Mass protests in Kazakhstan

[DavidB.]

An important difference with Belarus is that Kazakhstan's linkages to the West are weaker; the government will be able to violently crack down on protests more easily, with much less attention being paid by the EU and the remainder of the West. Belarus  is culturally more European, actually borders three EU countries who care a lot (for both geopolitical/security and "solidarity with our neighbors' local population" reasons), and has an internet-savvy population that is, to a certain extent, interested in more democracy. Kazakhstan is much farther away and simply less European. All of this means protests are much less likely to succeed in toppling the government and the government is likely to get the situation under control sooner or later.

[DavidB.]

The tweets, while highly informative, make this thread almost impossible to read. Perhaps better to just put links to the tweets here if possible...

[DavidB.]

I wonder what Borat would have to say about all this.

Wonder what happened to the potassium prices.

[DavidB.]

What is a more likely scenario here for Kazakhstan?

A) Belarus -protests ruthlessly suppressed by reigning dictator, but his regime is so weakened that it cannot exist without Putin's support.  Integration into Russian Federation (by force if necessary) is an increasingly likely possibility.

B) Ukraine -protests ultimately oust dictator, sending him into exile in Russia, but the revolutionary government faces challenges to its territorial integrity by Putin irate over the loss of his puppet regime. 

B is extremely unlikely. As for A - we have to wait and see.

[DavidB.]

During the Nagorno-Karabakh war I had sympathized with the Armenians. But seeing how Armenia is now sending troops to quash the people of Kazakhstan, it's getting much harder to support them anymore. Do they think that it's only the people of Artsakh that deserve liberty, and not the people of Almaty?

I don't think this was Armenia's idea

They are going along with it. Presumably to please Russia so Russia would help them against Azerbaijan -- even though they did not help in the last war.

Armenia is so completely dependent on Russia in all regards that you can legitimately question how much of a sovereign state it (still) is.

And while Russia indeed did not help Armenia as much as Yerevan would have liked in the last war, they could sure help Azerbaijan a lot more than the last time in the next war if Pashinyan doesn't do exactly what Moscow wants.

[DavidB.]

Armenia is so completely dependent on Russia in all regards that you can legitimately question how much of a sovereign state it (still) is.

And while Russia indeed did not help Armenia as much as Yerevan would have liked in the last war, they could sure help Azerbaijan a lot more than the last time in the next war if Pashinyan doesn't do exactly what Moscow wants.

But didn't Moscow emerge as the biggest loser in that war? Azerbaijan entirely routed Armenia thanks to Turkish drones, and Russian-made Armenian anti-air missiles were entirely useless. That was a huge blow to Russia's ability to market its weapons. And, how exactly does turning Armenia into a client state augment Moscow's political power? It has little in resources, or real estate, or anything of value. If Turkey invaded Armenia tomorrow "to finish the job", then there's zero in it for Putin to intervene.

It isn't generally considered this way, no. It was most of all a very painful blow to Armenia, who had been "living above their means" in a certain way. At some point Azerbaijan was always going to take back considerable amounts of land in Nagorno-Karabakh. But Armenia had been completely in denial about it, mostly due to patriotism blinding them to the obvious reality that Armenia's military wasn't worth much while Azerbaijan had been investing in high tech stuff for years and years. It's a miracle Pashinyan - who ironically came to power due to a revolution on the streets... -   is still in power. As for Russia, they increased their power in Armenia + now have boots on the ground in the region to "protect the ceasefire agreement" - and we all know what leverage comes with these boots on the ground.

And if Turkey entered tomorrow to "finish the job" (as you state it), I think Putin would absolutely intervene - the main reason the former hasn't happened yet is because Russia will not allow it. Maintaining stability and a balance of power in the Caucasus is almost the main driver of Russia's foreign policy, and Armenia is Russia's only fully reliable partner in the region (with AZB being more oriented towards Turkey and GEO obviously maintaining a very frosty relationship with Moscow).