Kazakhstan has a 950-mile (1,533-kilometer) border with China and a 4,030-mile (6,846-kilometer) one with Russia, the longest continuous border between any two nations in the world. It is the second largest nation in terms of territory to emerge from the Soviet Union next to Russia and the ninth biggest in the world.
As stated during a visit to the country by then NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in June of 2009, it is "a nation almost the size of the whole of western Europe and bordering Russia and China [and] is also part of all the economic and military alliances of its two powerful neighbours, including the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO)." [8]
Kazakhstan has projected oil reserves of 100-110 billion barrels, which if realized will be the third largest in the world. Its projected natural gas reserves are as high as 5 trillion cubic meters.
It possesses the world's largest reserves of uranium, barite, lead and tungsten, and last year became the world's leading uranium producer. In addition, the Central Asian nation has the second largest reserves of chromite, silver, and zinc, the third largest of manganese, and substantial if not yet reliably established deposits of copper, gold and iron ore. [9]
The country has the largest economy in Central Asia and more energy reserves than the other four nations there combined.
It is also home to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the world's first and largest space launch facility, from which the first manned space flight was launched in 1961. It is currently managed by the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Russian Space Forces under a lease with the Kazakh government. Should Kazakhstan shift further into the U.S. and NATO orbit that arrangement will be subject to change.
In appreciation of its geostrategic location and role, Kazakhstan was brought into NATO's counterintuitively-named Partnership for Peace (PfP) program in 1994 and the bloc's 50-nation (28 full member and 22 PfP states) Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
In 2003 the U.S. Defense Department signed a five-year Military Cooperation Plan with the country, the only nation in the region the Pentagon has such a program with, which included "such important directions of cooperation as the development of the peacekeeping potential of the Kazakh Armed Forces, improvement of the Kazakhstan system of military education and mutual participation in trainings." Kazakh troops were deployed to Iraq in the same year.
Over 300 Kazakh officers have been sent for training to U.S. military institutions, including the West Point Military Academy and the National Defense University, as part of the agreement
As the Kazakh news source from which the above information originated reported in January of 2009, "Realization of the first Plan successfully ended in 2008. In February 2008 a 2008-2012 Cooperation Plan was signed. Kazakh-American cooperation in defense and security has achieved significant results within implementation of the first plan." [10]
Before that, "Kazakhstan signed two agreements supporting U.S. and NATO military operations in Afghanistan, within the framework of the Enduring Freedom plan, on December 15, 2001, and on June 10, 2002," [11] which were formally ratified by the nation's senate in late 2008.
In December of 2008 the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. think tank concentrating on the former Soviet Union, featured an analysis of "the renewed focus by American President-elect Barack Obama on Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan," which is worth quoting from at some length.
The nation even then, sixteen months ago, was being prepared for a larger, even preeminent, role in expanding U.S. war plans for South Asia in light of "Obama's pledge to raise the American contingent in Afghanistan to 20,000 [as] the U.S. forces will not be able to rely entirely on Manas airfield in Kyrgyzstan."
More importantly, "by expanding their military presence in Central Asia, the United States and NATO forces are determined to squeeze Russia and China out of the oil-rich and strategically important region.
"This strategy also corresponds to the U.S.-backed plan of creating a Greater Central Asia extending from Afghanistan, through the Central Asian states, to the Middle East."
Specifically, by ratifying the previously-mentioned military agreements, "allowing U.S. and NATO coalition forces to use Almaty airport as an emergency airfield for fighter planes flying on missions to Afghanistan," the Kazakh Senate provided the U.S. "an opportunity to watch and gather intelligence on Chinese nuclear facilities...." [12]
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