The Daily Signal - How Kazakhstan's Unrest Threatens America's Interests

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

It’s a country few Americans have heard of, but Kazakhstan is going through political unrest that should make everyone sit up and take notice. With Russians on the doorstep and a bevy of strategic resources on the line, there’s a lot at stake. "[Kazakhstan] has about 40% of the world's uranium. It has lots of oil and gas and big U.S. companies like Chevron are deeply involved in Kazakhstan," explains Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Coffey joins the "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss why Kazakh unrest matters to the U.S., and what we should be doing about it. We also cover these stories:  President Joe Biden says if Senate Democrats don’t get their way on voting legislation, the filibuster needs to end. Dr. Anthony Fauci clashes again with Sen. Rand Paul as Fauci accuses him of endangering his life by criticizing him. Sen. Mitch McConnell says there will be consequences if Senate Democrats change the filibuster. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, January 12th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Doug Blair. It's a country few Americans have heard of, but Kazakhstan is going through political unrest that should make them sit up and take notice. With Russians on the doorstep and a bevy of strategic resources on the line, there's a lot at stake here. Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert Luke Coffey joins the show to discuss why

Kazakh unrest matters to the U.S. But before we get to Doug's conversation with Luke Coffey, let's hit. hit our top news stories of the day. President Joe Biden says that if Senate Democrats don't get their way on voting legislation, the filibuster needs to end. Here's some of his remarks from his speech Tuesday via MSNBC.

I believe that the threat to our democracy is so grave that we must find a way to pass these voting rights bills. Debate them, vote, let the majority prevail. And if that bare minimum is blocked, We have no option but to change the Senate rules, including getting rid of the filibuster for this. Speaking in Atlanta, Biden also took aim at conservative voting legislation via now this. Partisans seek the results they want no matter what the voters have said, no matter what to count. The votes of nearly five million Georgians will be up for grabs if that law holds.

It's not just here in Georgia. Last year alone, 19 states, not proposed, but enacted 34 laws attacking voting rights. There were nearly 400 additional bills Republican members of state legislatures tried to pass. And now, Republican legislators in several states have already announced plans to escalate the onslaught this year. Their endgame to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion. something states can respect or ignore. Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things. Voter suppression and election subversion.

It's no longer about who gets to vote. It's about making it harder to vote. While Georgia and other red states have come under fire from Biden and Democrats for their voting laws, the facts are more complicated with Georgia, actually making voting easier in some respects than certain blue states do. The Daily Signals Fred Lucas reported in 2021 that Georgia's law now allows for 17 days of early in-person voting. New York, by contrast, allows only for 10 days of in-person voting. Furthermore, Lucas reported, Georgia will still provide seven more days of early in-person voting

than Delaware, the state the president represented in the Senate from 1973. to 2009. During a Tuesday Senate Health Committee hearing, White House Chief Medical Advisor and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, clashed yet again with Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, as Fauci accused him of endangering his life by criticizing him. Fauci also accused Paul of criticizing him for political gain. Here's some of that heated exchange between Fauci and Paul via ABC News.

Everything that I've said has been in support of the CDC guidelines, wear a mask, get boosted, get vaccinated. And you've advocated to make it coercive and done to forth and you've advocated that it be done by mandate. You've advocated that your infallible opinion be dictated by law. Right. So again, Madam Chair, I would like just a couple of minutes because this happens all the time. You personally attack me. And with absolutely not a sure. shred of evidence of anything you say. So I would like to make something clear to the committee. He's doing this for political reasons. What you need to do is he said in front of this committee. You think your takedown of three prominent epidemiologists was not political? You don't want me to finish,

because you know what I'm going to say. That was the question. Were you political and taking down these three prominent epidemiologists? Later in the hearing, Fauci accused Paul of kindling the crazies and putting him and his family's lives in danger. What happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there and I have the life that threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me. In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McCauly,

Republican of Kentucky didn't mince words about what would happen if Democrats end the filibuster, which requires that 60 senators vote in support of a bill. Here's a lengthy excerpt from McConnell's speech via C-SPAN. I want to make something very, very clear. Fifty Republican senators, the largest possible minority, have been sent here to represent the many millions of Americans whose leader, whom leader Schumer wants so badly to leave behind. So, if my colleague tries to break the Senate to silence those millions of Americans, we will make their voices heard in this chamber in ways that are more inconvenient for the majority and this White House than what anybody has seen in living memory.

