Growing NATO-OTS synergy in Kazakhstan combined with Azerbaijan’s Ukrainian-like shadow membership in NATO, as well as its de facto alliances with the UK and Ukraine that were clinched over the past half-year, can lead to the weaponization of Golden Horde nostalgia against Russia.
Well, at least they finally admit it, that's the first step to fixing the problem (of broken feedback loops in this case). It took them long enough though!
"Russia surprised by EU, US attempts to interfere in South Caucasus — Security Council"
From what I know, they're credentialed in the sense of having the paperwork/degree/experience to serve in their posts, but it's broken feedback loops caused by a cultural reluctance to inform superiors of "politically inconvenient" facts and an absolute unwillingness to accept constructive critiques, especially unsolicited ones, that are at the core of Russia's worryingly accelerating setbacks.
Bureaucracies are designed for "decades where nothing happens" and can work quite well under such conditions. Experts from various fields gather and then codify expertise accumulated over centuries to prevent past crises from recurring, thereby reducing exposure to the risk of a single human decision-maker exercising bad judgement at a critical moment.
However, in "weeks where decades happen", when facts on the ground change faster than bureaucracies can digest new information and codify new rules, bureaucracies get unresponsive. Some bureaucracies plan and prepare for crises and can switch to a crisis mode — or one of several crisis modes. Individual judgement, initiative and discretion are then needed more, but these carry much higher career-ending risks. Thus, an incentive structure must be designed to encourage responsible decision-making under uncertainty and prevent excessive risk-aversion.
In short, there are various design problems at hand, e.g., designing the conditions under which a bureaucracy will transition to a crisis mode, designing the procedures for such a crisis mode, designing incentive structures to encourage individual discretion without encouraging recklessness.
At this point, feigning surprise a full 10 months after TRIPP is an long-delayed reaction if it's just for rhetorical sake. I'm inclined to believe that Russia, from what I personally know through my 13 years here being taught at the MFA-run MGIMO (MA and PhD), knowing diplomats, experts, journalists, etc., was truly taken off guard and only just now is realizing it after the "Triad" recently confirmed that trouble is stirring along this front:
Your innuendo of Russian omniscience made me smile because it's so typical of "Non-Russian Pro-Russians" (NRPR): there's no plan, how do you not see that after 4.5 years!?
The only plan was to coerce Ukraine into complying with Russia's demands during what became the Istanbul peace process, ergo the relatively minimal forces deployed to Ukraine (totally insufficient for a war of attrition, let alone controlling the whole country).
After that didn't turn out as planned, everything since then has been improvisation centered on the concept of a war of attrition in which it was assumed (correctly or not, and assessments can shift with time) that time was on Russia's side.
Russia has been fighting for 4.5 years, we don't know how many people have died on its side, and it still to this day doesn't control the entirety of Donbass. I'm a proud NRPR and that's why I have enough self-respect to acknowledge that everything is NOT going according to plan instead of pretending that it is.
For my amusement, do tell why you think that Russia let TRIPP happen if it's supposedly this omniscient superpower as you imply. Why in the world would Russia allow a NATO military logistics corridor to develop on its doorstep?
Quite obviously, it was caught off guard due to the broken feedback loops that I've talked about. I love this country, and unlike you, I have tangible stakes in its success.
These include me living here, owning an apartment, my wife and two kids being Russian citizens, and my entire life savings being in rubles. For that reason, I'll never, ever self-censor my constructive critiques.
You NRPRs live in a fantasyland where you live vicariously through the "Potemkinist" fantasy of whatever you've imagined Russia to be when the real, objectively existing Russia shares little in common with the "Potemkinist" one.
This guy continually gets caught off guard, time and again, from "EuroMaidan" onwards to Assad's downfall, TRIPP, and Mali turning into Syria 2.0 to list just a few examples, never learning due to broken feedback loops.
As someone who's seen this from the inside out, and no, I don't rely on friends -- I have personal experience from MGIMO, Sputnik, and other experiences -- I'm not going to stay silent.
I was taught that constructive critiques are the highest form of love, not telling people whatever they want to hear when they need to hear that it's time for self-criticism and -reform. I'm never changing, unsubscribe if you don't like it.
