Contesting Russia Requires Renewed US Engagement In Central Asia

Contesting Russia Requires Renewed US Engagement In Central Asia

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Written by James M. Dorsey

When US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared that Washington wanted to see Russia so “weakened” that it would no longer be able to invade a neighbouring state, he lifted the veil on US goals in Ukraine. He also held out the prospect of a long-term US-Russian contest for power and influence.

Mr. Austin’s remarks were problematic on several fronts. For one, they legitimised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification of the invasion of Ukraine as a defence against US-led efforts to box Russia in and potentially undermine his regime.

“US policy toward Russia continues to be plagued by lack of rhetorical discipline. First calling for regime change, now goal of weakening Russia. This only increases Putin’s case for escalating & shifts focus away from Russian actions in Ukraine & toward Russia-US/NATO showdown,” tweeted New York-based Council of Foreign Relations president and former senior State Department official Richard Haas.

Mr. Haas was referring to President Joe Biden’s remark last month, which he subsequently walked back, that Mr. Putin “cannot remain in power.”

Leaving aside that Mr. Austin’s remark was inopportune, it also suggested a lack of vision of what it will take to ensure that Mr. Putin does not repeat his Ukraine operation elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. That is an endeavour that would involve looking beyond Ukraine to foster closer ties with former Soviet republics that do not immediately border Ukraine.

One place to look is Kazakhstan, a potential future target if Russia still has the wherewithal after what has become a draining slug in Ukraine.

Mr. Putin has long set Kazakhstan up as a potential future target.

He has repeatedly used language when it comes to Kazakhstan that is similar to his rhetoric on the artificial character of the Ukrainian state.

Referring to his notion of a Russian world whose boundaries are defined by the presence of Russian speakers and adherents to Russian culture rather than its internationally recognised borders, Mr. Putin asserted last December that “Kazakhstan is a Russian-speaking country in the full sense of the word.”

Mr. Putin first sent a chill down Kazakh spines eight years ago when a student asked him nine months after the annexation of Crimea whether Kazakhstan, with a 6,800 kilometre-long border with Russia, the world’s second-longest frontier, risked a fate similar to that of Ukraine.

In response, Mr. Putin noted that then-president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era Communist party boss, had “performed a unique feat: he has created a state on a territory where there has never been a state. The Kazakhs never had a state of their own, and he created it.”

To be sure, Russian troops invited in January by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to help put down anti-government protests were quick to withdraw from the Central Asian nation once calm had been restored.

Mr. Putin’s remarks, coupled with distrust of China fuelled by the repression of Turkic Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs, in the north-western province of Xinjiang, and the shutdown of Russia’s Black Sea Novorossiysk oil terminal, Kazakhstan’s main Caspian oil export route, creates an opportunity for the United States.

Last month, Kazakhstan abstained in a United Nations General Assembly vote that condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Since then, its sovereign wealth fund announced that it would no longer do business in rubles in compliance with US and European sanctions against Russia. This week, Kazakhstan stopped production of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19.

In an apparent effort to stir the pot, Russian media accused Kazakhstan of preventing Russian nationals from expressing support for Mr. Putin’s invasion and firing Kazakhs who supported the Russian president’s actions from their jobs. At the same time, opponents of the war were allowed to stage demonstrations.

“As Washington policymakers look for ways to counter Russian influence and complicate Mr. Putin’s life, helping Kazakhstan reduce its dependence on Moscow-controlled pipelines, reform its economy, and coordinate with neighbouring Central Asian states to limit the influence of both China and Russia might be a good place to start,” said Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead.

Last month, Mr. Tokayev, the Kazakh president, promised sweeping reforms in response to the January protests.

high-level Kazakh delegation visited Washington this week to discuss closer cooperation and ways to mitigate the impact on Kazakhstan of potentially crippling sanctions against Russia.

Supporting Kazakhstan would involve a renewed US engagement in Central Asia, a key region that constitutes Russia as well as China’s backyard. The United States is perceived to have abandoned the region with its withdrawal from Afghanistan last August.

It would also mean enlarging the figurative battlefield to include not only military and financial support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia but also the strengthening of political and economic ties with former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are, alongside Kazakhstan, members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which Mr. Putin, referring to Kazakhstan, described as a bulwark that “helps them stay within the so-called ‘greater Russian world,’ which is part of world civilization.”

The invasion of Ukraine has given Uzbekistan second thoughts. Uzbekistan failed to vote on the UN resolution, but Uzbek officials have since condemned the war and expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

As a result, Uzbekistan appears to have reversed its ambition to join the EEU and forge closer ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the region’s Russian-led military alliance.

