Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
is truly becoming an independent power in its own right. It is developing three super-giant
“elephant” oil, gas, and condensate fields, two on the Caspian Sea, with major investment
from Western multinationals. A new oil pipeline from the Caspian to western China will
soon be completed. Kazakhstan is about to become the world's largest producer of urani-
um. It has the world's second largest chromium, lead, and zinc reserves, the third largest
manganese reserves, the fifth largest copper reserves, and ranks in the top ten for coal, iron,
and gold.
Kazakhstan
is
Mackinder's Heartland! It is rich in all the world's strategic natural re-
sources and smack in the middle of Eurasia—overlapping, as it does, western Siberia and
Central Asia—and stretches 1,800 miles from the Caspian Sea in the west to Outer Mongo-
lia in the east. The Urals peter out in Kazakhstan's northwest; the foothills of the Tien Shan
begin in Kazakhstan's southeast. Kazakhstan's climate is so continental in its extremes that
before dawn in winter Astana's temperature can be minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Mac-
kinder believed that some great power or superpower would control the Heartland. But in
our age the Heartland lies in the hands of its indigenous inhabitants, even as great powers
like Russia and China fight over its energy resources. Russia may influence Kazakhstan,
and in ways severely pressure it. In the final analysis, the Russian and Kazakh econom-
ies are interwoven and Kazakhstan cannot defend itself against the Russian military. But
Kazakhstan will always have the option of turning toward China if the likes of Putin or
his successor become too heavy-handed; in any event, the chances that Russia would be
willing to suffer the international disapproval and diplomatic isolation that an invasion of
Kazakhstan would precipitate are slim. In 2008, Georgia, a country forty times smaller than
Kazakhstan, with a third the population and with few natural resources, may have exposed
the limits of Russian military adventurism on the super-continent. Indeed, when Kyrgyz-
stan made a subtle plea for Russian troops to intervene against ethnic riots in 2010, Russia
did not opt for a major intervention, afraid of getting bogged down in a mountainous Cen-
tral Asian country on the far side of Kazakhstan.
Another restraining factor against Russian military action in Central Asia is China,
whose influence in the region has grown at the expense of Russia, and with whom Russia
shares a long border in the Far East. Reasonably good Russian-Chinese relations will
provide momentum to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: a group of which Kazakh-
stan is a member, which seeks to unite Eurasian powers, mainly autocratic, in an effort to
counter the influence of the United States. The wages of Russian-Chinese enmity are great-
er influence for the United States and Europe in Eurasia. Thus, Russia will discipline its
behavior in Central Asia and likely forswear any attempt to reclaim parts of Mackinder's
Heartland by force.
One word of caution regarding this analysis: Russia's hand may be weakened in Central
Asia because of the rise of China and the desire of Central Asians to do more business with
nonthreatening, high-technology countries like South Korea and Japan. But while Russia's
