Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Is President Barack Obama moving to adopt the views of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as his own—at least when it comes to Russia and missile defense?
During the campaign, candidate Obama’s main quibble with the ballistic-missile-defense system—that George W. Bush had promised to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic against a perceived threat from Iran—was not Russian objections but doubts as to whether the technology would actually work. Indeed, candidate Obama said that he did “support missile defense,” but wanted to “ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective.” (This was also largely the position of candidate Clinton during the 2008 primaries.)
This, too, was the message Obama sent in the weeks between the election and his inauguration, when the Polish government attempted to get a firm commitment from the incoming administration that Bush’s plans would continue on track. At times the Obama team took pains to emphasize that they were not considering any sort of “swap” whereby the missile-defense system would be traded for Russian cooperation on other issues.
Instead, it was Secretary Gates who was one of the few publicly arguing the case for tying U.S. missile-defense plans with Iran’s progress in acquiring nuclear and missile technology (and sometimes quite at odds with the public pronouncements from other departments of the Bush administration). In Prague in December 2007—and then again in spring 2008—Gates made a clear link between deploying any system in Eastern Europe with the existence of a real and credible threat emanating from Iran. “When we see flight testing that leads us to believe the Iranians are close to developing a capability to hit our allies in Europe, that would be the point at which we would operationalize the sites.”
The logic was obvious: if the Iranian threat disappears, so does the rationale for the U.S. system.
It is clear from the letter President Obama sent this week to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that no overt trade was actually proposed. But for the first time, the president has moved along the path trailblazed by his defense secretary. If there is no Iranian threat, there is no need for missile defense in Europe. Therefore, if Russia does more to remove the sources of U.S. (and European) anxiety when it comes to Iran . . . and one can finish the logical sequence of the sentence. After all, candidate Obama noted that one of his reasons for skepticism about missile defense was that it would “divert resources from other national-security priorities.” (And this was before the economic downturn!)
All of this provides interesting context for Secretary Clinton’s talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later this week. And although no one likes using the phrase “quid pro quo,” there does appear to be a bargaining list taking shape—first on Afghanistan, now on Iran and missile defense. Gates likes to talk of “balance” in America’s foreign and defense policy. In this overture to Russia, it certainly looks like his ideas on how to conduct U.S.-Russia relations are being seriously considered by the president.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a senior editor at The National Interest, is a professor of national-security studies at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are entirely his own.
National Interest online
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=21040
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A President, a Boy and Genocide
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
When the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Sudan’s president on Wednesday, an 8-year-old boy named Bakit Musa would have clapped — if only he still had hands.
I met Bakit a couple of weeks ago in eastern Chad, near the border of Darfur. He and two friends had found a grenade left behind in fighting after Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, armed and dispatched a proxy force to wreak havoc in Chad. The boys played with the grenade, and it exploded, taking both of Bakit’s hands, one eye and the skin on half of his face.
So Bakit became, inadvertently, one more casualty of the havoc and brutality that President Bashir has unleashed in Sudan and surrounding countries. Other children laugh at him, so Bakit plays by himself in the dust on the outskirts of a huge camp for people displaced by Mr. Bashir.
One of Mr. Bashir’s first actions after the arrest warrant was to undertake yet another crime against humanity: He expelled major international aid groups, including the International Rescue Committee and the Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders. In effect, he is now preparing to massacre the Darfuri people in still another way, for Darfuris are living in camps and depend on aid workers for food, water and health care — even as deadly meningitis has broken out in one of the camps.
“The consequences are going to be dire,” notes George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee, on which 1.75 million Sudanese depend for water, sanitation, education and health care. “If Sudan persists in this decision, it’s difficult to see how the outcome will be anything other than serious suffering and death for hundreds of thousands of people.”
Mr. Bashir is now testing the international community, and President Obama and other world leaders must respond immediately and decisively, in conjunction with as many non-Western nations as possible.
The first step is to insist that aid groups be reinstated immediately to prevent this genocide in slow motion. A second step could be to destroy one of Mr. Bashir’s military planes with a warning that if he takes his genocide to a new level by depriving Darfuris of food and medical care, he will lose the rest of his air force.
