Things not going well in Kazakhstan

[0xdeadbeef 1648]

 

I'm not saying I had to check where exactly Kazakhstan is, but there's no way I could draw even approximate country borders on that part of the world.

If Putin wants to put the USSR band back together, he needs to rollup Kazakhstan to get to the other Stans. 

 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

3 hours ago, usmc0331horn said:

I used to fuck a Russian Kazakh so this hits close to home.

What was his name ?

[texashorne 1177]

Its funny Kazakhstan is in turmoil and its enraged population is completely unaware that a group of people on the other side of the world can't discuss it without bringing up Borat and Airplane.  

[atomheartbevo 89652]

2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

I don't think there would be the same West support if they moved into KZ. This then makes it more of a mopping operations (CT/COIN) leading to a slow burn insurgency more like the Caucus. 

1 hour ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

I'm not saying I had to check where exactly Kazakhstan is, but there's no way I could draw even approximate country borders on that part of the world.

If Putin wants to put the USSR band back together, he needs to rollup Kazakhstan to get to the other Stans. 

If Russia has to get knee-deep in KZ, no way they have the forces for Ukraine.  Right now they are contributing some troops, along with neighboring countries, to help shut the protests down.  If things went to complete shit and they get into the need for 10s of thousands of Russian troops, that makes the Ukraine issue pretty interesting.

Edited January 5, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89652]

44 minutes ago, texashorne said:

Its funny Kazakhstan is in turmoil and its enraged population is completely unaware that a group of people on the other side of the world can't discuss it without bringing up Borat and Airplane.  

They have a 99.5% literacy rate, and 80% have internet access, so they definitely know about Borat and Airplane.

But it brings up the question how none of them have tried to harm Sacha Baron Cohen.  Is it because he brought awareness of the country to the rest of the world, regardless of how it was portrayed.

[ftf82 485]

3 hours ago, BERT said:

No, i don't think anybody will ever be over Macho Grande. 

Best bit of Airplane II. Almost makes it better than the original:

Witness: Striker was the squadron leader. He brought us in real low. But he couldn't handle it.

Prosecuting Attorney: Buddy couldn't handle it. Was Buddy one of your crew?

Witness: Right. Buddy was the bombardier. But it was Striker who couldn't handle it, and he went to pieces.

Prosecuting Attorney: Andy went to pieces?

Witness: No. Andy was the navigator. He was all right. Buddy went to pieces. It was awful how he came unglued.

Prosecuting Attorney: Howie came unglued?

Witness: Oh, no. Howie was a rock, the best tailgunner in the outfit. Buddy came unglued.

Prosecuting Attorney: And he bailed out?

Witness: No. Andy hung tough. Buddy bailed out. How he survived, it was a miracle.

Prosecuting Attorney: Then Howie survived?

Witness: No, 'fraid not. We lost Howie the next day.

Prosecuting Attorney: Over Macho Grande?

Witness: No. I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande. Those wounds run...pretty deep.

[Blotto 23498]

7 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

Listen up kid, let me tell you about the satanic panics and political correctness wars of the 80s and 90s.

I survived year 2K. Anything else at this point is just gravy. 

[0xdeadbeef 1648]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

If Russia has to get knee-deep in KZ, no way they have the forces for Ukraine.  Right now they are contributing some troops, along with neighboring countries, to help shut the protests down.  If things went to complete shit and they get into the need for 10s of thousands of Russian troops, that makes the Ukraine issue pretty interesting.

Pffft. Fucking amateurs.  I bet Germany would be able to handle Ukraine and Kazakhstan. 

[956 Worldwide 34705]

On 1/5/2022 at 7:24 AM, TwiceHorn said:

In the parliamentary system, like England's, and many other countries, when a party or coalition wins a national election (majority of the parliamentary seats), they install "a government" in the form of all the ministers and prime minister.  Sometimes, when that government fucks up real bad, it resigns entirely, to be replaced by other appointees of the party or by another party or coalition entirely by election.

Also, it appears that they use almost exclusively LP gas for automotive fuel, probably heating and cooking, too.  As much oil is produced there, I guess they have few refineries because LP gas doesn't make much sense, otherwise.

