Washington pursues RAND’s plan in Kazakhstan, then in Transnistria

This article is a follow-up to :
– "Russia wants to force the US to respect the UN Charter", January 4, 2022.

US President Joe Biden responded to Russia’s proposal for a Treaty guaranteeing peace on the basis of strict compliance with the UN Charter and keeping one’s word [1] in a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on December 30, 2021. Unsurprisingly, he did not respond to the substance of the Russian request, merely mentioning a possible end to US operations in Ukraine.

At the same time, the US National Security Council has initiated several actions against Russia. It is not a question of overthrowing governments or launching new wars, but of forcing Moscow to intervene outside its borders in order to exhaust it. The Russian Federation already has a huge territory that it is unable to exploit with a population of only 150 million.

In May 2019, the Rand Corporation, the think-tank of the US military-industrial complex, listed six options in this regard [2]:
– 1. Arming Ukraine ;
– 2. Increase support for jihadists in Syria;
– 3. Promoting regime change in Belarus;
– 4. Exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus;
– 5. Reducing Russian influence in Central Asia;
– 6. Rivaling the Russian presence in Transnistria.

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland visited Moscow from October 11 to 13, 2021 to meet with the Russian government. The Russian government exceptionally lifted the ban on her travel to Russia for the occasion [3]. Indeed, Ms Nuland is not just another civil servant. She is a figure of the US deep state, participating in all administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, with the exception of the Jacksonian administration of President Donald Trump. It was she who, in 2001, called up the Allies to fight in Afghanistan despite the opposition of French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. It was she who saved Israel at the end of the 2006 war against Lebanon, organising a unilateral ceasefire so as to avoid the humiliation of a military defeat. And she was also the one that organised the colourful Maidan revolution in 2014 to overthrow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replace him with Nazis, among others. The contempt in which it holds Europeans was then evident, causing unease in Brussels and sanctions from Moscow.

Mrs Nuland belongs to an illustrious neo-conservative family. Her husband is none other than Robert Kagan, one of the founders of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which raised the funds for the accession of George W. Bush (the son) to the White House and wished for "a new Pearl Harbor", which the attacks of September 11 brought about. His brother-in-law, Frederick Kagan, is a pillar of the American Enterprise Institute. He was the inspiration for the US policy of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. His sister-in-law, Kimberly Kagan, is president of the Institute for the Study of War. She has played a leading role in all the wars in the ’wider Middle East’, including the surge policy in Iraq.

Victoria Nuland explained her approach to dealing with Russia in a provocative article in Foreign Affairs in July 2020, ’Pinning down Putin’ [4]. The neo-conservative author was then working for former Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and outlined what the next president should do with Moscow. After presenting a Russia in ruins and a beleaguered Putin, she proposed negotiating a new START treaty, fighting Russian use of the internet, supporting Ukraine’s membership of the EU (and then Nato), and the armed opposition in Syria. She imagined US investment in Russia to modernise this poor country in exchange for its political alignment with the "Western democracies". The Kremlin, which does not recognise any of her findings, received her just as it had accepted the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva after the US president had insulted his Russian counterpart on television.

Nothing has come out of these closed-door meetings. But it is highly likely that Ms Nuland threatened Russia once again, as she has been doing so continuously for the past twenty years. In any case, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that she was not ready to support the implementation of the Minsk agreement to resolve the Ukrainian crisis.

As soon as her trip to Moscow was over, Victoria Nuland went to Beirut to meet Najib Mikati’s new government, then to London to sound the alarm. There she announced that Moscow was massing troops on the Ukrainian border and preparing to invade the country.

Three weeks later, CIA Director William Burns rushed to Moscow to fix what Victoria Nuland had broken. He tried to be conciliatory and was received by President Putin himself.
However, Washington has just stopped blowing hot and cold. After (1) arming Ukraine, (2) supporting jihadists in Syria, (3) attempting regime change in Belarus [5], (4) exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus with the Azerbaijani attack on Armenia [6], Washington (5) is trying to reduce Moscow’s influence in Kazakstan and should soon (6) compete with Russia in Transnistria. In short, it is pursuing the Rand Corporation’s plan.

Kazakhstan

In Central Asian culture, the ruler is a kind of Kubilai Khan and his family are privileged. Kazakhstan has only been a nation for a few years. It owes this to President Nursultan Nazerbayev who managed to unite different tribes. His successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, democratised the country, but attitudes are still influenced by the Turko-Mongolian culture.

