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I traveled many post-Soviet countries in the past years with my old camping car. My personal impressions in Kazakhstan were frightening. A deeply corrupt state, much worse than Russia.

Aggressive armed bandits in police uniform tried to rob me several times. Kazakhstan is true mafia state where every part of the regime tries to enrich itself at the expanse of the people.

In contrast to the rich oil elite there are the normal people who often not even have tap water in the villages. And who live often in constant fear of being robbed by the armed forces.

But why is such a dysfunctional dictatorship so stable? Why did it last for three decades? The situation is very similar to Azerbaijan. I believe the answer is: it is backed by the West because a stable dictator in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan guarantees the oil flow.

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> But why is such a dysfunctional dictatorship so stable? (...) I believe the answer is: it is backed by the West because a stable dictator in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan guarantees the oil flow.

And yet, it's Russia and it's strong-arm tactics that are desperately trying to keep Kazakhstan's regime in power.

Think about it: Russia is even sending it's paratroopers to Kazakhstan to stomp out unrest. Not the US. Not the EU. Not Switzerland. No, Russia.

How do you fit that into your mental model?

Do you assume Putin and western corporations are antagonistic? Putin is just closest strong arm and most appropriate politically.

> Do you assume Putin and western corporations are antagonistic?

Please don't try to change the subject. Putin sent Russia's paratroopers to Kazakhstan to use them against Kazakhstan's civilian population to quelsh unrest. It's not the US, Switzerland, Finland, the EU, nothing. This is Russia intervening in Kazakhstan to preserve Russia's interests, and no amount of whataboutism changes this.

Russia's interests are aligned with western companies interests that buy Russian exports.

Also I'm not changing the subject because we have a whole branching forum here, not a single coversation that can talk only about one thing at a time.

If you are not interested in that branch of the discussion simply skip it.

> Russia's interests are aligned with western companies interests that buy Russian exports.

Just to be clear you are blaming “the west” (US, UK, Sweden, France, Canada, Switzerland, etc.) for Russian intervention in Kazakhstan because those countries buy Russian products? (Leaving aside all the other countries in the world which do the same but w/e).

Not the OP, I think you misunderstand. The idea is that the West is fine with Russia dispatching troops to Kazakhstan. They share a common interest in wanting to keep the oil flowing, and are not so much interested in how Kazakhstan is governed.

Contrast Kazakhstan with Ukraine. The U.S. would not sit silently by if Russia were to send troops into the Ukraine again.

Just to be clear I'm saying that western companies will benefit from maintaining regime in Kazakhstan. And Putin helping with this, is getting him further on the good side of wealthy people in the west.

I'm not blaming anybody for anything. It's just business.

Not the OP, but way too many German politicians seem to be cooperative with Gazprom et al., regardless of what happens elsewhere (Ukraine etc.)

Like Germany's ex chancellor being chairman of the board for Nord Stream AG and Russian energy company Rosneft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der

> It's not the US, Switzerland, Finland, the EU, nothing.

What these countries has to do in Kazakhstan? Russia and Kazakhstan has a treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Security_Treaty_Org...

Also, significant percent of population of Kazakhstan is Russian.

>Also, significant percent of population of Kazakhstan is Russian.

So what? They are citizens of Kazakhstan. Russia does not have some sort of "claim" over every person in the world who is of Russian descent.

I'm confused by this question. Russia is one of the world's largest oil exporters, is it not?

What makes you feel that economic interests are always the same as political interests? Why doesn't Russia kill all its Sturgeon so American Royalty can't eat Russian caviar?

Maybe things are not as simple as Fox News makes them.

Russians also like caviar. I'm sure it's served in the Kremlin.

>What makes you feel that economic interests are always the same as political interests?

HN is generally bad at understanding that people will willingly forgo some wealth in exchange for political/ideological/religious goals when the forgoing takes any form other than paying more taxes to fund something you approve of.

They get it when your example is something they all support like the US fighting a civil war over slavery but when you try to generalize that behavior up a step and then use it to explain the actions of people supporting something they don't agree with you get something like this[1].

