Keywords: regional and national security, lockdown and COVID, "energy security", "Aktau Convention"
Introduction One of the most important areas for the development of the modern world is global and regional integration,
including in the sphere of security. Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous idea that “state policy is determined by its
geography” is quite applicable to Kazakhstani political agenda. Strictly speaking, Kazakhstan’s multi-vector
foreign policy is not only a subjective desire or “doctrine” of the state political establishment, but also a
consequence of the geographic location, the emergence of a new geopolitical reality in world politics in the
Central Asian region.
Starting in 2020, under the influence of the economic lockdown related to COVID, energy security has been
high on the political agenda around the world. There are discussions about the prospects for the development
of various approaches of energy security, between exporters and importers, within the framework of a common
concept applicable to any country.
As experience has shown the security of supply can be ensured through diversification of sources and routes,
own production or less consumption, also with alternative energy sources.
Despite the tremendous success achieved in the development of the Convention on the Legal Status of the
Caspian Sea, it is still too early to put an end to this issue. The decision to delimit the bottom and bowels of the
reservoir was postponed indefinitely. In addition, there is one more problem: the signing of the convention will
hardly lead to the complete disappearance of unresolved issues between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran, or
to curtailment of the interests of the United States and Western countries in this region.
It is possible that soon a new player will appear in this dispute, who will also claim his rights to possession
of some part of the reservoir. Perhaps it will be Turkey, whose positions and influence have become very strong
in Azerbaijan after it provided military assistance to the Azerbaijani forces in resolving the Karabakh conflict
in the fall of 2020 [1].
The agreement itself, signed in Aktau-2018 is a breakthrough one. However, if you ask why it took the