Central Asia - General Discussion Thread

According to the current info about him before and after he's president, no.

Unlike his father, he seems well traveled and educated.

But time will tell.

Let's just hope this isn't another Kim Jong Un or MBS.

One thing though. Guy served in the Turkmen military per conscription requirements in the early 2000s.

He was discharged later on as a colonel.

Just wait until his grandson Kerimguly takes the throne. Little guy is an absolute menace on the synth:

(The song is about the Arkadag's favourite horse, because of course)

Anyway, here's an F to Berdi the Elder. From the previous guy's dentist to an iron-fisted autocrat who is both extremely weird and extremely normal compared to your predecessor, you've had quite the journey. Hope your retirement will involve less mysterious disappearances than your reign.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Mar 16th 2022 at 6:31:24 AM

Despite being a dictator it's kind of hard to hate the guy when he's hilarious. Admittedly, I don't think he was trying to be funny half the time

Someone's in trouble in Kazakhstan for suggesting to call "Vova" for an invasion of Kazakhstan.

https://kdal610.com/2022/03/28/kazakh-radio-host-fired-after-invoking-uncle-putin-and-suggesting-possible-invasion/

Gazeta: A "rabbit farm" in the Sirdaryo region of Uzbekistan turned out to be an underground crypto farm run by a foreign company, taking advantage of its official registration to access cheap subsidised electricity. Authorities discovered 1,491 mining rigs and 9,280 GPUs, and estimated the complex to have mined around $7.7 million in crypto.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Mar 31st 2022 at 12:00:41 PM

Kazakh MOD was asked if Kazakh security forces can ensure the state's sovereignty when Vice Minister of Defense Sultan Kamaletdinov was asked by reporters on the spot.

https://belsat.eu/en/news/03-03-2022-kazakhstan-defense-ministry-hopes-to-repel-military-aggression-if-needed/

The Kazakhs are ramping up their humanitarian aid to help the Ukrainians.

In the various cities, even the Russians living there are donating whatever money they can to the charities.

The Russian government allow it? I thought they would pressure Kazakh government to knock it off. I guess dealing with Ukraine and internal dissents in Russia itself take that much of their attention and manpower.

Nah. It's more of Russians living in Kazakhstan who are sympathetic to the plight of Ukrainians that they've decided to donate money.

There are Kazakh volunteers fighting against the Russians/DPR/LPR. Couldn't hunt any Kazakh info though.

https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-plot-kill-toqaev/31785320.html

Kazakh Committee for National Security (KNB) arrested a Kazakh man for trying to kill the president.

In my contemplation of a few alt-history and future history scenarios, I've come to wonder... How much potential for becoming a regional power does a Central Asian Union actually have, assuming that everything goes right for such a union to become as sustainable as its local material resources and potential human capital allow, from resolving the worst of whatever disputes exist between the prospective members to fixing the most crucial problems that afflict them?

It would still be hampered by the relatively limited population and GDP of the union, that’s before we consider the geographic limits of such a combined nation. The geographic limitations are both the proximity to China/Russia and the fact that such a country would be landlocked from the world ocean.

Even when factoring in the Belt and Road Initiative's China–Central Asia–West Asia Economic Corridor, and the hypothetical Central Asian Union's ability to use its strategic location in the middle of this corridor to play off both Russia and China (along with any neighboring beneficiaries, like Iran) against each other?

Edited by MarqFJA on May 1st 2022 at 8:51:59 PM

They have to fix their own issues between each other first. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have had shooting wars over their border less than a year ago.

Tajikistan can't hold itself together in its own right.

Kyrgyzstan has revolutions instead of elections.

Turkmenistan is almost as isolated as North Korea.

The Kazakhs and Uzbeks are rivals for dominance in the region.

Afghanistan is an open sore to their south that inhibits trade to Pakistan and thus the oceans.

For any alt history to work, those factors have to be resolved first.

