IMPERIALIST FRONTS

PEPE ESCOBAR—It didn’t take long for Tokayev to understand the merits of immediately calling the CSTO to the rescue: Kazakhstan signed the treaty way back in 1994. After all, Tokayev was fighting a foreign-led coup against his government.

Putin, among others, has stressed how an official Kazakh investigation is the only one entitled to get to the heart of the matter.

It’s still unclear exactly who – and to what extent – sponsored the rioting mobs. Motives abound: to sabotage a pro-Russia/China government, to provoke Russia, to sabotage BRI, to plunder mineral resources, to turbo-charge a House of Saud-style ‘Islamization’.

THE SAKER—And while that mediocre non-entity Blinken warns about how the Russians are hard to get rid of  once they come in (coming from a US Secretary of State this is both quite hilarious and a new, even higher, level of absolute hypocrisy!), the truth is that most CSTO forces will leave pretty soon, if only because there will be no need to keep them in Kazakhstan.  Why?  Simple: the hardcore trained terrorist and insurgents will soon be dead, the looting rioters will get off the streets and hope that they don’t get a visit from the Kazakh SSC (State Security Committee), the traitors in power will either leave the country for the EU or be jailed and the Kazakh security and military forces will regain control of the country and maintain law and order.  Why would the Russian paratroopers and special forces need to stay?

A. KORYBKO—Françafrique is more fragile than ever before, after Russia’s “Democratic Security” successes in the Central African Republic, the reported battlefield death of Chad’s long-serving French-allied leader earlier this year, and the coup that shortly thereafter followed in Mali which prompted Paris to reform its regional anti-terrorist campaign that some suspect is being exploited to perpetuate its influence across the Sahel. Viewed from this perspective, France certainly has a strategic interest in restrengthening Françafrique by having one of the highly trained soldiers that used to work for it carry out a coup against Guinea’s Russian-friendly leader who was already credibly regarded as a regime change target for the past two years due to the media’s smear campaign.

PEPE ESCOBAR—Beijing for its part is focused on increasing its connectivity with Iran via what could be described as a Persian-colored corridor incorporating Tajikistan and Afghanistan. That will depend, once again, on the degree of Taliban control.

But Beijing can count on an embarrassment of riches: Plan A, after all, is an extended China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with Afghanistan annexed, whoever is in power in Kabul.

What’s clear is that the extended troika will not be shaping the most intricate details of the future of Eurasia integration. That will be up to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, China, Pakistan, India, the Central Asian “stans” and Iran and Afghanistan as current observers and future full-members.

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