Uzbekistan Re-Emerges as the Strategic “Heartland of the Heartland”

The article analyzes the influence of fundamental political and socio-economic changes in Uzbekistan on the formation of a new strategic situation in an important region of Eurasia. The emergence of a new, dynamically developing Uzbekistan, having a central position in Central Asia, can revive not only the region itself, but also the neighboring regions through which the Great Silk Road passed. Today, Uzbekistan has all the resources and opportunities to implement an ambitious reform program, as well as revitalize intra-regional cooperation in Central Asia. According to the author, Central Asia is still, and once again, the pivot of the “world island”, as British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder indicated in his 1904 Royal Geographical Society article and Uzbekistan has re-emerged as “the heartland of the heartland”. In this regard, thanks to unprecedented changes in Uzbekistan, Central Asia is once again attracting the attention of scholars specializing in strategic issues of international relations