularly when domestic pressure grows. Such decisions can prompt neighbours to respond in kind, turning a shared environmental challenge into a cycle of mutual suspicion.
Demographic and economic changes add to the pressure. Uzbekistan’s population has grown substantially since the end of the Soviet era, while cities across the region have expanded. Agriculture remains an important source of employment and economic activity, but water demand is also increasing from industry, urban infrastructure and emerging technologies.
Even data centres and artificial-intelligence infrastructure can become part of the water equation, depending on their cooling systems and local conditions. Kazakhstan’s plans for large-scale digital infrastructure illustrate how governments may face new choices between economic modernization and the needs of existing water users. Such projects are not necessarily incompatible with water security, but their demands must be measured and managed rather than treated as separate from regional resource planning.
The central issue is no longer simply how to divide a fixed supply. It is how to govern a changing resource while demand continues to grow. That requires investment in water-efficient irrigation, better monitoring, modern infrastructure and more transparent planning. It also requires governments to recognize that domestic development decisions can have consequences beyond their borders.
Institutions Can Open the Door, but Trust Must Follow
Central Asia is not starting from nothing. The Interstate Commission for Water Coordination, established after independence, preserved elements of the region’s earlier system for coordinating water use. Regional forums, United Nations-supported dialogue and organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation provide additional channels through which governments can discuss shared problems.
These institutions matter because they make regular communication possible even when political relationships are strained. They can provide technical expertise, establish common procedures and give governments a setting in which to negotiate without turning every disagreement into a public confrontation. But their effectiveness depends on participation, credible information and the willingness of governments to accept that unilateral action can impose costs on their neighbours.
The region’s experience also suggests that cooperation need not wait for complete political trust. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan did not resolve their water disagreements through a sudden transformation of relations. Engagement expanded as political leadership changed, economic incentives evolved and practical cooperation became more attractive. In other words, trust can be both a precondition for cooperation and a product of it.
The Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan relationship reinforces the point. Disputes over water infrastructure and access contributed to deadly clashes in 2021 and 2022. Subsequent agreements and regional declarations created opportunities to address shared concerns through negotiation. These steps do not guarantee that future disputes will be avoided, but they demonstrate why local water arrangements and broader regional diplomacy must reinforce each other.
For Afghanistan, the challenge is to build a workable form of participation despite unresolved political questions. Excluding the Taliban authorities from all practical dialogue would leave downstream governments with fewer means to understand or influence decisions affecting the Amu Darya. Engagement, however, need not imply diplomatic recognition. Governments can negotiate technical questions of mutual concern while maintaining their positions on the political status of the authorities in Kabul.
The aim should be a framework that rewards transparency and predictable conduct. Water data should be shared, infrastructure plans should be discussed before they create crises, and governments should develop procedures for managing droughts and unexpected shortages. Over time, these practices can make cooperation less dependent on the personal relationship between individual leaders.
A Regional Test With Global Implications
Central Asia’s water problem carries lessons for other regions where rivers cross national borders and climate pressures intensify political competition. The Nile, the Mekong and other international river systems face their own combinations of development ambitions, competing national priorities and concerns about future supplies. The circumstances differ, but the underlying question is similar: can states protect their interests without making their neighbours less secure?
The answer depends partly on power, but not on power alone. Upstream states may have greater physical control over water infrastructure, yet downstream states can be economically important partners. Every country depends on some combination of energy, food, trade and regional stability. A decision that produces a short-term national advantage can carry longer-term costs if it undermines the cooperation on which other interests depend.
For Central Asia, the most immediate priority is to turn regional dialogue into practical arrangements that account for changing river flows, growing demand and new infrastructure. Governments should strengthen existing water institutions, establish more transparent data-sharing practices, involve Afghanistan in technical discussions, and coordinate energy and agricultural planning. They should also treat water efficiency as a regional security objective rather than merely a domestic environmental policy.
None of this will eliminate disagreement. It can, however, make disagreement more manageable and reduce the risk that a shortage becomes a diplomatic crisis or a border confrontation.
Water is often described as a source of inevitable conflict. Central Asia’s history offers a more complicated conclusion. Shared rivers can generate suspicion when states fear losing control, but they can also create powerful incentives to cooperate. Rogun shows how political relationships can change; Qosh Tepa shows the cost of leaving an important riparian state outside regional arrangements; and climate change shows why delay will make the task harder.
The future of Central Asian water security will depend not on whether the region can eliminate competing interests, but on whether its governments can build institutions strong enough to manage them. Trust will not emerge from declarations alone. It will have to be built, river by river, agreement by agreement, through decisions that make cooperation more dependable than confrontation.