A couple notes:

1. You’ve described a normal parliamentary system, but Kazkhstan’s model is unique to the post-Soviet world. Virtually all power is vested in the president and informally in the national security apparatus. The parliament is technically elected but in actually is simply a rubber stamp and legitimacy tool and is completely subordinate to the President. He sacked them as a face saving maneuver. 
 

2. Most people converted their cars to burn natural gas (hilariously dangerous as they are not professional conversions). There have long been price caps on gas and so it’s orders of magnitude cheaper to run a car that way. 

[956 Worldwide 34705]

Some TL;DR on the glorious nation of Kazakhstan.

Nursultan Nazarbayev was one of a generation of more or less successful Central Asian dictators who found himself thrust into the role as the Soviet Union fractured (along with Karimov in Uzbekistan and Niyazov in Turkmenistan who both died).  All came from humble origins (Karimov and Niyazov were in Soviet orphanages) and rose through local party structure to regional Communist Party leadership— they were apparatchiks and later nomenklatura but NOT in the power positions of state security (siloviki). They were in leadership roles in the republics when the USSR collapsed, but these roles were envisioned as more or less window dressing and subordinate to Moscow and the USSR security services.

Nazarbayev and his counterparts were more than up to the task of ruling their new nations after being handed independence. All of them more or less retained a late-Soviet model of governance and state structure, with some added cultural-specific cult of personality window dressing . Of the three, Nazarbayev was the “model”— he avoided most of the excessive weirdness in Turkmenistan and most of the most brutal, boiling people alive repression of Uzbekistan (Karimov had to deal with genuine indigenous sentiment for political Islam). Thanks to his wiliness and his nation’s extensive petro-wealth he delicately walked a tightrope between Russia, the United States and China, attracted foreign investment, and kept great powers alternately comfortable and off balance and competing.

I mentioned that the parliament is a rubber stamp and legitimacy instrument. Nazarbayev’s (later Tokayev’s) party “won” 70 percent in the last election. Other parties include a group of “representatives of Kazakhstan ethnic groups” which was also chaired by Nazarbayev, a “constructive (read: controlled) opposition” party that usually supports the government, and the rump vestigial Communist party. Power actually lies with the President and various shadowy figures in power ministries. 

He officially resigned to his hand-picked successor, Tokayev, in 2019.  Most experts saw this as a phased transition to a loyalist who would protect Nazarbayev and his family while Nazarbayev retained most real power as chair of the national security council. Tokaev is an apparatchik/nomenklatura for modern day Kazakhstan.  He also retained Nazarbayev loyalists and family members in key roles and promised to implement similar policies. 

So, what is happening now? I think the simple explanation is the obvious. The government miscalculated what the population would bear and greedily eyed the lifting of natural gas price caps as a way to plus up state budgets (and skim and redistribute new revenues) in the wake of COVID. This revealed the brittleness of the authoritarian structures as security forces will repress individuals and alleged foreign agents but NOT their ordinary countrymen, who are clearly not all Soros/CIA provocateurs. Russia has an interest in maintaining stability and the known quantity in Tokayev.  

If you are conspiracy minded, it’s worth noting that Tokayev remains in power and has removed his predecessor Nazarbayev and loyalist holdovers from official positions of authorities in response to protests. Russian troops are now in country to support his government.  Central Asia has a long history of palace/camp intrigue instead of an ordinary transfer of power to new emirs and khans, and Russia has literally played this “Great Game” for centuries.

And finally, I expect Russia and/or Tokayev to soon explicitly call this whole thing an attempted color revolution organized by the CIA, NATO, Soros, and maybe the Freemasons, because of course it is. 

Central Asia is, outside of North Korea, the most impenetrable, Byzantine, and weird place on the planet. 
 

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by 956 Worldwide

[956 Worldwide 34705]

Also not to be overlooked— the potential role of rival “clans,” which are common in post-Soviet Central Asia. Although all nominally part of the ruling party, the government must take care to balance power, positions, and income across extended family/geography based influential clans.  Most clans retain cadres of young, underemployed athletes and “sportsmen” to deploy as muscle and it’s possible that some of the clan leaders saw the peaceful protests as an opportunity to hijack in a bid to reset the internal balance of power. 