“The way Central Asia thinks about Russia has changed. While before, Russia was seen as a source of stability, it now seems that its presence in a very sensitive security dimension has become a weakness for regional stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” said Carnegie Endowment Central Asia scholar Temur Umarov.

“I think that Central Asian governments will seek to minimise the influence of Russia, which will be difficult to do, but they have no choice since it has become an unpredictable power.” Mr. Umarov predicted.

To watch a video version of this story please click here.

A podcast version is available on Soundcloud, ItunesSpotifyStitcherTuneInSpreakerPocket CastsTumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon, and Castbox.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and scholar, a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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ElCristeroAmericano

The Central Asians I know aren’t stupid. They know Washington’s track record in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. They know that Washington is the King of Chaos not some stabilizing force. They know that it was Washington and their Maidan Coup that led to this war. They know Washington was recently behind the failed insurrection in Kazakhstan. Central Asia knows it is peace, partnership, prosperity and stability with Russia and China or another Syria with the Americans. The Americans didn’t leave 30 billion in military hardware behind in Afghanistan for nothing. They want ISIS to get it’s hands on it and for all the former Soviet Central Asia to go up in flames. That’s the plan. That was the plan when the West first destabilized Afghanistan in the late 1970’s and armed the Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Army. It’s the same plan just updated for 2022

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Rasputin

Interesting article, unusual to find on SF, I’ll be surprised if it’s still posted in a few hours. They often remove articles quickly that are not absolutely pro Russian.

It’s different, Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re punished for their support of terrorists with the exception of Iraq who invaded a US protected state. With the exception of Syria their leadership was all destroyed.

I don’t know if the beliefs in conspiracy theories, a consequences of poor education and the welfare state has affected the lower classes of Central Asia, as it has in the west. I’d think they still retain some tribal common sense. And as such can see the writing on the wall Russia under Putin is an dangerous unpredictable neighbour. .

Chris Gr

But you fail to mention one thing. Many regional countries wanted to attack Libya, Syria or Iraq also.

Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey for example wanted the overthrow of Qaddafi.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel wanted the overthrow of Assad (in the beginning).
Saddam was hated by every country bordering Iraq.

Ian Cooper

That doesn’t excuse what the US did, which, in each case, was a war crime under international law.

Chris Gr

Yes

Maju

You lie. They don’t.

André

You are very very ignorant. How do you call countries with millennia of urban, civilized, commercial, literary culture simple tribes with some common sense? This is a kind of anglo-american lack of culture that is hard to get… I’d advise you to stay in your bubble or you might find the world is not hollywood and get too frustrated

Rasputin

Please work on your English language comprehension. I can’t even guess how you interpreted my statements so insanely

NATO fags love high heels and lipstick

Only for Ciaisis bootlickers and nazis like you hoholtrash.

Rodriguez

When you border Russia and see the level of poverty and corruption and how they want to spread their misery around, US wars problem fades away.

Arch Bungle

When you’ve survived a U.S occupation and regime change and see the level of poverty and corruption and how they want to spread their misery around, you want the US to collapse as fast as possible.

TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

Rather be smart commy slave then any woke lgbtqrxt neo liberal nazi convict 5x jabbed in vain!

Paul

How are the Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians doing? Has the Zionist benefitted them? And how about Ukraine? How’s the Jew who ran for president claiming he would make peace while running for office; how’s it working out for them? The problem is allowing Jews in power.

Chris Gr

What Jews?

Chris Gr

Yes but those peoples are Mongols and dislike us Europeans.

Maju

They are Turkic, not “Mongols”. And nope: they don’t necessarily or even normally dislike us Europeans. Maybe they dislike US-Americanos but those are not Europeans.

Chris Gr

Turkic is Mongol. And these peoples are a bit dangerous. So we need to be aware.

Maju

Turkic is not Mongol or even Mongolic. They are probably related within the Altaic super-family but they are two distinct branches of it.

Turks or Turkics expanded some 1800 years ago from what is now Monglia (approx.) and their first arrival to Europe is probably that of the Huns, from which most Medieval Turkic groups in Europe (Bulgars notably) seem to derive directly. Heftalites or White Huns in Afghanistan are IMO behind the Hazaras, whose ethnic name is similar to that of the Khazars, another European Turkic group of the Middle Ages.

Mongols expanded instead only 800 years ago and their history is better known in great detail. The only significant Mongolic population outside of the area around Mongolia are the Kalmyks.

