Of pressing concern, however, is whether this process can begin to incorporate adjacent regions such as South Asia, Russia and Central Asia in a new civilizational dialogue. At the same time, the smaller states of the region fear Russian domination. These states are driven by the contradictory imperatives of balance of power and interdependence. Bilateralism has emerged not only among those who have most strongly resisted Russian assertiveness, such as Ukraine, but also among those who initially favored multilateral cooperation, such as Kazakhstan. This pattern is anomalous from the perspectives of both realism and liberalism.
Realism finds that bilateralism facilitates domination by the most powerful.
Liberalism predicts multilateral cooperation in a region with a powerful and willing hegemon. Both logics operate in this case, and their combination results in a policy explained by neither theory. The question is particularly salient to the 1990s when both global and regional bipolar systems have unraveled. Evidence presented in this article suggests that the leverage of such aspiring buffer states has increased slightly. But buffer status still does not entail real nonalignment or equidistance, and reconciled great powers continue to regulate the degree of neutralized sovereignty they will enjoy.