[South Austin 52463]

If anyone was wondering, this is Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan.

[Guest Lobo]

14 hours ago, texashorne said:

Its funny Kazakhstan is in turmoil and its enraged population is completely unaware that a group of people on the other side of the world can't discuss it without bringing up Borat and Airplane.  

What’s the connection to Airplane?

[956 Worldwide 34705]

2 minutes ago, South Austin said:

If anyone was wondering, this is Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan.

It’s now called Nur-Sultan (modestly named after the former President Nur-Sultan Nazarbayev). 

The largest city is Almaty.  Nazarbayev moved the capital north, away from China. He also wanted to fend off any potential secessionist sentiment from the north, which was sparsely populated with a lot of Russian speakers.  The new capital moved the center of power and promoted ethnic Kazakhs from the south to relocate. 

[South Austin 52463]

3 minutes ago, Lobo said:

What’s the connection to Airplane?

None. This is how we Surly.

[956 Worldwide 34705]

And as predicted, Russian and Belarusian media announce it’s a color revolution ginned up by the West. Komsomolskaya Pravda says the riots are ignited by “Western secret services ahead of the Russia-NATO meeting” and Belarus state tc calls it “Western curated after learning from the unsuccessful Minsk experience.”

 

[Guest Lobo]

I had a very successful Minsk experience.  

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

12 minutes ago, South Austin said:

None. This is how we Surly.

You can't be serious, and stop calling me Surly...........   wait

 

(I took a shot)

[Parliament 14255]

18 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Honestly, would you be surprised?

And if they are, and if it takes the pressure off Ukraine, then I say "bravo."

I go both ways on that.  It feels good to screw with Putin, but unintended consequences and such...

[SimonBolivar 10958]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

I had a very successful Minsk experience.  

Yeah the entire journey from Milan to Minsk was great.

[orange dream 1247]

I've spent a couple of weeks per year in Astana (Nur-Sultan) for the last 6 years (not including COVID era).  Agree with the assessment above that Nazarbayev did an admirable job of balancing between authoritarian dictator and beloved paternalistic Head of State.  Transitions of power in that area can be complicated at best.  Lots of funds have been invested in new infrastructure in transforming Astana into the capital that have benefited people in that area but I'll bet there has been some brewing resentment from the folks in Almaty for a while.  Hopefully things resolve somewhat peacefully and not just as a result of "peacekeeping" neighbors who will continue to squeeze on the bruise at it suits their own needs.

 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

 

[Bullneck 19079]

Everybody should be reppin' Shady Ray, 956, and Inka's posts.  Not often you can get expert analysis on Euro-Asian politics on a football website.  

Edited January 6, 2022 by Bullneck

[Bullneck 19079]

11 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

[ABSR 5309]

14 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Pffft. Fucking amateurs.  I bet Germany would be able to handle Ukraine and Kazakhstan. 

Exactly!  Two front war?  When in history has this ever been problematic. 

[Hefeweizen 5311]

4 hours ago, Lobo said:

What’s the connection to Airplane?

Man, you don’t speak jive, do you?

[Guest Lobo]

5 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

Man, you don’t speak jive, do you?

I knew a Soviet Republic in a similar predicament.  And they ended up being sorry.  Golly.  

[956 Worldwide 34705]

34 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

Everybody should be reppin' Shady Ray, 956, and Inka's posts.  Not often you can get expert analysis on Euro-Asian politics on a football website.  

This board is a collection of (mostly) intelligent, experienced, and funny assholes and that’s the reason I joined, I’m constantly getting something new from people who know shit. 
 

Like I said, Central Asia and its internal power structures are almost impenetrable to outsiders. Westerners who can plausibly call themselves experts number in the dozens and even they are not “experts” the way you can be an expert on German or Latin American politics.  While you can rule some scenarios out with confidence (this is not an American ploy to distract Putin from Ukraine)….anyone who claims to know for sure WTF is happening is by definition full of shit. 