Chris Gr

Huns, Bulgars, Hepththalites and those other groups are still Mongol.

Hazaras are Mongolic to the core also. Their oral traditions say it.

Maju

No. Mongols only expanded with Temujin (Genghis Khan), previously they were a smallish secondary ethnicity probably under Turkic influence. Temujin made a genocide with the Tatars, who were probably Turkic remnants in what is now Mongolia and he did so allegedly because they were too numerous to subdue. So probably Turkic was spoken in Mongolia all the way to the reign of Genghis Khan. The opposite is not true: Mongolic was almost certainly not spoken west of Mongolia until then, there were no ancient Mongols in Central Asia before Temujin’s conquests.

I know the Hazaras claim Mongol ancestry but that seems to me rather a prestige legend because the Heftalites were almost forgotten by then. Also many Turkics collaborated with the Mongols as second tier ethnicities and eventually took over the remnants. The fact that, unlike Kalmyks, Hazara speak an Iranic language, just as the Heftalites did (at least officially their main language was Bactrian, now extinct) and that they are so numerous in an area that was very peripheral to the Mongol realms, strongly suggest that their East Asian ancestry (which is very mixed) is actually Turkic and specifically Hephtalite.

We don’t know directly the ethnolinguistics of the Huns but we know that their likely descendants were the various medieval Turkic polities of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, most clearly the Bulgars (whose most direct descendants are the Chuvash, via Volga Bulgaria).

Overall we see very clearly that the defeat of the Xiongnu (Huns as known in China) is clearly correlated with the mostly not documented in text expansion of the Turks to Central Asia first and to Europe a bit later (as Huns and descendants). In fact I’d argue that the alleged Genghis Khan Y-DNA lineage is actually clearly a 1000 years older Turkic founder effect, if I bother searching I might even name it after whoever was the (semi-?) legendary founding father of the Turks (there’s one such figure but I don’t recall the name).

The expansion of the Turkics had a much stronger demographic impact than that of the Mongols. It was not total population replacement relative to the Scythians (of fundamentally Western genetics and iranic language, the last steppe nomad Indoeuropeans) but it had a very dramatic impact that is visible in the modern genetics of Central Asian peoples especially. Considering what we see in the rest of Central Asia and even much of European Russia, we should not be surprised at all of finding another Turkic-descendant population, the Hazaras, in Afghanistan, even if, for state-building reasons of the Hephtalites those lost their Turkic language and adopted an Iranic one instead.

Last edited 2 years ago by Maju
Chris Gr

For me, Turanian, Turkic and Mongol is the same thing. For Scythians, I am not sure but they seem Turanic to me. The myth of Gog and Magog is based on those peoples and their movements which will end in the full invasion of Semitic and Hamitic lands and their full defeat in the end.

Maju

“Turanic” (derived from “Turk” somehow) is not a real thing, certainly not in the field of linguistics (it belongs to antropometry, I believe, “the mismeasurement of man”, a mostly pseudoscientific field). There is Altaic, a (somewhat controversial) superfamily that seems to include Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic (micro-Altaic, pretty much mainstream now) and some would argue that also Koreanic and Japonic (macro-Altaic, not demonstrated).

In any case Turkic is not Mongolic and vice versa, they may be related like Semitic is to Amazigh or to Kushitic, but they are not the same thing.

Scythians were Iranic, Indoeuropean, their last remnant (linguistically speaking) are Ossetians. In the Bronze Age there was an almost perfect genetic barrier between West Eurasia and East Asia at the Altai Mountains, in the Iron Age we observe more fluidity but almost exclusively in the mtDNA (i.e. mostly women were exchanged, very few men). The real shift happened only in late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, when the Huns/Turkics were defeated by China and migrated westward to Central Asia and Europe.

I have no idea where you get that “The myth of Gog and Magog is based on those peoples and their movements which will end in the full invasion of Semitic and Hamitic lands”… but, if so, it has already happened: Europe did conquer all those lands of Africa and West Asia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Last edited 2 years ago by Maju
S Balu

Chris Gr
Stop lying you have Turkish DNA by your own admission
Now claiming to be a european just because you live in Greece and speak Greek language
Self hatred has negative impact on your thoughts and actions

Chris Gr

Proof of that? No proof. On the other hand I am 100 percent Hellene and you are going to get mad at it.

Muhammad your Prophet

I remember that movie . It’s called Alice in Wonderland. Lunatics living in a deranged fantasy.

