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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
Kazakstan's national security policy remains closely associated with
that of Russia, partly because the military forces of Kazakstan have
developed more slowly than planned and partly because of long-standing
habits of interdependence. The internal security organization of police,
prisons, intelligence gathering, and criminal justice remains
substantially as it was in the Soviet era.
Military Establishment
At independence Kazakstan had no army because defense and security
needs always had been met by the Soviet army. Initially Nazarbayev, unlike
many of his fellow new presidents, argued that his country should function
without an independent army, assuming that collective security needs would
continue to be met by armies under CIS command. Even when the Russian
military establishment changed its oath of service to refer solely to
Russia rather than to the CIS, Nazarbayev continued the policy of drafting
youth into the CIS forces rather than those of the republic. Even though
the republic's strategic thinkers saw Kazakstan as the intersection of
three potential military theaters--Europe, the Near East, and the Far
East--in the first years of independence, the republic was thought to
require only a national guard of no more than 2,500 men, whose duties were
envisioned as primarily ceremonial.
When Russia transformed the troops on its soil into a Russian army in
the spring of 1992, Kazakstan followed suit by nationalizing the former
Soviet Fortieth Army, which remained in Kazakstan, creating the formal
basis for a Kazakstani national defense force (see table 12, Appendix).
Command Structure
The armed forces established in 1992 are subordinate to the Ministry of
Defense and to the president in his capacities as commander in chief and
chairman of the National Security Council. The second-ranking military
office is chief of the General Staff. The General Staff consists of deputy
defense ministers for personnel, ground forces, air defense, and airborne
forces. The president's main advisory body for national defense is the
National Security Council, which includes the prime minister, the first
deputy prime minister, the minister of foreign affairs, the chairman of
the Committee for Defense of the Constitution, the chairman of the State
Committee for Emergency Situations, the minister of defense, the commander
of the Border Troops, the commander of the ground forces, and the minister
of internal affairs. When it is active, parliament has a four-member
Committee for National Security and Defense for coordination of defense
policy with the executive branch.
Force Structure
In the mid-1990s, plans called for developing a military force of
80,000 to 90,000 personnel, including ground forces, air forces, and a
navy (for deployment in the Caspian Sea). In 1996 the army included about
25,000 troops, organized into two motorized rifle divisions, one tank
division, and one artillery brigade. Attached to that force were one
multiple rocket launcher brigade, one motorized rifle regiment, and one
air assault brigade. Overall army headquarters are at Semey, with division
headquarters at Ayagöz, Sary Ozyk, Almaty, and Semey.
According to national defense doctrine, Kazakstan has a minimal
requirement for naval forces. In late 1993, Kazakstan received about 25
percent of the patrol boats and cutters in Russia's Caspian Sea Flotilla,
which subsequently constituted the entire naval force. In 1993 naval bases
were planned for Fort Shevchenko on the Caspian Sea and at Aral, north of
the Aral Sea, but a scarcity of funds delayed completion. Likewise, naval
air bases were planned for Aqtau and the Buzachiy Peninsula on the Caspian
Sea and at Saryshaghan on Lake Balkhash.
In 1995 the air force included an estimated 15,000 troops. After the
withdrawal in 1994 of forty Tu-95MS nuclear-capable bombers, the Kazakstan
Air Force was left with 133 combat aircraft, whose offensive capability
relied on MiG-23, MiG-27, MiG-29, and Su-24 fighters with support from
An-24 and An-26 transport and MiG-25 surveillance aircraft. Thirty air
bases are scattered throughout the republic. Since 1992 Kazak pilots have
received little air training because units have been staffed at only 30 to
50 percent of operational levels.
Officer Cadre
Creating the projected national armed forces has proved more difficult
than expected. Since independence, the officer corps, which was
overwhelmingly Slavic in the early 1990s, has suffered a severe loss of
manpower. In 1992 nearly two-thirds of the company and battalion
commanders in Kazakstan had to be replaced as Russian-speaking officers
took advantage of CIS agreements permitting transfer to other republics.
When these transfers occurred, almost no Kazak officers were available as
replacements. In the entire Soviet period, only three Kazaks had graduated
from the Military Academy of the General Staff, and only two had earned
advanced degrees in military science.
Kazaks have dominated the top administrative positions in the
post-Soviet military establishment. In addition to Minister of Defense
Sagadat Nurmagambetov, President Nazarbayev appointed two Kazak colonels
as deputy ministers of defense and a Kazak general to head the Republic
National Guard (the guard unit responsible for protecting the president
and other dignitaries as well as antiterrorist operations). Kazakstan's
first National Security Council consisted of seven Kazaks, one Russian,
and one Ukrainian. In October 1994, both Slavs left office and were
replaced by ethnic Kazaks. Despite a secret call-up of officers in
reserve, by the fall of 1993 Kazakstan was short at least 650 officers,
while the Border Troops Command, 80 percent of whose officers were
non-Kazak, was understaffed by 45 percent.
Border Troops
Kazakstan's extensive land borders are highly vulnerable to penetration
by international smugglers, illegal immigrants, and terrorists. In 1992
the Eastern Border Troops District of the former Soviet Union was
dissolved; this action resulted in the formation of the Kazakstan Border
Troops Command under a Kazak general. After this transition, overall
control of border security remained with the National Security Committee,
formerly the Kazakstan Committee for State Security (KGB). The border
troops commander is a member of the National Security Committee and a
member of the Council of CIS Border Troops Commanders, which was
established in 1993 to foster regional cooperation. Cooperation with
Russia, with which Kazakstan shares roughly half its borders, is the
primary goal of border policy, and several agreements provide for Russian
aid. Cooperative agreements also are in effect with the other four Central
Asian republics.
Kazakstan's border troops force is estimated at 5,000 to 6,000
personnel. Troops are trained at the Almaty Border Troops School (formerly
run by the KGB) or under a cooperative agreement at four Russian
facilities. Headquarters are at Almaty, with several subordinate commands,
including a coastal patrol squadron headquartered at Atyrau on the north
Caspian Sea coast.
Training and Recruitment
Exacerbating the severe shortage of trained military personnel is the
virtual absence of higher-level military training facilities. The only two
such schools in existence, the general All Arms Command School and the
Border Troops Academy, both in Almaty, are capable of graduating only
about 200 junior officers a year, and in 1993 three-quarters of those left
the republic. There were also three military secondary boarding
schools--in Almaty, Shymkent, and Qaraghandy--and a civil aviation school
in Aqtöbe, which is to be converted to a military flight school
sometime after 2000.
There are indications of severe problems in filling the ranks of the
armed services. Some accounts indicate that as many as 20,000 soldiers
were absent without leave from the army in 1993, and desertion and low
morale among conscripts continued to be a major problem in the mid-1990s.
Another concern is the deteriorating physical condition of inductees,
one-third of whom are said to be unfit for conscription. Discipline
appears to be problematic as well. In 1993 more than 500 crimes by
soldiers were reported in Almaty Province alone; members of the Kazakstani
peacekeeping force in Tajikistan reportedly have robbed and raped
villagers they were sent to protect. At the command level, in 1993 one
general was dismissed for selling weapons and other military goods.
Data as of March 1996
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