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/patrick-stars-wallet

Just to add on to this, Russia needs support in the region. Most democratically elected governments do not choose to align themselves with Russia. This is why Putin always props up nearby dictators. Without support, Putin’s regime and power would be in danger. You see many examples of trying to strong arm support from weaker regional neighbors: Ukraine, Belarus, Syria, Georgia, and now this situation.

Countries like Kazakhstan, serve russia as a buffer state from the Nato influence. If near countries start to align with the west, Russia will start to feel personally attacked.

This is such a cold war mindset that I have trouble believing that it is actually still the case. It seems overly simplistic.

It is not. If it wouldn't be true, why then US incessantly unleashes "revolutions" in all countries around Russia? Why US invests millions of dollars into rusophobic propaganda in all countries bordering Russia? Why US attempts to build military bases in all the countries that border Russia?

If it's all just a "cold war mindset".

That foreign nations are inciting revolutions is Siloviki rhetoric, used by authoritarian regimes to justify surveillance and arrests of their opposition or at least undermine their support by the public.

And this is exactly what we are seeing in Kazakhstan: people riot over increasing cost of living and the president blames it on foreign agitators. Because that is easier and more convenient than actually engaging with the issue.

> That foreign nations are inciting revolutions is Siloviki rhetoric

Not always.

See for example "US Army Field Manual FM 31-20-3, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces". This one is outdated and was based on US operations in Central/South America.

I'm sure Russians have something similar.

> It is not. If it wouldn't be true, why then US incessantly unleashes "revolutions" in all countries around Russia? Why US invests millions of dollars into rusophobic propaganda in all countries bordering Russia? Why US attempts to build military bases in all the countries that border Russia?

Complete waste of resources from US side! Russia is very successful at making people in ex-USSR countries hate it as-is, making western propaganda completely redundant! But I know a lot of people who actively participated in Maidan revolution and are still waiting for their dirty CIA $$$. Hopefully Obama will pay his debts some day...

> who actively participated in Maidan revolution and are still waiting for their dirty CIA $$$

I participated in both (2004 and 2014). Where do I register for the "dirty CIA $$$"? I somehow missed it during the original briefing.

That's precisely what Putin is doing now, threatening Ukraine and insisting NATO commit to not admitting Sweden, Finland and Ukraine in.

I understand. Russia is no doubt pressuring Ukraine but I don't know if that's because they they want a buffer or they just don't want a stronger NATO.

I don't think Ukraine, Sweden, Finland would significantly strengthen NATO. If anything, Ukraine is a liability (huge border with Russia and practically in war with them, territorial disputes about Crimea, etc.). The way I understand it, Putin doesn't want any more NATO members on Russia's borders, aka a buffer between Russia and NATO.

Which is exactly what is happening in Ukraine now. Their attempts to align with NATO have Putin freaking out, with much saber-rattling & troop movement.

-- "buffer state" bullshit brought to you since 1939 --

Do they still need Finland as a "buffer state" [1]?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

Winter war was successful in a sense that it moved Soviet-Finnish border away from Leningrad. A few months later when Germany attacked USSR and Finland joined it, that extra space saved Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from total destruction.

> A few months later when Germany attacked USSR and Finland joined it, that extra space saved Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from total destruction.

Yes and no. Had the Winter war not happened, Finland wouldn't have joined the German attack.

Yes Kazakhstan is critical to buffer Russia from NATO influence in checks notes the People's Republic of China.

Buffer from what? Kazakhstan doesnt border Nato countries.

They do not care if Kazakhstan enter or not NATO. Is enougth if this countries are not stable so they became a Russia problem. I`m not saying this crisis have CIA handprints, but this skirmishs force Russia to put money, manpower and resources to apease it`s allies.

> And yet, it's Russia and it's strong-arm tactics that are desperately trying to keep Kazakhstan's regime in power.

If Russia is so influential over Kazakhstan, why all natural resources and power plants in Kazakhstan belong to Western companies?

Why Nazarbaev had replaced Cyrillic alphabet with Latin? It was clearly a jab at Russia.

Kazakhstan was/is clearly under heavy western influence.