Yet it’s also important to understand that Mr. Bashir engages in a consistent pattern of destruction and slaughter, not because he is a sadistic monster, but because he is a calculating pragmatist.
Mr. Bashir saw early in his career that atrocities can constitute an effective policy — shooting villagers and gang-raping women is quite useful to depopulate rural areas, thereby denying support to rebel militias. Best of all from Mr. Bashir’s perspective, there’s no downside as long as the international community averts its eyes or backs down. His aim in expelling aid groups is apparently to divide the international community and to try to force the United Nations Security Council to delay International Criminal Court proceedings.
Mr. Bashir assumes, not unreasonably, that he can get away with it. That culture of impunity is what the I.C.C. arrest warrant may begin to change. It is one way of attaching costs to systematic brutality, and thus to change the calculations of pragmatists like Mr. Bashir in Sudan and elsewhere.
So now President Obama and other leaders — hello, Gordon Brown, you there? — need to back up the I.C.C. arrest warrant and push to reverse the expulsion of aid workers, while working with Arab countries like Qatar that want to help.
Intriguingly, Khartoum is full of rumors that the handful of leaders just below Mr. Bashir are thinking of throwing him overboard to save themselves. We can encourage that by making it clear that Sudan will pay a price if the killings continue.
We also must call on China to stop training the military pilots used by Mr. Bashir to strafe villages, and to stop supplying weapons and spare parts to Sudan as long as Mr. Bashir is in office. There are precedents: China was a strong supporter of the Khmer Rouge and of Slobodan Milosevic, but distanced itself from both when they came under the spotlight for genocide.
President Obama could also announce that from now on, when Sudan violates the U.N. ban on offensive military flights in Darfur by bombing villagers, we will afterward destroy a Sudanese military aircraft on the ground in Darfur (we can do this from our base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa).
I won’t pretend that we can end all genocides. But we can attach enough costs so that it is no longer in a leader’s interests to dispatch militias to throw babies into bonfires. The I.C.C. arrest warrant marks a wobbly step toward accountability and deterrence.
So let’s applaud the I.C.C.’s arrest warrant, on behalf of children like Bakit who can’t.
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/opinion/05kristof.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
When the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Sudan’s president on Wednesday, an 8-year-old boy named Bakit Musa would have clapped — if only he still had hands.
I met Bakit a couple of weeks ago in eastern Chad, near the border of Darfur. He and two friends had found a grenade left behind in fighting after Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, armed and dispatched a proxy force to wreak havoc in Chad. The boys played with the grenade, and it exploded, taking both of Bakit’s hands, one eye and the skin on half of his face.
So Bakit became, inadvertently, one more casualty of the havoc and brutality that President Bashir has unleashed in Sudan and surrounding countries. Other children laugh at him, so Bakit plays by himself in the dust on the outskirts of a huge camp for people displaced by Mr. Bashir.
One of Mr. Bashir’s first actions after the arrest warrant was to undertake yet another crime against humanity: He expelled major international aid groups, including the International Rescue Committee and the Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders. In effect, he is now preparing to massacre the Darfuri people in still another way, for Darfuris are living in camps and depend on aid workers for food, water and health care — even as deadly meningitis has broken out in one of the camps.
“The consequences are going to be dire,” notes George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee, on which 1.75 million Sudanese depend for water, sanitation, education and health care. “If Sudan persists in this decision, it’s difficult to see how the outcome will be anything other than serious suffering and death for hundreds of thousands of people.”
Mr. Bashir is now testing the international community, and President Obama and other world leaders must respond immediately and decisively, in conjunction with as many non-Western nations as possible.
The first step is to insist that aid groups be reinstated immediately to prevent this genocide in slow motion. A second step could be to destroy one of Mr. Bashir’s military planes with a warning that if he takes his genocide to a new level by depriving Darfuris of food and medical care, he will lose the rest of his air force.
Yet it’s also important to understand that Mr. Bashir engages in a consistent pattern of destruction and slaughter, not because he is a sadistic monster, but because he is a calculating pragmatist.
