Abstract:
With the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine war and the seizure of power in Afghanistan by the
radical Taliban movement, the issue of ensuring countries’ security has taken a new dimension.
These occurrences directly influence the global situation. This research aims to examine the primary
security issues in Central Asia and identify regional threats within the evolving geopolitical context.
To address the research objectives, various methods of cognition were employed, including
historical, structural and functional, institutional, comparative, forecasting, political and legal
analysis, classification, analogy, abstraction, analysis, and generalisation. The main results of this
study include characterising the specifics of Central Asia and external threats to regional security,
analysing the policies of the governments in the region to combat religious extremism and
international terrorism, determining the prospects for establishing a collective defence organisation
to develop mechanisms for countering these threats, and outlining the main activities of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation in maintaining
regional stability and addressing the distribution of water and energy resources. The study also
considered such security threats as cybercrime, human trafficking, separatism, interethnic conflicts,
illegal migration, arms smuggling, and drug trafficking. This research's findings and materials have
theoretical and practical applications. They may be helpful for researchers whose interests include
the problems of national and regional security, political processes in post-Soviet Central Asia, and
ethno-confessional conflicts in this area.