Edited January 6, 2022 by 956 Worldwide

[Parliament 14255]

1 hour ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

So yeah.  The "gas" price hike is actually liquified petroleum gas.  Most of their cars run on it.  Why?  How did their entire country end up running their cars on LPG and not gasoline?

[Guest Lobo]

One word:  Volume

[956 Worldwide 34705]

5 minutes ago, Parliament said:

So yeah.  The "gas" price hike is actually liquified petroleum gas.  Most of their cars run on it.  Why?  How did their entire country end up running their cars on LPG and not gasoline?

I mentioned this above.  The state has long had price caps on LPG, as it’s an essential heating source and the country has plenty of it. Enterprising Kazakhs converted their cars to run on it or on compressed natural gas, again— to hilariously dangerous standards.  
 

The situation is similar next door in Uzbekistan, where the issue was exacerbated by frequent gasoline shortages due to structural deficiencies in their ramshackle economy.  Anyone looking to travel out of the capitol needed to plan on carrying with them enough fuel in jerry cans to at least get to their destination, and usually back as late as about 2016. 

[Pokoloco 1281]

On 1/5/2022 at 6:33 AM, Immaculate Vibes said:

Before 

 
after

Now THAT'S how you insurrect!

[InkaUtexas 25911]

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This board is a collection of (mostly) intelligent, experienced, and funny assholes and that’s the reason I joined, I’m constantly getting something new from people who know shit. 
 

Like I said, Central Asia and its internal power structures are almost impenetrable to outsiders. Westerners who can plausibly call themselves experts number in the dozens and even they are not “experts” the way you can be an expert on German or Latin American politics.  While you can rule some scenarios out with confidence (this is not an American ploy to distract Putin from Ukraine)….anyone who claims to know for sure WTF is happening is by definition full of shit. 

No we are not experts at all. My time in the Stan's did not include going to the country of focus. Only work I did concerning it was a NASA project for logistics support, so I had to read a ton of legal shit and learn their history. But we do track current events and I think we do try to bring a global view vs. what we see on the US news sites. 

Agree on your take though. Way too damn soon to "know" how Putin and the CTSO is going to react. It is confirmed they are responding with armed forces from places that bring an ethnic animosity. Was reading reports of GRU and the Russian 31st heading in. Fuckers won't mess around. Going to be fun to watch. 

My take is they go in hard, kill a bunch of people Ala Hungary and it will go Caucus style low level insurgency. Russia uses proxies to hit that and still leaves conventional forces focused on Ukraine. Issue they run into is if it is seen as another Russian attack vs. Islam and the mountains rise up. 

[InkaUtexas 25911]

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I mentioned this above.  The state has long had price caps on LPG, as it’s an essential heating source and the country has plenty of it. Enterprising Kazakhs converted their cars to run on it or on compressed natural gas, again— to hilariously dangerous standards.  
 

The situation is similar next door in Uzbekistan, where the issue was exacerbated by frequent gasoline shortages due to structural deficiencies in their ramshackle economy.  Anyone looking to travel out of the capitol needed to plan on carrying with them enough fuel in jerry cans to at least get to their destination, and usually back as late as about 2016. 

Sarajevo. 1995-1997. Whole country smelled like French fries since they converted vegetable oil to run their vehicles. I was always amazed at how people modify to fit their needs. 

[JerrysJheriCurl 977]

We need a dedicated geopolitics section as threads like this are healthy discussion and insight. Of course with a good mix of surly spice notes, as this thread has.

Always plenty of geopolitical things happening: China and Uyghurs, KSA and Houthi, Lebanon with their perpetual financial and government crises, current situation in Tunisia, what’s happening in Sudan… just to name a few.

I would down for that and would be intrigued on different surly lenses, expertises and experiences. 

 

[Brisketexan 105096]

1 minute ago, JerrysJheriCurl said:

We need a dedicated geopolitics section as threads like this are healthy discussion and insight. Of course with a good mix of surly spice notes, as this thread has.

Always plenty of geopolitical things happening: China and Uyghurs, KSA and Houthi, Lebanon with their perpetual financial and government crises, current situation in Tunisia, what’s happening in Sudan… just to name a few.

