The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) announced Wednesday that it is sending peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan after the country’s president requested help to deal with massive protests.
The CSTO is a six-member military alliance made up of six former Soviet states. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the CSTO’s current chair, announced the deployment and said the peacekeepers would be sent to Kazakhstan “for a limited period with the aim of stabilization and normalization of the situation in this country.” Pashinyan didn’t specify how many peacekeepers were being deployed.
The protests broke out across Kazakhstan on Sunday. On Wednesday, protesters stormed the residence of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and other government buildings and set them on fire. According to the Kazakh Interior Ministry, eight police officers and national guard members were killed across the country, and over 300 were wounded.
Bordering Russia and China, Kazakhstan is a wealthy oil-rich nation that has enjoyed relative stability since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The protests were reportedly sparked by an increase in fuel prices caused by the government ending price controls. Tokayev has since reinstated the price controls and taken other measures in an effort to quell the protests.
The US has put out statements calling for calm and is denying that it has any role in the protests. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki denied what she called were “crazy Russian claims” that the US was inciting the civil unrest.
It’s not clear if any Russian officials have accused the US of being behind the protests, but considering Washington’s history meddling in countries that border Russia, it’s not that wild of an accusation to make.
The region is still dealing with the effects of the 2014 coup in Ukraine that was supported by Washington. In the aftermath of Belarus’ 2020 election, the US rejected the results and threw its support behind protesters and opposition leaders. Sometimes US meddling is less overt and done through organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, which has a presence in Kazakhstan.
Alexander Mercouris’ Youtube video today gives a history and context to the events. Also, Andrei Martyanov put out a video which is worth watching. Check them out for a quick “catch-up” on that country’s issues.
Essentially, US has started a fire in order to distract Russia from some planned Nazi-sh*t i the ukraine and also buy time before the negotiations on Russia’s ultimatum on Monday.
Russia and CSTO will put the fire out.
Color revolutions is not what they used to be. Ask Belarus…
Moon of Alabama has posted a good recap of the situation:
The U.S. Directed Rebellion in Kazakhstan May Well Strengthen Russia
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/01/the-us-directed-rebellion-in-kazakhstan-may-well-strengthen-russia.html#more
It’s basically just the Russian regime doing to Kazakhstan what the US regime periodically does to e.g. Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, et al.
The last thing Russia needs is violence in a friendly neighboring county. What a fanciful speculation!
On the other hand it has never been a mystery that NED supported “democratic” forces that believe in “pure” Khazakh nation. What is new.
It will test the state and local
security forces and their ability to provide basic public services, such as ambulance in a fast changing environment.
“The last thing Russia needs is violence in a friendly neighboring county.”
That’s exactly the same thing the US regime says when it dispatches troops to Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama, etc. to prop up a friendly dictator or overthrow an insufficiently obeisant one.
The “fanciful speculation” here is your continuing fantasy that any and every regime that happens to be on the wrong side of the US regime at any given time is, unlike the US regime, some kind of paragon of moral rectitude and enlightened, rather than cynical, self-interest.
There is a distinction. The countries you mention are not significant to the US national interests. The US invades those countries just to throw its weight around and for minor economic purposes. Kazakhstan is significant to Russian national interests. Also Kazakhstan, like Syria, has invited Russia in. Also, Kazakhstan is part of a collective security organization which is set up for precisely that purpose.
I agree that Russia operates in self-interest, just as the US does. But it was the US that, if it did not initiate this unrest, almost certainly promoted it. Russia is merely responding to another US attack on its security.
“Khazakstan” didn’t invite the Russian invasion. The particular regime that happens to have a grip on power at the moment invited the Russian invasion to make damn sure it keeps that grip on power. What the people who live there think about it isn’t necessarily clear.
It’s unsurprising that the ruling classes of states would form “collective security organizations” to scratch each others’ backs and help keep each other in charge when the serfs get uppity. Just. Like. The. US.
You’ve simply restated what I said. The regime is threatened by the US, so they called on the collective security organization which responded.
That isn’t an “invasion.” Definition:
Definition of invasion:
1: an act of invading especially: incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.
The US “invaded” Iraq with the intent of controlling the oil price and setting the stage for an “invasion” of Iran. It “invaded” Afghanistan, ditto. It “invaded” Syria, ditto. Khazakstan is nothing like that.
I agree with the rest of your comment about how rulers scratch each others’ backs. I have no brief for Khazakstan or Russia. But the current situation is not a “Russian invasion” which was initiated by Russia. As Bianca pointed out, the last thing Russia needs is unrest in an important neighboring country. This situation was almost certainly either triggered or promoted by US infiltration as an attack on Russia’s “soft underbelly.”
“an act of invading especially: incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.”
Exactly. The Russian and other invaders are conducting an incursion in order to conquer the uppity serfs who have decided to overthrow the sitting regime.
Whether those uppity serfs are influenced, or even gamed, by the US is an interesting question, but irrelevant to the fact that the invasion is an invasion.