Last edited 2 years ago by Muhammad your Prophet
Rodriguez

Yes I do remember when Caligula promoted his horse General, remindes me how Putin made Kadirov General too.

Wonder how the other Russian Generals are feeling about Kadirov-Putin relationships.

Or they are all horses since they accept the term of Special Operation for this war that won’t end soon at all.

TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

Never you mind weakling,chechnyan sticks to russian choppa bullets,chop,chop,chop you!

Maju

How many oligarchs and political chiefs do you know? Those have their own interests, which are not necessarily those of their peoples (or rather almost invariably very different).

Thoughtful

Doesn’t matter what the people want politicians are so easily blackmailed / bribed. Elections are so easy to fix.

the grand wazoo

“The US didn’t leave $30 billiin in military hardware behind for nothing ….”
First sensible explanation of why the US abandoned all that hardware, that I’ve read. Also, I think the dollar value is closer to $80 billion.
2nd sensible explanation is: it wasn’t left behind at all, rather, the US generals sold as much as they could on the black market, and the rest was moved to safe warehouses to be sold later. Maybe in the Phillipines or Thailand. After all that’s exactly what transpired in Vietnam. Ask Admiral Poindexter or that other general, whose name I can’t remember, but it begins with A, if he’s still alive.
After all, they’re arms merchants, aren’t they.

Plato

Trashy State Department lies.

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Annon5228

Tell me SF readers, is it just a coincidence the former occupied countries of Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan wants to get out of Russian influence?

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Mayor of Dallas

It’s called money to join the FMs who run DC and the world. Ask them when they’re going to release the files on JFK why don’t you ask your local representative that. Go ahead. I’ll wait…

hans raus

Reason is russian poverty, corruption and no hope for change. Western ,,soft power” is king.

Last edited 2 years ago by hans raus
TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

70.8 rub to the dolla,goes to show how each and every post you made has no values (period)

Maju

No. It’s absolutely normal because every people wants to rule themselves and not be subject to foreigners. What is not normal is that they submit to the US Empire, which is an even worse oppressor.

Arch Bungle

These countries have been out of USSR for more than 30 years.

Russia has been thriving once it freed itself from u.s influence.

The other countries, still under US influence for 20+ years are corrupt shit-holes.

You tell me whose influence these countries should be getting away from?

TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

No poof they aint interested in you deplorable (nocando) tranny wannabe millenial neo misfits,fk you!

Paul

If they want to get away from Russian influence, the first thing they should do is stop importing Russian oil and natural gas. Since they’re so noble, brave and independent, it should be easy for them. Their love will keep them warm in the winter.

Remember Bucha!

Time for Joe to kick some russian azz!

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TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

Too ,weak,too selow,too woke and simply too damn incompetent to even nail a football,like fkn drr.

Anonymous

Building a gang It’s not rocket science It’s child’s play.

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Edgar Zetar

Keep going into forevers wars, you will never get what you wanted for…

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FreeToThink

Even chinese media now believes that Russia will collapse.

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TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

soros media dont count,if anything they all cant,duddo!

Chris Gr

I knew it. US will even use Iran for this endeavour. They did it once now they will do it the second time.

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Maju

Turkey and Pakistan rather.

Chris Gr

Iran is the same. And now a new Pakistan has been found called Ethiopia.

Maju

What has to do Ethiopia with Central Asia?

I did dispute Iran because, other than among Daris and Tayiks, whose language is similar, their influence seems more limited, notably because Iran is shia and most Central Asians are sunnis instead. And not just religious branch but even the issue of theocracy vs secularism separates them. Iran has most influence among the shias of West Asia (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) instead.

Last edited 2 years ago by Maju
Chris Gr

No relation with Central Asia but these nations are also following the lead of Turkey and Iran, which is, in biblical terms, the Gog Magog alliance.

Muslim Brotherhood is not Shia hater. There are even articles from 2013 which say that Hezbollah and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood are cooperating against common enemies (see ISIS, US, Saudi Arabia or Israel).

Maju

All I could find about Gog and Magog is that one is the legendary king and the other is the legendary land. Magog was supposedly a son of Japhet, i.e. Iapetus, the titan associated with Greece and thus Europe by extension. If anything we Westerners are Gog and Magog.

Remember, if you’re going to believe in such superstitions, that the “chosen people” are the Palestinians (the real descendants from ancient Jews) and that Christianity and Islam are as much Judaism as Talmudism is, they’re just different sects of the same religion, they believe in the same patriarchal god of the ancient Jews and the same prophets such as Abraham/Ibrahim or Moses (even Jesus in the case of Islam, which is a mere branch of monophysite Christianity).

