Is the Crisis in Kazakhstan the Rebirth of the Soviet Union?

"Some commentators saw Russia's deployment of "peacekeeping forces" to Kazakhstan last week as a setback for Vladimir Putin. It showed his weakness, they said. His troop deployments near Ukraine's border were failing, and new popular uprisings could topple autocrats in other former Soviet republics, complicating the Russian president's strategic calculations.

The unspoken corollary to this theorizing is that the last thing America or Europe should do is take provocative action regarding Ukraine or other countries caught in the gray zone between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastern borders and Russia's western ones. Kazakhstan is a Kremlin problem where "America has no real leverage," as Politico put this instant conventional wisdom. Predictably, the State Department's first reaction to the Kazakh crisis was moral equivalency, calling "for restraint by both the authorities and protestors."

Doubtless, Moscow finds it unhelpful to have a bordering autocracy thrown into turmoil, but the West is badly mistaken and potentially at risk not to see the opportunities presented to Mr. Putin. His strategy to re-establish Russian hegemony within the borders of the former U.S.S.R. has been both patient and agile, and Kazakhstan's troubles afford him significant possibilities.

Under Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan was autocratic and reliably pro-Russian on security issues. Following that pattern, his handpicked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, wasted no time requesting peacekeeping troops from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization to suppress widespread anti-government demonstrations. This first CSTO deployment into a member country contravenes its charter, which refers only to defending against external aggression. The initial 2,500-man force is nearly all Russian, and Mr. Tokayev has given orders to "shoot to kill without warning."

Other Russian operations, in Moldova and Nagorno-Karabakh (the territory central to the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict), are also poorly disguised Russian expeditionary forces, helping Moscow sustain conflicts throughout the former Soviet Union. This prevents countries from reducing Kremlin influence, hampers potential Western investment because of increased political risk, and quite possibly facilitates the reintegration of the independent states into Russia's empire.

Mr. Putin ostensibly responded to a request from Kazakhstan's government. We may learn more, but the current public posture of "multilateral peacekeepers," carefully presented to look like U.N. efforts, is hard to challenge on its face. No one doubts, however, that Mr. Putin could extract a similar request from Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, especially given the extensive Minsk-Moscow military relationship.

Last year, with Russian troops massed near Ukraine's border, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky warned repeatedly against a potential coup in Kyiv orchestrated by Moscow and pro-Russian oligarchs. Mr. Zelensky's assertions were greeted skeptically by U.S. officials, and the reality, as in Kazakhstan, remains murky. Whatever the status and prospects for such a coup, however, a new pro-Russian government in Ukraine could readily invite CSTO forces. In a pinch, even a "provisional" government's request for outside intervention would provide a patina of legitimacy.

Belarus and Kazakhstan are prominent candidates for full reintegration into Russia. Moscow has already outright annexed Crimea from Ukraine and achieved de facto control of the Donbas. Two Georgian provinces declared independence, and Transnistria remains outside Moldova's control. Mr. Putin has a paradigm. Across the former Soviet republics, people with nationalist sentiments of course oppose Russian interference, erosion of sovereignty, and military intervention or annexation. Their problem is their inability to resist without Western support.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania can give thanks they gained NATO membership before European and American feet began to get cold.

Multiple negotiations between Russia and the West will occur in the coming days. Before the Kazakh crisis, Mr. Putin likely believed he could secure diplomatic concessions through this move, and he may well have read Joe Biden and Europe correctly.

If NATO confines itself to rhetoric about the "rules-based international order" and asking all sides to "exercise restraint," historians may mark the Kazakh crisis as the point where the Soviet Union rose from its ashes.

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Mr. Bolton is author of "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir." He served as the president's national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06." [1]

 

Oh my... Did Landsbergis' family make amends with Paksas who could fly Landsbergis' family out of Lithuania risking his life for that if need to be? As in the days of Smetona, in the times of the Landsbergis' family, people are poor due to low incomes and high prices. As in the time of Smetona, people hate the politics and arrogance of those in power. How will it be here now?

1.  Is the Crisis in Kazakhstan the Rebirth of the Soviet Union?
Bolton, John. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 10 Jan 2022: A.19.