Link to article: https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kazakhstan-europe-national-security-terrorism-2c026ecb00584aba668f320d4482d0f1<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kazakhstan government\u2019s response to domestic protests and riots have left 164 citizens dead, including 3 children. Protests stemmed from gas prices nearly doubling. Protests began on January 2, with the goal of some protestors to get the \u201cOld man out\u201d: Nazarbayev, former president of Kazakhstan and Kazakh Security Council head. Protests turned into riots, leaving some government and civilian buildings burned. Current Kazakhstan President Tokayev requested assistance from an alliance of former Soviet states, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Russia. 2,500 mostly-Russian CSTO troops were deployed to Kazakhstan. Tokayev claims peaceful domestic protests were \u201chijacked\u201d by foreign terrorists, specifically radical Islamic groups. Additionally, the Kazakhstan government detained a prolific musician from Kyrgyzstan for his alleged involvement in rioting. Several media outlets have accused Tokayev of violently suppressing democratic protests with Tokayev denying suppression of peaceful protests. Russian President Vladimir Putin also condemned the allegedly foreign attacks on Kazakhstan and acted to assist his ally, Kazakhstan. Tokayev promised that new damning evidence of foreign terrorist intervention in protests would be released soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The situation in Kazakhstan is an enormous human rights issue. Being an autocratic government, it is in Kazakhstan\u2019s national interest to suppress all criticism of their government. Because both Russia and Kazakhstan are autocratic regimes, the governments of the two countries will both find it in their best interest to ally together, an example of realism, and ensure there are minimal threats to their power. Due to the accusations of human rights violations in Kazakhstan, I would expect to see tariffs or condemnations thrown at its government in the coming weeks if the unrest is not curbed. Additionally, the proximity of Kazakhstan to China buffers Russia from China, which is a current ally of Russia, but potential future enemy. Some scholars hypothesize that Russia is in danger of domination from China, and Russia allying itself closer to Kazakhstan adds a buffer state between the two countries. Because of Russia\u2019s involvement in the issue in Kazakhstan, its ongoing negotiations with the West regarding Ukraine troop placement are not likely going to pan out. With Russia not demonstrating an interest in backing down on its assertiveness, the EU and NATO are likely not going to negotiate with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As discussed in class, Kazakhstan is in the Eurasian Realm in the Central Asian Region. Geopolitically, it is important for Russia to have as much geography as it can, considering it was dealt a poor geographic hand. Following the Realist school of thought, it is within Kazakhstan\u2019s rational interest to curb domestic protests that threaten the government\u2019s iron grip on its citizens. Russia\u2019s involvement with Kazakhstan also represents some Organic Theory; its involvement in more territory poses a potential solution to some of its large internal problems that threatens Russia\u2019s rise to a larger global power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Link to article: https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kazakhstan-europe-national-security-terrorism-2c026ecb00584aba668f320d4482d0f1 The Kazakhstan government\u2019s response to domestic protests and riots have left 164 citizens dead, including 3 children. Protests stemmed from gas prices nearly doubling. Protests began on January 2, with the goal of some protestors to get the \u201cOld man out\u201d: Nazarbayev, former president of Kazakhstan and Kazakh Security Council head. Protests turned into riots, leaving… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4836,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions\/4836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}