> Think about it: Russia is even sending it's paratroopers to Kazakhstan to stomp out unrest. Not the US. Not the EU. Not Switzerland. No, Russia.

What will US do if in case of civil unrest in Mexico, Russia will send troops to Mexico?

>If Russia is so influential over Kazakhstan, why all natural resources and power plants in Kazakhstan belong to Western companies?

This is false. Kazakhstan retains most oil revenues and its joint ventures with foreign companies for oil exploration and drilling include not just Western, but also for example Chinese companies.

>Why Nazarbaev had replaced Cyrillic alphabet with Latin?

Because he saw clearly how Putin is weaponizing language and identity rhetoric to justify wars of aggression and Anschluss-style annexations against its neighbours. The script you use is rather symbolic, but those symbols do matter. Otherwise, Russia itself wouldn't have stamped out the Latin script and forced those minority languages, already few in number, to use Cyrillic in the 2000s.

This line the comment said also is not logical at all > “ What will US do if in case of civil unrest in Mexico, Russia will send troops to Mexico?”

This makes no sense, no one is alleging Mexico is under Russia’s thumb so this makes no sense. Replace Mexico with Cuba circa 1970 and it would be relevant. And also yes, if Cuba in 1970, I would not be surprised if Russia sent in troops if Castro asked.

> This makes no sense, no one is alleging Mexico is under Russia’s thumb so this makes no sense.

This makes no sense, because no strong independent sovereign country (there're very few of them in the world, about 5-6) will allow foreign troops to land in the neighboring country.

If Russia would send troops under any pretext in any situation to Mexico, USA would start a World War III.

That observation doesnt exactly strengthen the original comment on Mexico but okay. Seems we are in accordance about Cuba for lack of objections anyway.

What if there is unrest in Mexico, will US send troops to Mexico to bring order? There are plausible situations in which this may happen.

> Otherwise, Russia itself wouldn't have stamped out the Latin script and forced those minority languages, already few in number, to use Cyrillic in the 2000s.

What languages are you talking about?

Of the non-moribund ones, Tatar comes to mind.

> But why is such a dysfunctional dictatorship so stable? Why did it last for three decades?

Ceaușescu went from addressing a mass crowd in the square to execution in five days after ruling for about 25 years. Dictatorships are like steam boilers: so long as the pressure is contained, everything looks fine, until suddenly it isn't.

(Interestingly having looked him up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu he's one of the few leaders to have achieved what is now denounced as "neoliberal", the paying down of the country's national debt. It only took starving the country to do it.)

Exactly. The supposed "stability" of authoritarian dictatorships is a complete illusion. They look stable because there's no one exposing how very brittle they are, how much discontent is bubbling below the surface. That's why nothing at all was happening in Tunisia until a fruit stand owner set himself on fire and it all came crushing down. So it is here in Kazakhstan, except Russians come to the rescue to prop up the dictatorship. They probably realize the parallels with their own.

He and his wife were assassinated during a military coup. Assassinations are a pattern during coups.

Neoliberalism also has nothing to do with debt. It attempts to increase profit rates through privatisation, deregulation and austerity measures. Only the latter happened in România in the 80 and it was imposed by the IMF. Suspiciously, the loan had just been paid off in 89 when the coup happened.

> But why is such a dysfunctional dictatorship so stable? Why did it last for three decades? The situation is very similar to Azerbaijan

My bet is natural resources.If i remember correctly Kazakhstan is the biggest uranium producer in the world. With big natural resources, you don't need a solid economy supported by a state of law to keep the regime running. Something similar can be said for Azerbaijan.

The trick is to keep regular people calm by letting them have enough of the cake so that they don't revolt, but sometimes the money flow reduces, or the ruling elite becomes too greedy, and the problems starts. That's what may be happening here.

The government lifted price controls on liquefied petroleum gas on January 1st. I assume LPG is used for home heating, hot water, cooking, etc. Prices supposedly doubled overnight.

Edit: Apparently most cars use LPG there as well.