"So maybe your friends in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are only pretending to be asleep."
So first, you're suggesting -- and I know you'll now gaslight instead of double down, most NRPR trolls do so whenever I call them out and I have years of experience dealing with your ilk -- that I'm regularly talking to MFA friends with the innuendo that this somehow influencers me.
No, first, I'm too busy with research, analysis, writing, and family. I don't chat with people often, but I do have friends in a lot of places. Unlike Pepe, I don't talk about them though so end of story.
Next, you're imagining that they present themselves in a way as though they're asleep, ignorant, dumb. I've been here for 13 years, I received the highest diploma (a red one) for my MFA-run MGIMO MA, I've had MANY TIMES MORE experiences -- from then till my PhD and onward to the present than just chatting with one or two people like you're making it seem.
Moving on, you're making it seem like I generalize based on a few impressions, which is so intellectually insulting to me as a person that I'm half-tempted to block you just for implying it because it shows that you have absolutely no idea who I am or are a "sophisticated troll" as I now call those that are very passively-aggressive with innuendo like yours.
And finally, no, my MFA and other friends aren't lying, you frigging idiot. You think I, a child of divorcees raised by my WWII refugee grandparents and working from the age of 14 onwards with only something like several consecutive months of unemployment since (I just turned 38) am so frigging stupid as to be manipulated by several silver spoon-fed Russians (and that's what 90% of MGIMO, which is the recruitment pool for the MFA, is)!?!?!?!
Rather than buying high‑tech aircraft and missile detectors — S‑300, S‑400, S‑500 — the Russians would do better to buy salami‑slicing detectors. It seems the Russians have great difficulty detecting when a thin slice of salami is being cut from them, and they only realize it after a hundred slices have been taken. And then, rather than getting angry and offensive, they are invariably surprised and exclaim, 'It's not fair, they are mean.' In this way, they have succeeded in ridiculing all their red lines. Yes, the Western cheaters (they are mean, it's not fair) don't cross them all at once, but they return ten times to nibble away at them. Now the bear must finally realize that his red line has been crossed. He scratches his head, furrows his brow, then his eyes light up and he says, 'Naughty rascals, here is my new red line — do not dare cross it.' The naughty rascals laugh, come out of their hiding places, and dance around the bear again, singing, 'Oh, the big fat clumsy bear, he's too slow.' Nothing discourages a pack of dogs, nothing — except the hunter's recall.
Thank you, Andrew. Well, yes, I get the impression that in the Bear family, there is indeed the terrible guy who stops only when his enemy is completely destroyed, but he is very, very slow to get into the saddle. And there is also the chubby one who just wants to be left alone to eat honey in peace and hides his head in the hive, mumbling, 'No, no, it's nothing, everything is going according to plan.' And there is the stubborn grandfather and the pretentious brother‑in‑law who tell you, 'That? It's nothing at all, we've overcome far worse, everything is going according to plan.' And then there is the head of the family who says, 'Come on, come on, let's stay calm and respectable' and discreetly asks that all the rifles be taken out and cleaned, just in case. And the women grumble, 'Oh dear, what a bother you are with your wretched salami slices when we already have so much trouble buying potatoes.' And then there is the ambitious uncle, the rich one in the family, who says, 'We shouldn't get worked up over a few slices, they're not really mean — those you call rascals are very nice people, and besides, they have magnificent salami factories that are just offering me jobs.' And then there are the 'eternal friends' of the family who say, 'As long as I get rich on your back and risk nothing, you can count on my friendship, hard as iron.' And there are also the foreign hangers‑on who say, 'Oh, you may be the most beautiful and the strongest, but you must admit you are the smartest. You have nothing to fear.' And finally, there is the neurotic teenage son who bites his nails, tears his hair out, and repeats, 'We have to raze them all with an atomic bomb.'"
Your argument extends to China and Iran as well. Iran, because it is the thickest slice of a salami we could aptly call Eurasia, and China because whatever slices Iran will ultimately slice China as well, beginning with Xinjiang. It’s hard to know whether Turkiye is the architect of this strategy, and NATO has only now cottoned on to its potential, or whether NATO put Türkiye up to it in the first place. I suspect the former is the case, given Erdegan’s ambition for a Turkic Arc across Central Asia.
