Generational Dynamics World View News

[Guest]

I would like to think that the revolt in Kazakhstan is being orchestrated by the US government, but I really doubt it. If Ronald Reagan were president, I would be confident that he did have a hand in it, but with Biden in office, I can't imagine we have anything to do with it at all. God help us.

If the rebellion does grow, then this would really press the Russians hard. Most of their million man army exists only on army payrolls, which are collected by their supposed commanders. The spetznaz were sent because they are carefully selected to do Putin's dirty work. The 100,000 soldiers on the Ukrainian frontier definitely include thousands ethnic Asians. I wonder how they would respond to Russian soldiers raping and murdering their kinfolk?

Ronald Reagan would know how to play this hand...

[Cool Breeze]

8-Jan-22 World View -- Kazakhstan protests threaten Russia-China stability in Central Asia

Russia leads five CSTO nations in sending troops into Kazakhstan

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



Contents:
Kazakhstan president orders shoot to kill peaceful protesters without warning
Russia leads five CSTO nations in sending troops into Kazakhstan
China versus Russia


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Kazakhstan, Almaty,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev,
China, Russia, Soviet Union,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Armenia,
Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO,
Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azerbaijan,
Baikonur spaceport, Ukraine, Turkey, Vladivostok

Do you still maintain that in the next conflict China and Russia are going to be pitted against one another?

But in the meantime, they use each other to advance geopolitical strategies that just coincidentally align here and there?

[DaKardii]

But in the meantime, they use each other to advance geopolitical strategies that just coincidentally align here and there?

Hey, maybe Russia will pull an Italy/USSR and start one one side but flip to the other halfway through.

[John]

** 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/ ... tm#e220108


**** Sources:

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

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

-- Kazakhstan’s Tycoons–Including Members Of Nazarbayev Family–Shed
Billions As Stocks Plunge
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawki ... 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-expla ... ck-control
(Eurasianet, 6-Jan-2022)

[Navigator]

Your points about the Russians (and other allies) being ready and getting into Kazakhstan on a moment's notice made me think of another string of incidents in Putin's past.

A couple of months ago, I read "Blowing Up Russia" by Alexander Litvinenko (& Yuri Felshtinsky). The book is about how the former KGB engineered the entire mess with Chechnia in order to bring Putin into undisputed control of Russia (and thereby take care of all of those poor KGB people who would otherwise be out of a job). This "engineering" included the KGB carrying out "terrorist attacks" (blamed on Chechins) in Moscow. It then involved enflaming Russians to believe that their security was at risk, and that Putin was the guy to protect them.

This book got Litvinenko assassinated by Putin (he was the guy in the UK they poisoned with radioactive Polonium).

Personally, I have no doubt that Putin's minions are deeply involved in Kazakhstan and enabling a large Russian military presence in the country.

I am hearing that the news about Kazakhstan is non-stop in Russia, and that it is being portrayed as an existential threat to Russian security.

This, along with the previous/current Ukrainian situation, is probably all set up along the lines that "Russia is in mortal danger", that Putin is the guy to protect Russia, and that serious sacrifices on the part of the Russian people are in order.

Putin having greater control of Kazakhstan is also crucial, not only due to the important resources that Kazakhstan possesses, but also because of its strategic position between Russia and China, who, though they hate each other are "strange bedfellow" allies. Kind of like the Nazis and the Japanese.

For those who think that the CIA might be behind this, I will point out as I have multiple times before, conspiracies that actually occur are quickly outed by some of the participants (like Litvinenko and the Chechnia mess). Also, the US has little to no real interest in Kazakhstan, as maybe 1000 people in the US even know where it is.

Putin is, IMHO, gearing up the Russian population for war while he secures his allies (willing and unwilling).

[Navigator]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it may be of interest to most:

I am heavily involved with wargaming.

The following article is an in-depth look at what wargames (very complicated ones that have been proven time and again to be very prescient) say about upcoming war with China/Russia.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/how-d ... a-wargame/

Here are the key highlights I was sent by a NATO contact doing wargames with European military communities:

Marine Corps War College wargame I organized that allowed students to fight a multiple great state conflict last week. Run at a high level, clearly sponsored and with officers allowed the time to engage, and with an analytical strategic purpose. Also completed within a limited timeframe of a week – so achievable. It incorporates Russia in the Baltics/Ukraine/Poland, China using the opportunity to seize Taiwan and N Korea opportunistically attacking S Korea. A worst-case scenario for NATO and the West but not unrealistic in concept.

