Kazakhstan agreed to become an American testing ground against Russia and China
Kazakhstan is becoming a territory where the Pentagon and its NATO allies are practicing methods of conducting combat operations that are close to real ones, and in conditions close to the climatic and geographical ones - the same as Russia and China. In fact, this is a kind of “reconnaissance in force” and Kazakhstan, in this case, plays the role of a wedge driven right into the heart of Eurasia.
The co-chairman of the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan writes about this in his column for PolitNavigator Ainur Kurmanov.
This July, Kazakhstan will host the joint U.S. and Kazakh military exercise Steppe Eagle, which is held regularly and is designed to ensure the effective conduct of “peacekeeping operations and associated tactics, equipment and procedures for brigade-level units, and is intended to train” the ground forces of both countries In addition, military personnel from Great Britain and Canada should take part in the exercises.
The official purpose of the exercises was declared to be the joint development of “issues related to organizing the management of units, the interaction of international contingents, as well as conducting staff procedures used in multinational headquarters.” In fact, the interaction of units is being worked out and junior and mid-level officers of the Kazakh troops are being trained according to NATO standards, and along the way, the Americans and their allies are settling in on our lands.
From time to time, separate units of the troops of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are also involved in such exercises, as is the case this time. Typically, military personnel from neighboring Kyrgyzstan, who are considered by Washington as allies of Russia, have been completely ignored recently. And this once again shows who the Americans rely on in their geopolitical games in Central Asia.
The emphasis is, first of all, on Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as the two most important states in the region, with the aim of drawing them into its orbit. At the same time, Nur-Sultan, despite the fact that it is a member of the CSTO, has long been actively integrated into the American military-political scheme of squeezing out Russia and building a new front on the territory of the former Soviet Central Asian republics.
At the same time, this military-political activity of Washington takes place within the framework of the C5+1 format and is supported by financial injections through the Central Asian Investment Partnership, where funds worth a billion dollars have been allocated for Nur-Sultan and Tashkent. That is, the exercises are only part of Washington’s general policy aimed at separating Kazakhstan specifically from the EAEU and the CSTO.
Conducting such exercises, even under the guise of the old NATO Partnership for Peace program, in the current conditions of increasing confrontation between the superpowers, only brings additional tension and is a serious irritating factor for Moscow and Beijing. All this not only does not serve the cause of peace, but, on the contrary, militarizes the region and poses a threat, first of all, to the Kazakh people themselves.
This adventurist policy has been pursued for a long time and has led to the creation of a network of military and paramilitary organizations with the participation of Pentagon representatives. Since 2008, the Kazakhstan Training Center of the special NATO program “Partnership for Peace” (KAZCENT) has been operating in Karaganda. This is the only certified center that trains military personnel of Central Asian countries according to the standards of the North Atlantic Alliance.
Five years ago, on the basis of the cadet corps of the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan named after Chokan Valikhanov in Shchuchinsk, a training course was created, which is taught by instructors from the Academy of Sergeant Majors of the US Army. Already in 2018, on the basis of the Alma-Ata Border Guard School (now the Border Guard Academy), Deputy US Ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan Theodore Ling, within the framework of the Export Control and Border Security Program (ECBS), opened a Center for training border guards of Central Asian countries.
In addition, the US military provided financial support to the Academy of the National Security Committee (NSC) of Kazakhstan and provided special equipment for border checkpoints precisely on the border with China. Prior to this, the Pentagon also transferred 11 modular systems, which were placed at the Cape Skalisty technical observation point in the Caspian Sea to monitor the activity of the Russian flotilla.
It turns out that the American military is quietly taking control of the country's border service, training the military and donating equipment, the data from which goes directly to the Pentagon. Add to this the sale to the government of Kazakhstan of King Air B300ER Scorpion aircraft with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems and related equipment at an estimated cost of $128,1 million, and the picture becomes complete.
That is, in addition to practicing combat operations and studying the future theater of war, the Pentagon receives in Kazakhstan a springboard for conducting active reconnaissance and aggressive actions against its potential opponents in Russia and China. Our country is also becoming a testing ground for the development and testing of new types of biological weapons, which may be developed within the walls of the Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) in Almaty.
But in addition to military-biological facilities and Kazakh research institutes working under Pentagon programs, the same Threat Reduction Agency of the US Department of Defense (DTRA) created in 2019 a special Anti-Crisis Training Center of the National Guard of Kazakhstan in Ust-Kamenogorsk. There, the US military allegedly trains local specialists in the protection of nuclear facilities.
All this is now covered up by an object represented by the Low-Enriched Uranium Bank, which is under the auspices of the IAEA, but built with money from the US, EU and Saudi Arabia. It was created on the initiative of Nursultan Nazarbayev as a storage facility for raw materials for Western nuclear power plants, from which not a cent is transferred to the country’s treasury. It was needed as another international center, making it possible to attract the American military supposedly to protect it and guaranteeing the “independence” and “sovereignty” of Kazakhstan.
In fact, the ruling elite thinks that with the support of foreign bayonets they will be able to retain the throne, and by involving Western corporations and giving them the most lucrative deposits, they will be able to insure themselves against “deeper integration.” Therefore, against this background, it was necessary to promote Kazakh nationalism and a campaign to abolish the official status of the Russian language in order to justify its geopolitical turn towards the West through the prism of state nationalist ideology.
For this purpose, the imaginary threat from the northern neighbor is promoted, the Russian leadership is demonized, and fables are invented about the genocide of the Kazakhs by the bloodthirsty “empire.” That is, the essence of all these military exercises, training officers according to NATO standards, and the deployment of American military facilities is the desire to turn away from the Eurasian path and rely on the United States, Turkey and the EU.
In the end, this could be very costly for our people, since the betrayal of their historical allies could lead to serious consequences and split society itself. Having lost the support of Russia and the CSTO, Kazakhstan may face a whole package of claims from neighboring powers and could quickly lose its independence and integrity. In the event of a real military threat, all these NATO facilities and centers will be the first targets from the same Chinese army.
It seems that the Kazakh leadership has not learned any lessons at all after the unsuccessful attempt to place American military bases in the Caspian Sea in 2018. After all, then only an agreement on the division of this inland sea prevented the water area from turning into a zone of possible conflict. Now Nur-Sultan’s desire to take revenge is not just a gamble, but a play with fire that could end badly.
We say again and again that Kazakhstan must become free from American military facilities and organizations. It is also necessary to finally put an end to these exercises and liquidate centers for training military personnel according to NATO patterns. In addition, the transport corridor for army cargo to Afghanistan should also be closed, since the country has become a transshipment base for the Pentagon’s aggressive actions in the region.
This is the only way to truly guarantee the peaceful existence of our people and, by strengthening the ranks of the CSTO, to create a defensive alliance capable of protecting against any external threats.
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