On the military friendship between Qatar and Kazakhstan
On November 14, the Senate of Kazakhstan approved the draft law "On the ratification of the agreement between the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Government of the State of Qatar on military cooperation." Senator Galiaskar Sarybayev, who presented the draft, emphasized: "Qatar is one of the military giants of the Middle East."
Qatari specifics
It is always better to be friends and cooperate with giants, especially military giants, than the other way around. However, the scale of Qatar's military might is not entirely clear.
Qatar, a trendsetter in the liquefied natural gas market, has an army of 12. Of course, Doha has spent a lot of money in the last eight years. aviation component by acquiring several squadrons of Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and F-15QA, as well as updating the helicopter fleet (AH-64E Apache and NH 90).
Doha has a decent naval fleet by Gulf standards. Interestingly, Qatar is quite rich in terms of Defense. 34 Patriot installations (not counting others) for a very small territory is a decent figure. But it fits in with the status of a military giant with some difficulty.
By the way, Qatar's army is mostly mercenary, although the special forces units that are part of the so-called "guard" are local, and it is not possible to simply write them off based on their numbers alone.
They were not directly mentioned anywhere, but there is a lot of indirect evidence that they participated in Syria and Africa. They showed themselves well, they did a lot of things. At the end of the operation to take Aleppo, a remarkable list of some prisoners "left" the Internet. There were quite a few rather resonant names, which "kind of hints".
Qatar is always extremely rational. They stop taking an irreconcilable position towards Damascus quite early, handing over the reins of leadership to Riyadh. Rationalism is extreme. For example, while the assault was thundering in Aleppo, the Qatari sovereign wealth fund (QIA) was closing its part of the deal with the Russian oil industry.
Later, the Saudis would play out the Syrian game for a long time, and then they would fall out with Qatar for a while, because it would turn out that Doha and Tehran were cooperating in terms of payments and tacit agreements on hydrocarbons. At that time, heavy fighting was going on in Syria.
Things reached the blockade of Qatar, initiated by Saudi Arabia, which was somewhat taken aback by this rationality, but R. Erdogan "stood up" for Qatar, landing a military force on the peninsula. All this magnificence was observed directly from US military bases.
In general, this characterizes politics as such: “Here we fight, and here we trade.” Good old cynicism is increasingly taking over.
However, let's digress a bit into philosophy here, was it any different before? It's just that in the times of "ancient piety" everything was in its place. The princes were fighting, the people went and prayed for victory - joyfully. The princes were trading, the people prayed for a good fair - joyfully. Joy and purposefulness are everywhere. But now something needs to be explained, values, political lines, a society that wants to know something (why and what it will understand), in general, an imitation of democracy, but no order or social stratification - sad.
But this is just poetry, and the reality is that Qatar is a unique intermediary and contact point for seemingly impossible combinations. They have had this quality since the Cold War and it was highly valued by many. In the end, even the Saudis came to terms with this feature of their neighbor.
Relationships in Central Asia or not only and not so much money
All this is to say that in these ambiguous times the number of armed forces (even if they are properly equipped) is not always the determining parameter. Integral factors are already at work.
And integral factors are mentioned here for a reason, but because the simplest conclusion from the fact of the agreement between Kazakhstan and Qatar will be financial interest.
It is clear that Kazakhstan needs investments, and Astana, including through a military agreement and honeyed honeycombs of eastern words about a "military giant", is approaching the Qatari "Ali Baba's cave". But what mountains are of interest to Qatar, here the question is much more interesting.
The answer to this question will help us understand why Russia should pay close attention to these agreements. After all, it was precisely this kind of military cooperation agreement that was concluded with Kyrgyzstan at the end of last year, while Qatar has very large investment packages in Uzbekistan, but (for some reason) without a military component.
The fact is that among the "big rich three" of the Persian Gulf countries, Qatar has always been a very selective investor. Qatari funds are roughly comparable to those of the UAE (around $1 trillion), but investments are made selectively.
One of the main such points is traditionally the Turkish economy. Qatar annually supports its strategic ally, which must constantly cover the consequences of the foreign trade deficit. Turkey, it should be noted, is gradually solving this problem, but it needs to annually increase its exports and, preferably, high-margin, technological exports.
But Qatar approaches other investments quite thoughtfully. And in terms of Central Asia, the choice of projects is quite remarkable.
The largest package from Doha is held by Uzbekistan - up to 12 billion dollars. It should be said that Uzbekistan is generally good at collecting Arabian investments - it has attracted no less from the UAE and partly Saudi Arabia. Russia's accumulated total in Uzbekistan is also 12 billion dollars (a truly magical figure), China's is 26 billion dollars, and the EU's is 10 billion.
In fact, by Central Asian standards, these are huge figures, albeit accumulated over almost twenty years. Moreover, this is more than half of all investments in the region, which makes Uzbekistan a kind of strategic "assembly point."