So I guess you assume that was the reason for the Iraq invasion, and Afghanistan, and Syria, and Libya. The latter two in particular involved “uppity serfs”.
I don’t mind uprisings to overthrow any regime, of course. But when the “uppity serfs” are just doing the bidding of yet another aggressive state, due to their own ignorance of the wider picture, I don’t have much sympathy.
In particular, the Khazaks have had a crap society for generations. It’s their problem if they don’t like the regime. The US should have nothing to do with it. Neither should Russia – except when Russia is threatened by a US-led coup due to the ignorance of the locals.
I think we’re done here. It’s clear that for you whatever Russia does is evil. I guess that’s what “paleoconservative” actually means: dinosaurs still fighting the Cold War.
I agree that the US should have noting to do with it.
Yes, Russia, like all states, is evil. At any given time, given any particular situation, might it be more evil or less evil than some other state? Sure. It just becomes somewhat tiresome to see some commenters always treating some states as always uniquely and supremely evil, and some other states as a group of flower children dancing gaily in the park radiating love.
Not sure what paleoconservatism has to do with anything. If you’re conjecturing that I’m a paleoconservative, you have it 180 degrees bass-ackward.
I agree that all states are “evil” – except I don’t happen to believe in unreal concepts like “good” and “evil.” I only use those terms when discussing with the hoi polloi. 🙂 States are threats to individuals like me.
But I’m discussing geopolitics here, not pointless concepts like “morality.” Since no one is going to get rid of the state, it’s pointless to complain. Russia is doing what it has to in response to the aggression of another state. The problem is that state happens to be the one I live in – which means its continual provoking not just one, but two, nuclear armed states is a direct threat to me.
If you’re not a paleoconservative, what are you doing at Antiwar.com? I thought this was the hotbed of that fringe movement. Or has it now shifted to being merely “conservative” (if that term has any meaning)?
Meanwhile, check out Andrei Martyanov’s take on the events:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/01/pepe-on-kazakhstan.html
And the referenced Pepe Escobar’s take:
http://thesaker.is/steppe-on-fire-kazakhstans-color-revolution/
Pepe’s take is particularly complete. Far from the “uppity serfs acting up”, it’s more like the usual “clan warfare” in the region. But his sources say MI-6 is definitely involved and the Western take is the usual “it’s all Russia’s fault.”
“If you’re not a paleoconservative, what are you doing at Antiwar.com?”
Short answer: Working.
Longer answer:
I’m a paleo-left-libertarian, and not the only left-libertarian associated with Antiwar.com.
I had a sort of working relationship with Antiwar.com from its founding. I worked at the Henry Hazlitt Foundation / Free-Market.Net in the 1990s, and when Antiwar.com was founded, it partnered (like many other sites of interest to libertarians did) with HHF/FMN. So I got to know the people here. I even got to meet Justin once, when he came to St. Louis to speak at Washington University in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq.
That relationship goes back to way before the split between paleoconservatives and other putative libertarians (in the movement generally and in the Libertarian Party specifically) widened beyond likely repair (which would probably have been around the time of the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign). And one area in which most putative libertarians are in general agreement is on foreign policy.
I edited a letters column here for a little while, but as the center of Internet gravity shifted from old-style “letters to the editor” columns to real-time commenting, Antiwar.com’s leadership reached a point where 1) they were either going to have commenting guidelines and moderation, or 2) they weren’t going to have commenting*. And I was basically the only person willing to spend significant time moderating comments. I think I’ve been doing that, usually de facto alone, for something like 12 years now.
*Justin favored not having comments. In fact, the last year or so of his life, he prevailed on the site to turn comments off on his columns.
“paleo-left-libertarian”
Never heard of that faction. But then I’ve been past the conventional libertarianism for decades now and thus mostly out of the loop. Individualist anarchism – and frankly I’m almost “post-anarchist” now, to boot – isn’t on the left-right spectrum.
For all I know, I’m the only person calling himself a paleo-left-libertarian. Think French Revolution, Paine, Comte/Dunoyer, Bastiat, et al. Class struggle between the political class (as represented in the French Estates General by the first and second estates, the nobility and clergy) and the productive class (the third estate — peasants, farmers, craftsmen, bourgeois commercial folk).
Re France, look up the Bonnot Gang. That’s more the milieu I relate to. The anarchist gang that was the first bank robbers to use a getaway car (and the first carjackers because that’s how they got the car.) LOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnot_Gang
The Saker posts a translated article from a Russian source on the events:
CSTO sends peacekeepers to Kazakhastan
http://thesaker.is/csto-sends-peacekeepers-to-kazakhastan/
The Russians were prepared for this. They knew it was coming, probably because the US Embassy in Khazakstan was “warning” of protests back in December. Not to mention that Russia knows the US game plan for Central Asia – as Andrei Martyanov says, the US is a “one-trick pony”, that pony being “color revolutions.” They tried in Belarus and failed, now they’re trying it in Khazakstan.
Alexander Mercouris’ latest Youtube video on events: