It’s like the CIA/Mossad/Illuminati-financed Takfiri mercenaries, otherwise known as radical Islamists amongst sane people, have embarked on a marketing campaign in favor of a visa regime with Central Asia.
A group of Islamists ambushed a pair of Russian policemen doing a routine vehicle check on a minibus in Astrakhan oblast. Eight men of apparent Kazakh ethnicity, including the driver who participated in the conspiracy, are wanted.
I would note that Kazakhs are some of the most secular Muslims around, not just by global standards, but even by Central Asian ones. They don’t have a reputation for terrorism. Yet here, in a Russian oblast where they make up just 7% of the population according to official statistics – that translates to about 70,000 Kazakhs – it has emerged that there’s not just one “lone wolf” terrorist amongst them, but a cell of at least eight.
Note that this comes the day after the Saint-Petersburg terrorist attack, where the starring role was played by a Kyrgyz national of Uzbek ethnicity with a Russian Federation passport. It also comes several weeks after an attack by North Caucasus militants on a National Guard base, which left six soldiers dead.
A couple of days ago, I was planning to write a data-heavy article about how Navalny doesn’t have any chance. Too unpopular, too much of a Ukrainian nationalist, etc. I’ll still write it, but I will now have to preface it with a cautionary note. Since Navalny is a longtime proponent of visa regime with Central Asia, which contrasts with Putin’s support of Central Asian enrichment, this is something that he can really play up now (if his liberal sponsors allow him to, anyway).
Just consider the recent train of events. In the past month, thanks in large part to Navalny’s efforts, Medvedev’s relative reputation for probity has been destroyed. Now, Putin’s reputation for ending Islamic terrorism is also increasingly under question.
This is all very, very good for Navalny. I still think Navalny’s prospects in this electoral cycle are very slim, but I don’t now exclude the possibility of the Kremlin “clever planning” themselves into a serious crisis. Nothing is beyond those “geniuses.”
I don’t know of anyone who ever thought Medvedev was, even relatively, clean of hand.
A visa regime with Central Asia is certainly worth consideration. It would, however, probably lead to a considerable decline in Russian influence and increase in Chinese influence there. But that might be acceptable, now that the US is no longer a serious competitor in that respect.
And too much of a different real political dynamics which has very little to do with Navalny’s “message”. He is “Neformat” for what is going on in Russia.
It is more complex than that: it may not be “Kremlin” but rather a “White House” where Russian government sits–those are complete morons and they begin to cast a very long shadow on Kremlin. Will Putin make a step most people expect of him, or…
I wonder how much of Navalny’s patriotism/nationalism is fake and just a ploy to gain more support?
What if Navalny is a full-liberast like Kasparov but has enough intelligence to know that liberasts have zero chance to gain any serious support among the population?
Surrender to the “Western partners”?
How much influence does Russia have in Central Asia anyway?
Why not let them enjoy Chinese dominance?
No, to aliens from Planet Zoltar.
I very much doubt that Navalny will capitalise on this. Like you said, his (((liberal))) allies won’t let him.
Navalny surrounded himself with Jews and seems to rely on Jewish ethnic networking for his organisation, funding and media strategy. Of course, Russian Jews detest “xenophobia” as much as their American brethren do.
Well he was popular amongst liberals and hipsters, and most people seem to have thought his corruption measured in the millions rather than the hundreds of millions.
It’s already happening and it is unavoidable, considering the relative sizes of the Russian and Chinese economies.
It seems to have been the other way round – he was more the nationalist rabble rouser sort several years ago (remember this ad?) before the political technologists spruced him up into a photogenic, respectable, рукопожатный (“handshakeworthy”) figure.
And nothing of value was lost.
They underestimated Dimon. He is true Number Two in the state.
Anatoly, any chance that this new upsurge in terrorism will change Putins pro-Central Asian enrichment policy?
Doubt it. All the signals so far have been that visa regime is basically fascism and things will continue as normal.
One of the students who covered up for Djokar Tsarnaev was a Kazakh.
ISTR he was sent down for a pretty long stretch.
What about the Overton window?
Shouldn’t these events move it in the right direction?
“A visa regime with Central Asia…would…probably lead to a considerable decline in Russian influence and increase in Chinese influence there. But that might be acceptable, now that the US is no longer a serious competitor in that respect.”
TOTAL NONSENSE! Any decrease in Russian influence in Central Asia NOW, will lead to an increase in U.S., Saudi/Qatari/Wahhabi, Turkish, and Pakistani/Taliban influence in that region – NOT Chinese. That is the reason why Islamism is being stirred up in Central Asia by the U.S. and its Saudi and Turkish allies via religious schools, mosques, preachers etc. today – the goal is to decrease Russian and secular influence there and attack Russia from the South, using Central Asian Islamists this time instead of Chechens. It’s a revival and continuation of the “Green Belt” anti-Soviet Cold War strategy dating back to the late 1940s, right after the end of World War II.