The wargames were played by six student teams, or approximately five persons each. There were three red teams, representing Russia, China, and North Korea; combatting three blue teams representing Taiwan, Indo-Pacific Command (Korea conflict) and European Command. Manageable resourcing if the outputs were agreed as adding value to strategic thinking, consideration of capability development and operating at reach with allies. Useful for developing some detailed Red forces thinking too that is based on real world nations rather than fabricated ones that resemble the actual potential adversaries.

Students were given a list of approximately 75 items they could invest in that would give them certain advantages during the game. A fascinating consideration to apply to current and future capability. Interesting that none of the students opted for an additional carrier!

As there was not enough American combat power to fight and win three simultaneous major conflicts, hard strategic choices were unavoidable. The article only really addresses US considerations, although clearly it is a global issue.

The fight in Poland was beyond brutal. By student estimates, the NATO forces lost over 60,000 men and women on the first day (150k in first week) of the fight, Sobering!

These games were designed to help the students think about future conflicts and operational art, and not for serious analytical work. Still, there were several observations that may point the services and Joint Staff toward areas that require more serious analysis. Sets the scope but illustrates that more may be gleaned from it.

The high rate of loss in modern conventional combat challenged student paradigms ingrained by nearly two decades of counter-insurgency operations. For students, who have spent their entire military lives viewing the loss of a squad or a platoon as a military catastrophe, this led to a lot of discussion about what it would take to lead and inspire a force that is burning through multiple brigades a day, as well as a lengthy discussion on how long such combat intensity could be sustained.

To ease the students into the complexity of this wargame, logistics was hugely simplified. Still, much of the post-game discussion focused on the impossibility of the U.S. military’s current infrastructure to support even half the forces in theater or to maintain the intensity of combat implied by the wargame as necessary to achieve victory.

Airpower, the few times it was available, was a decisive advantage on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the planes rarely showed up to assist the ground war, as they prioritized winning dominance of their own domain over any other task. Its about integration in combined and joint operations. Valuable lessons to be drawn from this. Also worth noting is how the very expensive carriers were kept away from threat and would only operate lose to shore when under an overwhelming land based air umbrella.

Neither America nor its allies had any adequate response to the use of chemical weapons by the enemy.

Neither U.S. forces nor allied forces had an answer to counter the overpowering impact of huge enemy fire complexes. I ran a wargame last Feb looking at doctrine and survivability on the modern battlefield set in Estonia against a near-peer enemy. IN both attack and defence, the NATO combat brigades were found by UAVs and written down 50% plus without ever seeing the enemy. They refused to believe the outcomes “because we’re so well trained!” or the “this wouldn’t happen” delusion. We have a lot to learn about near-peer conflict after 20+ years of Iraq and AFG.

Cyber advantages always proved fleeting. Moreover, any cyberattack launched on its own was close to useless.

For those interested, the games used are all part of GMT’s Next War Series, designed by Mitchell Land and Greg Billingsley. I have found these commercial games are far more sophisticated and truer to what we expect future combat to look like than anything being used by most of the Department of Defense’s wargaming community which is often decades behind commercial game publishers when it comes to designing realistic games. In fact, if I was to fault the Next War series for anything, it is that it may be overly realistic and therefore very complex and difficult to master, and time consuming to play.

[John]

** 09-Jan-2022 World View: War Games

> Marine Corps War College wargame I organized that allowed students
> to fight a multiple great state conflict last week. Run at a high
> level, clearly sponsored and with officers allowed the time to
> engage, and with an analytical strategic purpose. Also completed
> within a limited timeframe of a week – so achievable. It
> incorporates Russia in the Baltics/Ukraine/Poland, China using the
> opportunity to seize Taiwan and N Korea opportunistically
> attacking S Korea. A worst-case scenario for NATO and the West but
> not unrealistic in concept.

> The wargames were played by six student teams, or approximately
> five persons each. There were three red teams, representing
> Russia, China, and North Korea; combatting three blue teams
> representing Taiwan, Indo-Pacific Command (Korea conflict) and
> European Command. Manageable resourcing if the outputs were agreed
> as adding value to strategic thinking, consideration of capability
> development and operating at reach with allies. Useful for
> developing some detailed Red forces thinking too that is based on
> real world nations rather than fabricated ones that resemble the
> actual potential adversaries.

OK, so here is my question:

Suppose you had been around in Summer 1937 or Summer 1941, and you had
set up similar war games at that time. What would have been the
results, and how valid would they have turned out to be?

[Navigator]

The Japanese Navy wargamed their Midway operation beforehand. Their carriers became obsessed with the island, missed the enemy fleet, and they were defeated in detail. The Navy dismissed the games as "unrealistic", and they went ahead with the plan.

