New ratings of potential risks for former countries of the Soviet Union
Azerbaijan has come in 10th place in a rating of states vulnerable to potential revolution, which was published by the Wall Street Journal. For example, Russia takes 40th place and Bahrain, which is actually involved in a revolution, takes 48th place, while Kyrgyzstan is absent in the list of 85 states. Azerbaijan seems to the Americans the most vulnerable.
What does this mean? On the one hand, it is interesting that Russia and Kazakhstan are considered by US experts as the most stable. On the other hand, all these ratings are worth nothing, as the first place taken by Kenya doesn’t mean that threat of revolution in this country is higher than in Tunisia or Turkmenistan.
One of the reasons for making this list is obvious. Such ratings have a big mental impact, especially if they are published by a serious American editorial. However, we don’t understand why Kazakhstan and China have the same chances of being involved in a social revolution. The authors of the rating probably took as a basis the rate of human development, in which Russia and Kazakhstan take 65th and 66th places respectively, and China takes 90th place. In other words, American experts rate human rights as more important than economic indexes or the potential of national economies.
Publication of this ratingis understandable in the current circumstances of information pressure on Baku. Discussions of the problem “who is next?” are very popular at the moment. And some forces want to go directly to the next client.
That is why we shouldn’t just ascribe fast collapse to Azerbaijan and stable development to Kazakhstan and Ukraine. In this context, only subjective factors are at work. For example, in Kazakhstan those risks are connected with the absence of the successor to the current president. However, this doesn’t mean that because of the Arab revolutions Kazakhstan will be involved in the same situation now.
It seems that Azerbaijan is trying to be destabilized on purpose, as it plays an important strategic role in the region. Some forces are interested not only in destabilization in Azerbaijan, but also in the South Caucasus region in general. So nobody can say which country will be next.
Aleksei Vlasov, Julia Jakusheva. Exclusively for VK.