On January 2, 2022, protests against a 13% increase in gas prices turned into a riot. Coordinated groups attacked public buildings and often local businesses. Snipers fired from rooftops at both protesters and police. Military armouries were attacked. The loot was distributed among the groups of attackers. The phenomenon was repeated throughout the country. The Taldykorgan prison, where Islamists are held prisoner, was also attacked.

The operation is led by jihadists who fought in Syria and by former Afghan collaborators of the CIA. The groups they lead are made up of Kazakh Islamists.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev recognised the legitimacy of the demonstrations and cracked down on terrorist attacks. He declared a state of siege and arrested the chairman of the Security Council, Karim Masimov, a former banker who was twice prime minister and head of the presidential administration. He is currently charged with high treason. Tokayev then appointed his successor and convened the Security Council.

Reports from his administration put the number of insurgents at around 20,000, including both foreign jihadists and rioters and Kazakh Islamists. The country has had cordial relations with Israel for many years, long before the Kushner plan for normalisation. Although former President Nazerbayev had held anti-religious positions during the Soviet era, he later converted and made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Churches were allowed, subject to registration. An inter-religious summit, comparable to the one the Vatican organises in Assisi, takes place every year.

Kazakhstan distinguishes any kind of religion from political Islam, which is prohibited. However, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party) have developed throughout Central Asia with the help of the British MI6. It was to combat this separatism that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was created.

The Security Council has passed on to the Kremlin the information it already has on the plot against the country. It has asked for help from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to fight the jihadists. President Tokayev immediately ordered his security forces to shoot without warning and kill any jihadists they found [7].

The CSTO responded immediately by deploying 2,500 soldiers, Armenians, Belarusians, Russians and Tajiks, under the command of General Andrei Serdyukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation Paratroopers. The People’s Republic of China has announced its readiness to help, if necessary.

Turkey supported President Tokayev, indicating that it was not involved in the Islamist plot. Afghanistan did the same, which is less surprising insofar as the Taliban are Deobandis and the Afghans involved in the jihadist attack are former CIA collaborators who have fled the country [8].

It was soon learned that the National Endowment for Democracy [9], of which Victoria Nuland is a former administrator, had given millions of dollars since Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House to "extend democracy" in Kazakhstan.

In the past, the former energy minister, the oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, created an (unrecognised) opposition party, the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (QDT), with President Nzerbayev’s son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev. Together they tried to overthrow him with the help of George Soros. Aliyev died in 2015 in prison in Austria while Ablyazov went into exile in the UK and then France. He was arrested several times in the European Union for murder in Russia, but was never extradited. He was granted political asylum in France and has been living in Paris for over a year. From the first day of the riot, he called for the overthrow of the regime, i.e. not only President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, but also former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, now officially retired but still very influential.

According to some unconfirmed sources, Mukhtar Ablyazov is linked to President Nazerbayev’s nephew, Samat Abish, a former deputy director of the secret services. He was reportedly arrested on January 7 for high treason. He is known to be a militant of political Islam like his father, who built a gigantic mosque in Almaty.

President Nursultan Nazerbayev has returned to the capital. If his health allows it, he could take things in hand, notably with the help of his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva.

Transnistria

According to the RAND plan, after Kazakhstan, Transnistria’s turn will come.

The United States has mobilised the European Union to carry out an economic blockade of this unrecognised state, whose population broke away from Moldova in a referendum when the USSR was dissolved. Officials of the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), led by Stefano Sannino (the former OSCE representative in Serbia), have been supervising the Moldovan and Ukrainian customs (which are not EU members) to carry out the blockade of this country since January 1, 2022. Russia will be forced to develop the former Soviet space base and create an air bridge to feed the 500,000 inhabitants of this enclave.

The citizens of the European Union have forgotten that in 1992 the United States tried in vain to militarily crush Transnistria (now the Dniester Moldavian Republic) using an army recruited from Romanian prisons [10]. The courage of this population, faithful to the Soviet model, and particularly of its women, scuppered the CIA’s project.

It should be noted in passing that although the population of Transnistria speaks Russian, three villages still speak French. They are inhabited by descendants of Napoleon’s grognards who married and settled there during the Russian campaign.

In conclusion, if Washington’s response to the Moscow Treaty proposal to secure peace was officially a halt to its eastward advance, it is unofficially that it still has the capacity to do harm.