We are watching an historical irony play out before our eyes. Whereas the West, led by NATO, has for decades done its utmost to prise apart Russia and China, it is now deliberately driving the two together by adopting a strategy of killing two birds with one stone.
That ‘stone’ is the ‘cordon sanitaire’ of which you speak, Andrew, being built around Russia with a view to ultimately defeating and dismembering her, while at the same time encircling China for the very same reason, using those self-same tactics. Put simply, by capturing Central Asia, and hence Eurasia, America will have subordinated the world to its every command.
However, there is nothing inevitable about Western success in this endeavour. Russia and China, together, have the military and economic wherewithal to stop the United States in her tracks, provided they recognise the reality that desperate times call for desperate measures, such as:
1. Chinese hypersonic missiles and Russian Oreshniks being placed in Xinjiang and southern Russia, respectively, pointed at the Caspian and Black Seas, the Caucuses and the ‘Stans’.
2. Destroying the three bridges in Istanbul spanning the Bosphorus Strait, effectively separating Europe from Asia. A bifurcated Eurasia is nowhere near as strategically valuable to the West as an intact Eurasia;
3. In addition to the missiles Iran has placed along her Strait of Hormuz coastline, Teheran would have to point Russian and/or China-sourced nuclear tipped hypersonic missiles directly at Israel and the Caucuses. She would have to do likewise on her Caspian coastline aimed primarily at Azerbaijan;
4. Apropos, Azerbaijan, Iran would be further charged with the task of wrecking the Zangezur Corridor using the same tactics adopted by the Americans to wreck CPEC and threaten users of the Gwadar Port; namely, deploying terrorist groups to destroy critical infrastructure and kill construction workers and dockers.
This task would have to be undertaken in conjunction with Russia and Iran placing missiles on their northern and southern Caspian coastlines, respectively.
One way or another, it seems that Azerbaijan would be in the crosshairs of a Russia - China - Iran military alliance dedicated to ensuring that Eurasia doesn’t fall into NATO’s hands. It’s doable but bloody.
P.S. in American political parlance, the swing state in this whole mix might prove to be Kazakhstan, whose President seems intent on ‘playing’ Putin.
A fundamental question is whether Russia has the strength to maintain its own Monroe Doctrine. Relevant strength in this context is not nukes (being relevant mainly for defence), but natural resources, human resources, and the institutions of governance that enable their application in the nation's interests.
Russia is undeniably rich in natural resources, albeit resources with a rapidly shortening expiration date in the face of renewables. Human resources and institutions of governance? Not so much.
So does Russia want or need more quarrels with neighbours? If not, what is the best way forward? Perhaps like those inside the Beltway, too many are failing to adjust to geopolitical realities - where what truly matters are domestic, not foreign policies.
An astute observation. Thank you for this perspective, which embodies a long-standing rule of foreign policy: namely, that orderly, strong domestic policy forms the foundation for a credible and highly respected foreign policy.
The Golden Hooard is long goone. Russia can tuck Kazakstan in it' s back pocket and walk awd walk away with it. Kazakstan has a significant Russian population in it. Russia owns Kazakastan. It iis that simple.
Is Putin naive , China, Mongool horde end west liberal end banking elite . They have been long time planning to take natural reserve of Russia end to Balkaniseert. Because I don’t think bat I noticed Putin working not in inters of Russia.
Tokayev’s emphasis on this identity may merely serve as a pretext for Turkey—which also harbors ambitions of great-power status—to seize an opportunity rooted in shared Turkic history to ally itself with the ancestral Turkic homeland and the successors of the Golden Horde.
Turkey is a NATO member; this would amount to "the next eastward expansion."
The entire game is really just about getting Russia to be the first to push the red button.
To put it bluntly and boil it down to the essentials:
The goal is for the "Russian orc" to be branded by the entire world as a subhuman threat to humanity.