In this context, note that the Central Asian ex-Soviet “-stan” states border on China’s Xinjiang region, where a U.S./Turkish/Saudi-supported, separatist Uighur Islamic terrorist insurgency has been going on for many years now. (Many ISIS, Al Qaida etc. members in Syria and Iraq are Uighur Islamist militants who have fled/been transported from Xinjiang to the Middle East).
What’s Navalny’s position regarding foreign policy and economics?
I really know nothing about him, I’ve never paid any attention to post-2000 Russian politicans (I was in Russia during Medvedev’s presidency and I still couldn’t make out any personality) assuming them just to be United Russia window-dressing or agitators and liberasts.
Does he have any sort of coherent program other than being against Putin?
None of the Central Asian regimes is the slightest bit compatible either with Islamisation or democratisation. They are like Kemalism at its hardest in that regard, irrespective of which great power they are closest to. As for the US, it has enough trouble keeping its head above water just in Afghanistan, where it is kept only by sunk costs. It has no ability to play a larger role in the region.
I might do a post on it if there’s a demand for it.
In short:
IMO:
Anti-corruption policy will probably be a net good though I am skeptical of Russia’s capacity to quickly conquer corruption in general for reasons I’ve gone over in previous posts.
More skeptical on other aspects of domestic policy.
Very strong on immigration policy, much better than Putlet, though falls short of Trump.
Trainwreck on foreign policy.
I know little about Navalny, but what you describe is like a typical west-central Ukrainian political program – pro-West, yet non-PC and negative attitude towards non-Europeans. Ukraine got itself out of the Eurasian Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Central Asia.
Would it be wrong to imagine that if, hypothetically, in a science-fiction scenario, Navalny took over and his power became absolute, Russia would separate from Central Asia, ditch its own Muslim regions, and seek to join the EU as a Russian ethno-state, yet another “xenophobic” conservative one along with Poland and Hungary?
According to wikipedia, Navalny’s father is Ukrainian and he spent his summers with his grandmother in some village outside Kiev. So there is something Gogol-like about him.
I always wanted to ask you. Have there ever been terrorist/militant groups of Volga Tartar or Bashkir origin ? They strike me as being rather like Bulgarian Turks- rather quiescent. Though it must be said, most of the non-quiescent Turks have moved to Turkey itself. Not so much an option for Tartars or Bashkirs.
Obviously, this would be an attractive option for Neocons and the US Deep State – stir up trouble among Russian Moslems. Any sign of them doing it yet ?
Hence the joke Navalny that is a Ukrainian nationalist:
I suppose it’s possible to imagine your sci-fi scenario, though its virtually impossible to working out for about a dozen different reasons.
I don’t think the restive elements in those populations ever moved far beyond Tatar/Bashkir separatist nationalism.
That said, I recall a couple of moderate Tatar imams being murdered by Islamist radicals.
I agree it wouldn’t happen. I described it in order to speculate about the kind of Russia that Navalny would want based admittedly on my limited information about him: a much smaller but ethnically pure state, democratic center-right like Hungary or Poland, and like those two part of the EU. It would retreat for Central Asia (presumably letting the Chinese and Americans fight over it).
Such a Russia would no longer be an independent global power but would have a huge influence on the EU; its inclusion would probably tilt the EU in a very different, more conservative and anti-Muslim direction. Add Ukraine into the mix (yes, we are speaking science-fiction – but if anyone could restore friendly ties it would be Navalny) and the EU becomes unrecognizable. Without Britain but with Poland, Hungary, Balkans, Russia and Ukraine the cultural shift would be monumental.
Not sure France, progressive Germany, etc. would want to stay in such an EU to provide gibs to racist deplorable East European hicks.
So functionally the EU ends up being the Russian Empire. LOL.
Who knows much progressive those countries would be.
Wouldn’t that be better than the Saker’s hoped-for Russian-Islamic Fusion?
Well, sure – apart from the problem of realizability.
In particular, it would require Russia to give huge concessions with zero credible guarantees that any such thing would come about. Since we are in the realm of geopolitical fantasies, it could just as easily end up with an anti-Russian Intermarium of 100 million people on its borders allied with neo-Ottoman Turkey and enjoying American military support.
Rechristened Interior Troops have eliminated/captured Kazakh terrorists: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8tZKahWAAAymWm.jpg
I remember when I laughed at news when the riots on the streets in Syria just started and the journalists called the thugs and criminals armed with guns “the democratic opposition”. So following the suit those Kazakhs might be called the “democratic opposition of the oppressed minorities”.