WEBVTT 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:07.879 You're listening to a stage talk titled Mapping 00:00:07.879 --> 00:00:11.259 Military Power. This week we were joined by geopolitical 00:00:11.259 --> 00:00:14.380 and defence analyst Michael Hilliard from the 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:17.539 Oxus Society. Michael spoke about their recent 00:00:17.539 --> 00:00:20.219 mapping exercise collecting years of data to 00:00:20.219 --> 00:00:22.980 pinpoint the scale of military power per region 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:26.690 in Central Asia. My call was also joined shortly 00:00:26.690 --> 00:00:29.129 on stage during the talk by Mitchell Pullman, 00:00:29.489 --> 00:00:31.690 an OSINT researcher who helped with the mapping 00:00:31.690 --> 00:00:34.829 project. Within the talk, we discussed all sorts, 00:00:34.909 --> 00:00:37.630 from drones to Chinese influence. You can find 00:00:37.630 --> 00:00:40.070 links to all the resources mentioned in the talk 00:00:40.070 --> 00:00:42.770 in the podcast description. This talk was hosted 00:00:42.770 --> 00:00:45.170 by me, Charlotte Mar, on Thursday the 6th of 00:00:45.170 --> 00:00:48.229 November, 2025, in the Bellingcat Discord server. 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:59.079 Let's get started. Okay, welcome to another stage 00:00:59.079 --> 00:01:02.179 talk. Today, we're talking about military forces. 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:04.920 We'll be looking at the central question. How 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:08.620 do you map an army and its resources? What features 00:01:08.620 --> 00:01:12.120 represent military power? Here to enlighten us 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:15.239 is Michael Hilliard. Michael is a Director of 00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:17.900 Defence and Security Analysis at the Oxford Society 00:01:17.900 --> 00:01:20.629 for Central Asian Affairs. where he leads the 00:01:20.629 --> 00:01:23.129 new and expansive Armed Forces of Central Asia 00:01:23.129 --> 00:01:26.069 project. Drawing on his experiences as a policy 00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:28.269 advisor and defence analyst, a former conflict 00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:30.909 journalist and the host of the geopolitical podcast 00:01:30.909 --> 00:01:33.670 The Red Line and Spotlight on Central Asia, by 00:01:33.670 --> 00:01:36.189 the way, you must listen to them and I'll pop 00:01:36.189 --> 00:01:39.090 the links to those in the chat later, Michael 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:41.769 can answer complex security questions using data. 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:44.709 Today he's going to unpack their latest report 00:01:44.709 --> 00:01:47.969 on the military force of Uzbekistan. a region 00:01:47.969 --> 00:01:50.349 known as a leading military power in Central 00:01:50.349 --> 00:01:53.189 Asia, as well as highlight the useful military 00:01:53.189 --> 00:01:55.790 units and map tracker created as part of the 00:01:55.790 --> 00:01:57.989 larger armed forces of Central Asia project. 00:01:58.430 --> 00:02:00.450 By the end of the talk, we should have a better 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:02.629 understanding of the military might of Central 00:02:02.629 --> 00:02:05.489 Asia and the power dynamics at play there, as 00:02:05.489 --> 00:02:07.750 well as how we could develop a similar mapping 00:02:07.750 --> 00:02:11.530 exercise in other regions of the world. As we 00:02:11.530 --> 00:02:13.250 talk, please make sure to add your questions 00:02:13.250 --> 00:02:15.550 in the chat box via the message bubble icon. 00:02:15.710 --> 00:02:17.469 in the top right corner of your screen, as I 00:02:17.469 --> 00:02:19.889 just mentioned. And please note, within your 00:02:19.889 --> 00:02:22.550 question, if you do not want me to read your 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:25.490 username out, as this is going on podcast platforms. 00:02:26.210 --> 00:02:29.770 Okay. Over to you, Michael. I'm going to mute 00:02:29.770 --> 00:02:33.789 and give you the floor. You're far too kind to 00:02:33.789 --> 00:02:36.469 me, Charlie. It's great to be here again. I absolutely 00:02:36.469 --> 00:02:39.310 love the last time I was here and I am here today. 00:02:39.629 --> 00:02:40.849 I'm going to share my screens with you a bit, 00:02:40.889 --> 00:02:42.680 but obviously we're here for the podcast. Let's 00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:44.960 talk a bit about the project. I've been heading 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:46.719 up and effectively talk about what Becca's done 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:49.560 a bit. Obviously we have our second chapter of 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:51.919 the Armed Forces of Central Asia report, effectively 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:54.639 giving what is probably the most comprehensive 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:57.680 analysis of the five Central Asian republics. 00:02:57.879 --> 00:03:00.819 We're releasing each chapter alongside a bunch 00:03:00.819 --> 00:03:03.000 of maps. So this is the second chapter or the 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:05.979 public version of that chapter. And so far we've 00:03:05.979 --> 00:03:08.759 located about 5 ,400 military and security locations 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:13.099 across Central Asia. So quite a lot of work on 00:03:13.099 --> 00:03:16.180 that one. Now, part of the re -prompt we got 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:21.199 here today is effectively looking at how to measure 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:23.039 military and security power. I think that's an 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:26.699 interesting question. So there are a lot of outlets 00:03:26.699 --> 00:03:29.039 online who do, and for lack of a better word, 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:31.479 try and put a number on firepower. And I think 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.180 it's very difficult to do that most of the time. 00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:39.080 militaries really aren't easily to quantify on 00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:40.800 how good they are at what they do. I'm not going 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:42.360 to throw a GPF under the bus. I'm just, you know, 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:44.860 this is kind of the one I see quoted the most 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:47.379 in public studies. I want to take a look and 00:03:47.379 --> 00:03:49.560 kind of talk about the problem with trying to 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:55.400 quantify things on a really solid number. Looking 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.060 at three militaries. And effectively here we 00:03:57.060 --> 00:03:59.740 have Australia, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan. And 00:03:59.740 --> 00:04:01.300 you can see here the national GDP, Australia 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:03.840 is much larger. But so is the military budget. 00:04:04.659 --> 00:04:06.620 Most countries do tend to kind of go to that 00:04:06.620 --> 00:04:09.300 way, where the military budget goes up and down 00:04:09.300 --> 00:04:10.879 depending on how rich the country is. Bigger 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:12.780 budget, more money to play with, understandable. 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:16.819 But when you dive into sort of more military 00:04:16.819 --> 00:04:18.560 analysis, you start to see things like this. 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:20.660 You'll start to see effectively, if you're not 00:04:20.660 --> 00:04:23.939 looking at my screen, where Indonesia, even though 00:04:23.939 --> 00:04:25.500 it's got a much smaller military budget, has 00:04:25.500 --> 00:04:28.279 like 400 ,000 personnel in its active service. 00:04:28.490 --> 00:04:30.870 Whereas Australia's only got about 58 and Uzbekistan's 00:04:30.870 --> 00:04:32.970 only got about 48 and then it gets bigger once 00:04:32.970 --> 00:04:36.430 you put paramilitary in. But that doesn't make 00:04:36.430 --> 00:04:38.829 sense comparing what we just talked about, which 00:04:38.829 --> 00:04:40.850 is military budgets being, you know, Australia 00:04:40.850 --> 00:04:43.649 being the much largest one. And then again, it 00:04:43.649 --> 00:04:45.490 changes again when you start looking at things 00:04:45.490 --> 00:04:49.209 like tanks per person, you know, as an example, 00:04:49.750 --> 00:04:52.850 Uzbekistan actually has effectively 73 personnel 00:04:52.850 --> 00:04:55.490 for every tank, whereas Australia has about 481 00:04:55.490 --> 00:04:58.920 and Indonesia's got about 2 ,900 people per tank, 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:03.339 which is a little off on the ratios. So even 00:05:03.339 --> 00:05:05.699 when you look at military budgets, it's hard 00:05:05.699 --> 00:05:09.779 to quantify how much that translates to, I guess, 00:05:10.100 --> 00:05:12.360 the ability of that military and what it needs 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:14.959 to do. There's quite a lot of reasons for that. 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:19.160 We're also, if we look at the percentage of the 00:05:19.160 --> 00:05:23.089 active force in each military, whilst Uzbekistan 00:05:23.089 --> 00:05:25.689 and Indonesia have most of their military, 75 00:05:25.689 --> 00:05:30.189 % nearly, put towards, let's call it the active 00:05:30.189 --> 00:05:31.790 ground forces. I'm only talking about the actual 00:05:31.790 --> 00:05:35.610 military here. The Indonesians have very little 00:05:35.610 --> 00:05:38.149 within their air force and the Uzbeks, understandably, 00:05:38.230 --> 00:05:41.029 have much less within their navy or naval forces. 00:05:41.870 --> 00:05:43.730 Again, because militaries are kind of made for 00:05:43.730 --> 00:05:45.350 purpose. And this is why it's really difficult 00:05:45.350 --> 00:05:48.550 to quantify exact numbers on what a military 00:05:48.550 --> 00:05:52.230 is capable of. Australia, it's built its entire 00:05:52.230 --> 00:05:55.110 military around doing a few really quite niche 00:05:55.110 --> 00:05:58.329 tasks. We are pretty good at going out and putting 00:05:58.329 --> 00:06:00.850 a battalion somewhere in the South Pacific or 00:06:00.850 --> 00:06:03.290 in the South China Sea, holding that ground. 00:06:03.850 --> 00:06:05.689 When we insert places, we're pretty good and 00:06:05.689 --> 00:06:07.569 we have a lot of equipment and technology with 00:06:07.569 --> 00:06:10.470 us. But if you were to ask Australia to plonk 00:06:10.470 --> 00:06:13.149 on a field or you were to ask Australia to run 00:06:13.149 --> 00:06:16.449 a long mountain warfare campaign, we might not 00:06:16.449 --> 00:06:18.810 be very good in that. Indonesia, if you look 00:06:18.810 --> 00:06:21.589 at that as a military effectively is much, you 00:06:21.589 --> 00:06:23.689 know, it doesn't have the kind of air force that 00:06:23.689 --> 00:06:25.829 a lot of other countries have. It doesn't have 00:06:25.829 --> 00:06:29.009 the massive, uh, tank forces, you know, that 00:06:29.009 --> 00:06:31.370 less even as Bekistan has, which is a much smaller 00:06:31.370 --> 00:06:34.490 GDP and budget. But again, it's designed as a 00:06:34.490 --> 00:06:36.389 military that can quickly respond anywhere around 00:06:36.389 --> 00:06:38.629 the country. And again, because it's an archipelago, 00:06:38.889 --> 00:06:41.730 anywhere across that massive archipelago, very 00:06:41.730 --> 00:06:43.649 quickly, you know, whether it's crushing riots 00:06:43.649 --> 00:06:46.759 or responding to a threat. knowing that it will 00:06:46.759 --> 00:06:48.699 probably be a while before they get resupplied. 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:51.360 People design their militaries to deal with the 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:53.959 situation they're in. And it's why I really do 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:55.199 enjoy looking at militaries because you do get 00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:56.959 a good look at long -term planning and long -term 00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:00.620 thinking. For Uzbekistan, I think that is the 00:07:00.620 --> 00:07:02.680 most obvious out of them. And what I've got on 00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:05.259 screen for people who are watching, but you can 00:07:05.259 --> 00:07:07.199 also check it out in the report, is where the 00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:09.399 major brigade level stuff is in Uzbekistan. What 00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:12.610 you can see pretty quickly is the Most of your 00:07:12.610 --> 00:07:15.170 tank units, your kind of real heavy, I'm thinking 00:07:15.170 --> 00:07:17.529 old kind of Soviet style stuff is right there 00:07:17.529 --> 00:07:19.769 down the south, right near the border with Afghanistan. 00:07:20.410 --> 00:07:23.509 They view that as the conventional threat. It's 00:07:23.509 --> 00:07:26.050 also the approaches that you'd use to go toward 00:07:26.050 --> 00:07:27.569 Tajikistan, we'll talk a bit about that later. 