PC/WI: Persian Kazakhstan

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Is it possible for Persia, not Russia, to conquer and hold the region of modern Kazakhstan?
They did have some significant control over southern Turkestan for quite a while, from what i hear. Thus, perhaps subduing the kazakh turks wouldn't be out of their experience.
I envision that a continuing Timurid Dynasty after Timur himself would have a Central Asian focus, and would, thus, find incentive in expanding into the region. Is this plausible?
 
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CaliGuy

Banned
Maybe this could--barely--work if Persia enters WWI on the side of the Central Powers and then demands this from the Bolsheviks in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. However, your PoD here could also work if you are thinking of pre-1900.
 
Same problem you get for any Persia who wants to conquer the steppe--if you have the military might to do so, why not conquer/loot India instead? India is rich, Central Asia is mostly poor. Kazakhstan is a particularly challenging place to get a Persian ruler interested there since it's so remote from the Iranian heartland and even poorer than the rest of Central Asia.

Maybe this could--barely--work if Persia enters WWI on the side of the Central Powers and then demands this from the Bolsheviks in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. However, your PoD here could also work if you are thinking of pre-1900.

The same Bolsheviks who were funding powerful rebel movements like the Gilan Soviet Republic?
 
Same problem you get for any Persia who wants to conquer the steppe--if you have the military might to do so, why not conquer/loot India instead? India is rich, Central Asia is mostly poor. Kazakhstan is a particularly challenging place to get a Persian ruler interested there since it's so remote from the Iranian heartland and even poorer than the rest of Central Asia.
Maybe a strong-enough north indian kingdom wheathers persian attacks successfully, causing the persian leadership to look somewhere else for conquest?
A different mentality and political mainframe on part of the persian leadership could, in my opinion, change Persia's expansion. As i said, a surviving Timurid state could still keep its capital in Samarkand and would still have its army and ruling class comprised of turks, so maybe conquering lands up north would be considered by the timurid "khan-shahs".
 
2f60a361dd1109a364fe77bbbf7b6243.gif

Is it possible for Persia, not Russia, to conquer and hold the region of modern Kazakhstan?
They did have some significant control over southern Turkestan for quite a while, from what i hear. Thus, perhaps subduing the kazakh turks wouldn't be out of their experience.
I envision that a continuing Timurid Dynasty after Timur himself would have a Central Asian focus, and would, thus, find incentive in expanding into the region. Is this plausible?
A big issue facing any Persian conquest of the steppe is climate.
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Moving east isn't too hard for the Russians, their crop package and clothing is pretty well suited to it, moving north from Persia would send them through a desert then into some really cold areas.
 
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