Last year, the Senate passed major bipartisan legislation on infrastructure, on hate crimes, on government funding, on competing with China. Last year, senators helped speed through non-controversial nominations. So what would a post-nuclear Senate look like? I assure you, it would not be more efficient or more productive. I personally guarantee it. Do my colleagues understand how many times per day the Senate needs and gets unanimous consent for basic housekeeping?

Do they understand how many things would require a roll call votes? How often the minority could demand lengthy debate? Our colleagues who are itching for a procedural nuclear winter have not even begun to contemplate how it would look. Our colleagues who are itching to drain every drop of collegiality from this body have not even begun to consider how that would work. If the Democratic leader tries to shut millions of Americans and entire states out of the business of governing, the operations of this body will change.

Oh yes, that much is true. But not in ways that reward the rule breakers, not in ways that advantage this president, this majority, or their party. I guarantee it. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Luke Coffey as we discuss the unrest in Kazakhstan. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars. on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth

research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Our guest today is Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Luke, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. Excellent. So I wanted to have you on today to discuss some of the unrest that is been occurring in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. It started on January 2nd and became increasingly violent. For listeners who hadn't heard about this unrest, what exactly sparked things? Well, first, let's talk about Kazakhstan a little bit. It's not a country that many Americans or many of your listeners are probably familiar with. Although it's the world's seventh largest country, it has a popular.

of about two New York cities, so about 18 million people or so. So it's not very densely populated, as you can imagine. It's a Muslim majority country, but it's a very secular country. It's a very, you know, tolerant country to other cultures and religions. It was, of course, part of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and before that it was under Russian control, but it has a rich history of Kazakh culture that goes back centuries, I mean, more than 600 years old.

And it's in the news recently because a lot of people took to the streets for legitimate complaints and gripes about the increase in costs of basic goods, such as gasoline, for example. And these recent protests were probably, the culmination or maybe I should say a continuation of grievances that many Kazakh people have had over recent years because of a stagnant economy while the elites in the country tend to be well off and get richer and richer so I think that's what we saw now the events that happen after these protests which I'm sure

we'll be talking about I would say these were almost separate from the original protest that we saw taking place. Interesting. So as you mentioned, Americans don't tend to focus on Kazakhstan very much. What about this incident should have Americans taking notice? Yeah, well, other than, of course, the fictional character, Borat, which comes from Kazakhstan in the fictional movies, you're right, many Americans that don't follow events in Kazakhstan. Why, you know, why you should have our interests?

Well, you know, it should have the interest of U.S. policymakers because Kazakhstan is very rich in natural resources. It has about 40% of the world's uranium. It has lots of oil and gas, and big U.S. companies like Chevron are deeply involved in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan also sets at a crucial place in the world. I mean, it is in the heart of the Eurasian landmass. And I would say by definition, anything that's in the heart of something is important and it is an important crossroads. It was very important for the United States when we were involved in Afghanistan for transit rights to allow resupplies to go through Kazakhstan to eventually end up in Afghanistan. They have a government that has been cooperative with the United States on energy issues, economic issues, counterterrorism issues.

and the Kazakhs have been able to balance their foreign policy over recent years between the U.S., China, and the West, and that, of course, includes the United States. So they've been willing to not get entrenched into one side or stuck in one camp, which is in America's interest that countries like this do not fall wholly in the sphere of Chinese or Russian influence. Now, one of the things that caught my eye when I was reading about this story was that as violence continued in the unrest, Russian-led troops entered the country to try and restore order. How common is it for Russia to involve itself in these former Soviet states like this? Well, unfortunately, it's very common. You know, you can Belarus, Ukraine, of course, which is under partial Russian occupation, Georgia, which is under partial Russian occupation, Georgia, which is under partial. Russian occupation. Armenia has about 5,000 Russian troops base there.

Now in Azerbaijan, after the second Karbach war last year over this disputed region called Nagorno Karbakh. There are 2,000 Russian peacekeepers inside Azerbaijan. There are Russian bases in Tajikistan. And, of course, now Kazakhstan is the latest example of Russian forces getting involved. And the reason why this is so concerning is that, as I mentioned, Kazakhstan has been able to balance its relationships, right, with the big powers in the region. But the current president, President Tokayev, he felt it necessary to call in Russian forces for assistance to help quell the violence. And we can get into the detail on what motivated him to make this call or, you know, what was the source of this violence.