Mr. Bashir saw early in his career that atrocities can constitute an effective policy — shooting villagers and gang-raping women is quite useful to depopulate rural areas, thereby denying support to rebel militias. Best of all from Mr. Bashir’s perspective, there’s no downside as long as the international community averts its eyes or backs down. His aim in expelling aid groups is apparently to divide the international community and to try to force the United Nations Security Council to delay International Criminal Court proceedings.
Mr. Bashir assumes, not unreasonably, that he can get away with it. That culture of impunity is what the I.C.C. arrest warrant may begin to change. It is one way of attaching costs to systematic brutality, and thus to change the calculations of pragmatists like Mr. Bashir in Sudan and elsewhere.
So now President Obama and other leaders — hello, Gordon Brown, you there? — need to back up the I.C.C. arrest warrant and push to reverse the expulsion of aid workers, while working with Arab countries like Qatar that want to help.
Intriguingly, Khartoum is full of rumors that the handful of leaders just below Mr. Bashir are thinking of throwing him overboard to save themselves. We can encourage that by making it clear that Sudan will pay a price if the killings continue.
We also must call on China to stop training the military pilots used by Mr. Bashir to strafe villages, and to stop supplying weapons and spare parts to Sudan as long as Mr. Bashir is in office. There are precedents: China was a strong supporter of the Khmer Rouge and of Slobodan Milosevic, but distanced itself from both when they came under the spotlight for genocide.
President Obama could also announce that from now on, when Sudan violates the U.N. ban on offensive military flights in Darfur by bombing villagers, we will afterward destroy a Sudanese military aircraft on the ground in Darfur (we can do this from our base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa).
I won’t pretend that we can end all genocides. But we can attach enough costs so that it is no longer in a leader’s interests to dispatch militias to throw babies into bonfires. The I.C.C. arrest warrant marks a wobbly step toward accountability and deterrence.
So let’s applaud the I.C.C.’s arrest warrant, on behalf of children like Bakit who can’t.
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/opinion/05kristof.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
Grounding Sudan's Killers
By Merrill A. McPeak and Kurt Bassuener
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was predictably defiant yesterday in response to the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an order for his arrest because of his war in Sudan's western Darfur region. More than four years ago, the United States correctly called Khartoum's action in Darfur "genocide." But the Bush administration did nothing to stop the killings. Now this ongoing nightmare competes with the ailing economy for U.S. attention. But prioritizing Darfur would make clear that the Obama administration can rally international cooperation to resolve thorny security problems.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice have all advocated a more engaged and effective policy to end the suffering in Darfur. They have also agreed that creating a no-fly zone over the region would change the dynamic on the ground.
Yet this proposal made little progress after humanitarian organizations protested. The groups feared that they would lose access to refugees or that aid workers and the civilians they were trying to help would be subject to reprisals. Many hoped that diplomatic negotiations would draw in the Sudanese government and lead to a political solution. Sadly, instead of taking decisive action, the international community has given Darfur refugees the palliatives of a sputtering aid effort and a U.N.-African Union "hybrid force" -- itself a sop to Bashir, who refused to countenance a proper force as mandated by the U.N. Security Council.
Not surprisingly, the humanitarian situation has worsened. The issue of what to do is reminiscent of the misguided effort to hold off forceful intervention in Bosnia in the early 1990s. After 3 1/2 bloody years in which 100,000 people were killed and millions displaced, we ultimately saw that more vigorous action was needed to end that conflict. The same conclusion holds now for Darfur, where the death toll is at least double that of Bosnia (and may be much greater). The arrest warrant the ICC issued yesterday makes clear Bashir's responsibility as leader of the country and director of the mayhem in the Darfur region. His expulsion of 10 aid organizations in response to the warrant makes his lack of concern for his citizens' welfare abundantly clear.
Air power plays a central role in Bashir's military strategy, so establishing a no-fly zone remains the most promising initiative to halt the atrocities in Darfur. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that such a proposal was under consideration. As a practical matter, imposing control over Sudanese airspace must involve NATO and European Union allies, in particular France, which has a suitable airfield at Abeche, in eastern Chad. Allied air forces could and should provide much of the force structure, principally fighter aircraft, but a U.S. contribution -- especially of aerial refuelers and command-and-control aircraft -- would be essential. About a squadron of each type of aircraft would be more than enough to end the impunity Sudanese military aviation now enjoys.