00:07:28.269 --> 00:07:31.290 Whereas your rapid response units are often out 00:07:31.290 --> 00:07:33.069 near the capital, Tashkent, or in the Fagana 00:07:33.069 --> 00:07:35.410 Valley, partly to do with the fact and when we 00:07:35.410 --> 00:07:38.110 interviewed lots of Uzbek military officers and 00:07:38.110 --> 00:07:41.180 personnel. They kept bringing up events in 2005 00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:43.540 in an incident called Andijan. Effectively, what 00:07:43.540 --> 00:07:46.240 happened is there was an uprising, a very small 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:48.240 uprising at the beginning, who actually managed 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:50.240 to take a military base by surprise because they 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:52.339 were just not very well coordinated at the time. 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:56.180 The success there gave them a bit of a boost. 00:07:56.300 --> 00:07:58.779 They went on and took a MIA outpost. They went 00:07:58.779 --> 00:08:00.319 on and took more and more outposts in the town. 00:08:00.399 --> 00:08:02.279 Eventually, they had taken most of the administrative 00:08:02.279 --> 00:08:05.100 block in the city and then eventually the military 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:07.300 comes back and roars back into town a few days 00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:11.399 later and thousands will die afterwards. There 00:08:11.399 --> 00:08:14.300 is a huge reaction to that following the 2005 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:16.759 events that Uzbekistan has decided that one of 00:08:16.759 --> 00:08:19.040 its major priorities right now is to make sure 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:21.240 it can quickly respond to things. And it's something 00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:24.379 that doesn't matter how high or low through the 00:08:24.379 --> 00:08:26.459 military, you keep hearing this, had we been 00:08:26.459 --> 00:08:28.740 able to respond quickly while there's 30 people, 00:08:29.139 --> 00:08:31.639 well, less people would have died, which I see 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:33.960 the... very morbid logic behind it, but it's 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.379 interesting. Again, this is a military that's 00:08:36.379 --> 00:08:39.940 built for quickly responding to crises. The conventional 00:08:39.940 --> 00:08:42.399 stuff's down toward the border with Afghanistan, 00:08:42.500 --> 00:08:43.659 because it's obviously a slight conventional 00:08:43.659 --> 00:08:47.460 threat. And most of your rocket or heavy artillery 00:08:47.460 --> 00:08:49.179 stuff is actually near the center of the country, 00:08:49.740 --> 00:08:51.360 which means you can effectively pivot at where 00:08:51.360 --> 00:08:53.200 it needs to go. And again, these are logical 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:55.720 decisions that kind of make sense. When we look 00:08:55.720 --> 00:08:58.000 at kind of Uzbekistan, I guess, in the context 00:08:58.000 --> 00:08:59.720 of the five Central Asian republics, that being 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:01.799 Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:04.659 Turkmenistan, almost every graph you are going 00:09:04.659 --> 00:09:06.820 to look like, you know, is effectively going 00:09:06.820 --> 00:09:08.320 to look a little bit like this, but on screen, 00:09:08.759 --> 00:09:11.539 imagine you're at a one to 10, 10 being the best, 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:13.639 one being the worst, Kazakhstan is always going 00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:15.860 to be kind of a 10, Uzbekistan is usually going 00:09:15.860 --> 00:09:18.559 to be, let's call it an eight or a nine, Turkmenistan 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:21.299 would be about a four or a five, and then Kyrgyzstan, 00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:22.940 Tajikistan are going to be down in the ones and 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:25.129 twos. Not saying they're bad, but just I'm trying 00:09:25.129 --> 00:09:28.610 to make it as easy as possible. This here is 00:09:28.610 --> 00:09:30.750 military spending. And again, that tracks. We 00:09:30.750 --> 00:09:33.549 saw that GDP matches military spending, except 00:09:33.549 --> 00:09:36.809 in Central Asia's case where, whilst Uzbekistan 00:09:36.809 --> 00:09:39.730 tends to spend much more than you'd expect as 00:09:39.730 --> 00:09:42.429 a share of regional military spending, Kazakhstan 00:09:42.429 --> 00:09:44.450 tends to spend much less. But it's also because 00:09:44.450 --> 00:09:46.610 Kazakhstan is so much richer than the other states 00:09:46.610 --> 00:09:49.490 that it can effectively afford to spend 1 % of 00:09:49.490 --> 00:09:52.909 GDP or a bit above. and still be the dominant 00:09:52.909 --> 00:09:56.350 player effectively. Whereas Uzbekistan is traditionally 00:09:56.350 --> 00:09:59.009 spent toward the 4 % mark and starts to dip back 00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:01.049 down toward two as things start to stabilize. 00:10:01.789 --> 00:10:03.970 But again, I think military, even if we're looking 00:10:03.970 --> 00:10:06.169 for a way of quantifying things, military spending 00:10:06.169 --> 00:10:08.470 doesn't even do that either. Because not only 00:10:08.470 --> 00:10:11.009 does it get a bit wonky when you start getting 00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:13.330 to purchasing power, it's obviously cheaper to 00:10:13.330 --> 00:10:16.549 keep the Russians armed and sort of in the field 00:10:16.549 --> 00:10:18.990 because they spend less per soldier than it would 00:10:18.990 --> 00:10:21.320 be, let's say, compared to the Americans. But 00:10:21.320 --> 00:10:23.820 at the same time, you also have what gets included 00:10:23.820 --> 00:10:26.779 in that. Military research, for instance, gets 00:10:26.779 --> 00:10:29.299 included quite often within the US DOD budget, 00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:31.220 but in China that often doesn't. It's a separate 00:10:31.220 --> 00:10:33.559 budget. And that starts to make things really 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:36.340 wonky. Again, we have what was Bekistan with 00:10:36.340 --> 00:10:40.019 quite a large military and is the largest by 00:10:40.019 --> 00:10:42.100 numbers, but does that mean they actually have 00:10:42.100 --> 00:10:45.500 the best military? I'd argue probably not, particularly 00:10:45.500 --> 00:10:47.820 when we start to look at things like paramilitary. 00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:51.450 So these are... If people who really know what 00:10:51.450 --> 00:10:53.769 they're looking at, let's call MIA forces. Effectively, 00:10:53.889 --> 00:10:55.289 they're not going to have the heavy artillery, 00:10:55.389 --> 00:10:57.110 they're not going to have the heavy tanks. They're 00:10:57.110 --> 00:10:59.190 mostly designed for internal operations. They're 00:10:59.190 --> 00:11:02.690 better trained at riot control, better shields, 00:11:02.850 --> 00:11:06.009 that kind of stuff compared to your standard 00:11:06.009 --> 00:11:09.009 military. And Uzbekistan actually has the lowest 00:11:09.009 --> 00:11:11.490 out of the five Central Asian Republics ratio 00:11:11.490 --> 00:11:13.830 of paramilitary to military. In other words, 00:11:13.970 --> 00:11:17.850 if you combine that number together, 63 % sit 00:11:17.850 --> 00:11:20.519 within the conventional military. with 36 % sitting 00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:23.620 within border forces, MIA forces, emergency services 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:26.480 forces, which means they have quite a heavy, 00:11:28.039 --> 00:11:30.159 still somewhat Soviet military sitting at the 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:32.039 core of this. And that's a big problem because 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:35.259 when you have a massive numbers military, it 00:11:35.259 --> 00:11:39.279 does help with unemployment. It does help with 00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:41.360 a whole bunch of other factors, but it also really 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:46.850 hurts your ability to... So if you spend money, 00:11:46.929 --> 00:11:48.330 because you're spending way too much money on 00:11:48.330 --> 00:11:50.889 wages and pensions. If we go back to nominal 00:11:50.889 --> 00:11:52.590 GDP, this is what I was talking about, where 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:55.610 even though Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are somewhat 00:11:55.610 --> 00:12:00.250 similar military power wise, the GDP by Kazakhstan 00:12:00.250 --> 00:12:01.950 is just so much higher in the region and growing 00:12:01.950 --> 00:12:03.649 at a much higher rate. And there's a whole bunch 00:12:03.649 --> 00:12:06.169 of reasons for that. Even if we look at, as you 00:12:06.169 --> 00:12:08.870 can see from the pie chart, but for people, Kazakhstan 00:12:08.870 --> 00:12:13.190 alone makes up about 60 % or 57%. of the entire 00:12:13.190 --> 00:12:15.950 region's GDP. So it's not unusual to expect that 00:12:15.950 --> 00:12:18.529 they would be the core military power, even though 00:12:18.529 --> 00:12:20.330 they haven't got the largest military in the 00:12:20.330 --> 00:12:24.809 region and have got less tanks or whatnot. Part 00:12:24.809 --> 00:12:26.730 of the other thing you want to look at when assessing 00:12:26.730 --> 00:12:28.889 military capabilities is who their suppliers 00:12:28.889 --> 00:12:31.470 are and how over -reliant they are. And I guess 00:12:31.470 --> 00:12:35.289 you'd almost on a scale of things, look to someone 00:12:35.289 --> 00:12:37.509 like Uzbekistan on nearly one end of the scale 00:12:37.509 --> 00:12:40.679 where Russia or the USSR supplied let's call 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:43.659 it 85 -ish percent of all of their equipment. 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:46.700 And I guess this is an interesting one for me, 00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:48.399 I guess. It's almost a drinking game for Central 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:50.840 Asia analysts. We see all these headlines coming 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:54.779 out of Turkey selling this or China selling this. 00:12:54.799 --> 00:12:57.179 And that's true, but it still doesn't make up 00:12:57.179 --> 00:13:00.200 anyone near the maturity of what they use. And 00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:03.600 part of this is just simple economics. For Uzbekistan, 00:13:04.019 --> 00:13:05.360 if let's say you're the defense commander and 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:06.559 you went, hey, what are we going to do about 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:08.580 tanks? And they go, well, we could buy an American 00:13:08.580 --> 00:13:11.759 tank for $8 million, but we need new mechanics. 00:13:12.019 --> 00:13:14.700 It's going to cost $8 million. We need new manuals. 00:13:14.700 --> 00:13:16.100 We're going to train the guys and we could get 00:13:16.100 --> 00:13:19.299 sanctioned. If we have problems with Americans, 00:13:19.379 --> 00:13:22.179 we need to buy new gearboxes and yada yada. If 00:13:22.179 --> 00:13:23.879 you go with the Russians though, you can probably 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:26.539 spend 20, $30 ,000 on a modernization kit, slap 00:13:26.539 --> 00:13:29.360 it in and call it a day. So you do find that 00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:31.379 if they don't need to spend the capital, they 00:13:31.379 --> 00:13:33.340 tend to just slap modernization kits and new 00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:35.539 coats of paint on Russian equipment, which is 00:13:35.539 --> 00:13:37.399 why Russia is still pretty dominant for the kind 00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:39.899 of basics and consumables. That changed a little 00:13:39.899 --> 00:13:43.019 bit over 2020 through 2023, as Russia effectively 00:13:43.019 --> 00:13:45.679 diverted more of its industry toward the war 00:13:45.679 --> 00:13:47.960 effort and, you know, what was left for the export 00:13:47.960 --> 00:13:49.840 market was competed for by India and whatnot. 00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:52.279 But, you know, it was back in time really just 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:53.980 starting to roll back and Russia is taking a 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.519 bigger part in their procurement as we speak. 00:13:56.919 --> 00:13:59.200 I guess what the interesting thing though is 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.879 when it isn't a decision between new tank and 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:04.980 modernization kit and, you know, equipment versus 00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:08.059 equipment. that's where the really interesting 00:14:08.059 --> 00:14:09.779 part is happening. And that's where you ask them 00:14:09.779 --> 00:14:11.559 to see China and Turkey and a few other places. 