Sure there are inter-sectarian collaborations but also distrust. I just say that sunni hegemony is a barrier for the influence of a theocracy like Iran, in a context in which religion still matters a lot.

Chris Gr

No, you are wrong on that one. The Europeans are called the Romans. The second Rome was Constantinople and the third Rome was Moscow.

The chosen people is not a race or a religious group but a group of people that share the same consciousness.

Canaan (the real name of Palestine) belongs to both Jews and “Palestinians”. However, the so called Palestinians are instructed by foreign powers (eg Turkey, Iran, Qatar, etc …) to hate Jews with passion and to fight them and they serve foreign interests.

However, the clashes in the Cold War between the so-called Arab states and Israel were based on different ideologies. The socialist/communist states of Egypt and Syria wanted to attack the capitalistic Israel.

hans raus

Russia and their very strong and very special allies:

-belorus
-syria
-north korea
-cuba

xD

I would welcome kazahkstan and Uzbekistan in western sphere of infuence. They just want better life, lets give them chance.

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Last edited 2 years ago by hans raus
Maju

What “better life”? I just watched how desperate homeless hungry people roam the trashed streets of Philadelphia. The “American dream” is a nightmare!

And is getting worse by the hour.

Cuba is a happy country on the other hand.

And the key-est ally of Russia is China (and vice versa). And China now rules the world or almost so. And it has definitely a very strong stake in Central Asia. Without Chinese and Russian backing Tokayev is done.

hans raus

China never was and will never be russian ally. Russia being china ally is just kremlin propaganda. China export and import/export from USA/EU is way higher than to/from russia so at the end only money and economic connections matter ….not empty words. Siberia is what matter mostly for China ;)

Last edited 2 years ago by hans raus
TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

chinas exports to cis and russia and india dwarfs the usas ,even more in imports (PERIOD)

Maju

What you say is meaningless: imperialism means bipolarity or at least a strong tendency towards it and, while Russia wishful-thinks contrary to this fact (they dream of multipolarity), China knows better (remember that their ruling party is still called “communist” and that reading Lenin, very especially his key work on “Imperialism”, is a must in that kind of organization, even if for all practical purposes they are now fully capitalist).

China could land-grab Russian interests (hypothetically even all or most of Siberia) but that’s not in the best interest of China because their rival is the US Empire. Maybe when the US Empire has been thoroughly defeated and annihilated, maybe then China will turn against Russia but right now they share extremely intense common interests and China is exquisite on not stepping on Russia’s toes (and vice versa).

Russia has no choice anyhow, the US intervention in Ukraine (Maidan nazi putsch 2014) let that very clear: the USA would not accept an independent Russia, only a vassal (and preferably much reduced) one. “Either you’re with US or against US”, says Uncle Sam. So Russia fell fully in the welcoming arms of China and China has been backing Russia very clearly (I read daily Chinese declarations of support for Russia and hostility against the USA and their Indo-Pacific vassals, even against European lackeyism, on the other hand they are clearly going softer on India, which is another Russian ally but a rival of China).

IF Europe (the EU approx.) would be a sovereign united power, then things would change (China and Europe would tend to become allies against both the USA and Russia), but that’s almost certain that won’t happen; while Europe is divided and subjugated under the US boot (via oligarchic entanglement and Gladio terrorism, not really by will), the secondary Poland-Russia conflict, stirred by the USA and their British sockpuppet since the 80s at least, will be China’s secondary conflict because the enemy of China is the USA and vice versa.

Another thing is that China plays international politics with silk gloves and that, as any industrialist capitalism, it needs markets. But that’s what the 2nd Cold War is all about: about resources and markets, as all imperialist conflicts (true mafioso intestine wars) are. Russia has key resources but that’s secondary: Russia has military might and can use those resources to disrupt US Imperial economy via the boomerang effect of “sanctions”, and that’s good for a China that clearly aims to replace the USA (and Europe to some extent too) as global hegemon already.

Once the USA and NATO implode, as they will no doubt this very decade, then we’ll see an interlude and, unless global eco-socialist revolution impedes it, a Third Cold War between China and some emergent power, probably India. But that’s another story.

Daniel

Thanks for your analysis, good work!

Chris Gr

I don’t know jow it will play out but the forces will clash a lot after the dismantling of the US.

Maju

It won’t be pretty, that’s for granted. But at some point, when the shaman only brings drought, he’s removed.

TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

they will reject your burnt sodomised sanctions on all fronts,assflogged neo libby spastic and a half!

Chris Gr

He failed to mention China, Brazil, India or Egypt. Lol

Dick Von D'Astard

The primary power being weakened at present times is first and foremost the USA with 140% Debt to GDP and a societal situation that was described by a CIA analyst shortly before the NATO Russia confrontation within Ukraine as being close to civil war. The U.S. is one stock market crash away from bankruptcy.

The U.S. under the Democrats have placed and prioritized saving the Empire (Nato) before saving America. (The Republic)

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Last edited 2 years ago by Dick Von D'Astard
Maju

The civil war has been averted bc Biden has adopted nearly all of Trump’s policies and the Ukrainian war serves as patriotic rally (do you think the Bannonists object to US backing of nazis anywhere?, c’mon!) It’s been also (for the time being at least) a rally call for all the US Empire, especially for “brain dead” NATO.

supratim barman

hitler killed himself today in 1945 while hiding like a rat in a hole from the soviet army in berlin

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TRUSS IS THE TRANNY LOVING LOSER

REAL WW2 HERO TOO,SEENS WHO ELSE COULD PUT HITLER OUT OF ITS MISERY

Maju

Tokayev seems yet another fickle Erdogan-like figure. Putin and the Kremlin are clearly having a wrong assessment of what is going on around them: was helping Tokayev worth it even? Putin may (wrongly) imagine that Central Asia is part of the Russosphere but what is certain is that most Central Asians speak Turkic (and the rest basically Iranic).

Said that, Central Asia is not of great interest to the US Empire (mostly because it’s very distant from where it can project power easily, i.e. in the coastal regions) and it is instead of huge interest to China. By evacuating Afghanistan the USA left a power vacuum that Russia can only substitute to some extent. It also left the various powers with Central Asian interests (China and Russia primarily but also India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey) looking at each other with some distrust. That’s the current situation in a nutshell.

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Chris Gr

Kazakhstan has only 19 million. They cannot do much.

Maju

More the reason to stick to Russia’s friendship, don’t you think? More so when Tokayev owes Putin his survival, at least politically, maybe even physically. It’s only months since Russia impeded a putsch or “color revolution” against him, a putsch that very apparently was enticed by the USA in similar fashion to Maidan and that the Kazakh police and military were not able to contain.

Chris Gr

Yes

Arch Bungle

The Americans (not to mention Europeans) are finished in Central Asia.

Their last hurrah was Afghanistan, and their last failed attempt Khazakhstan.

There is no way back in to C.A for the Americans or their vassals.

China, Iran and Russia guard the gates and India has no influence in C.A.

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Mark

Ukraine and Kazakhstan should learn lessons from India, Pakistan, the Utman Empire, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Czechoslovakia etc.

Some traitors of these countries were allied with Washington and Great Britain because they thought that they were their fathers and took lollipops from them, which is why they were weakened, attacked and divided into small pieces. The US and Great Britain will do the same with other countries if their leaders want to join them. On the other hand Russia is a straightforward and righteous country.

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JayTe

LOL!!! It makes total sense that Russia who ensured the failure of regime change in Belarus and Kazakhstan would be seen by Uzbekistan as a weakness for regional stability!?! I’m sure that Russia who is supported by everyone outside of the collective west is seen as a danger by Uzbekistan!?! I’m sure that there was no arm twisting, given the strong presence of western NGOs in Uzbekistan, done on the Uzbek government to alter its position in the UN and in the public vis a vis Russia’s SMO in Ukraine!?! Thank you for “increasing” our understanding of this issue!!! LOL!!!

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Last edited 2 years ago by JayTe
Paul

Kazakhstan will remain with Russia since it hosts the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site. Both sides benefit from it and I doubt the west will be able to do anything to disrupt that, but you can be sure that the troublemakers will try, because the west is run by Jews. And that’s what Jews do. They cause trouble.

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Sue Rarick

The US is like an old fighter having his last fight. He knows all the tricks but just won’t have the staying power needed to win.
Even if the US succeeds in turning those Central Region countries against Russia, they will then have to contend with China stepping into the void and that will only make China stronger.
Basically, this ain’t your WW2 USA but a very much weakened USSA

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Michael Liles

This article is complete bullshit and whoever wrote it doesn’t understand. Reality. Kazakhstan and central Asia will never move against Russia. Period

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NATO fags love high heels and lipstick

Final days of the crumbling americant empire…

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