Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 09-Jan-2022 World View: Kazakhstan: Never waste a crisis and Follow the money

• Monuments to Nazarbayev are targeted by violent protesters

When I wrote my article on Kazakhstan, one of the great mysteries was
Vladimir Putin's warp speed response to the request by Kazakh
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, through CSTO, for Russian troops.
Putin okayed the request with lightning speed and, before you knew it,
some 3,500 troops mostly from Russia but also from Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, were pouring into Kazakhstan. The
request was justified by claims of terrorism sponsored by an unnamed
foreign country.

But there were many unanswered questions. What was the unnamed
country? What was the urgency in responding to the request -- which,
incidentally, was unprecedented -- when normally a similar request
would take days or weeks of negotiations? Since the nationwide
protests were obviously organic, and the country is enormous, what was
the mission of the 3,500 troops?

Some, but not all, of those questions are now being answered. The
nationwide protests were triggered by ending fuel subsidies and
resulting increases in fuel prices. The protests spread and became
increasingly violent and destructive, creating a crisis. I have not
seen any reports that say that the fuel subsidies were ended with the
purpose of causing violent protests and a crisis, or whether the
protests were an unintended consequence.

So apparently the saying "Never let a crisis go to waste" is coming
into play. The supporters of Nursultan Nazarbayev. the former
president, are apparently being accused of using the protest crisis as
a means to engineer a coup, and bring them back to power in some form.

This resulted in the subsequent actions. Tokayev fired Nazarbayev
from his remaining government role, chairman of the security council,
and he fired Karim Masimov, a Nazarbayev loyalist, from his position
as head of security services, accusing Masimov of treason.

That's the context in which the Russian-led CSTO forces poured into
Kazakhstan. They were there to make sure that Tokayev remained in
power, and was not brought down by a coup. They are also there to
guarantee that Vladimir Putin has a great deal to say in what the
government of Kazakhstan does in the future.

So Putin may not be able to re-create the old Soviet Empire, but he's
doing what he can in Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to pull
pieces of it back together when possible.

Another angle to this story is to "Follow the money!" Many members of
Nazarbayev's family, and many of his business cronies, have become
billionaires as a result of Nazarbayev's 30 year dictatorship. Many
of last week's violent protests were directed specifically at
Nazarbayev and his family and cronies for 30 years of corruption.
Members of Nazarbayev's family apparently have extensive property
holdings in Britain. Indeed, there are reports that Nazerbayev’s
daughter Nazarbayeva and her son are the owners of 221b Baker Street,
the fictional home of the character Sherlock Holmes.

So this story is far from over. Russian troops are now "protecting"
president Tokayev and his ministers, and Putin may be partially
running the country, but the fate of Nazarbayev's billionaires has yet
to be decided.

A word about American involvement. Whenever anything happens anywhere
in the world, many people assume that it's because the American
administration did something, or didn't do something, or said
something, or didn't say something. In this case, even the Chinese
press blamed American involvement for the protests. In fact, many,
many, many things, good and bad, go on in the world, driven by people
living their own lives day to day, who couldn't care less what the
American president said or did. I've written about this many times in
the past. Blaming America for everything may feel good, but it rarely
makes sense.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, most things happen in
the world because of generational changes, ethnic differences, class
differences, jealousy, passion, or sociopathy, no matter what America
does.

In this case, fuel subsidies were reduced, fuel prices rose, there
were protests, the protests spread across the country and encompassed
other issues, especially the corruption of the Nazarbayev family,
leading to threats of a coup. and Russian intervention. The American
administration had nothing to do with this, and could not have
engineered it with anything but a magic wand.

** 8-Jan-22 World View -- Kazakhstan protests threaten Russia-China stability in Central Asia
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e220108


**** Sources:

-- Kazakhstan / Nursultan Nazarbayev | The ‘old man’ and the unrest
https://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio...193186.ece
(The Hindu, 9-Jan-2022)

-- Kazakhstan: Ex-security services chief and Nazarbayev ally arrested
https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-ex-sec...y-arrested
(Eurasianet, 8-Jan-2022)

-- Kazakhstan’s Tycoons–Including Members Of Nazarbayev Family–Shed
Billions As Stocks Plunge
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkin...ks-plunge/
(Forbes, 7-Jan-2022)

-- Kazakhstan explainer: Who’s in, who’s out as Tokayev tries to take
back control?
https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-explai...ck-control
(Eurasianet, 6-Jan-2022)