00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:13.879 Because when it comes down to, well, I need to 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:17.080 buy a Russian drone or a Turkish drone, they 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:19.840 tend to go and not with Russia. They do have 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:21.200 some Russian drones. They do have some Russian 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:23.960 bits and pieces, but yeah, it is a testament 00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:27.320 to, we think Russia is pretty good for basic 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:30.320 consumer. It's, you know, basic bullets, basic 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:32.899 gearboxes. They're not so good for the high tech 00:14:32.899 --> 00:14:34.929 stuff at the moment. I think they're slightly 00:14:34.929 --> 00:14:37.610 distracted elsewhere. The other part you want 00:14:37.610 --> 00:14:39.350 to look at, and I get a lot of people don't include 00:14:39.350 --> 00:14:42.009 this when they start to look at military power, 00:14:42.110 --> 00:14:45.570 is the ability to be self -sustainable. If you're 00:14:45.570 --> 00:14:48.029 Australia, we can kind of keep some of it going 00:14:48.029 --> 00:14:49.950 ourselves. We're not great for that, but we can. 00:14:50.669 --> 00:14:54.070 When you're, let's say, the central agents here, 00:14:54.529 --> 00:14:57.070 almost everything they have is imported in. For 00:14:57.070 --> 00:15:00.029 Uzbekistan, as a classic example, when they have 00:15:00.029 --> 00:15:03.059 their planes, which are getting quite old, needing 00:15:03.059 --> 00:15:06.059 repairs, they can't do anything by basic repairs 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:07.840 in their own facilities. They end up sending 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:10.440 them off to Belarus or Russia to get that done. 00:15:10.980 --> 00:15:12.539 Which if you can imagine, let's say you're in 00:15:12.539 --> 00:15:15.460 a conflict with Tajikistan or one of your other 00:15:15.460 --> 00:15:19.279 regional players. Do you think Belarus is going 00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:21.399 to be hop, skip and jump to want to fix your 00:15:21.399 --> 00:15:23.559 planes? Not really. And you kind of have to take 00:15:23.559 --> 00:15:25.019 that into account when you're starting to plan 00:15:25.019 --> 00:15:27.059 and war game out a number of these scenarios. 00:15:28.620 --> 00:15:30.340 Even you know, something like here, which is 00:15:30.340 --> 00:15:33.000 the Churchill aircraft repair plant just north 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:37.200 of the Capitol, north east of the Capitol. This 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:39.220 has been pretty under repaired for a while and 00:15:39.220 --> 00:15:42.059 is suffering quite badly. And frankly, you know, 00:15:42.759 --> 00:15:44.720 even though a lot of these States would probably 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:46.700 benefit from, you know, combining their money 00:15:46.700 --> 00:15:48.139 and getting this back up and running like it 00:15:48.139 --> 00:15:51.379 was during the USSR times, kind of doesn't get 00:15:51.379 --> 00:15:53.019 that because no state trusts each other enough 00:15:53.019 --> 00:15:56.519 to do that. Now, and this is again, we'll weigh 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:58.419 into military calculations here. And again, this 00:15:58.419 --> 00:16:00.080 is one of the reasons that I think it's difficult 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:03.379 to kind of put a number on, you know, exact number 00:16:03.379 --> 00:16:06.679 of how powerful a military is. Now, when you're 00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:09.759 looking at mapping bases, there are a few things 00:16:09.759 --> 00:16:11.759 you can look for. So actually, I want to kind 00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:13.220 of, before I get into the mapping stuff, let's 00:16:13.220 --> 00:16:14.840 go right through this and I'll come back to that. 00:16:15.419 --> 00:16:17.340 The two things I found really interesting in 00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:20.519 this study is effectively, no, lots of things 00:16:20.519 --> 00:16:22.879 I found interesting, but one of the most interesting 00:16:22.879 --> 00:16:25.799 things is looking at purpose -built. So as part 00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:28.159 of this, we ran a bunch of war games, getting 00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:29.899 a bunch of military and security experts in and 00:16:29.899 --> 00:16:31.980 sat down and worked out how each guy would respond, 00:16:32.100 --> 00:16:34.220 what the situation is, what they're capable of, 00:16:34.559 --> 00:16:36.179 and effectively what the outcomes are likely 00:16:36.179 --> 00:16:39.600 to be. Now, the two we ran for the Uzbek chapter, 00:16:40.059 --> 00:16:43.240 where one was an ISKP, so Islamic State Khorasan 00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:46.559 Province, effectively gathering up on the Afghan 00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:49.000 side of the river and launching a, using kind 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:50.879 of rubber boats and dinghies, an attack into 00:16:50.879 --> 00:16:53.620 the southern city of Termez where the Uzbek -Afghan 00:16:53.620 --> 00:16:57.539 friendship bridges. Now, this was so difficult 00:16:57.539 --> 00:17:01.279 for the ISKP team that we actually need to give 00:17:01.279 --> 00:17:04.779 them an absurd amount of concessions to even 00:17:04.779 --> 00:17:07.279 get them off the ground. We need to say that 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:09.519 there was no riverine patrols that night. There 00:17:09.519 --> 00:17:12.359 were no surveillance that night. People were 00:17:12.359 --> 00:17:14.819 asleep when they weren't watching at the watchtowers. 00:17:15.619 --> 00:17:18.920 They took the massive base just over the bridge 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:22.140 here. by surprise and pretty much everyone surrendered 00:17:22.140 --> 00:17:24.380 immediately. All stuff that even in the start 00:17:24.380 --> 00:17:26.539 of the chat we get is absurd and not going to 00:17:26.539 --> 00:17:28.539 happen because every other time we didn't give 00:17:28.539 --> 00:17:31.059 these concessions, the enemy forces would kind 00:17:31.059 --> 00:17:32.240 of build up on the other side of the river and 00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:35.359 be immediately eliminated. And it just shows 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:37.339 you that if Bekazdan has thought about this, 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:39.599 Bekazdan knows this is a threat and has built 00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:43.960 up so much in the way of defensive materials 00:17:43.960 --> 00:17:46.980 and force down here that it's really good at 00:17:46.980 --> 00:17:50.700 doing that. They pretty quickly pushed the ISKP 00:17:50.700 --> 00:17:53.660 forces back. And even in this absurd scenario 00:17:53.660 --> 00:17:55.279 where they get a lot further than they would 00:17:55.279 --> 00:17:58.359 in reality, the whole thing ends in, I think 00:17:58.359 --> 00:18:01.880 it's about 24 or 36 hours. They're meant to do 00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:04.940 that. Then we ran another scenario. And this 00:18:04.940 --> 00:18:06.759 is what I think surprised a lot more people is 00:18:06.759 --> 00:18:09.460 an Uzbek invasion of Tajikistan. Now, Uzbekistan 00:18:09.460 --> 00:18:11.519 being the largest military in Central Asia, Tajikistan 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:13.910 being the smallest. Particularly with the fact 00:18:13.910 --> 00:18:16.430 that the Tajik capital is only 40km away from 00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:18.029 the Uzbek border, you'd think, well, this is 00:18:18.029 --> 00:18:20.730 an easy fight, Uzbekistan should win this, not 00:18:20.730 --> 00:18:25.529 a problem. And we're modeling off effectively 00:18:25.529 --> 00:18:28.150 water disputes. They decide that they want to 00:18:28.150 --> 00:18:31.509 go for an invasion and take the northern capital 00:18:31.509 --> 00:18:35.170 of Khujand and Dushanbe at once. Again, they've 00:18:35.170 --> 00:18:37.089 got a massive military, it is in the realm of 00:18:37.089 --> 00:18:39.630 possibility. But immediately logistics becomes 00:18:39.630 --> 00:18:43.269 just so much of a problem. You are effectively 00:18:43.269 --> 00:18:46.609 marching your troops over long distances with 00:18:46.609 --> 00:18:48.890 very little in the way of ability to keep them 00:18:48.890 --> 00:18:52.650 supplied. And whilst we kind of had to give them 00:18:52.650 --> 00:18:54.369 an artificial parameter as well, saying that 00:18:54.369 --> 00:18:56.109 the Russians wouldn't fire on them if their Russians 00:18:56.109 --> 00:18:59.930 weren't fired on first. And the Uzbeks were able 00:18:59.930 --> 00:19:04.089 to build up prior to the invasion completely 00:19:04.089 --> 00:19:06.430 by surprise, which again, I think is not possible. 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:11.220 Day one goes fairly well as expected, Uzbekistan 00:19:11.220 --> 00:19:14.819 can pack a real punch on day one. They can even 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:17.079 get in the north in better punch and they can 00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:18.759 really kind of get right to the outskirts of 00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:21.900 the major city. On the southern front, Dushanbe, 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:23.980 the capital of Tajikistan, they can get right 00:19:23.980 --> 00:19:26.900 to the edge. But once you start getting into 00:19:26.900 --> 00:19:30.279 your day seven -ish of the scenario, things really 00:19:30.279 --> 00:19:33.599 go badly. Where A, the Uzbeks aren't trained 00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:37.559 to do urban warfare very much anymore. It's not 00:19:37.559 --> 00:19:40.200 really what they're aiming to do. B, the logistics 00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:41.920 are just not there. They don't have the mobile 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:43.859 refueling stations. They don't have the logistics 00:19:43.859 --> 00:19:47.319 trucks. They don't have the communications staff 00:19:47.319 --> 00:19:49.259 and the dedicated communications and logistics 00:19:49.259 --> 00:19:52.240 units. Their stuff is still coming from hundreds 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:54.779 of kilometers away in Termez at this point. They 00:19:54.779 --> 00:19:57.599 don't have the suitable railway units to get 00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:00.400 this all up and running. And you end up having 00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:03.400 this situation where they just end up losing 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:06.490 way too many men. trying to fight this urban 00:20:06.490 --> 00:20:10.589 campaign without trying to maneuver themselves 00:20:10.589 --> 00:20:14.490 away from the Russians as well. So the end result 00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:16.470 is effectively that the Uzbeks almost inevitably, 00:20:16.589 --> 00:20:18.490 because their top priority will be to make sure 00:20:18.490 --> 00:20:20.950 the administration remains stable, is they pull 00:20:20.950 --> 00:20:24.460 back. They go, it's not worth our time. Let's 00:20:24.460 --> 00:20:26.380 pull back. And that's a pretty bad scenario. 