It's still not clear, but there are some good guesses that we can make. But nevertheless, he decided to call on, more specifically, an organization called the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the CSTO, which is sort of Russia's answer or equivalent to NATO, the North American Treaty Organization. So the CSTO deployed a small force, predominantly Russian troops, but also Armenian, Tajik, and Kirste. Kyrgyzstani forces to Kazakhstan to help restore order. So right now there are estimates vary, but between 2,000 and 3,000 of these troops at key points in Kazakhstan guarding key infrastructure. So it sounds like maybe the reason why Americans should be focusing on this is there is a Russian angle to this where, for whatever reason, and I would love to get into what those

reasons might be, the president of Kazakhstan decided that it would be the best option was to call in Russian forces. Yeah, and this comes at an interesting time with Ukraine in Russia as well. You know, Russia has about 100,000 troops along Ukraine's borders. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and partially occupies that country. It's threatening to invade further. This week, the U.S. and Russians are speaking in Geneva, trying to defuse the situation, but it remains to be seeing what's going to happen there. Russia is, you know, poised to further invade Ukraine, but now this crisis in Kazakhstan happened, and this is sort of distracted Moscow. And as Americans, we can't really understand why Kazakhstan would be considered so important. But for Russia,

because of cultural and historical and economic and energy and space, even, space reasons, because Russian spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is deeply important to the Russian people and to the Russian government. In the same way, if a major crisis broke out in Canada or Mexico for the United States, we would be deeply concerned. So, you know, the Russian troops going to Kazakhstan might distract for a little bit what Russia had planned for,

Ukraine. Now, in terms of what motivated President Tokayev to request Russian troops, this is the big question right now. Up until a few years ago, the president of Kazakhstan was a man called President Nizobayev. He was the president since Kazakhstan gained independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. And he stepped down about three years ago, and President Okayev took over and granted the former president, Nizabayev, the title of Father of the Nation, and also let him be the chairman of the National Security Council. Effectively, what is their version of the National Security Council? So Nizabayev retained a large amount of influence,

especially among the security forces inside Kazakhstan. Now, Tokayev, it is suspected, wants to get rid of Nizabayev's influence because Nizoviev is actually unpopular among many corners of Kazakhstan, because of these notions of corruption and elitism. So it's been suspected that whenever the protests kicked off, President Tokayev used this as an opportunity to rid the country of Nizabayev's lingering influence. And when Tokayev realized that perhaps, many of the Kazakh security forces had their allegiance still with the former president

Nizabayev, Tokayev, the current president, had to request Russian help. But the plot gets even thicker because there's also a strong indication that this was a coup attempt by Nizabayev to regain control of power. So the reality is we don't know exactly what is going on in terms of this power struggle. We can almost guarantee there is a power struggle, but we don't know who is struggling for what sort of power. But all we know is now that Russia is involved in this mix. And now President Tokayev, if he remains in office, will be very reliant on President Putin's influence inside Kazakhstan now. So it sounds like maybe what we're saying is that while this initially started out as a power struggle between two Kazakh leaders,

it almost sounds like the Russians are now invested in this one leader, Tokayev, maintaining power simply because he seems to be more friendly towards the Russians? Well, because he called Tokayev had no, he felt he had no choice but to call on the Russians for help. And whereas in the past, I mentioned that Kazakhstan had done a good job at balancing its relationships between China, Russia, and the West, now going forward, this will not be so easy and it perhaps could be impossible because President Tokayev will owe. his presidency to President Putin and the Kremlin. He's now indebted to the Russians for securing his presidency going forward, and it will not be easy for him to maintain the same level of, let's call it, geopolitical flexibility to balance Kazakhstan's relations with Russia, China, and the West. He will be indebted to Russia going forward.

But although this started out as a power struggle, we shouldn't forget of the legitimate grievances that your average Kazakh might have in terms of, you know, high unemployment, low economic growth, the cost of goods rising. You know, these protests that we saw on our TV screens were probably genuine, and then they were hijacked by those competing for power at the top. So how did the Kazakh people view this incursion by the Russians? How do they view the fact that Russia had to come in and restore order? Well, it's still early days. The Russian troops have only been there for a few days now, but one can make some assumptions based off the history of Kazakhstan and the demographics of Kazakhstan.