I would down for that and would be intrigued on different surly lenses, expertises and experiences. 

 

Yet again, no matter the list, you fuckers fail to mention the struggle for Quebecois independence and the efforts of the freedom fighters of Liberte de Quebec....it pisses me off....

[InkaUtexas 25911]

I created one here in the DT. It died. I agree we need one. There is a lot of knowledge and plenty of us who work international. Hell, we had 3 pages in the football thread about tractors and threshers. 

[BERT 4358]

3 hours ago, Bullneck said:

Everybody should be reppin' Shady Ray, 956, and Inka's posts.  Not often you can get expert analysis on Euro-Asian politics on a football website.  

Don't tell me what to do. 

[ABSR 5309]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Yet again, no matter the list, you fuckers fail to mention the struggle for Quebecois independence and the efforts of the freedom fighters of Liberte de Quebec....it pisses me off....

Now that Christmas is over, don't you even have Time for Asian Dawn?

[InkaUtexas 25911]

36 minutes ago, BERT said:

Don't tell me what to do. 

Fuck em. 

[El Diablo 4232]

I know our experts have already discounted US involvement but I'd still bet money there's a gringo on the ground with connections to Kermit Roosevelt Jr. 

[JerrysJheriCurl 977]

What’s the impact on Bitcoin and uranium with this unrest? 
You think LPG is wild for vehicles, people were using kerosene in their houses before Thomas Edison did his thing. Imagine keeping your house lit with that bad boy oil. 
Edison single-handedly put the petro industry into a pickle until Henry Ford came along. 
Intrigued how China will react to this, if at all. KZ is mostly Muslim and they fo sho don’t want them Peking in via emigration. 
Iran just gonna watch and let this happen without salivating over those oil and gas opportunities? Get rial. 

[Incredulity 11666]

8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The situation is similar next door in Uzbekistan,

- A Russian? 

- Well, to be technical he's an Uzbekistanian, but... 

- Uzbekistanian? I've been dealing with those sneaky Russian dogs. 

- Give me a name. 

- Yurinov. Boris. 

- Boris The Blade? 

- Yeah. 

- As in Boris The Bullet-Dodger? 

- Why do they call him The Bullet-Dodger? 

- Because he dodges bullets, Avi

[Johnny Sack 8397]

On 1/5/2022 at 12:58 PM, usmc0331horn said:

I used to fuck a Russian Kazakh so this hits close to home.

Did he treat you nice?

[BERT 4358]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

- A Russian? 

- Well, to be technical he's an Uzbekistanian, but... 

- Uzbekistanian? I've been dealing with those sneaky Russian dogs. 

- Give me a name. 

- Yurinov. Boris. 

- Boris The Blade? 

- Yeah. 

- As in Boris The Bullet-Dodger? 

- Why do they call him The Bullet-Dodger? 

- Because he dodges bullets, Avi

One of my favorite movies 

[956 Worldwide 34705]

4 hours ago, JerrysJheriCurl said:

What’s the impact on Bitcoin and uranium with this unrest? 
You think LPG is wild for vehicles, people were using kerosene in their houses before Thomas Edison did his thing. Imagine keeping your house lit with that bad boy oil. 
Edison single-handedly put the petro industry into a pickle until Henry Ford came along. 
Intrigued how China will react to this, if at all. KZ is mostly Muslim and they fo sho don’t want them Peking in via emigration. 
Iran just gonna watch and let this happen without salivating over those oil and gas opportunities? Get rial. 

Kazakhs are lukewarm Muslims for the most part.  China would not be the preferred immigration destination for Kazakhs. Traditionally they migrated to Russia where it’s much easier to integrate and there’s far more cultural similarity. Whoever could would try to go West. 

[Bevo 13576]

Russian troops were sent in all but ending the unrest.

[Anastasis 23469]

On 1/5/2022 at 10:39 AM, wildcat09 said:

Listen up kid, let me tell you about the satanic panics and political correctness wars of the 80s and 90s.

And the HIV. 