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:29.140 If you've gone in, you lost 20 ,000, you're probably 00:20:29.140 --> 00:20:30.579 less than that. You've lost, I think it's about 00:20:30.579 --> 00:20:33.640 8 ,000 personnel. And you've gained effectively 00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:37.059 little to nothing. So it ends up being a pretty 00:20:37.059 --> 00:20:39.880 disastrous scenario for the Uzbeks. And again, 00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:41.460 a lot of people would take that away and say, 00:20:41.660 --> 00:20:43.160 well, obviously the Uzbek military is a weak 00:20:43.160 --> 00:20:46.220 military and on paper, their score is higher 00:20:46.220 --> 00:20:48.539 than the Tajiks. They should have won this. But 00:20:48.539 --> 00:20:49.799 it's just because they're not really designed 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:52.049 to do that. You know, this is a military that 00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:55.390 is mostly designed to respond quickly to internal 00:20:55.390 --> 00:20:58.990 uprisings or pressures, respond to border skirmishes 00:20:58.990 --> 00:21:00.869 where the Olympics are really good. If it's a 00:21:00.869 --> 00:21:02.730 short, sharp campaign, they're really good at 00:21:02.730 --> 00:21:05.650 that. But if it's a prolonged logistics heavy 00:21:05.650 --> 00:21:09.170 campaign, not really. And again, it comes down 00:21:09.170 --> 00:21:10.309 to that kind of what we talked about earlier 00:21:10.309 --> 00:21:11.990 with the tanks. If you're a defense commander 00:21:11.990 --> 00:21:13.730 and you say, you know, sir, what should we buy? 00:21:13.829 --> 00:21:15.490 Should we buy all the stuff we need to go invade 00:21:15.490 --> 00:21:18.880 Tajikistan? Well, probably not. If you're not 00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:20.799 thinking you're going to be doing that, you put 00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:22.799 that money towards communications equipment and 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.440 pensions and everything else you need to. And 00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:29.619 again, that can give me a bit more easy sleep 00:21:29.619 --> 00:21:31.400 at night knowing that none of these militaries 00:21:31.400 --> 00:21:33.779 are really preparing or even halfway prepared 00:21:33.779 --> 00:21:37.579 to launch massive invasions of the other. So 00:21:37.579 --> 00:21:39.660 if you're trying to measure military power, I 00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:41.990 guess, which was the kind of prompt here. I don't 00:21:41.990 --> 00:21:45.390 know if you can, you can kind of rank things 00:21:45.390 --> 00:21:47.950 first to fifth in this region, but only because 00:21:47.950 --> 00:21:51.890 it's so blindingly obvious in order they're going 00:21:51.890 --> 00:21:54.890 to go in on almost every single metric. But that 00:21:54.890 --> 00:21:58.309 doesn't mean you can actually expect easy victories 00:21:58.309 --> 00:22:00.910 because their numbers are higher. Tajikistan, 00:22:01.049 --> 00:22:03.690 when we wargamed their invasion of Kyrgyzstan 00:22:03.690 --> 00:22:05.849 went really badly and they ended up pulling back 00:22:05.849 --> 00:22:09.190 on I think day 10 or something. Kyrgyzstan and 00:22:09.190 --> 00:22:11.269 Venetian Tajikistan, higher number, still can't 00:22:11.269 --> 00:22:13.549 get past even the first, you know, can get past 00:22:13.549 --> 00:22:15.329 the first major city, but can't make it further. 00:22:16.789 --> 00:22:18.730 You know, this is the trouble we're trying to 00:22:18.730 --> 00:22:21.970 rank military power, I guess. So I'm going to 00:22:21.970 --> 00:22:24.130 obviously turn it back to Charlie and she's going 00:22:24.130 --> 00:22:27.390 to have some questions. But yeah, to, I guess, 00:22:27.470 --> 00:22:30.210 be an overall summary is it's very, very difficult 00:22:30.210 --> 00:22:33.789 to put hard numbers on things. Yeah. And I haven't 00:22:33.789 --> 00:22:35.210 mentioned railroads yet. I'm sure someone will 00:22:35.210 --> 00:22:37.700 point that out, but Lots to talk about with the 00:22:37.700 --> 00:22:42.079 Uzbek chapter here. Yeah. Someone has just mentioned 00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:45.500 railroads, as you said it. Perhaps we can dive 00:22:45.500 --> 00:22:47.920 into that in a second. But to start with, I wanted 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:50.759 to ask, and maybe this is an obvious question, 00:22:51.019 --> 00:22:54.880 but this is a lot of research, a lot of data. 00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:58.259 It's fascinating to see the practicalities of 00:22:58.259 --> 00:23:01.960 it through your war game scenarios. What were 00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:05.319 your main sources of data for? this particular 00:23:05.319 --> 00:23:09.140 Uzbekistan report and how long and how many resources 00:23:09.140 --> 00:23:12.319 does it take to build a report like this as part 00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:14.400 of the Armed Forces of Central Asia project? 00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:17.279 This has effectively been a two year project. 00:23:17.460 --> 00:23:21.400 It's been massive to put together. And it's been 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:24.599 combing through everything from, you know, government 00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:27.160 reports, you know, through NGO reports, through 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:29.180 to weapons inspection reports, through to social 00:23:29.180 --> 00:23:32.180 media posts. You know, the wonders of social 00:23:32.180 --> 00:23:34.720 media have made it not only very easy to find 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:37.460 certain bases, but also how to gain a lot of 00:23:37.460 --> 00:23:40.119 context clues on what's there and what's not. 00:23:41.180 --> 00:23:42.940 When you're trying to find a unit, the amount 00:23:42.940 --> 00:23:45.900 of units we can't pin to a certain location, 00:23:46.059 --> 00:23:49.859 all of a sudden we'll find a local primary school 00:23:49.859 --> 00:23:53.220 did a excursion out to the base and took a bunch 00:23:53.220 --> 00:23:57.150 of photos from within the base. a random Facebook 00:23:57.150 --> 00:24:01.049 or Telegram group is just insane. So it's effectively 00:24:01.049 --> 00:24:02.670 talking with lots and lots of experts, people 00:24:02.670 --> 00:24:05.130 who know this region quite well, talking with 00:24:05.130 --> 00:24:07.750 a lot or reading a lot of these reports and piecing 00:24:07.750 --> 00:24:10.049 together thousands and thousands of points of 00:24:10.049 --> 00:24:12.789 data to effectively try and have a pretty good 00:24:12.789 --> 00:24:14.630 data set to run with. And then once you get that, 00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:16.690 you can start to piece together other pieces. 00:24:16.849 --> 00:24:18.069 And the fortunate thing is that a lot of these 00:24:18.069 --> 00:24:22.720 militaries are still somewhat similarly structured 00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:24.619 and based as what they were during the Soviet 00:24:24.619 --> 00:24:26.279 era, which does give you a baseline to start 00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:28.920 with. But generally, yes, it's just been, it's 00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:31.140 been two years of an entire research team kind 00:24:31.140 --> 00:24:33.039 of putting, pulling together a huge amount of 00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:37.339 data points. And how difficult is it to map kind 00:24:37.339 --> 00:24:40.500 of independent power? Like how much influence, 00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:43.960 for example, do foreign allies have on military 00:24:43.960 --> 00:24:46.680 power in central Asia? You mentioned some of 00:24:46.680 --> 00:24:51.480 Russia's influence. Yeah. How does that come 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.779 into play when you're looking at writing a report 00:24:54.779 --> 00:24:59.099 on an individual country's power? This is some 00:24:59.099 --> 00:25:00.619 of the most difficult and I think, you know, 00:25:00.759 --> 00:25:03.279 it happens to everyone all the time where I think 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.079 everyone has different, you know, we all do our 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:07.880 math and everyone will do different scores and 00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:09.319 everyone will kind of have a different approach 00:25:09.319 --> 00:25:11.339 on this, but it's what we weight differently 00:25:11.339 --> 00:25:13.859 I think that has, is where people tend to differ. 00:25:14.220 --> 00:25:16.359 you know, I found particularly working with different 00:25:16.359 --> 00:25:18.180 members of the team is that whilst I tend to 00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:20.539 put a lot more weight on logistics and economics 00:25:20.539 --> 00:25:22.720 to drive things, then other team members tend 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:25.400 to think more about cultural dynamics and tend 00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:28.599 to think more about, you know, how the industry 00:25:28.599 --> 00:25:31.039 will work or various different factors that do 00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:32.680 drive their kind of what is important and what's 00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:36.420 not. When it comes to, I guess, the Russia question, 00:25:36.980 --> 00:25:40.440 Russia is definitely the kind of the military 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:43.000 power in the region. And I think it's weird to 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:45.259 say, because when you go to the region, Russia 00:25:45.259 --> 00:25:48.980 is culturally losing a bit of a step. You know, 00:25:49.059 --> 00:25:50.900 it's only been in the last couple of years, I've 00:25:50.900 --> 00:25:52.759 gone, you know, flown into these countries and 00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:54.680 I've spoken Russian to them. And I get back, 00:25:55.140 --> 00:25:57.640 hey, we speak Uzbek here. I go, yeah, well, I'm 00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:03.059 sorry. You know, my bad. This is the cultural 00:26:03.059 --> 00:26:04.680 shift. But when it comes to the military and 00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:06.839 security services, a lot of those guys were trained 00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:08.740 in Russia. They're still very friendly with Russia. 00:26:09.210 --> 00:26:12.970 All their manuals are often in Russian, particularly 00:26:12.970 --> 00:26:15.789 with the very Zinni command. Their primary language 00:26:15.789 --> 00:26:20.109 might even be Russian. It's also a interesting 00:26:20.109 --> 00:26:22.150 kind of tidbit is when you do a lot of training 00:26:22.150 --> 00:26:24.950 exercises that as much as China is starting to 00:26:24.950 --> 00:26:27.670 come back in and do a little bit more, the soldiers 00:26:27.670 --> 00:26:30.109 distrust the Chinese a fair bit and they don't 00:26:30.109 --> 00:26:32.829 drink with them. They don't have as much fraternization 00:26:32.829 --> 00:26:34.349 with them, particularly at the sort of NCO level 00:26:34.349 --> 00:26:39.420 and above. So Russia is... Yeah, still very much 00:26:39.420 --> 00:26:41.740 the supply power and the guy supplying the majority 00:26:41.740 --> 00:26:44.380 of the military equipment here, but also is still 00:26:44.380 --> 00:26:46.200 kind of the influencer when it comes to the higher 00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:49.099 ends of security and military forces and probably 00:26:49.099 --> 00:26:51.359 will be for at least the next 20 years or until 00:26:51.359 --> 00:26:53.839 that generation of the guys that are kind of 00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:56.380 coming into the service now reach the top levels 00:26:56.380 --> 00:26:58.500 of power, which again, it's a bit of a delay. 00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:00.380 Yeah. So the other one you're talking about is 00:27:00.380 --> 00:27:03.660 how you can measure what power is in a base. 00:27:03.980 --> 00:27:05.900 So I got a few examples and obviously I have 00:27:05.900 --> 00:27:07.640 to describe the people listening, but you know, 00:27:08.359 --> 00:27:10.920 when you look at bigger basis, you, this, you 00:27:10.920 --> 00:27:13.519 know, it's a kind of a concept of when you have 00:27:13.519 --> 00:27:15.359 a really small business to give an example, a 00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:17.859 bit of an analogy here, if it's just you and 00:27:17.859 --> 00:27:19.420 one of the guy, that's what you need. But the 00:27:19.420 --> 00:27:20.920 moment you get to kind of 10 people, well, now 00:27:20.920 --> 00:27:22.619 you're kind of need an accountant. And then once 00:27:22.619 --> 00:27:24.440 you get to 50 people, you probably need a HR 00:27:24.440 --> 00:27:27.079 person. You need an office manager and, you know, 00:27:27.079 --> 00:27:28.940 you just kind of need all these extra supplementary 00:27:28.940 --> 00:27:31.200 things. The bigger the base gets or bigger the 00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:33.789 company gets in our analogy. You know, I'm looking 00:27:33.789 --> 00:27:35.930 at a screen here, but this is quite a large base. 00:27:35.930 --> 00:27:38.930 This is out in Samui in Kazakhstan. And once 00:27:38.930 --> 00:27:40.849 you get to a base of this size, you start to 00:27:40.849 --> 00:27:43.309 need additional motor pools. You start to need 00:27:43.309 --> 00:27:45.349 probably dedicated communications units. You 00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:48.589 start to need a dedicated explosive storage warehouse. 00:27:48.589 --> 00:27:51.069 It's just outside of town. Those are kind of 00:27:51.069 --> 00:27:53.349 things that you don't need for the smaller basis. 