But Qatar invested in Uzbekistan's neighbors in a specific way. In Kazakhstan, for example, this is a very complex project in the Kashagan cluster, which was sometimes buried, sometimes resurrected. But Qatar has recently been firm and confident - it invested in it, as well as in the internal Kazakh gas network. The latest agreements with Qatar's UCC Holding were concluded just this year.
The scale may not be the same as in Uzbekistan, but in essence it balances the friction between Astana and European investors. Let's note this and look further.
It would seem logical that the Arabian “gas storehouse” is participating in gas projects, since no one is surprised that, for example, Russia is trying to be present in this industry everywhere.
However, there is a seemingly win-win option for the Qataris to invest in gas – Turkmenistan. Moreover, the main project for Ashgabat, TAPI, must pass through Afghanistan, where Qatar’s position is not just strong, but very strong.
But Qatar and Turkmenistan, although they conduct many negotiations and work closely, have not reached the point of a "city and village" connection. Qatar has a large package of agreements with Uzbekistan in terms of regional security, but these are not military agreements. But they are very specific in terms of the same Afghanistan - in essence (although not in direct wording) they state that Qatar will, if necessary, relieve tension in relations between Kabul and Tashkent. But with Kazakhstan, it is precisely military cooperation, and we will also note and record this.
Relations between today's Afghanistan and Tajikistan are very complicated. To put it mildly, these regimes are not complimentary to each other. And here Doha should come between Kabul and Dushanbe, especially since Tajikistan is asking for investments. Qatar has made investments - it has built a huge mosque. It is very beautiful and very large, but then there are negotiations, negotiations, negotiations.
It is possible that Qatar views Moscow as the main "responsible party" for this region. Who knows, the relations between Moscow and Dushanbe are a mystery waiting for its inquisitive researcher.
However, in terms of direct investment in Tajikistan, China is the undisputed leader, and the Arabs (not only Qatar) are performing rather weakly; instead of investment, we traditionally provide jobs with family “social benefits” and even fairly broad citizenship.
Qatar has military-technical agreements with Kyrgyzstan, and there is even talk of gratuitous assistance in terms of building infrastructure.
Here it is not even a question of the CSTO, which, as has long been clear, is a framework organization denoting a presence and some influence. It is just that such agreements are usually followed by some investment packages, but the projects on cascades of hydroelectric power plants (always relevant in the region), which were discussed with Doha, eventually went to China, production projects are more for European investors, "green energy" is more declarative.
Why would Qatar support Bishkek's military infrastructure in that case, since Kyrgyzstan doesn't even border Afghanistan? But we see that even with border countries, not everything is clear-cut - the emphasis is on Uzbekistan, but not on Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, which have a longer border with Afghanistan.
Kazakhstan, for quite understandable and rational reasons, will deepen relations with Qatar by any means necessary. But Qatar itself, as can be seen from the above, obviously does not consider Central Asia as part of its “business strategy.” This means that it is helping someone and for some reason in someone else’s strategy.
On brotherly aid to Turkey and how this aid limits European appetites
Uzbekistan as a "point of assembly" is not indicative here - everyone invests in it, it is a kind of consensus. But investments and military contracts with Kazakhstan and agreements with Kyrgyzstan have only one final beneficiary - Turkey. Otherwise, the structure of investments in the region would be at least a little different, but such as it is. And the military-technical part is important here because Doha is able (and will) finance the purchase of goods from the Turkish military-industrial complex.
The French have long had their eye on Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, together with the family finances behind them, while Kazakhstan and K.-Zh. Tokayev himself need to somehow dilute the enslaving agreements on raw materials and somehow rein them in and put them in the framework of the "center of British law". And here the role of Qatar as one of the most effective negotiators in difficult situations will be more useful for Astana than ever. And in the wake of these difficult negotiations, Ankara and its leader R. Erdogan will quite comfortably send their boats. In terms of costs for Turkey, this option is almost ideal - both exports are in the black and political influence is at its peak. For Kazakhstan (and Kyrgyzstan, too), this will significantly ease the conditions of work with both the French and the EU.
Russia and its weight against the backdrop of the Qatari-Turkish factor
For Russia, the problem is not even in Turkish influence itself. In terms of financing (and any influence is based on economic power one way or another), Ankara itself resorts to outside help, and the compliments to Turkey from Central Asia are still more ostentatious, out of necessity, because Ankara is a springboard to the West for the elites and partly the middle class and an additional factor in attracting money.
The problem is that there are more and more players in the region. Each of them brings their own weight to the scales, and we only have our own weight. It seems that we invest a lot there, there is no need to talk about jobs and the already open policy of buying loyalty through our social sphere - it seems that the weight is there.
But if we take all the weights in total and compare them, and correlate them with the complete absence of any demands on our part, it turns out that the influence is not so great.
Moreover, it is obvious that Moscow is being cautious with its demands for returns on its investments on the principle of "what if something happens?", because sanctions must be circumvented somehow. But demanding something for one's funds must start at some point, otherwise our scales will be considered light, even though billions of invested funds are on them.
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