The US Navy's plan for the movement across the Pacific was in large part wargamed prior to the war. The actual plan followed in the course of the war came out of these wargames.

HOWEVER, wargames used to "predict" the future are often flawed in that they may, even unconsciously, include thinking or premises that people "take for granted". This might include the supposed effectiveness of certain weapon systems, or the tendency of the certain armies to "cave in" (case in point being that the Russian Army of WW2 was NOT the Russian Army of WW1, which is what the Germans expected).

It is enlightening, even given this, that the current wargames point to MASSIVE problems for both sides in the actual execution of WW3. Note the bits on logistics, which I have talked about before. Nobody is ready for the tempo and intensity of WW3.

[tim]

** 09-Jan-2022 World View: War Games

> Marine Corps War College wargame I organized that allowed students
> to fight a multiple great state conflict last week. Run at a high
> level, clearly sponsored and with officers allowed the time to
> engage, and with an analytical strategic purpose. Also completed
> within a limited timeframe of a week – so achievable. It
> incorporates Russia in the Baltics/Ukraine/Poland, China using the
> opportunity to seize Taiwan and N Korea opportunistically
> attacking S Korea. A worst-case scenario for NATO and the West but
> not unrealistic in concept.

> The wargames were played by six student teams, or approximately
> five persons each. There were three red teams, representing
> Russia, China, and North Korea; combatting three blue teams
> representing Taiwan, Indo-Pacific Command (Korea conflict) and
> European Command. Manageable resourcing if the outputs were agreed
> as adding value to strategic thinking, consideration of capability
> development and operating at reach with allies. Useful for
> developing some detailed Red forces thinking too that is based on
> real world nations rather than fabricated ones that resemble the
> actual potential adversaries.

OK, so here is my question:

Suppose you had been around in Summer 1937 or Summer 1941, and you had
set up similar war games at that time. What would have been the
results, and how valid would they have turned out to be?

An accurate way of war gaming would be to study warfare from the last cycle and apply the lessons learned to today.

The coming war with China is going to be closer to WWII then Desert Storm or Vietnam which occurred outside the last crisis era.

After the crisis war any political wars thereafter would have more in common with the Korean War and Vietnam War then the total war with China.

Until people stop thinking in linear terms and look at human life as cyclical and seasonal we are going to be stuck in a never ending repeating cycle.

[Xeraphim1]

Your points about the Russians (and other allies) being ready and getting into Kazakhstan on a moment's notice made me think of another string of incidents in Putin's past.

A couple of months ago, I read "Blowing Up Russia" by Alexander Litvinenko (& Yuri Felshtinsky). The book is about how the former KGB engineered the entire mess with Chechnia in order to bring Putin into undisputed control of Russia (and thereby take care of all of those poor KGB people who would otherwise be out of a job). This "engineering" included the KGB carrying out "terrorist attacks" (blamed on Chechins) in Moscow. It then involved enflaming Russians to believe that their security was at risk, and that Putin was the guy to protect them.

This book got Litvinenko assassinated by Putin (he was the guy in the UK they poisoned with radioactive Polonium).

Personally, I have no doubt that Putin's minions are deeply involved in Kazakhstan and enabling a large Russian military presence in the country.

I am hearing that the news about Kazakhstan is non-stop in Russia, and that it is being portrayed as an existential threat to Russian security.

This, along with the previous/current Ukrainian situation, is probably all set up along the lines that "Russia is in mortal danger", that Putin is the guy to protect Russia, and that serious sacrifices on the part of the Russian people are in order.

Putin having greater control of Kazakhstan is also crucial, not only due to the important resources that Kazakhstan possesses, but also because of its strategic position between Russia and China, who, though they hate each other are "strange bedfellow" allies. Kind of like the Nazis and the Japanese.

For those who think that the CIA might be behind this, I will point out as I have multiple times before, conspiracies that actually occur are quickly outed by some of the participants (like Litvinenko and the Chechnia mess). Also, the US has little to no real interest in Kazakhstan, as maybe 1000 people in the US even know where it is.

Putin is, IMHO, gearing up the Russian population for war while he secures his allies (willing and unwilling).

I agree with you on this; especially the bolded. Russia is doing poorly enough and Putin is losing popularity so he needs to focus blame outwards and away from himself. The two questions are how long can he keep the lie running and how long will Putin last. I think he is riding the tiger and the only way out for him is death and there is no natural successor to him. When he does die (he's three+ years past normal Russian male lifespan) Russia is going to get interesting in the Chinese sense of the word. Probably in more ways than one.