Kazakhstan Army Now the Strongest in Central Asia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 11 – Despite having a far smaller population but very much having a long border with the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan now has the strongest army in Central Asia, according to a Global Firepower estimate. The other three Central Asian states currently lag far behind.

            According to the estimate, Kazakhstan has the 58^th strongest army in the world; Uzbekistan, the 65^th; Turkmenistan, the 83^rd; Kyrgyzstan, the 100^th; and Tajikistan, the 107^th (globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=uzbekistan and eurasiatoday.ru/kazahstanskaya-armiya-stala-silnejshej-v-tsentralnoj-azii-operediv-uzbekistan/).

            What makes this ranking worthy of note is that while analysts often focus on the military capacities of neighboring countries like Russia and China, far fewer consider either the capacity of these countries to respond to such external threats or the possibility that they will use their strengths against one another.

            And these analysts do so even though many post-Soviet states have been locked in border disputes since becoming independence, disputes that often hinge on the ability of one side or the other to field a larger and better armed military against the other.