00:27:53.829 --> 00:27:56.650 So, you know, if we go to these, some of the 00:27:56.650 --> 00:27:59.309 smaller ones, let's call a brigade size. Yes, 00:27:59.309 --> 00:28:01.230 they do have large motor pools because they have 00:28:01.230 --> 00:28:03.099 to keep the vehicles somewhere. They do have 00:28:03.099 --> 00:28:04.599 dedicated barracks because of the people living 00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:06.519 there and you can get a good idea on how many 00:28:06.519 --> 00:28:08.759 people tend to live there. They do have usually 00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:10.900 the parade grounds, which are quite common across 00:28:10.900 --> 00:28:14.140 these guys, but they don't have the kind of massive 00:28:14.140 --> 00:28:17.740 fuel and explosives dumps that you see in much 00:28:17.740 --> 00:28:19.059 of the larger base. So, it's probably going to 00:28:19.059 --> 00:28:22.539 be smaller and less capable. If we look at, let's 00:28:22.539 --> 00:28:26.920 say, going down another rung to border outposts, 00:28:27.230 --> 00:28:29.250 you know, the one on the right for people who 00:28:29.250 --> 00:28:31.069 have the visual here is actually the Chinese 00:28:31.069 --> 00:28:34.069 base in Tajikistan. And as much as people have 00:28:34.069 --> 00:28:35.869 made a massive deal about it over the years, 00:28:36.029 --> 00:28:38.309 when you actually look at particularly the construction 00:28:38.309 --> 00:28:41.609 photos when it was originally built, you know, 00:28:41.690 --> 00:28:44.890 there's not a massive supplies of fuel here. 00:28:45.029 --> 00:28:46.970 There's not massive supplies of vehicles here 00:28:46.970 --> 00:28:50.210 either, even on the surface. And it just shows 00:28:50.210 --> 00:28:53.210 that whilst yes, it's a, you know, an important 00:28:53.210 --> 00:28:55.390 data point to take into account. This is not 00:28:55.390 --> 00:28:57.190 a base you'd launch a massive invasion with. 00:28:57.269 --> 00:29:00.190 This is effectively a base you use to long -term 00:29:00.190 --> 00:29:03.730 guard a road. And so if they don't have the ability 00:29:03.730 --> 00:29:06.450 to kind of sustain operations by themselves in 00:29:06.450 --> 00:29:08.609 a good way for a long time, it gives you an idea 00:29:08.609 --> 00:29:10.109 on what their base's purpose is probably going 00:29:10.109 --> 00:29:12.950 to be. But yeah, I'll take another question before 00:29:12.950 --> 00:29:17.390 I ramble too much. I guess this is a good point 00:29:17.390 --> 00:29:21.210 as well to mention, re -mention the map that 00:29:21.210 --> 00:29:24.940 you have got going that tracks kind of military 00:29:24.940 --> 00:29:28.960 vases. Please do have a check that out. I have 00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:33.140 put it in the chat, but it will also be in the 00:29:33.140 --> 00:29:35.819 podcast description as well as all of these links. 00:29:36.200 --> 00:29:38.460 And it's on screen for those in the audience 00:29:38.460 --> 00:29:42.740 now. Michael, quickly, do you want to just quickly 00:29:42.740 --> 00:29:46.359 do an overview of this? I've also got somebody 00:29:46.359 --> 00:29:48.920 who worked on the project who would like to jump 00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:51.710 in, Mitchell Polman. They've asked if they could 00:29:51.710 --> 00:29:53.950 join the stage as well to help. So perhaps while 00:29:53.950 --> 00:29:55.609 you're talking through the map, I can invite 00:29:55.609 --> 00:29:59.089 them on and they can chat a little bit as well, 00:29:59.130 --> 00:30:03.130 if that's okay with you. Sure, go ahead. Yeah, 00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:05.490 obviously the map I'm looking at at the moment 00:30:05.490 --> 00:30:09.490 is got a little more data than the public versions 00:30:09.490 --> 00:30:12.450 of these maps that we sell. But the map here, 00:30:12.690 --> 00:30:15.009 you can see that Uzbekistan I think has got about 00:30:15.009 --> 00:30:19.369 1400 pins by itself. Effectively, what we've 00:30:19.369 --> 00:30:21.049 done is tried to sort it into different categories 00:30:21.049 --> 00:30:23.569 so you get a bit of a snapshot. As you can probably 00:30:23.569 --> 00:30:27.029 see here, let's take it down to the larger units, 00:30:27.289 --> 00:30:29.450 which are brigade and above. Again, for anyone 00:30:29.450 --> 00:30:32.690 military and security oriented in the audience, 00:30:33.130 --> 00:30:35.309 I'm going to use brigade and massive air quotes 00:30:35.309 --> 00:30:40.349 for this region of the world. Effectively, the 00:30:40.349 --> 00:30:42.809 idea of the map is that you have this central 00:30:42.809 --> 00:30:44.900 resource that you can effectively go... Oh, I 00:30:44.900 --> 00:30:46.460 wonder what's in, actually, let's go to Termez 00:30:46.460 --> 00:30:48.460 because we were talking about Termez as an example 00:30:48.460 --> 00:30:50.859 earlier on. And I can just turn on a bunch of 00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:53.339 pins and I have a really good idea of what is 00:30:53.339 --> 00:30:57.140 in the city and where everything is. Because 00:30:57.140 --> 00:30:59.740 for playing our war games, it's really useful 00:30:59.740 --> 00:31:01.420 to know where everything is, but also generally 00:31:01.420 --> 00:31:04.000 it's just good to know the capabilities of each 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:06.559 garrison. For instance, here, you can see up 00:31:06.559 --> 00:31:08.420 here in the north of the city is where the air 00:31:08.420 --> 00:31:11.240 defense batteries are and all the radar batteries 00:31:11.240 --> 00:31:14.109 that are effectively monitoring the south here. 00:31:14.269 --> 00:31:16.269 You know, here's the naval port. You can see 00:31:16.269 --> 00:31:19.650 there was a green pin. It's part of the riverine 00:31:19.650 --> 00:31:23.789 flotillas. And it's just, it's just pouring together 00:31:23.789 --> 00:31:25.630 oodles and oodles and oodles of data. I mean, 00:31:25.690 --> 00:31:27.910 Mitch, you were working on this project as well. 00:31:27.950 --> 00:31:31.009 I mean, you can attest on just the sheer quantity 00:31:31.009 --> 00:31:33.049 of data you have to kind of pull together for 00:31:33.049 --> 00:31:36.809 a map like this. Oh yes. Can you hear me? Loud 00:31:36.809 --> 00:31:42.000 and clear, far away. Okay. Yeah. You've pretty 00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:44.900 much got it covered, Michael. I just wanted to 00:31:44.900 --> 00:31:50.319 say that it was actually surprisingly easy to 00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:55.119 track down some of this information. It wasn't 00:31:55.119 --> 00:31:58.160 all that long ago that Uzbekistan was being referred 00:31:58.160 --> 00:32:02.700 to as the North Korea of Central Asia, and I 00:32:02.700 --> 00:32:05.460 was a little surprised. You could actually even 00:32:05.460 --> 00:32:09.819 find addresses and street addresses and telephone 00:32:09.819 --> 00:32:14.079 numbers of military units in the equivalent of 00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:17.700 an Uzbekistan phone book. It's right there online. 00:32:18.700 --> 00:32:21.460 It's all in Uzbek, of course, but it's there. 00:32:22.039 --> 00:32:26.039 Sometimes they even list, you know, the individual 00:32:26.039 --> 00:32:32.079 units that are at a military base. So it was 00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:35.750 kind of surprisingly easy. I'd say that it was 00:32:35.750 --> 00:32:37.690 easy for some of them. In the early stage of 00:32:37.690 --> 00:32:40.349 the project, there was the low hanging fruits, 00:32:40.490 --> 00:32:42.950 other guys in the phone books. But when it comes 00:32:42.950 --> 00:32:45.970 to more sensitive areas, particularly when it 00:32:45.970 --> 00:32:47.529 comes to things like air defense batteries, that's 00:32:47.529 --> 00:32:50.329 where things get much more difficult. Unlike 00:32:50.329 --> 00:32:52.769 the Russians tend to be a little more consistent 00:32:52.769 --> 00:32:55.769 with their military unit numbering, the Central 00:32:55.769 --> 00:32:57.990 Asians are really scattershot with it. Yeah, 00:32:58.049 --> 00:32:59.910 I was going to say that was sort of the bigger 00:32:59.910 --> 00:33:04.380 challenge was the numbers. And names of units 00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:08.599 changed all the time and keeping track of who 00:33:08.599 --> 00:33:11.859 was where and what was who was a bit of a challenge 00:33:11.859 --> 00:33:15.859 for us, I think. Yeah. I mean, this is part of 00:33:15.859 --> 00:33:18.220 the project is obviously putting together massive 00:33:18.220 --> 00:33:21.019 data piles, which is far beyond what goes in 00:33:21.019 --> 00:33:24.119 the public version of these, of effectively everything 00:33:24.119 --> 00:33:26.819 we know about, let's say, you know, 11506. And 00:33:26.819 --> 00:33:29.000 it will be, hey, here's three reports we have 00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:31.519 that talk about it. Here is, you know, photos 00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:33.599 of the base that have been taken from a couple 00:33:33.599 --> 00:33:36.180 of YouTube videos that we've got. And, you know, 00:33:36.299 --> 00:33:38.799 here's the size of the motor pools, which should 00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:40.740 indicate that there's this many things here, 00:33:40.740 --> 00:33:43.019 you know, putting all that together and effectively 00:33:43.019 --> 00:33:46.240 trying to build a bit of a concept of what's 00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:49.279 there and what they have capable. Again, I also 00:33:49.279 --> 00:33:54.819 used, really odd at times. Sorry. I also used, 00:33:55.119 --> 00:33:59.480 there were online, Uzbek military journals, newspapers 00:33:59.480 --> 00:34:03.740 that are online and going through them, you could 00:34:03.740 --> 00:34:07.160 oftentimes find, you know, good information or 00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:11.980 at least clues. You know, even photos sometimes 00:34:11.980 --> 00:34:15.480 of, you know, that went to unit locations and 00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:18.360 things of that nature. And again, a lot of the 00:34:18.360 --> 00:34:20.260 time you have to just build these massive data 00:34:20.260 --> 00:34:22.400 piles and dumps because you're trying to piece 00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:24.099 together multiple different parts of information. 00:34:24.260 --> 00:34:26.960 You know, you know, There's a commander who is 00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:29.679 from this base. You know, he's done a news interview 00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:31.920 at this facility, which you can geolocate to 00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:33.500 here. You don't know what branch he's on, but 00:34:33.500 --> 00:34:36.900 then you find a different report, you know, which 00:34:36.900 --> 00:34:40.099 effectively shows that commander not at that 00:34:40.099 --> 00:34:41.960 base, but the patch he's wearing would indicate 00:34:41.960 --> 00:34:43.559 he's from this unit. And you just have to have 00:34:43.559 --> 00:34:45.139 all these links together to kind of combine a 00:34:45.139 --> 00:34:46.940 little data later on. You know, sometimes it 00:34:46.940 --> 00:34:48.880 can be that difficult. Other times it can be 00:34:48.880 --> 00:34:51.199 even more difficult. Other times I remember looking 00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:53.219 at some drone footage coming out of, I think 00:34:53.219 --> 00:34:55.420 it was Uzbekistan. It was Uzbekistan. I'm trying 00:34:55.420 --> 00:34:57.039 to figure out where is this drone footage from 00:34:57.039 --> 00:34:58.699 and you're sitting down with a cup of tea thinking 00:34:58.699 --> 00:35:00.780 you have to geolocate it and then pull down the 00:35:00.780 --> 00:35:02.980 file name and it had Fagana Airport written in 00:35:02.980 --> 00:35:07.280 it. So sometimes it does get a little easier 00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:09.800 than others. But I think we'll take more questions 00:35:09.800 --> 00:35:11.579 because we've got quite a lot of questions coming 00:35:11.579 --> 00:35:15.659 through. Yes, thank you. ever be professional. 00:35:15.940 --> 00:35:17.800 Michael, thank you. And thank you, Mitch, for 00:35:17.800 --> 00:35:20.940 jumping on and giving us some insight into the 00:35:20.940 --> 00:35:22.400 open source research that you were doing there. 00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:25.460 Just a little PSA, obviously, this is the Bellingcat 00:35:25.460 --> 00:35:28.039 community, so we have to be careful. If you are 00:35:28.039 --> 00:35:31.380 working with personal data, please be careful, 00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:34.099 particularly when it involves militaries and 00:35:34.099 --> 00:35:36.900 make sure you follow procedures. But thank you 00:35:36.900 --> 00:35:40.219 so much, Mitch, for coming on and chatting. I've 00:35:40.219 --> 00:35:42.420 got a bunch more questions to throw at Michael, 00:35:42.579 --> 00:35:45.980 though, if that's all right. So, so many. I wanted 00:35:45.980 --> 00:35:48.579 to start at the top because some people have 00:35:48.579 --> 00:35:52.480 been waiting a while. Fade asks, how do you see 00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:54.500 the advent of commercial drones, which you've 00:35:54.500 --> 00:35:57.860 just mentioned, in warfare improving slash hindering 00:35:57.860 --> 00:36:00.500 logistics in the future? Could hex copters be 00:36:00.500 --> 00:36:04.239 used to supply at the unit level? So that's a 00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:06.260 really great question and it's the million dollar 00:36:06.260 --> 00:36:07.780 question I get asked more than anything else 00:36:07.780 --> 00:36:11.079 about this region. Drones can hinder and hurt 00:36:11.079 --> 00:36:13.480 and it really depends on what kind of a drone 00:36:13.480 --> 00:36:15.980 it is and what it can do. Again, people kind 00:36:15.980 --> 00:36:19.420 of think drones and I think they tend to think 00:36:19.420 --> 00:36:22.159 of the kind of bi -racked RTB -2 stuff when a 00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:24.780 lot of drones are mostly just there to either 00:36:24.780 --> 00:36:27.539 be a exploding munition or they're there just 00:36:27.539 --> 00:36:31.639 to do reconnaissance. And if let's say, I am, 00:36:31.639 --> 00:36:33.619 you know, pull up and barb talk, I'm going to 00:36:33.619 --> 00:36:36.500 pull up and move up to Dushan, but if I'm, let's 00:36:36.500 --> 00:36:39.019 say monitoring that single road we have to go 00:36:39.019 --> 00:36:41.059 on to kind of approach the capital, you know, 00:36:41.099 --> 00:36:43.780 having drones Uh, monitoring that area is going 00:36:43.780 --> 00:36:45.679 to be great. It means I can effectively keep 00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:48.840 a close eye on what's coming through. And I know 00:36:48.840 --> 00:36:50.599 that, Hey, you know, there's three tanks that 00:36:50.599 --> 00:36:52.179 have just come through this area, but also there's 00:36:52.179 --> 00:36:55.199 eight fuel trucks and you can attack much more 00:36:55.199 --> 00:36:57.679 easily into the, in this, the soft targets. And 00:36:57.679 --> 00:36:59.760 again, it comes down to that classic problem 00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:01.900 of a tank without fuel is just a really weird 00:37:01.900 --> 00:37:06.010 car. Um, you know, If you, if you can attack 00:37:06.010 --> 00:37:08.050 the logistics and the soft points, it makes any 00:37:08.050 --> 00:37:10.050 war scenario much more difficult. And this is 00:37:10.050 --> 00:37:12.750 in our war gaming of sort of a Tajik invasion. 