Kazakhstan’s Marines Hold Exercise Underscoring Shift in Balance of Power in Caspian Region

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 15 – Kazakhstan’s navy, now the largest but not necessarily the most powerful naval force on the Caspian, staged a major exercise in the northern portion of that inland sea adjoining Russian territory and the sector of the sea Moscow claims (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/kazakhstan-conducts-major-naval.html).

Now, Astana has upped the ante by organizing an exercise of 800 Kazakh marines, a force that could give Kazakhstan the ability to engage an enemy on land as well as on the sea and thus a move certain to alarm some in Moscow (casp-geo.ru/na-poligone-ojmasha-morskie-pehotintsy-kazahstana-zakrepili-takticheskie-navyki/).

These two Kazakh developments do not necessarily presage a military conflict between the two countries, but they are a clear sign of the shifting balance of power in a region that many have long viewed as a place of uncontested Russia power (jamestown.org/program/russias-caspian-flotilla-dominant-at-sea-gains-new-shore-landing-capability/).