By taking away the Sudanese government's freedom to use air power to terrorize its population, the West would finally get enough leverage with Khartoum to negotiate the entry of a stronger U.N. ground force. Effective military action in the form of a no-fly zone would not preclude a political resolution, as some suggest, but in fact would make diplomacy more effective by reducing Bashir's options.
Bashir has strung the international community along in a way that the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic would have envied. A no-fly zone is the best way to turn the conflict to his disadvantage. President Obama has vowed to act multilaterally, where possible, to build real, consensus solutions to international security problems. Decisive international action in Darfur may present the best opportunity to demonstrate this resolve.
Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak served as Air Force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994 and co-chaired Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Kurt Bassuener is a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/04/AR2009030403022.html
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was predictably defiant yesterday in response to the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an order for his arrest because of his war in Sudan's western Darfur region. More than four years ago, the United States correctly called Khartoum's action in Darfur "genocide." But the Bush administration did nothing to stop the killings. Now this ongoing nightmare competes with the ailing economy for U.S. attention. But prioritizing Darfur would make clear that the Obama administration can rally international cooperation to resolve thorny security problems.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice have all advocated a more engaged and effective policy to end the suffering in Darfur. They have also agreed that creating a no-fly zone over the region would change the dynamic on the ground.
Yet this proposal made little progress after humanitarian organizations protested. The groups feared that they would lose access to refugees or that aid workers and the civilians they were trying to help would be subject to reprisals. Many hoped that diplomatic negotiations would draw in the Sudanese government and lead to a political solution. Sadly, instead of taking decisive action, the international community has given Darfur refugees the palliatives of a sputtering aid effort and a U.N.-African Union "hybrid force" -- itself a sop to Bashir, who refused to countenance a proper force as mandated by the U.N. Security Council.
Not surprisingly, the humanitarian situation has worsened. The issue of what to do is reminiscent of the misguided effort to hold off forceful intervention in Bosnia in the early 1990s. After 3 1/2 bloody years in which 100,000 people were killed and millions displaced, we ultimately saw that more vigorous action was needed to end that conflict. The same conclusion holds now for Darfur, where the death toll is at least double that of Bosnia (and may be much greater). The arrest warrant the ICC issued yesterday makes clear Bashir's responsibility as leader of the country and director of the mayhem in the Darfur region. His expulsion of 10 aid organizations in response to the warrant makes his lack of concern for his citizens' welfare abundantly clear.
Air power plays a central role in Bashir's military strategy, so establishing a no-fly zone remains the most promising initiative to halt the atrocities in Darfur. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that such a proposal was under consideration. As a practical matter, imposing control over Sudanese airspace must involve NATO and European Union allies, in particular France, which has a suitable airfield at Abeche, in eastern Chad. Allied air forces could and should provide much of the force structure, principally fighter aircraft, but a U.S. contribution -- especially of aerial refuelers and command-and-control aircraft -- would be essential. About a squadron of each type of aircraft would be more than enough to end the impunity Sudanese military aviation now enjoys.
By taking away the Sudanese government's freedom to use air power to terrorize its population, the West would finally get enough leverage with Khartoum to negotiate the entry of a stronger U.N. ground force. Effective military action in the form of a no-fly zone would not preclude a political resolution, as some suggest, but in fact would make diplomacy more effective by reducing Bashir's options.
Bashir has strung the international community along in a way that the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic would have envied. A no-fly zone is the best way to turn the conflict to his disadvantage. President Obama has vowed to act multilaterally, where possible, to build real, consensus solutions to international security problems. Decisive international action in Darfur may present the best opportunity to demonstrate this resolve.
Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak served as Air Force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994 and co-chaired Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Kurt Bassuener is a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/04/AR2009030403022.html
More Misery for Sudan: Indictment as empty moral gesture.
Imagine a legal system that indicts a mass murderer but refuses to put a halt to the crimes for which he has been indicted. That sums up the arrest warrant issued this week by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for the slaughter in Darfur.