[Shady Ray 1633]

On 1/5/2022 at 11:25 PM, 0xdeadbeef said:

 

I'm not saying I had to check where exactly Kazakhstan is, but there's no way I could draw even approximate country borders on that part of the world.

If Putin wants to put the USSR band back together, he needs to rollup Kazakhstan to get to the other Stans. 

 

True, but I think it is important to point out that authors of media pieces who claim that Russia wants to recreate the USSR are woefully uninformed or have other motives for making such a generalized statement. It is a much more complicated geopolitical circumstance.
 

Russia essentially views its ex-Soviet neighbors as being one of four classifications.
 

In order of Russian desirability:

1. Most reliable: Strongly dependent upon Russia; deeply interconnected with Russia (e.g. Belarus)
2. Generally reliable, albeit with some economic ties to potential Russian adversaries like China, Turkey, and even the West (such as Western energy cos in KZ), but still strongly intertwined with Russia and thus susceptible to Russian influence above all others; ideologically consistent with Russia to a large degree; stable and predictable working relationship with Russia. These would be KZ, Armenia, the other Central Asian “Stans” (although I hate that phrase, as it connotes a region with homogenous geopolitical goals/challenges/alliances, which they are not)
3. Drifting away from traditional relationship with Russia towards deeper ties with “unfriendly” regional/superpowers (Ukraine, Georgia towards NATO; and Azerbaijan towards Turkey)
4. Outright opponents (the Baltics)
 

Russia has no desire to gobble these up into a reconstituted USSR. Russia is not economically capable of doing that, and God knows Russia doesn’t need any more sparsely populated land with poor, uneducated (and particularly non-Russian) inhabitants. Honestly, it can barely exploit its existing resources effectively, it can't project efficient management of other, non-Russian lands.
 

Let’s take “non-KZ” Central Asia, for example. It would be political suicide to annex the remaining Central Asian Republics. You are talking about millions of people who - if annexed - would  A) immediately result in billions and billions of Rubles in fresh, new obligations JUST to keep the peace/normalize living standards…Rubles that Russia simply does not have, and B) immediately result in hemorrhaging of popular support in Putin’s base of support in the Russian provinces. The provinces give Putin the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things because he is seen as a proper “Russia-first Make Russia Great Again nationalist”, but the one spot that he is vulnerable there is the perception that Moscow gets all economic benefit, while infrastructure, pensions, etc in the provinces remain low priorities to the Central Government. If provincial Russia sees the state extending itself into former Soviet republics on a formal basis, with obligations for new cash outlays, they would be much, much more likely to join in with certain urban elites who are prone to anti-Putin alternatives.
 

If Putin were to annex Central Asian countries, he would immediately be responsible for millions of people in areas with GDP per capita in the area of 1,000 USD per year (except for KZ, which is close to Russia GDP per C-wise at around 10k p/a). KYRGYZ = 1,100 USD, Tajikistan = 850 USD, Turkmenistan = 7k USD, Uzbekistan = 1700 USD).
 

That doesn’t even consider the geopolitical tensions that would occur on the “far side of the Stans” with a bunch of potential Muslim extremists now in his new USSR, which Putin has no appetite for. It would immediately pave the way for a widespread increase in popularity of Islamist parties in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, who would bog down Russian security forces at a time when they absolutely cannot afford that, as well as immediately exporting their islamist efforts straight into the Caucasus. This would be geopolitical suicide and Putin knows that. He wants stability on his underbelly…not massive geopolitical shifts. Status Quo Forever is his motto here.
 

Russia has no resources/appetite to assume these responsibilities. Honestly, same goes for non-Crimean Ukraine, but that is a different story with very different geographic and geopolitical objectives.
 

With respect to KZ itself, again, he has no desire to annex this, or to seize its ethnic-Russian enclaves. Unlike Crimea, those ethnic-Russian areas are completely worthless to Russia. They contain no resources and are essentially the shittiest parts of KZ. The only use Russia would have in them is as an irritant that it could turn on and off if the government in KZ every became hostile to Russia. But by slicing the Russian areas back into Russia, it would immediately turn KZ into a hotbed of anti-Russian vitriol, causing it immeasurable problems. Russia absolutely doesn’t want that. It would also immediately strain ties with China, which Russia is working very hard to strengthen in light of its potential geopolitical isolation on a global stage.
 

