What does Nicholas Cage do now?
(He visited Kazakhstan a few years back and made some good photos in Kazakh attire)
KevinC
1679
Damn, I’m jealous. I want that coat (I’m sure that’s not the proper term, but you know what I’m referring to).
Aceris
1680
It’s not a satellite, but it is friendly to Russia. Funny how Putin DGAF about anti-Russian-ethnic moves when the person doing them is a Putin-friendly dictator, isn’t it?
Now obviously we don’t know what the price will be for this “help”, but it does seem it was asked for.
The price might be nothing at all. Russia is interested in the survival of post-Soviet dictatorships. The operation is declared by Pashinyan, leader of Armenia who himself came to power thanks to mass protests. Technically Kazakhstan leader had asked ODKB for help, Armenian leader has agreed to help and Russia follows the agreements. Previously when Russia helped Lukashenko stay in power (the promise of military intervention was enough) they didn’t get anything important from him. Recently he more or less acknowledged Russian sovereignty over Crimea but it was 1.5 years after Russia helped him and after he made sure EU is not going to normalize relations.
So Russia is glad to help anti-Russian forces to stay in power as long as the alternative is worse. It tried to be more pragmatic with Ukraine, lost all the goodwill in there and afterwards had to made sure Russians won’t look at Ukrainian model of dismantling post-Soviet dictatorship as a positive example. If tomorrow Belarus or Kazakhstan (or, again, Ukraine) turns into a successful democracy supported by the rest of the world the Russian elites will be in a tight spot. I know from outside it all looks like a geopolitical map game, but believe me, internally Russia is a complicated mess than can blow up for a variety of reasons, including realization that there is another path.
KevinC
1682
Always appreciate your (much closer) POV in this thread, @alekseivolchok.
I am sorry if I sound too postulative. Me being to Kazakhstan doesn’t mean I have some deeper understanding of the country. My vision might be very clouded by the fact that it is all close to me. I know what Russian and Kazakh people think more than you. But you’d probably get a screwed up idea of, say, WW1 if you’d only learn about it from the people in the trenches. Maybe if you paint the history with wide strokes it really is just like [insert historical comparison] and I let details lead me away from the truth evident from outside.
CraigM
1684
I think it is mostly that most people don’t consider Kazakhstan much as an independent political actor. Their internal and international actions are largely below visibility for us.
So what people are responding to is wholly about a pattern of behavior from the Russian side. South Ossettia, Georgia, Crimea, it all paints a picture of Russia/ Putin that makes any such actions immediately suspicious.
KevinC
1685
Not at all. Most of us on the forum are an ocean and half a world away and many of us are children of the Cold War. My knowledge of Europe drops pretty precipitously once you cross the old Iron Curtain but it’s still better than my knowledge of Central Asia, which is just about nil. The only information I get is through Western news media which unfortunately operates under a lot of the same limitations I do. So I find it valuable to hear your perspective, being close to and much more familiar with the countries in question.
Aceris
1686
Yes, sorry, this does make sense, and Belarus is a good example.
Kazakhstan is 9th biggest country. It’s relatively sparsely populated (19 ml people) but it has a lot of resources. It has a long border with Russia as well is with China. Part of its economy is based on being a bridge between China and Customs Union, Russia-led free economic zone, EU-light, which means goods flow relatively freely up to borders of EU. They are dependent both on Russia and China, but that kinda means they can afford to be neutral.
Houngan
1688
That probably plays into our lack of understanding in the US, being such a strategically important area it almost seems like a bargaining chip among the vast European/Russian/Asian powers so we tend to place it, unfairly, into a bucket of shifting political and geographic lines that we just can’t keep up with. As mentioned maybe in this thread or elsewhere, the US is built almost entirely on incredible geographic luck, all the resources in the world, newly developed on the broad scale, and with no major enemies at the gates.
ShivaX
1689
This is the thing for me. Russia is systematically reacquiring old Soviet states and parts of said states.
Kazakhstan is one of them. And if anything being low in population and rich in resources is more reason for Russia to do it.
And to top it all off, Americans in general have, through ignorance, arrogance, or some combination of these two have, one, mistaken our unique historical conditions for evidence of divine providence and God’s special favor; and two, somewhat contradictorily, assumed that our experiences are the norm, so that when people try to explain the compromises, trade-offs, and reluctance to use military force at the drop of a hat that are normal in many countries, Americans simply don’t get it.
Now it looks like a power grab. Previous leader, Nazarbayev, tried to organize a proper transfer of power. He got some new position with a vague power and left a lot of his minions in different positions. Then he allowed some new people into power, specifically Tokayev. Now Tokayev has declared the state of emergency, replaced everyone from the old guard and got acknowledgement from the neighbours that he’s in his right.
I see a lot of conspiracy theorists talking about how violence during protests was a provocation by Tokaev, but it all sounds fishy. He is not out of it so it’s too early to tell.
Yes.
It seems Tokaev (Kazakhstan leader) wants to rub it in. He demanded ODKB (mostly Russian troops, though Armenia and Belarus) to leave at a specific time in a very unceremonious way. His newly appointed cabinet also has a guy who is a persona non grata in Russia. It’s just a minister of culture but the whole Russian government-influenced media is deeply disappointed.
Right now it looks like Tokaev did a cool trick. He used the genuine crisis to sidetrack the transfer of power and get rid of all the old guard. He used Russia to remind his elites that it’s either supporting him or supporting him as a foreign representative, and it’s doubtful that Russian elites will get anything from it apart from saving a very similar government system from collapse and thus preventing people back home in Russia about how hybrid dictatorship doesn’t work. A lot of people compare it to 1848 when Russian gendarme saved Europe from the horrors of revolutions and just a few years later Europe showed lack of gratefulness by beating Russia in Crimea.
AKA, helped maintain the oppressive monarchies that would in short order destroy Europe in WWI.
That is exactly what I’ve said.
