Kazakhstan

[Jedburgh]

Moderator's Note for new thread

This large, sparsely populated and resource rich former Soviet nation has not had its own thread - unlike the other 'stans. Creation was prompted by Azor's recent question on another thread - which will be copied here soon. A review is underway to move easily found posts on Kazakhstan to this thread; the word does appear in approx. thirty threads. So this post will not appear at the top for long!

There is a seperate, currently closed thread from 2012 on the then renewed 'great power' competition in Central Asia: The New 'Great Game': state & non-state competition
Link:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...read.php?t=778



The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, 18 Sep 07:

Kazakhstan's Cadets Prefer Belarus to America

Kazakhstan has strengthened its security ties with Washington since 9/11 in order to maximize the numbers of officers from Kazakhstan’s armed forces who receive military training and education in the United States. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Defense has used this as an engagement tool to develop further the existing bilateral military assistance relationship. Pentagon analysts and U.S. diplomats in Kazakhstan have argued that programs such as International Military Education and Training (IMET) have yielded a good return on the investment of U.S. money into the military structures of Kazakhstan.....

....The statistics are alarming; recent reporting observed that out of 250 officers who received an education in the United States, 110 have already quit the military, citing “various reasons.” Despite a contractual obligation placed on graduates of foreign universities to serve a minimum of 10 years, many are finding loopholes in order to exit early. There is little will to enforce these commitments on the part of officials. Kazakh military servicemen attend courses in 160 specialist fields at 55 foreign universities. Around 550 people are sent abroad for education annually. Of these, 300 are servicemen being sent for full-time education, and 250 are officers sent for short-term courses. Approximately one-third of the graduates of foreign courses enter into the service ranks of the armed forces in Kazakhstan. Although retention is significantly higher in the cases of high-ranking officers attending short-term courses abroad, the real problem exists within the junior and middle-ranking officers; here the hemorrhaging appears greatest.....