00:37:13.110 --> 00:37:15.449 The Uzbek team had massive problems with effectively 00:37:15.449 --> 00:37:18.190 the Tajiks just sitting in the foothills launching, 00:37:18.190 --> 00:37:21.949 you know, lots of small kind of needling drone 00:37:21.949 --> 00:37:25.090 attacks in the logistics line because it is a 00:37:25.090 --> 00:37:28.170 really narrow choke point to get toward the capital. 00:37:29.319 --> 00:37:31.619 When sort of hex copters, hex copters are great 00:37:31.619 --> 00:37:33.519 for reconnaissance. They're good for munitions, 00:37:33.559 --> 00:37:38.199 but when you're trying to supply a front, you 00:37:38.199 --> 00:37:41.079 were talking massive quantities between tonnage 00:37:41.079 --> 00:37:43.880 most of the time, because soldiers just burn 00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:45.440 through lots and lots and lots of equipment. 00:37:45.579 --> 00:37:47.119 And particularly once you start to get the bigger 00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:48.960 unit levels, you know, whether it be everything 00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.579 from medical supplies to blood, to ammunition, 00:37:51.719 --> 00:37:54.099 to fuel, to food, to, you know, whatever you 00:37:54.099 --> 00:37:56.909 need, that's probably too difficult to try and 00:37:56.909 --> 00:37:59.309 do by Higgs Copter at the moment. So at this 00:37:59.309 --> 00:38:02.030 point, it's making it much more difficult and 00:38:02.030 --> 00:38:03.769 you have to spend a lot more of your resources 00:38:03.769 --> 00:38:08.489 and troops protecting your rear areas. But drones 00:38:08.489 --> 00:38:10.710 are evolving at a pretty rapid pace. So I'm never 00:38:10.710 --> 00:38:14.550 going to say never. Okay, coming in quick and 00:38:14.550 --> 00:38:17.789 fast. Silverknife, one of our lovely moderators, 00:38:18.130 --> 00:38:22.489 asked earlier about significant shifts. You mentioned 00:38:22.489 --> 00:38:25.190 at the beginning, I mentioned at the beginning 00:38:25.190 --> 00:38:28.090 as well, that Uzbekistan was seen as this big 00:38:28.090 --> 00:38:32.289 military power, but Kazakhstan on paper, to a 00:38:32.289 --> 00:38:35.409 point, has kind of overtaken that. Have you seen 00:38:35.409 --> 00:38:38.250 any significant shifts in structure, deployment 00:38:38.250 --> 00:38:40.309 and composition as you've been going through 00:38:40.309 --> 00:38:43.289 these reports? Absolutely. And I think this is 00:38:43.289 --> 00:38:44.969 the really fascinating part of these militaries 00:38:44.969 --> 00:38:48.750 is whilst they all kind of imagine you're looking 00:38:48.750 --> 00:38:51.079 at a bunch of cakes. everyone's kind of got the 00:38:51.079 --> 00:38:53.920 same sponge cake. They're all somewhat similar 00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:56.039 inheritance from the Soviet Union, but where 00:38:56.039 --> 00:38:58.539 they've changed the flavoring tells you a massive 00:38:58.539 --> 00:39:00.639 amount about what their priorities are and how 00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:03.380 they want to structure things. Uzbekistan has, 00:39:03.380 --> 00:39:05.000 let's say, its ground forces and its air and 00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:07.360 air defense forces under the ministry of defense, 00:39:07.739 --> 00:39:10.019 very standard to everyone else. Its internal 00:39:10.019 --> 00:39:11.780 troops under the MIA, pretty much like everyone 00:39:11.780 --> 00:39:14.159 else, and its emergency services get a separate 00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:16.139 department, which is like everyone else except 00:39:16.139 --> 00:39:19.679 Turkmenistan. But then you have things like the 00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:22.739 the National Guard and the Presidential Security 00:39:22.739 --> 00:39:25.820 Service, which are fairly new. It was under the 00:39:25.820 --> 00:39:28.460 previous leader, Kareemov, who effectively ran 00:39:28.460 --> 00:39:32.880 the country almost as close as North Korea, who 00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:35.800 had so much power concentrated in what would 00:39:35.800 --> 00:39:38.139 have been the KGB back in the day, the State 00:39:38.139 --> 00:39:42.150 Security Service or SGB back then. The State 00:39:42.150 --> 00:39:44.449 Security Service at that point controlled the 00:39:44.449 --> 00:39:45.989 Frontier Service, which is the border guards, 00:39:46.389 --> 00:39:49.130 the internal troops, a big chunk of the Special 00:39:49.130 --> 00:39:51.409 Forces, the National Guard and the Presidential 00:39:51.409 --> 00:39:55.909 Security Service. But now that Karimov has died 00:39:55.909 --> 00:39:57.730 and the head of the SGB at the time, Ian Lotov 00:39:57.730 --> 00:40:01.130 has been moved on. A lot of the powers have been 00:40:01.130 --> 00:40:03.889 ripped out from that agency and distributed to 00:40:03.889 --> 00:40:07.250 other agencies. And I think watching which agencies 00:40:07.250 --> 00:40:09.670 get extra resources and which ones don't give 00:40:09.670 --> 00:40:11.590 you a really good insight into the kind of the 00:40:11.590 --> 00:40:14.730 internal power dynamics going on. That as an 00:40:14.730 --> 00:40:17.409 example, the National Guard, which was originally 00:40:17.409 --> 00:40:20.949 part of the security agencies, originally was 00:40:20.949 --> 00:40:22.889 kind of, was going to go to the Ministry of Defense. 00:40:23.050 --> 00:40:24.889 And then it was a bit, do I trust the Ministry 00:40:24.889 --> 00:40:27.710 of Defense? So it became a separate unit and 00:40:27.710 --> 00:40:29.869 was given, you know, would protect the president 00:40:29.869 --> 00:40:32.539 at one point. And then all of a sudden, had the 00:40:32.539 --> 00:40:34.219 president ripped out the president's security 00:40:34.219 --> 00:40:36.139 service from the national guard and made an own 00:40:36.139 --> 00:40:39.280 separate unit that can investigate anyone as 00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:42.099 well. So it's those kinds of changes that seem 00:40:42.099 --> 00:40:44.199 quite subtle and an administrative on paper, 00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:45.619 but you know, actually tell you quite a lot of 00:40:45.619 --> 00:40:49.699 what's going on behind the scenes. Yeah, let's 00:40:49.699 --> 00:40:51.639 go to the next question. Yeah, that answers your 00:40:51.639 --> 00:40:55.099 question. Absolutely. Just with that in mind, 00:40:55.380 --> 00:40:59.969 have you tried to address the temporal? dimension 00:40:59.969 --> 00:41:02.710 with these projects, because obviously the reports 00:41:02.710 --> 00:41:05.090 themselves are PDF documents, which kind of sets 00:41:05.090 --> 00:41:08.190 it in tone. Is that kind of where the military 00:41:08.190 --> 00:41:10.789 unit map comes into play? Where is that going 00:41:10.789 --> 00:41:14.750 to be updated live? Have you thought about the 00:41:14.750 --> 00:41:17.010 kind of time sensitive nature of a lot of this 00:41:17.010 --> 00:41:22.690 information? Yeah, so for our paid version of 00:41:22.690 --> 00:41:25.800 this effectively, you know, when a event happens. 00:41:26.099 --> 00:41:28.000 So like, for instance, there was just a shootout 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:31.699 on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. 00:41:32.219 --> 00:41:34.179 We can identify that pin quickly and kind of 00:41:34.179 --> 00:41:35.539 pin the story there and say, Hey, look, this 00:41:35.539 --> 00:41:36.820 is what happened. This is the pin you're looking 00:41:36.820 --> 00:41:39.760 for. This is the result of that. But at the same 00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:42.880 time, I also wanted a version, a public version 00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:44.639 of this, which doesn't give everything, but does 00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:47.219 allow, particularly for the OSING community, 00:41:47.860 --> 00:41:49.800 rather than spending a million years like I have 00:41:49.800 --> 00:41:53.099 and just staring at mountains of bitumen. um, 00:41:53.519 --> 00:41:55.519 you know, you can quickly identify which bases, 00:41:55.739 --> 00:41:57.239 which, and know where the pinch points are going 00:41:57.239 --> 00:42:00.880 to be. Uh, so yeah, we will be updating, uh, 00:42:01.059 --> 00:42:02.940 as we learn new locations, as things change, 00:42:02.980 --> 00:42:05.059 as things open up, I'll keep adding them to the 00:42:05.059 --> 00:42:07.300 both map, both the public and private. Uh, but 00:42:07.300 --> 00:42:09.300 also, you know, right now, obviously we've done 00:42:09.300 --> 00:42:11.079 all the mapping for all five countries, but as 00:42:11.079 --> 00:42:13.139 each chapter comes out, we will be releasing 00:42:13.139 --> 00:42:15.280 that country's pins as well. So the next one 00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:16.960 out is Kyrgyzstan. So that should be exciting. 00:42:20.120 --> 00:42:22.920 Amazing. And I think someone's in the chat already 00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:25.920 put the purchase link in there, which is awesome. 00:42:26.639 --> 00:42:29.599 Thank you for sharing that. We've had quite a 00:42:29.599 --> 00:42:34.900 few questions on how you overcome deceptions 00:42:34.900 --> 00:42:38.980 and what are the key characteristics of deceptions 00:42:38.980 --> 00:42:43.159 usually seen in Central Asia. We also had a follow 00:42:43.159 --> 00:42:45.480 up question on that in terms of have we seen 00:42:45.480 --> 00:42:47.400 any interesting evidence of these powers making 00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:49.400 efforts to insulate themselves against Chinese 00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:52.239 espionage as well as we're talking about hidden 00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:56.199 details. I mean, Chinese espionage is a great 00:42:56.199 --> 00:42:58.460 question. And I think Tajikistan is the one you 00:42:58.460 --> 00:43:01.639 probably talk about more for China. There was 00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:03.739 a few years ago, about almost a decade ago now, 00:43:03.739 --> 00:43:07.159 I'll show you the whole thing. China effectively 00:43:07.159 --> 00:43:09.639 announced this base out here, the PAP facility, 00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:12.300 which is technically not a military because people 00:43:12.300 --> 00:43:14.059 are on police, but we're going to get into that 00:43:14.059 --> 00:43:16.719 another time. And everyone thought that was kind 00:43:16.719 --> 00:43:18.519 of going to be China's first step into the region 00:43:18.519 --> 00:43:21.679 to be a military player in the same way the Russians 00:43:21.679 --> 00:43:24.079 have, because Russia has quite large military 00:43:24.079 --> 00:43:26.880 deployments out here. In fact, the largest military 00:43:26.880 --> 00:43:30.960 base outside of Russia is in Tajikistan, apart 00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:32.199 from what's in Ukraine at the moment, but that's 00:43:32.199 --> 00:43:35.800 a whole other thing. The Chinese though, At the 00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:37.460 same time, we're dealing with problems in Gwadar 00:43:37.460 --> 00:43:39.320 in the south of Pakistan, where effectively what 00:43:39.320 --> 00:43:41.400 was happening is they put more personnel in to 00:43:41.400 --> 00:43:43.460 run the port. Those personnel would come under 00:43:43.460 --> 00:43:45.579 attack because the locals would take jobs or 00:43:45.579 --> 00:43:47.780 for a whole myriad of reasons. And then they 00:43:47.780 --> 00:43:49.739 put more security personnel in to protect those 00:43:49.739 --> 00:43:51.400 personnel to which that would just exacerbate 00:43:51.400 --> 00:43:52.940 the problem and you end up having a terrible 00:43:52.940 --> 00:43:55.820 cycle. So what's happened is the Chinese have 00:43:55.820 --> 00:43:57.500 looked at the headaches they've got in Pakistan 00:43:57.500 --> 00:43:59.239 and then looked at Tajikistan and said, I don't 00:43:59.239 --> 00:44:00.920 want any of that. I'm just going to throw money 00:44:00.920 --> 00:44:04.050 at you. I will pay you Tajikistan to just put 00:44:04.050 --> 00:44:06.829 on extra border outposts, build extra border 00:44:06.829 --> 00:44:08.889 facilities, put on extra border guards because 00:44:08.889 --> 00:44:11.289 I don't want to deal with this headache. And 00:44:11.289 --> 00:44:13.710 whilst that has somewhat solved a small problem 00:44:13.710 --> 00:44:15.829 for China, it also creates other problems. So 00:44:15.829 --> 00:44:19.909 that for instance, Tajikistan has incentives 00:44:19.909 --> 00:44:23.429 to somewhat exaggerate border problems at times. 