Russia waited too long. Only now is the true extent of the damage Yeltsin and Gorbachev inflicted on Russia becoming starkly apparent.
For in the West, the prevailing narrative brands nationalism—or even patriotism—as backward.
In the East, by contrast, that very same cultural patriotism is encouraged, because it provides an excellent basis for asserting moral claims against Russia.
Ultimately, the states that cooperate with NATO all meet the same fate: they are exploited, just as the Arab states were.
Putin was asleep at the wheel here; that must be stated unequivocally.
After all, it is now blindingly obvious that the situation is leading to the encirclement of Russia.
Interestingly, the "official workplace of the President of Kazakhstan" in Astana is named Ақорда ("White Horde") and, allegedly, the White Horde was "the eastern constituent part of the Golden Horde"†:
Going back a little way, it was the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 that settled the fate of the rampaging states between Russia and China. It was not a festival of peace and love but once they dealt with each other directly, they were gradually able to eliminate the ‘trouble makers’. The 2001 Russian-Chinese Treaty of Friendship was perhaps a new Nerchinsk. Both countries needed time and much effort to prepare themselves for the struggles they knew were coming and are currently ongoing. They are cooperating strongly with Iran. Three powerful states with a strong interest in keeping the US out, and the Stans in line, in the Caucasus. They have a lot on their collective plates at the moment and they may give a bit here and there today but is it likely that in the longer term, they will allow US/Western style mayhem on their joint back door? I think, and certainly hope, not. The seizure of the Sea of Azov and therefore full control of the access to the Caspian in 2022 was a start.
Well, at least they finally admit it, that's the first step to fixing the problem (of broken feedback loops in this case). It took them long enough though!
"Russia surprised by EU, US attempts to interfere in South Caucasus — Security Council"
https://tass.com/politics/2142327
Allegedly, Soviets used to joke that, in the Soviet Union, employees of research institutes were of four sorts:
· жора (жены ответственных работников)
· дора (дети ответственных работников)
· лора (любовницы ответственных работников)
· сука (случайно уцелевшие кадры)
I do wonder to what extent this joke applies to post-Soviet institutions.
From what I know, they're credentialed in the sense of having the paperwork/degree/experience to serve in their posts, but it's broken feedback loops caused by a cultural reluctance to inform superiors of "politically inconvenient" facts and an absolute unwillingness to accept constructive critiques, especially unsolicited ones, that are at the core of Russia's worryingly accelerating setbacks.
Bureaucracies are designed for "decades where nothing happens" and can work quite well under such conditions. Experts from various fields gather and then codify expertise accumulated over centuries to prevent past crises from recurring, thereby reducing exposure to the risk of a single human decision-maker exercising bad judgement at a critical moment.
However, in "weeks where decades happen", when facts on the ground change faster than bureaucracies can digest new information and codify new rules, bureaucracies get unresponsive. Some bureaucracies plan and prepare for crises and can switch to a crisis mode — or one of several crisis modes. Individual judgement, initiative and discretion are then needed more, but these carry much higher career-ending risks. Thus, an incentive structure must be designed to encourage responsible decision-making under uncertainty and prevent excessive risk-aversion.
In short, there are various design problems at hand, e.g., designing the conditions under which a bureaucracy will transition to a crisis mode, designing the procedures for such a crisis mode, designing incentive structures to encourage individual discretion without encouraging recklessness.
At this point, feigning surprise a full 10 months after TRIPP is an long-delayed reaction if it's just for rhetorical sake. I'm inclined to believe that Russia, from what I personally know through my 13 years here being taught at the MFA-run MGIMO (MA and PhD), knowing diplomats, experts, journalists, etc., was truly taken off guard and only just now is realizing it after the "Triad" recently confirmed that trouble is stirring along this front:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-russian-triad-is-now-on-the-same
Your innuendo of Russian omniscience made me smile because it's so typical of "Non-Russian Pro-Russians" (NRPR): there's no plan, how do you not see that after 4.5 years!?
The only plan was to coerce Ukraine into complying with Russia's demands during what became the Istanbul peace process, ergo the relatively minimal forces deployed to Ukraine (totally insufficient for a war of attrition, let alone controlling the whole country).
