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Kazakstan
Military Infrastructure
The quality of military support installations declined in the
first years of the post-Soviet period. For instance, the chief
planner of Kazakstan's Institute for Strategic Studies has estimated
that only in the next century will the republic have the capability
to use air-to-surface missiles for defensive purposes. In addition,
sensitive facilities inherited by military authorities from the
Soviet army all are said to be on the point of collapse. Facilities
in bad repair include nuclear test and storage facilities at Kökshetau,
the BN-350 breeder-reactor at Aqtau, and a tracking and monitoring
station at Priozersk. Even the first Kazak cosmonaut, who was
sent into space with great pomp in June 1994, was in fact a Russian
citizen and career officer in the Russian air force, as were his
two "Ukrainian" shipmates.
Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakstan was the
most significant site of military-industrial activity in Central
Asia. The republic was home to roughly 3 percent of Soviet defense
facilities, including more than fifty enterprises and 75,000 workers,
located mostly in the predominantly Russian northern parts of
the country.
A plant in Öskemen fabricated beryllium and nuclear reactor
fuel, and another at Aqtau produced uranium ore. Plants in Oral
manufactured heavy machine guns for tanks and antiship missiles.
In Petropavl, one plant produced SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles,
and other plants manufactured torpedoes and naval communications
equipment, support equipment for intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs), tactical missile launcher equipment, artillery, and armored
vehicles. There was a torpedo-producing facility in Almaty as
well. Chemical and biological weapons were produced in Aksu, and
chemical weapons were manufactured in Pavlodar.
By 1994 most of Kazakstan's defense plants had ceased military
production. All of them required component parts from inaccessible
sources outside Kazakstan, principally in Russia. Even more important,
the Russian military-industrial complex was itself in collapse,
so that Kazakstan's military enterprises no longer could rely
on Russian customers. In addition, the great majority of key workers
at all these facilities were ethnic Slavs, the most employable
of whom moved to Russia or other former Soviet republics.
Substantial elements of Kazakstan's military-production infrastructure
nevertheless remain in the republic. In addition, in early 1992
the army nationalized all of the standard-issue Soviet military
equipment remaining on the republic's soil. An unknown percentage
of this equipment is still in use in Kazakstan, and another portion
of it likely has been sold to other countries. Since independence,
at least one new ship, a cruiser named in honor of Nazarbayev,
has been commissioned.
The weapons of greatest concern to the world, however, have
been the 1,350 nuclear warheads that remained in Kazakstan when
the Soviet Union disbanded. Although two other new states--Ukraine
and Belarus--also possessed "stranded" nuclear weapons, the Kazakstani
weapons attracted particular international suspicion, and unsubstantiated
rumors reported the sale of warheads to Iran. Subsequent negotiations
demonstrated convincingly, however, that operational control of
these weapons always had remained with Russian strategic rocket
forces (see Foreign Policy, this ch.). All of the warheads were
out of Kazakstan by May 1995.
Kazakstan's other military significance was as a test range
and missile launch site. The republic was the location of only
about 1 percent of all Soviet test ranges, but these included
some all Soviet Union's largest and most important, especially
in the aerospace and nuclear programs. Test sites included a range
at Vladimirovka used to integrate aircraft with their weapons
systems; a range at Saryshaghan for flight testing of ballistic
missiles and air defense systems; a similar facility at Emba;
and the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Weapons Proving Grounds, which was
the more important of the two major nuclear testing facilities
in the Soviet Union. In the four decades of its existence, there
were at least 466 nuclear explosions at Semipalatinsk.
The other major Soviet military facility on Kazakstani soil
was the Baykonur space launch facility, the home of the Soviet
space exploration program and, until 1994, Russia's premier launch
site for military and intelligence satellites. Kazakstan and Russia
debated ownership of the facility, while the facility itself suffered
acute deterioration from the region's harsh climate and from uncontrolled
pilfering. In 1994 Russia formally recognized Kazakstan's ownership
of the facility, although a twenty-year lease ratified in 1995
guaranteed Russia continued use of Baykonur.
Data as of March 1996
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