00:44:24.369 --> 00:44:26.309 Where looking at some of these shootouts that 00:44:26.309 --> 00:44:28.110 we see reported in the media that Tajikistan 00:44:28.110 --> 00:44:30.449 talks to China and says, look, look what's happening, 00:44:30.510 --> 00:44:32.559 we need more money. And then we call locals in 00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:35.559 the area and we find out it's kind of one farmer 00:44:35.559 --> 00:44:37.519 who was drunk and trying to shoot some goats. 00:44:38.360 --> 00:44:40.500 At the same time, you also have problems like 00:44:40.500 --> 00:44:41.940 what we've seen just in the last couple of weeks 00:44:41.940 --> 00:44:44.940 in particular, is out in kind of an area called 00:44:44.940 --> 00:44:47.539 Satagor, which I've put up on the map for people 00:44:47.539 --> 00:44:50.980 who are watching live. You know, you have effectively 00:44:50.980 --> 00:44:53.780 a gold mine on the Afghan side, which is funded 00:44:53.780 --> 00:44:56.659 by China and a gold mine on the Tajik side, which 00:44:56.659 --> 00:44:59.829 is also funded by China. And because the water 00:44:59.829 --> 00:45:01.769 keeps getting diverted and other water problems, 00:45:02.269 --> 00:45:03.710 the two sides are now shooting at each other. 00:45:04.050 --> 00:45:06.190 But China is also funding security services on 00:45:06.190 --> 00:45:08.489 both sides. At the same time, China has just 00:45:08.489 --> 00:45:11.690 built massive border guard training facilities 00:45:11.690 --> 00:45:15.869 just north of here as well. So China is somewhat, 00:45:16.949 --> 00:45:18.510 simultaneously, I guess, very involved in almost 00:45:18.510 --> 00:45:21.730 every angle of the border problems. not in a 00:45:21.730 --> 00:45:23.250 kind of boots on the ground way that I think 00:45:23.250 --> 00:45:25.590 people were anticipating or looking for when 00:45:25.590 --> 00:45:28.030 this issue first came up. So it is a super interesting 00:45:28.030 --> 00:45:31.730 dynamic when it comes to China trying to deceive 00:45:31.730 --> 00:45:34.090 them. I mean, they will exchange some information, 00:45:34.389 --> 00:45:36.510 but depends what they will exchange will depend 00:45:36.510 --> 00:45:39.150 on what sort of information it is. But there's 00:45:39.150 --> 00:45:42.150 also just a You know, again, it comes down to 00:45:42.150 --> 00:45:43.889 that security services problem of, you know, 00:45:43.989 --> 00:45:45.909 a lot of these spies and a lot of the mid -level 00:45:45.909 --> 00:45:48.449 officers don't trust the Chinese very much. The 00:45:48.449 --> 00:45:50.050 whole bunch of reasons, and I do find it interesting 00:45:50.050 --> 00:45:52.170 when you talk to particularly Tajiks, you know, 00:45:52.489 --> 00:45:54.690 you kind of ask them questions like, hey, China 00:45:54.690 --> 00:45:57.329 just built this massive highway for you. That's 00:45:57.329 --> 00:45:59.590 pretty great. I mean, this is effectively, you 00:45:59.590 --> 00:46:00.909 know, people were dying on this fire all the 00:46:00.909 --> 00:46:02.809 time. This has cut your commute time by an hour. 00:46:03.150 --> 00:46:05.250 How do you feel about it? And the response will 00:46:05.250 --> 00:46:07.369 often be something like, well, they built a big 00:46:07.369 --> 00:46:09.789 enough tanks, didn't they? which is just absurd. 00:46:09.869 --> 00:46:11.889 China's not going to do that, but it just shows 00:46:11.889 --> 00:46:14.190 you this kind of underlying dynamic that quite 00:46:14.190 --> 00:46:17.929 often comes up in the region. All of that in 00:46:17.929 --> 00:46:20.670 mind. And there's some funny comments in the 00:46:20.670 --> 00:46:23.409 chat right now about China playing both sides. 00:46:25.050 --> 00:46:29.750 Is there any concern when you're doing these 00:46:29.750 --> 00:46:33.849 military infrastructure mapping that the information 00:46:33.849 --> 00:46:37.920 could be misused? How do you deal with... the 00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:40.539 problem of malicious actors when you're working 00:46:40.539 --> 00:46:42.739 on these, particularly when you're doing war 00:46:42.739 --> 00:46:47.719 games and exercises like that. We're very careful 00:46:47.719 --> 00:46:50.360 in what we do put public and what we don't as 00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:52.420 well as who we do contract with. It's why you 00:46:52.420 --> 00:46:54.119 can't just buy the data. You effectively have 00:46:54.119 --> 00:46:57.139 to be kind of vetted before we, you know, what 00:46:57.139 --> 00:46:58.719 level of data we see. I mean, if it's just kind 00:46:58.719 --> 00:47:00.719 of mapping stuff, we're a bit more open about 00:47:00.719 --> 00:47:02.980 that. But if it's coming down to like how many 00:47:02.980 --> 00:47:06.460 tanks for each base, that's a much more thorough 00:47:06.460 --> 00:47:10.420 process. Most of this stuff is going to be particularly 00:47:10.420 --> 00:47:12.519 in the public realm, not knowing, but it will 00:47:12.519 --> 00:47:15.760 be fairly easy. It's not going to make a massive 00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:19.679 difference to any actor. It will for Osinter 00:47:19.679 --> 00:47:22.340 in keeping tabs on what's going on. And we've 00:47:22.340 --> 00:47:24.460 also made a decision to keep black sides off 00:47:24.460 --> 00:47:27.900 this, mostly for my... I have to go to the region 00:47:27.900 --> 00:47:29.539 every now and again, and I prefer not to spend 00:47:29.539 --> 00:47:31.420 the rest of my life in this big prism. But yes, 00:47:31.599 --> 00:47:34.099 we've had obviously lots of conversations about 00:47:34.099 --> 00:47:36.460 what does get included and what doesn't. And 00:47:36.460 --> 00:47:40.500 it's why we had to glaze over a bunch of very, 00:47:40.500 --> 00:47:44.980 very specific details. We had a question earlier 00:47:44.980 --> 00:47:49.500 about concern saying, should we worry? Do you 00:47:49.500 --> 00:47:54.369 believe a real invasion is imminent? Dushanbi, 00:47:54.489 --> 00:47:57.409 for example, that you mentioned earlier. When 00:47:57.409 --> 00:47:59.690 you're doing these war games scenarios, have 00:47:59.690 --> 00:48:04.150 you come across any that have been likely or 00:48:04.150 --> 00:48:08.210 have caused concern? No. So this is an, it's 00:48:08.210 --> 00:48:10.369 an interesting question. We start pretty much 00:48:10.369 --> 00:48:11.989 most of the scenarios saying we do not think 00:48:11.989 --> 00:48:14.949 this is going to happen, but there's two problems. 00:48:15.190 --> 00:48:17.530 One, when you brief quite often diplomats or 00:48:17.530 --> 00:48:20.539 non -military people, they often might not understand 00:48:20.539 --> 00:48:21.619 what you're trying to tell them unless they've 00:48:21.619 --> 00:48:23.460 got lines on the map, which, you know, having 00:48:23.460 --> 00:48:24.900 the war games to kind of put them in front of 00:48:24.900 --> 00:48:26.380 them and go, hey, look, here's what the likely 00:48:26.380 --> 00:48:28.320 scenario plays out, makes everyone easier to 00:48:28.320 --> 00:48:31.800 understand. But two, it's also a way of, you 00:48:31.800 --> 00:48:33.659 know, I feel actually much more comfortable and 00:48:33.659 --> 00:48:36.260 confident that, you know, this region is relatively 00:48:36.260 --> 00:48:38.719 stable because of these wargaming. Because A, 00:48:38.820 --> 00:48:40.780 it just shows that none of these guys are really 00:48:40.780 --> 00:48:43.480 prepared to fight a long campaign. None of these 00:48:43.480 --> 00:48:45.980 guys are gearing up for a long campaign and none 00:48:45.980 --> 00:48:48.559 of them have shown really any interest in preparing 00:48:48.559 --> 00:48:51.239 for a long -term campaign. And that's probably 00:48:51.239 --> 00:48:54.119 a good sign. I think almost all these militaries 00:48:54.119 --> 00:48:56.099 are, you know, imagining that they may end up 00:48:56.099 --> 00:48:57.800 in a border skirmish or they may end up in a 00:48:57.800 --> 00:49:01.719 kind of three -day, you know, you go 10 Ks back 00:49:01.719 --> 00:49:03.019 from the border and I don't think you'd notice, 00:49:03.119 --> 00:49:06.239 but generally it's been fairly, particularly 00:49:06.239 --> 00:49:09.980 on a conventional point, you know, campaign averse, 00:49:10.619 --> 00:49:12.789 which is good to see. That doesn't mean that 00:49:12.789 --> 00:49:15.969 there is no chance of things going wrong, particularly 00:49:15.969 --> 00:49:18.710 when it comes to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan or 00:49:18.710 --> 00:49:21.389 Afghanistan, Tajikistan, but at least on a sort 00:49:21.389 --> 00:49:23.429 of massive conventional scale. No, I think that's 00:49:23.429 --> 00:49:25.769 a lot of things would have to go wrong before 00:49:25.769 --> 00:49:29.449 we get to that point. So no need to panic everyone. 00:49:30.269 --> 00:49:33.050 We can all have a deep sigh of relief. I've just 00:49:33.050 --> 00:49:37.489 put the... Sorry, the other point I will add 00:49:37.489 --> 00:49:41.150 quickly is they're also all incentivized to not 00:49:41.150 --> 00:49:43.110 go to war. And this is one of the interesting 00:49:43.110 --> 00:49:46.269 things that I've seen from both sides is that 00:49:46.269 --> 00:49:47.989 everyone wants to seem like they're stable because 00:49:47.989 --> 00:49:50.110 there's more tourism, there's more added advantages. 00:49:50.710 --> 00:49:52.750 But when I do consulting for particularly energy 00:49:52.750 --> 00:49:54.769 companies and mineral companies that are looking 00:49:54.769 --> 00:49:57.130 at Central Asia as an option, the classic story 00:49:57.130 --> 00:50:00.550 I continue to see is, hey, we're currently mining 00:50:00.550 --> 00:50:03.960 X or Y in Sahel or in Central Africa. We're looking 00:50:03.960 --> 00:50:05.980 to diversify. We're looking to move our operations 00:50:05.980 --> 00:50:07.659 somewhere else. And we're looking at Central 00:50:07.659 --> 00:50:10.719 Asia because we know that they are more stable, 00:50:10.880 --> 00:50:12.500 more reasonable. They don't tend to go to war 00:50:12.500 --> 00:50:16.019 and that I could build a mine. And because of 00:50:16.019 --> 00:50:17.519 the way that mining works, that quite often you 00:50:17.519 --> 00:50:19.860 lose money for the first 10 years, but you make 00:50:19.860 --> 00:50:23.219 a bunch on the back 20, long -term Central Asia 00:50:23.219 --> 00:50:25.539 looks a lot more stable. And this is where the 00:50:25.539 --> 00:50:27.119 money is coming from. It is coming into the region. 00:50:27.849 --> 00:50:31.389 image of stability. So everyone is driven not 00:50:31.389 --> 00:50:33.389 only in themselves to keep things stable, but 00:50:33.389 --> 00:50:35.889 also even if let's say when Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan 00:50:35.889 --> 00:50:39.190 have their border skirmishes, you can guarantee 00:50:39.190 --> 00:50:40.610 everyone in the region is calling them saying, 00:50:40.849 --> 00:50:43.510 please shut up. We're trying to be stable here. 00:50:43.909 --> 00:50:46.369 Can we all just knock it off a bit? So everyone 00:50:46.369 --> 00:50:48.469 is making significant efforts to try and make 00:50:48.469 --> 00:50:50.369 sure this region doesn't break out into a war. 00:50:51.090 --> 00:50:53.849 And Mitchell just backed that up in the chat 00:50:53.849 --> 00:50:55.949 saying all the nations are very much integrating 00:50:55.949 --> 00:50:58.210 their economies and settling their border disputes 00:50:58.210 --> 00:51:00.869 now. All five presidents are now here in Washington 00:51:00.869 --> 00:51:05.289 together today. Thank you for that little addition 00:51:05.289 --> 00:51:08.250 there. We have so many questions in the chat 00:51:08.250 --> 00:51:11.230 about, there's a lot of people wanting access 00:51:11.230 --> 00:51:15.170 to your resources now and asking whether you 00:51:15.170 --> 00:51:20.090 have special accommodations for independent contractors 00:51:20.090 --> 00:51:23.449 working with academic or CIVSOC institutions, 00:51:23.449 --> 00:51:28.230 for example. Do you have any? That is possible. 