After that didn't turn out as planned, everything since then has been improvisation centered on the concept of a war of attrition in which it was assumed (correctly or not, and assessments can shift with time) that time was on Russia's side.
Russia has been fighting for 4.5 years, we don't know how many people have died on its side, and it still to this day doesn't control the entirety of Donbass. I'm a proud NRPR and that's why I have enough self-respect to acknowledge that everything is NOT going according to plan instead of pretending that it is.
For my amusement, do tell why you think that Russia let TRIPP happen if it's supposedly this omniscient superpower as you imply. Why in the world would Russia allow a NATO military logistics corridor to develop on its doorstep?
Quite obviously, it was caught off guard due to the broken feedback loops that I've talked about. I love this country, and unlike you, I have tangible stakes in its success.
These include me living here, owning an apartment, my wife and two kids being Russian citizens, and my entire life savings being in rubles. For that reason, I'll never, ever self-censor my constructive critiques.
You NRPRs live in a fantasyland where you live vicariously through the "Potemkinist" fantasy of whatever you've imagined Russia to be when the real, objectively existing Russia shares little in common with the "Potemkinist" one.
This guy continually gets caught off guard, time and again, from "EuroMaidan" onwards to Assad's downfall, TRIPP, and Mali turning into Syria 2.0 to list just a few examples, never learning due to broken feedback loops.
As someone who's seen this from the inside out, and no, I don't rely on friends -- I have personal experience from MGIMO, Sputnik, and other experiences -- I'm not going to stay silent.
I was taught that constructive critiques are the highest form of love, not telling people whatever they want to hear when they need to hear that it's time for self-criticism and -reform. I'm never changing, unsubscribe if you don't like it.
I really don't like everything that this implies:
"So maybe your friends in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are only pretending to be asleep."
So first, you're suggesting -- and I know you'll now gaslight instead of double down, most NRPR trolls do so whenever I call them out and I have years of experience dealing with your ilk -- that I'm regularly talking to MFA friends with the innuendo that this somehow influencers me.
No, first, I'm too busy with research, analysis, writing, and family. I don't chat with people often, but I do have friends in a lot of places. Unlike Pepe, I don't talk about them though so end of story.
Next, you're imagining that they present themselves in a way as though they're asleep, ignorant, dumb. I've been here for 13 years, I received the highest diploma (a red one) for my MFA-run MGIMO MA, I've had MANY TIMES MORE experiences -- from then till my PhD and onward to the present than just chatting with one or two people like you're making it seem.
Moving on, you're making it seem like I generalize based on a few impressions, which is so intellectually insulting to me as a person that I'm half-tempted to block you just for implying it because it shows that you have absolutely no idea who I am or are a "sophisticated troll" as I now call those that are very passively-aggressive with innuendo like yours.
And finally, no, my MFA and other friends aren't lying, you frigging idiot. You think I, a child of divorcees raised by my WWII refugee grandparents and working from the age of 14 onwards with only something like several consecutive months of unemployment since (I just turned 38) am so frigging stupid as to be manipulated by several silver spoon-fed Russians (and that's what 90% of MGIMO, which is the recruitment pool for the MFA, is)!?!?!?!
You know what, no, fuck you. You're blocked.
Rather than buying high‑tech aircraft and missile detectors — S‑300, S‑400, S‑500 — the Russians would do better to buy salami‑slicing detectors. It seems the Russians have great difficulty detecting when a thin slice of salami is being cut from them, and they only realize it after a hundred slices have been taken. And then, rather than getting angry and offensive, they are invariably surprised and exclaim, 'It's not fair, they are mean.' In this way, they have succeeded in ridiculing all their red lines. Yes, the Western cheaters (they are mean, it's not fair) don't cross them all at once, but they return ten times to nibble away at them. Now the bear must finally realize that his red line has been crossed. He scratches his head, furrows his brow, then his eyes light up and he says, 'Naughty rascals, here is my new red line — do not dare cross it.' The naughty rascals laugh, come out of their hiding places, and dance around the bear again, singing, 'Oh, the big fat clumsy bear, he's too slow.' Nothing discourages a pack of dogs, nothing — except the hunter's recall.