Now, one fifth or so of almost one, about one-fifth, to one quarter of Kazakh people are of Russian origin. They're ethnically Slavic. Cossacks, the ethnically Kazakh people, are culturally and linguistically more aligned with Turkey. The Cossack is a Turkic language. Culturally, the Cossacks have a lot in common with Turkic people around the world. So there's always been this friction between the ethnic Slavs or the ethnic Russians and then the ethnic Kazakhs. So the ethnic

Russians live predominantly in the northern part of the country, close to the Russian border. And there's no doubt of my mind that this region of the country will be very sympathetic, if not open, to the idea of Russian peacekeeping,

so-called peacekeeping force. When Russia took over Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, there were Russian politicians, who are suggesting that northern Kazakhstan should be under the protection of Russia, that Kazakhstan is a fake country, it's a made-up country, etc., etc., you can imagine. But then this makes, of course, the ethnic Kazakhs very nervous. And in recent years, former president in Izabayev,

and continuing on with the current president, Tokayev, they have carried out some steps to enhance Kazakh culture. For example, the Kazakh language was once written in the Cyrillic alphabet. It's the alphabet that the Russian language uses, and that has since been phased out and replaced with the Latin alphabet like we use and most of Europe uses. And this was Vita's antagonistic towards the ethnic Russians. English is taught more in schools as a second language. Russian, the Russian language is not promoted as much as it used to be. So the ethnic Kazakhs might view any major Russian intervention force, peacekeeping force, as occupiers,

especially if they stay for an extended period of time. That being said, the Tokayev, President Tokayev and his team have announced that the CSTO mission, this collective security treaty organization mission will withdraw within the next 10 days. And it remains to be seen if this will really happen, something we have to watch very closely. But if they do leave, then at your average Kazakh will probably go back to worrying more about the price of fuel, the price of bread, the price of goods, than the presence of the Russian forces. Given that this is something that does affect American geopolitical interests in the region, if the Russians feel like they are going to start moving on former Soviet states that affects America. Do we see this unrest as being an isolated incident, or do we see this as something that could pop up in other former Soviet bloc states?

Well, it could definitely pop up. I mean, it has in some cases popped up in the past in other former Soviet bloc states. I am very hesitant to use this term, you know, former Soviet Union or Soviet bloc, because these countries, while they were under occupation by the Soviet Union and also by Russian imperialism before that in the 19th century, these countries have a, you know, very proud and unique culture and history themselves. And as I said, in the case of Kazakhstan, it's the Kazakh, it was called the Kazakh Khanate, the kingdom, was around in some form or another for 600 years.

But Russia feels like it has this privilege to intervene in these countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. And they completely ignore the sovereignty of these different states. And especially for American conservatives who believe in borders and believe in national sovereignty. sovereignty. Seeing what Russia is doing around these different countries should be alarming and concerning. But the reality is there's very little that the U.S. can do about the situation in Kazakhstan because for a number of administrations, you know, the current administration, the previous administration, the Obama administration, there's been a lack of U.S. engagement in the region.

No single setting U.S. president has ever visited Central Asia. There is very little involvement, very little engagement to build a long-term enduring relationship with these countries in the region. We have a very transactional relationship when we need engagement, such as on Afghanistan. But once Afghanistan ended or was winding down over the past several years, the U.S. engagement in this region kind of dismal. So right now, we are just mere bystanders in this saga that's unfolding in Kazakhstan. And this is why U.S. policymakers should be watching closely to determine how we can better engage with this region going forward. What are some of the ways that we could better engage with this region? Well, the first thing would be just to show up and not ask for something.

after 9-11 of course we needed transit routes and flight over you know overflight rights and and everything else for Afghanistan and we were deeply we need military bases we had a base in Uzbekistan we had a base in Kyrgyzstan they've since been closed for a number of reasons several years ago but it would be nice if the U.S. would just you know like the president or vice president would show up and just to build a personal relationship with the leaders in the region. And then from there, figure out ways to cooperate on economic issues, trade issues, energy issues. And this should never be about making countries like Kazakhstan choose between us or the Russians or us or the Chinese.

Because history and geography dictates that they can never be put into a position where it's either going to be the West or, Russia because, you know, Russia's there, China's there, they share land borders with these countries, the U.S. were thousands of miles away. That should never be the goal to get them out of, you know, firmly into a U.S. sphere of influence. It should just be in America's interest to keep a dialogue open, to keep engagement open, because this is becoming such an important part of the world, like I said, with the energy resources, with the trade routes that are going on, with the threat of terrorism now that the Taliban are back in control of Afghanistan. I bet we're basically absent from the region right now.

I think that's an excellent thing to keep in mind. I think with that we're going to wind down. So that was Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies here at the Heritage Foundation. Luke, thank you so much for joining us. It was my pleasure anytime. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast.

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