And if so, could a union work? Sure. Playing the neighbors against each other and also having relations with India would work to that regard. It wouldn't be the strongest thing in the world, but it could exist.

Uniting Central Asia is like trying to herd a bunch of feral, chaotic cats. To make a believable, united Central Asia in an alternative history story, I think you need to go much, much further back in history.

Or, in a few decades from now, sufficiently large swaths of these countries' populations could be so sick and tired of how crapsack life is for them and of all the internecine strife that when charismatic and visionary leaders emerge, they readily rally around them to overthrow the incumbent regimes, and after years of fighting and bleeding alongside each other, it becomes easier for the various nations to have more harmonious and cooperative relations, especially when the revolutionary leaders divert their attention away from any bad blood between them to focus instead on their shared long history of marginalization, oppression and exploitation by their neighbors and global powers. A liberalized Turkey providing much needed infusion of financial capital into their economies should give them a good push in the direction as long as it's not misappropriated.

The Arab World thought this in the 1970s.

Didn't end well.

That's just a single data point. It's like if you were looking for alien life but only considered Earth-like ecosystems as your reference for what to look for.

Also, the comparison ignores all the external factors for the eventual decline of pan-Arabism; you cannot tell me with a straight face that none of the Cold War-era great powers had covertly worked to erode and undermine the movement whenever they saw an opportunity to do so, because they stood to benefit a lot more from an disunited Middle East than from a united one. Just look at what Saudi Arabia under King Faisal managed to do with its influence on OPEC despite Arab disunity, and then try to imagine the whole Arab world's governments working together instead of miring themselves in petty feuds and self-serving schemes.

And more importantly, Europe had not been much better, riven as it was with conflicts, feuds and scheming during the interwar era and even some opportunism during WW2, before the collective trauma from fighting the Nazis and the new threat of the Soviet Union on their eastern flank scared them into setting aside their differences and beginning the road to European integration.

Edited by MarqFJA on May 2nd 2022 at 8:43:52 PM

We did it in the 13th century. We can do it again.

With the January events unfolding here where I live, and with Tokayev's increasing efforts to diminish the Nazarbayev clan's influence and the general opinions of Kazakh people right now, I'd say that a very optimistic scenario is that in a few decades that could happen, but on a smaller scale.

Not as far as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan becoming a federation, but perhaps a deeper economical integration between our Central Asian neighbors than now.

Edited by Millership on May 3rd 2022 at 12:37:19 AM

You might get away with two broad federations and Turkmenistan, with the Kyrgyz (at least the northern clans) cooperating with the Kazakhs and Tajikistan cooperating with Uzbekistan (alongside the Osh based clans of the Kyrgyz).

Still would require a crap ton of things to go right, but at least there is some preexisting structure to that scenario

The biggest problem with the united Central Asia idea is that most of the countries gained their independence only just over 30 years ago. We're still in the stage of "figuring out how to run our country on our own". The last time we've had capable generation of leaders in power looking out for the nation's best interest was in the 1920s. Thanks to the Soviet government's efforts, we've never got this kind of people leading the country until Konayev, in the 1980s. People born and raised in independent Kazakhstan are only now becoming a majority in the workforce. Only in 20 years or so we'll become a majority in the ruling class.

The current generation of politicians values their newfound freedom too much to form another federation. And even if our generation becomes the leaders of new Kazakhstan, we are too, too influenced by our colonial past. You can legitimately talk about unified Central Asia only when the generation of our children will come to power - 60-80 years from now - and by that time it's more plausible that we're all get annexed by China.

Edited by Millership on May 3rd 2022 at 10:56:29 PM

Vlast: Dozens of endangered seals and sturgeons were found dead and washed up near the town of Fort Shevchenko in Mangystau, on Kazakhstan's Caspian coast. Local fishery authorities are investigating the cause.

(Fun fact: There's a surprising number of places named "Shevchenko" in the neighbourhood, after the time that the Ukrainian national poet spent there as an exile.)