Exactly!
Thank you, Andrew. Well, yes, I get the impression that in the Bear family, there is indeed the terrible guy who stops only when his enemy is completely destroyed, but he is very, very slow to get into the saddle. And there is also the chubby one who just wants to be left alone to eat honey in peace and hides his head in the hive, mumbling, 'No, no, it's nothing, everything is going according to plan.' And there is the stubborn grandfather and the pretentious brother‑in‑law who tell you, 'That? It's nothing at all, we've overcome far worse, everything is going according to plan.' And then there is the head of the family who says, 'Come on, come on, let's stay calm and respectable' and discreetly asks that all the rifles be taken out and cleaned, just in case. And the women grumble, 'Oh dear, what a bother you are with your wretched salami slices when we already have so much trouble buying potatoes.' And then there is the ambitious uncle, the rich one in the family, who says, 'We shouldn't get worked up over a few slices, they're not really mean — those you call rascals are very nice people, and besides, they have magnificent salami factories that are just offering me jobs.' And then there are the 'eternal friends' of the family who say, 'As long as I get rich on your back and risk nothing, you can count on my friendship, hard as iron.' And there are also the foreign hangers‑on who say, 'Oh, you may be the most beautiful and the strongest, but you must admit you are the smartest. You have nothing to fear.' And finally, there is the neurotic teenage son who bites his nails, tears his hair out, and repeats, 'We have to raze them all with an atomic bomb.'"
What a clever way to describe it! Really, very creative, excellent work, Darras, very accurate too!
☺️
Your argument extends to China and Iran as well. Iran, because it is the thickest slice of a salami we could aptly call Eurasia, and China because whatever slices Iran will ultimately slice China as well, beginning with Xinjiang. It’s hard to know whether Turkiye is the architect of this strategy, and NATO has only now cottoned on to its potential, or whether NATO put Türkiye up to it in the first place. I suspect the former is the case, given Erdegan’s ambition for a Turkic Arc across Central Asia.
More like signaling to NATO that they're happy to help.
We are watching an historical irony play out before our eyes. Whereas the West, led by NATO, has for decades done its utmost to prise apart Russia and China, it is now deliberately driving the two together by adopting a strategy of killing two birds with one stone.
That ‘stone’ is the ‘cordon sanitaire’ of which you speak, Andrew, being built around Russia with a view to ultimately defeating and dismembering her, while at the same time encircling China for the very same reason, using those self-same tactics. Put simply, by capturing Central Asia, and hence Eurasia, America will have subordinated the world to its every command.
However, there is nothing inevitable about Western success in this endeavour. Russia and China, together, have the military and economic wherewithal to stop the United States in her tracks, provided they recognise the reality that desperate times call for desperate measures, such as:
1. Chinese hypersonic missiles and Russian Oreshniks being placed in Xinjiang and southern Russia, respectively, pointed at the Caspian and Black Seas, the Caucuses and the ‘Stans’.
2. Destroying the three bridges in Istanbul spanning the Bosphorus Strait, effectively separating Europe from Asia. A bifurcated Eurasia is nowhere near as strategically valuable to the West as an intact Eurasia;
3. In addition to the missiles Iran has placed along her Strait of Hormuz coastline, Teheran would have to point Russian and/or China-sourced nuclear tipped hypersonic missiles directly at Israel and the Caucuses. She would have to do likewise on her Caspian coastline aimed primarily at Azerbaijan;
4. Apropos, Azerbaijan, Iran would be further charged with the task of wrecking the Zangezur Corridor using the same tactics adopted by the Americans to wreck CPEC and threaten users of the Gwadar Port; namely, deploying terrorist groups to destroy critical infrastructure and kill construction workers and dockers.
This task would have to be undertaken in conjunction with Russia and Iran placing missiles on their northern and southern Caspian coastlines, respectively.
One way or another, it seems that Azerbaijan would be in the crosshairs of a Russia - China - Iran military alliance dedicated to ensuring that Eurasia doesn’t fall into NATO’s hands. It’s doable but bloody.
