Grant and Project Tools of US Public Diplomacy in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

The article examines the specific features of U.S. grant-based and project-oriented instruments within the framework of public diplomacy in Central Asia, with particular attention to interaction with non-state actors. The evolution of the project-based logic of U.S. foreign policy is analyzed, demonstrating how non-state actors and civil society structures gradually came to constitute an independent level of external influence. It is shown that grant and project mechanisms functioned as a means of forming sustainable social networks and institutional practices that ensured a long-term U.S. presence beyond the framework of interstate diplomacy. Special attention is paid to a comparative analysis of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which makes it possible to identify differences in the adaptation of project instruments to national institutional environments. The article also analyzes the 2025 crisis of USAID, linked to domestic political processes in the United States, and its impact on the transformation of U.S. public diplomacy strategy in the region. The analysis substantiates a decline in the stability of the cumulative project-based influence model and a shift toward a more centralized and reversible configuration of U.S. foreign policy presence in Central Asia.