00:51:29.250 --> 00:51:33.570 I would obviously suggest you can email me and 00:51:33.570 --> 00:51:36.369 my details are all on those websites and we can 00:51:36.369 --> 00:51:38.130 have a chat about it then. That'd be the best 00:51:38.130 --> 00:51:40.269 way to get in contact. Fabulous. So you heard 00:51:40.269 --> 00:51:43.190 it here first. Please email the dedicated email 00:51:43.190 --> 00:51:48.059 with your application. to get access to the paid 00:51:48.059 --> 00:51:50.420 version. But it's great to see so many people 00:51:50.420 --> 00:51:53.420 interested in really delving into the data here. 00:51:53.980 --> 00:51:55.559 I was just going to say, it's been fascinating 00:51:55.559 --> 00:51:59.219 to watch all the Central Asia people come out 00:51:59.219 --> 00:52:01.780 of the woodwork and see more interest in the 00:52:01.780 --> 00:52:04.420 region as time goes on. I think this is part 00:52:04.420 --> 00:52:05.860 of the reason I got into this project in the 00:52:05.860 --> 00:52:07.659 first place is that every other one of my friends 00:52:07.659 --> 00:52:10.280 who works on the Africa desks or in Europe or 00:52:10.280 --> 00:52:12.219 whatever, particularly in the South China Sea 00:52:12.219 --> 00:52:15.760 areas, they all have all of very similar resources 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:18.699 they can go to, to look up where things are and 00:52:18.699 --> 00:52:23.179 understand very quickly what bases exist. Central 00:52:23.179 --> 00:52:25.340 Asia just doesn't have anything. So it's finally 00:52:25.340 --> 00:52:27.039 good to have kind of a central resource I can 00:52:27.039 --> 00:52:28.679 put in the third screen, remember where each 00:52:28.679 --> 00:52:32.760 base is. Yes. And if you are in the Discord server 00:52:32.760 --> 00:52:35.239 and you're interested in this particular region, 00:52:35.719 --> 00:52:38.500 we do have a space for you to chat about it. 00:52:38.829 --> 00:52:43.090 It's called Crocuses Central Asia, and I've just 00:52:43.090 --> 00:52:45.349 linked it in the chat now and I'll put it in 00:52:45.349 --> 00:52:48.969 the Discord. I'll put it in this stage talk description 00:52:48.969 --> 00:52:52.670 as well on the podcast. So please do hop in there 00:52:52.670 --> 00:52:55.449 and continue the conversation from today within 00:52:55.449 --> 00:52:58.650 there. That is the space for you. I know your 00:52:58.650 --> 00:53:01.389 expertise is in Central Asia, but you mentioned 00:53:01.389 --> 00:53:04.909 that your team also works across lots of different 00:53:04.909 --> 00:53:07.840 regions. And at the very beginning, In your speech, 00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:10.840 you were talking about how it's quite unique 00:53:10.840 --> 00:53:13.059 in Central Asia that you're able to kind of rank 00:53:13.059 --> 00:53:17.199 the militaries. How difficult is it to kind of 00:53:17.199 --> 00:53:19.659 take this model and look at other regions of 00:53:19.659 --> 00:53:22.920 the world in regards to military force? What 00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:25.039 would be your advice if somebody is looking to 00:53:25.039 --> 00:53:29.760 do this in a different region? And what were 00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:33.280 the kind of key factors that you had to think 00:53:33.280 --> 00:53:35.739 about when approaching this particular project? 00:53:37.130 --> 00:53:39.710 I think the reason that it's a little easier 00:53:39.710 --> 00:53:42.170 to do here is because of the geography, because 00:53:42.170 --> 00:53:45.670 they are very similar economic stylings, they're 00:53:45.670 --> 00:53:48.929 very similar geographic realities. If you're 00:53:48.929 --> 00:53:51.530 trying to, let's say, rank Australia versus Indonesia, 00:53:52.369 --> 00:53:54.710 and you were to say, you could either rank it 00:53:54.710 --> 00:53:56.289 as, hey, what are they capable of if we put them 00:53:56.289 --> 00:53:59.710 in a giant flat field with no terrain and just 00:53:59.710 --> 00:54:01.530 plopped all their military resources on either 00:54:01.530 --> 00:54:04.159 end of the field and said, go boys. And yeah, 00:54:04.159 --> 00:54:06.139 you could probably work out something of that 00:54:06.139 --> 00:54:07.659 variety, but I think that's a little unrealistic. 00:54:08.360 --> 00:54:11.280 You know, if you're looking at something like 00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:13.320 Australia versus Indonesia, Australia could absolutely 00:54:13.320 --> 00:54:15.420 take some of the small islands, no problem. The 00:54:15.420 --> 00:54:17.820 Australian Navy is really, really capable, but 00:54:17.820 --> 00:54:19.360 the Australian ground forces are quite small 00:54:19.360 --> 00:54:21.000 because we don't anticipate that we're going 00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:23.300 to be fighting massive land wars anytime soon. 00:54:23.739 --> 00:54:25.559 So again, it just gets, you know, unless you're 00:54:25.559 --> 00:54:28.000 dealing with specific cases or you're trying 00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:31.579 to, you know, rank countries on their ability 00:54:31.579 --> 00:54:35.929 to do a specific task. So let's say, if I was 00:54:35.929 --> 00:54:38.429 to try and figure out if Uzbekistan invaded Kazakhstan 00:54:38.429 --> 00:54:41.170 or Kazakhstan invaded Uzbekistan, who could get 00:54:41.170 --> 00:54:45.489 further? That would probably be Kazakhstan. But 00:54:45.489 --> 00:54:48.590 does that mean there are better military? It's 00:54:48.590 --> 00:54:51.110 tough to say. And again, because there's also 00:54:51.110 --> 00:54:54.329 going to be geographic realities that ruin a 00:54:54.329 --> 00:54:57.360 lot of this. Again, you put them in a plain field, 00:54:57.519 --> 00:54:59.139 Uzbekistan wins against Tajikistan every day 00:54:59.139 --> 00:55:01.179 of the week. But because of the fact that there's 00:55:01.179 --> 00:55:03.260 such a narrow choke point approaching Dushanbe, 00:55:03.840 --> 00:55:05.719 that logistics aren't built up for this, that 00:55:05.719 --> 00:55:09.440 a lot of the, you have to cross certain river 00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:11.099 points that are quickly going to be occupied. 00:55:11.420 --> 00:55:14.340 It just makes it much more costly for Uzbekistan 00:55:14.340 --> 00:55:16.840 to go on the offensive and gives massive advantages 00:55:16.840 --> 00:55:19.260 that you wouldn't get if you were Tajikistan, 00:55:19.500 --> 00:55:21.869 if it was just kind of a plain map. I either 00:55:21.869 --> 00:55:23.849 recommend you try and rank things on a specific 00:55:23.849 --> 00:55:26.929 metric. If you're looking at Air Force projection 00:55:26.929 --> 00:55:30.409 capabilities or supply capabilities, or how many 00:55:30.409 --> 00:55:33.170 tons a day can you put into the field? That's 00:55:33.170 --> 00:55:36.030 something you could try and measure. Overall, 00:55:36.030 --> 00:55:38.090 it gets a bit difficult. And again, I think another 00:55:38.090 --> 00:55:40.769 example of this is everyone, when they try and 00:55:40.769 --> 00:55:43.849 measure tanks, looks at the stats on the chart 00:55:43.849 --> 00:55:45.429 and says, oh, well, this tank can fire further 00:55:45.429 --> 00:55:47.090 than this tank. And I think it's a little bit 00:55:47.090 --> 00:55:50.039 deceptive. When you look at the American tanks, 00:55:50.199 --> 00:55:52.059 everyone points to them and goes, oh, they're 00:55:52.059 --> 00:55:54.619 so fuel intensive. And that's correct. They are. 00:55:54.920 --> 00:55:56.519 But if you're the Americans and you have the 00:55:56.519 --> 00:55:58.400 American logistical capabilities, you're allowed 00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:02.280 to be fuel intensive. They built the tanks around 00:56:02.280 --> 00:56:03.980 doing that. You look at a South Korean tank and 00:56:03.980 --> 00:56:06.480 you go, oh, it's so slow. But then you realize 00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:08.500 that the tanks in South Korea are mostly built 00:56:08.500 --> 00:56:13.239 to kind of hunker down and take on waves of advancing 00:56:13.239 --> 00:56:16.119 Paul Hyam and North Koreans, which that tank 00:56:16.119 --> 00:56:19.800 is kind of perfect to do that. Again, militaries 00:56:19.800 --> 00:56:22.260 build things for purposes and that will obviously 00:56:22.260 --> 00:56:24.119 change your rankings and how capable things are. 00:56:24.260 --> 00:56:27.760 And trying to match a, you know, take the American 00:56:27.760 --> 00:56:30.199 tank, for instance, and give it to Uzbekistan 00:56:30.199 --> 00:56:32.880 where they have a pretty average logistical capability. 00:56:33.320 --> 00:56:36.239 It's going to effectively drain Uzbek fuel reserves 00:56:36.239 --> 00:56:39.480 very, very quickly because it's just not made 00:56:39.480 --> 00:56:41.920 for their purpose. Absolutely. And a really good 00:56:41.920 --> 00:56:44.059 example there. Obviously you spoke to us previously 00:56:44.059 --> 00:56:46.320 too. I've just put the link to your previous 00:56:46.320 --> 00:56:49.300 talk in there. So people can also listen back 00:56:49.300 --> 00:56:52.400 to that on researching Central Asia. We've only 00:56:52.400 --> 00:56:55.099 got a couple minutes. I want to ask you one last 00:56:55.099 --> 00:56:56.820 question. And this is based on the fact that 00:56:56.820 --> 00:56:59.679 we've had quite a few stage talks recently on 00:56:59.679 --> 00:57:02.860 paramilitaries. And you mentioned the, you had 00:57:02.860 --> 00:57:06.079 that amazing graph earlier about the disproportionate 00:57:06.079 --> 00:57:08.679 percentage of paramilitaries in the different 00:57:08.679 --> 00:57:13.019 regions. Is it more difficult to map paramilitary 00:57:13.019 --> 00:57:17.179 power than traditional military power? And how 00:57:17.179 --> 00:57:20.559 do you kind of go about doing that? Well, I think 00:57:20.559 --> 00:57:23.079 it is more difficult to try and map paramilitary 00:57:23.079 --> 00:57:25.880 stuff because it's much softer capabilities. 00:57:26.099 --> 00:57:28.500 You know, it's easy to map, try to look at the 00:57:28.500 --> 00:57:30.599 amount of tanks or look at the amount of vehicles 00:57:30.599 --> 00:57:33.860 or look at the amount of logistical capabilities 00:57:33.860 --> 00:57:35.880 someone has because a lot of it's, you know, 00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:38.280 things you can point to. Whereas with paramilitaries 00:57:38.280 --> 00:57:41.000 quite often, how good they are at cracking down 00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:45.420 on a population or how quick they are at, you 00:57:45.420 --> 00:57:48.099 know, riot control, that kind of stuff is much 00:57:48.099 --> 00:57:50.639 softer and you really have to spend more time 00:57:50.639 --> 00:57:53.519 watching military exercises or watching, you 00:57:53.519 --> 00:57:55.059 know, trying to get your hands on video of these 00:57:55.059 --> 00:57:56.760 guys doing training exercises or interview people 00:57:56.760 --> 00:57:59.639 at how quick it took them to do that. Or, you 00:57:59.639 --> 00:58:02.960 know, smuggled out videos of, you know, let's 00:58:02.960 --> 00:58:05.559 say Turkmenistan of the internal security services 00:58:05.559 --> 00:58:07.679 cracking down on a city, how quickly they can 00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:10.380 shut down the internet, that kind of stuff. it 00:58:10.380 --> 00:58:12.619 becomes a lot harder to measure and you're usually 00:58:12.619 --> 00:58:15.659 running off much smaller data sets, which will 00:58:15.659 --> 00:58:19.420 obviously complicate things going forward. But 00:58:19.420 --> 00:58:22.179 there are things you can piece together. It just 00:58:22.179 --> 00:58:24.440 becomes a bit harder, I guess, particularly if 00:58:24.440 --> 00:58:26.880 you're trying to put a score on things. Thank 00:58:26.880 --> 00:58:30.400 you, Michael, for your amazing insight once again. 00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:34.840 As I mentioned, we have had previous talks on 00:58:34.840 --> 00:58:37.949 paramilitaries very recently. We had the New 00:58:37.949 --> 00:58:40.590 America group come in and talk about mapping 00:58:40.590 --> 00:58:43.349 militia networks. Recently, it's a fascinating 00:58:43.349 --> 00:58:45.409 discussion. Do listen back to that if you're 00:58:45.409 --> 00:58:49.230 interested in these kinds of conflict networks. 00:58:49.630 --> 00:58:51.829 I tell you, you would have had Candace and Ben 00:58:51.829 --> 00:58:55.809 on for that one. We did. Yes, exactly. They are 00:58:55.809 --> 00:58:58.050 fantastic. I can't recommend particularly Candace's 00:58:58.050 --> 00:59:01.769 work more heavily. It's amazing. But in the meantime, 00:59:01.769 --> 00:59:05.110 please do check out these fantastic resources 00:59:05.110 --> 00:59:08.809 that we've shared today on Central Asia, particularly 00:59:08.809 --> 00:59:12.070 the new Uzbekistan report. And thank you so much 00:59:12.070 --> 00:59:15.690 for joining us. Michael, thanks for coming in 00:59:15.690 --> 00:59:18.250 and talking about your work. And we'll be back 00:59:18.250 --> 00:59:20.869 in two weeks time with another stage talk. Thank 00:59:20.869 --> 00:59:22.909 you all. Thanks again for having me. And if anyone 00:59:22.909 --> 00:59:25.210 has any questions, feel free to email me and 00:59:25.210 --> 00:59:28.329 I'm always happy to try and answer any questions 00:59:28.329 --> 00:59:29.730 people have. But it's been an absolute pleasure 00:59:29.730 --> 00:59:32.380 to be here. and hopefully I'll be back when we 00:59:32.380 --> 00:59:34.840 release the next chapter of this thing in a while's 00:59:34.840 --> 00:59:38.159 time with Kyrgyzstan. Absolutely, we'll be itching 00:59:38.159 --> 00:59:42.090 at the bit to have you back on. Thank you for 00:59:42.090 --> 00:59:44.869 listening to the stage talk. If you'd like to 00:59:44.869 --> 00:59:47.789 catch a stage talk live where you can ask the 00:59:47.789 --> 00:59:50.550 guest questions, join the Bellingcat Discord 00:59:50.550 --> 00:59:57.190 server by visiting www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. 00:59:57.690 --> 01:00:00.789 The music you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer 01:00:00.789 --> 01:00:03.269 Self and is courtesy of Artlist.