P.S. in American political parlance, the swing state in this whole mix might prove to be Kazakhstan, whose President seems intent on ‘playing’ Putin.
A fundamental question is whether Russia has the strength to maintain its own Monroe Doctrine. Relevant strength in this context is not nukes (being relevant mainly for defence), but natural resources, human resources, and the institutions of governance that enable their application in the nation's interests.
Russia is undeniably rich in natural resources, albeit resources with a rapidly shortening expiration date in the face of renewables. Human resources and institutions of governance? Not so much.
So does Russia want or need more quarrels with neighbours? If not, what is the best way forward? Perhaps like those inside the Beltway, too many are failing to adjust to geopolitical realities - where what truly matters are domestic, not foreign policies.
> albeit resources with a rapidly shortening expiration date in the face of renewables
Not quite.
An astute observation. Thank you for this perspective, which embodies a long-standing rule of foreign policy: namely, that orderly, strong domestic policy forms the foundation for a credible and highly respected foreign policy.
There's multipolarity for you. Countries vying for customers. Complacency is no good option in the face of it, EU can sing a song on this theme.
BTW, re Kazakhstan, its really got great plans :
https://www.caspianpolicy.org/research/commentary/critical-matters-reflections-on-mining-in-kazakhstan
The Golden Hooard is long goone. Russia can tuck Kazakstan in it' s back pocket and walk awd walk away with it. Kazakstan has a significant Russian population in it. Russia owns Kazakastan. It iis that simple.
why can't they just leave Russia alone instead of always messing with them.
It seems more and more that all "leaders" do is look for reasons to go to war against one another...
Is Putin naive , China, Mongool horde end west liberal end banking elite . They have been long time planning to take natural reserve of Russia end to Balkaniseert. Because I don’t think bat I noticed Putin working not in inters of Russia.
Tokayev’s emphasis on this identity may merely serve as a pretext for Turkey—which also harbors ambitions of great-power status—to seize an opportunity rooted in shared Turkic history to ally itself with the ancestral Turkic homeland and the successors of the Golden Horde.
Turkey is a NATO member; this would amount to "the next eastward expansion."
The entire game is really just about getting Russia to be the first to push the red button.
To put it bluntly and boil it down to the essentials:
The goal is for the "Russian orc" to be branded by the entire world as a subhuman threat to humanity.
Russia waited too long. Only now is the true extent of the damage Yeltsin and Gorbachev inflicted on Russia becoming starkly apparent.
For in the West, the prevailing narrative brands nationalism—or even patriotism—as backward.
In the East, by contrast, that very same cultural patriotism is encouraged, because it provides an excellent basis for asserting moral claims against Russia.
Ultimately, the states that cooperate with NATO all meet the same fate: they are exploited, just as the Arab states were.
Putin was asleep at the wheel here; that must be stated unequivocally.
After all, it is now blindingly obvious that the situation is leading to the encirclement of Russia.
Interestingly, the "official workplace of the President of Kazakhstan" in Astana is named Ақорда ("White Horde") and, allegedly, the White Horde was "the eastern constituent part of the Golden Horde"†:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqorda_Residence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horde
On the conspiracist front, it seems that Astana is rich in masonic symbols:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kazakhstan-and-the-illuminati
† which is surprising since west is usually white (e.g., Belarus?) and east is usually blue or green.
Going back a little way, it was the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 that settled the fate of the rampaging states between Russia and China. It was not a festival of peace and love but once they dealt with each other directly, they were gradually able to eliminate the ‘trouble makers’. The 2001 Russian-Chinese Treaty of Friendship was perhaps a new Nerchinsk. Both countries needed time and much effort to prepare themselves for the struggles they knew were coming and are currently ongoing. They are cooperating strongly with Iran. Three powerful states with a strong interest in keeping the US out, and the Stans in line, in the Caucasus. They have a lot on their collective plates at the moment and they may give a bit here and there today but is it likely that in the longer term, they will allow US/Western style mayhem on their joint back door? I think, and certainly hope, not. The seizure of the Sea of Azov and therefore full control of the access to the Caspian in 2022 was a start.
Interesting fact.