It's certainly not "backed by the west". These dictatorships exists because they allow the elites to exchange the profits from the sale of natural resources in exchange for dollars and euros. That money then flows into western equities, bonds and real estate. It's the (western) dependence on these natural resources that enables the regimes not the backing by the governments.

it's tolerated by the west. The most effective way to punish regimes would be to:

- take away (arrest, freeze, whatever) the elite's real estate in the west

- same thing with other assets, banc accounts etc

- ban them from living in the west or going to the west on vacation, for medical treatment.

- ban their families from living in the west, their kids from studying there.

this is not my idea, you will find similar suggestions a hundred times in different forms on the Russian-speaking internet.

maybe there is no legal base right now to do it as described, but the alternative is broad sanctions that hit the small people harder then regime collaborators.

edit: formatting

This. So much of this. Most of the money that disctatorship regimes steal out of their countries are actually invested into western countries by their family members, friends and their pet oligarchs.

US, EU and UK profit from oppressive regimes and don't have any interest of actually hurting them. And why should they? They have their own people to think of.

Cuba and Iran have been under sanctions for a long time. Dictators are very interested in not losing their jobs. I think, from the comfort of my home, that there are two paths out of a dictatorship: one is military and involves a brutal invasion of the country with the willingness to stay there for decades, the other is a progressive improvement of life conditions and gentle external influence

That's very difficult to do because it will increase prices of said natural resources (for example natural gas). As you've seen in Kazakhstan itself the tolerance for fuel increases is not very high in the population. A very noble thinking government can be ousted very quickly just because it tries to do the "right thing" and punish said exporters. The best thing to do is to reduce reliance on these countries exports, investing in alternative energy sources or develop domestic resources. But there's often an even stronger opposition to develop let's say a domestic natural gas field than to send money to corrupt regimes somewhere far away. So that's where we're at.

It's certainly not "backed by the west".

This characterization is simply naive.

True, it's not like the western powers are shouting their support from the rooftops. But they are more than happy to play ball with these regimes (including high-level military cooperation and lucrative trade agreements) as long as it it doesn't get, you know, "too" embarrassing for them to do so.

In the case of Azerbaijan, my understanding is that western European companies have just blanket bribed more or less every official they interact with up and down the Azeri government for the past few decades, to help them set up contracts that are grossly unfair to the Azeri public. Oil money that does go to Azerbaijan gets embezzled away, with those companies’ knowledge and implicit support.

I haven’t heard of anyone from e.g. BP getting punished for this, though I believe the British government asked it to investigate itself a few times.

And vice-versa. Azerbaijan is known to bribe politicians in european and EU organizations, aka the "Azerbaijani laundromat"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_laundromat

https://www.dw.com/en/how-german-politicians-have-aided-the-...

"Backed by the west" is a common conspiracy theory pushed by Russian government. You should be asking yourself who's benefiting. The west does not benefit from anything related to those states, all oil they produce first flows through Russia. Russia benefits by having these states as basically feudal subservient states that they can extort for profit.

(I will note that most western oil comes from the middle east with Europe also getting a decent amount from Russia.)

Kazakh elite keeps its money in western banks, flies western planes to western capitals and owns land and property in top western locations. Same for Russian elite.

In the Cold War, dealing with Soviets was unthinkable. Now, the West is complacent, there is even a term for it, Schröderizatsiya. See this opinion piece by the former Estonian president [1].

[1] https://news.err.ee/1608362130/toomas-hendrik-ilves-alexei-n...

> Kazakh elite keeps its money in western banks, flies western planes to western capitals and owns land and property in top western locations. Same for Russian elite.

So does the Russian elite as you say, even Putin himself. The US's currency is the reserve currency of the world and the currency most commerce is done in so western banks are used. They also are much more stable than banks in their own countries where other elites could steal their money. This doesn't mean that the US or the west is somehow controlling their countries.

Don’t bother wasting your time. These trolls just want to make you hate yourself and your country. Of course it’s your fault comrade, if you didn’t buy caviar from Russia then they wouldn’t have to invade Ukraine to feed the workers who make the caviar. It’s always your fault nobody else’s.

The goal with these sorts of comments is to try and get liberal democracies to stop engaging in the rest of the world. If you keep getting told it’s your fault eventually you say “fine I’m done” and then that’s when they win.

