Kazakhstan is gigantic. Over a million square miles – the size of Western Europe, or the U.S. east of the Mississippi – but with only 17 million people. In the east, on its 2,000-mile-long border with China, the Himalayas rise up out of the plains, but most of the country is just vast, desolate grasslands, or steppe. Two-thirds of the people are central Asians – tall, rangy looking Orientals who speak languages in the Turkic group; one third are Russians.
That’s information you can get out of any world atlas, and it’s not worth much, because nothing that everyone knows is worth much. What I want to do is tell you what I think it means. What’s going to happen in Central Asia in the near term and long term, and what you may want to do about it.
My friend Rick Maybury coined the term “Chaostan” for this whole part of the world. It’s populated by dozens of tribes and ethnic groups, most of them ex-nomads speaking different languages.
Perversely, the main things tying them together are a veneer of Soviet culture and the Russian language. And one other thing: an ingrained dislike of Russians. These folks have just never learned to appreciate the Russians conquering them, purging them, taxing them, destroying their indigenous cultures, and drafting them for their armies. They rather resent having been used as pawns in what used to be known as “The Great Game,” which was largely played between the Russians and the British in the 19th century.
This post was published at International Man
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