What Russia wants - if it can’t influence and dominate a country's policies completely - is to at least have a friendly ally on its borders, and it will even tolerate a neutral neighbor so long as there are no signs of it moving towards hostile, as per Ukraine. Once a place hits Category #3, it will get some form of the Little Green Men and internal tensions in the form of ethnic Russian agitation in the local Russian population. And in my opinion, Russia won’t let Category 4 occur again without direct intervention militarily with the intent not to occupy indefinitely, but rather to break apart and foment continuous chaos within its borders in order to prevent it from becoming unified in its hostility towards Russia, thus keeping it from entering NATO or hostile trade associations. (it was too weak at the time the Baltics came in to NATO to stop that).
 

But there really isn't a case to be made where Russia wants to re-assemble the USSR by invading and annexing those places wholesale.
 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Shady Ray

[Shady Ray 1633]

18 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This board is a collection of (mostly) intelligent, experienced, and funny assholes and that’s the reason I joined, I’m constantly getting something new from people who know shit. 
 

Like I said, Central Asia and its internal power structures are almost impenetrable to outsiders. Westerners who can plausibly call themselves experts number in the dozens and even they are not “experts” the way you can be an expert on German or Latin American politics.  While you can rule some scenarios out with confidence (this is not an American ploy to distract Putin from Ukraine)….anyone who claims to know for sure WTF is happening is by definition full of shit. 

Yeah, even as someone who is much more willing to lend a skeptical eye towards regime change movements as potentially containing elements of Western interference, I completely agree with you here. If we were involved, it would have looked much different and - at least as it appears now - would have been much more effective, as this thing looks to be fizzling out as quickly as it came, at least for the time being.

 

My outside tea-leaf reading is that it is most likely an internal power struggle between the ascending Tokayev "clan" and the all-but-removed from the scene Nazarbayev family dynasty, with Tokayev now positioning himself to take over vast segments of the economy held by ol' Nursultan. And this is being done with Vlad's support.

 

And, just for shits and giggles conspiracy theories: while I would probably rule out foreign interference completely (with the exception of Russia itself, which I could completely see as being well aware of what was about to go down and using it to re-assert internal control over a KZ that had in recent years enjoyed a bit more neutrality and friendliness towards the west), if there WAS foreign interference, I would have to go with that (formerly)Mustacheoed Man of Mystery, that Sultan of Sexiness, the one, the only Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

 

Since we have such a large contingency of Turks here in Germany, our news is actually pretty plugged into Erdogan's daily shennaniganry. Last month, there were articles and reports all over German news about Erdogan and his increased push towards Pan-Turkic nation-building. In fact he really stirred the pot by posing with this picture last month, which was all over our news:

 

 

 With the KZ being virtually the geographic center of the turkic world, and Erdogan fully seeking to gain leverage over the Russians in Idlib, in my opinion he would love to capitalize on existing tension in KZ by exploiting organic protests to essentially "Syria-ize" KZ. Now, the Turks are way too fucked at the moment to project this type of ambitious idea of full pan-Turkic world, but relatively speaking, they do have the historical, ethnic (and strong existing contacts) in the region to make hay, even if they can't exert actual control. Basically an "oh, you exploit existing chaos on my border, well I'm gonna do it on yours" type of shit.

 

And you made a great point earlier about KZ being a nominally muslim country. One thing that really struck me as odd (albeit probably limited in importance) was that there were multiple beheadings of the police officers yesterday. That was confirmed by all of the big outlets in Europe and the US. 

 

While definitely not dispositive of anything, that doesn't sound like Kazakh behavior, but it does sound like Erdogan's type of folks in other regions.

Again, I don't really subscribe to this...occam's razor and all, but Erdogan has much more incentive to intervene in this way than any other "foreign powers"...but as I said, this is probably inter-KZ shit that you right said none of us are ever going to fully be able to analyze as outsiders.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Shady Ray