Is there some sense in which this is not a "conspiracy theory"?

> Is there some sense in which this is not a "conspiracy theory

Yes, in the sense that Aleksander Dugins foundations of geopolitics exists and is taught in military schools in Russia. It proposes - among other tactics, exactly this approach. Splitting hairs, gaslighting and exhaustion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

You have colored in some details, but it's still a theory about a secret project of mysterious Russians and Russia sympathizers, only now they're allied with some Russian version of Alex Jones.

It's worth noting that this special book was published during the reign of Yeltsin, a Clinton puppet installed and protected by various Western agencies. That could be a reason there is some consideration of similar actions in the opposite direction.

What’s the alternative, Sanctions?

What about China, should they be sanctioned too?

[Many make the claim that sanctions mostly affect civilians so for example are against Iran Sanctions, etc.]

Well, yes. Hence the Magnitsky Act.

Although really the question of banking money from unacceptable foreigners is an old one, unresolved throughout the 20th century. It's too convenient for the West to really give up on, so a short list is maintained of the "definitely unacceptable", but there's no systematic criteria for what "unacceptable" really is.

It's quite clear from the lack of UK response to the Salisbury poisonings that the UK is financially compromised into indifference, for example.

Yes some sanctions would be a good idea. We hoped that opening up trade with Russia and China would help them transform into free-market democracies. But that approach has failed so it's time to return to the Cold War policy of containment. Work with our asked to keep our adversaries as weak and isolated as possible.

Besides sanctions, we should also seek to undermine and delegitimize those governments by supporting dissident movements and other covert actions.

Better than sanctions: Enforcement of existing anti-money laundering laws.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/new-icij-i...

https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-international-anti-money-lau...

Enforcement of course is a perpetual cat-and-mouse game in which the cats are underfunded and the mice have money to burn.

I went to school with a young kazak person I don't want to reveal to much about them, but let me just say this. Their parents had direct contact to the state and they were unaccountably rich went to an insanely expensive private school and owned various apartments all across Europe. The west DOES benefit from the corruption related to those states.

> I went to school with a young kazak person (...) Their parents had direct contact to the state and they were unaccountably rich went to an insanely expensive private school and owned various apartments all across Europe.

I don't understand what point you tried to make. Do you believe someone needs deep state contacts and government approval to purchase private property in a European country?

No I'm saying our economies do benefit from people throwing money around. They buy citizenship they buy massive amounts of real estate they spend obscene amounts of money on nightlife, they buy luxury cars it's not just the Russia who benefits....

A couple of rich oligarchs playing around with their money in the west doesn't benefit the western economy much. The money they spend is nothing compared to the economies of those western countries. The ones who benefit from the corruption are the ones who have access to the tax stream.

> A couple of rich oligarchs playing around with their money in the west doesn't benefit the western economy much.

They don't have to, benefiting just the right people is enough. Schröder & friends say hi.

Mate, research who controls Kazakh natural resources: it's western corporations. It allows them to extract resources and money from Kazakhstan without paying much back. And it's a lot of money and valuable natural resources like copper and uranium.

Same was happening in Russia in 90s: western corporation took control of all Russia's natural resources using phony agreements and corrupt businessmen (like Mikhail Khodorkovsky). E.g. in 90s people in Russia were dying of hunger, but oil was sold to the West by the price of water.

When Putin came to power, first thing he had done is returning control over natural resources. That's exactly the moment when all the West started vilifying him so badly.

Where do you get your oil from? From the free democratic Saudi Arabia? West happily ignores any atrocities as long as the flow of resources is under control.

Not only SA sells oil to US, but it also invests earned money into US government bonds. It's allows them to do whatever they want in their country, no matter how "undemocratic" it is. And the "free" press being oh-so-independent and honest, happily ignores that too, instead always pointing you to more convenient targets.

> it is backed by the West because a stable dictator

Nazarbayev gave up over 1000 nuclear weapons to be disarmed when he came to power. This came with some explicit and implicit guarantees to not be color-revolutioned by the West.

I agree with this one, I hope things will turn out for the betterment of the country.

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