George Clooney and the rest of the help-Darfur community may feel good about bringing "justice" to Bashir. But the indictment is an empty moral gesture. The practical effect will be to increase the suffering of Darfurians. Sudan moved to kick out 10 foreign aid agencies hours after the warrant was issued. These groups assist some 2.7 million Darfur refugees and help in the reconstruction of south Sudan, where Khartoum recently ended a two-decade-long campaign against Christians and animists. Three more aid groups were expelled yesterday.
Far from putting pressure on Mr. Bashir to step down, as proponents of the ICC warrant claim, the indictment will only harden his resolve to stay. Since no rapid U.N. reaction force to arrest him is on the horizon, cutting a deal with Mr. Bashir and offering him some sort of exile and immunity from prosecution is probably the most promising way to stop Khartoum's war against its own people.
The indictment has now made such a deal more difficult, if not impossible. Under the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, the Security Council can suspend prosecution for only one year. Even though a deferral could be continuously renewed, Mr. Bashir is too smart to rely on such a promise to leave office.
If the Security Council was serious about removing Mr. Bashir, it could invoke its responsibilities for international peace and security -- which arguably supersede the Rome Statute -- to override the ICC's indictment. Yet the U.N. lacks the political will to do so. This is in keeping with its longstanding abandonment of responsibility on Darfur. For years the Security Council regularly emasculated U.S. sanction proposals, preferring instead to stand by as 300,000 Darfurians were killed and millions made refugees.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo assured reporters in The Hague Wednesday that Mr. Bashir will face "justice" just as Slobodan Milosevic did. But the Serbian dictator's trial took place only after NATO had put an end to his ethnic-cleansing campaign, and after a regime change in Belgrade. The new Serbian prime minister had Milosevic arrested and sent to The Hague. The Sudanese leader can avoid a trial simply by staying comfortably at home or visiting only those countries, such as China, that won't arrest him.
The Obama Administration welcomed the ICC indictment as a "helpful step." It reportedly is considering re-signing the ICC, in what would be a reversal of President Bush's reversal of President Clinton's signature. Mr. Bush feared the prosecution of U.S. officials and soldiers in a politicized court. The fact that the ICC in its indictment of Mr. Bashir is going after a real war criminal doesn't rule out that the court -- answerable to no one -- may still be misused for political agendas. Mr. Ocampo told the Times of London last month that he's exploring whether the court could follow Palestinian complaints and prosecute Israeli commanders over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
We'd like to see Mr. Bashir and his henchmen stand trial for their crimes. Even more, we'd like those crimes to stop. But the ICC's indictment serves neither justice nor the Darfurians.
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629943823446641.html
George Clooney and the rest of the help-Darfur community may feel good about bringing "justice" to Bashir. But the indictment is an empty moral gesture. The practical effect will be to increase the suffering of Darfurians. Sudan moved to kick out 10 foreign aid agencies hours after the warrant was issued. These groups assist some 2.7 million Darfur refugees and help in the reconstruction of south Sudan, where Khartoum recently ended a two-decade-long campaign against Christians and animists. Three more aid groups were expelled yesterday.
Far from putting pressure on Mr. Bashir to step down, as proponents of the ICC warrant claim, the indictment will only harden his resolve to stay. Since no rapid U.N. reaction force to arrest him is on the horizon, cutting a deal with Mr. Bashir and offering him some sort of exile and immunity from prosecution is probably the most promising way to stop Khartoum's war against its own people.
The indictment has now made such a deal more difficult, if not impossible. Under the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, the Security Council can suspend prosecution for only one year. Even though a deferral could be continuously renewed, Mr. Bashir is too smart to rely on such a promise to leave office.
If the Security Council was serious about removing Mr. Bashir, it could invoke its responsibilities for international peace and security -- which arguably supersede the Rome Statute -- to override the ICC's indictment. Yet the U.N. lacks the political will to do so. This is in keeping with its longstanding abandonment of responsibility on Darfur. For years the Security Council regularly emasculated U.S. sanction proposals, preferring instead to stand by as 300,000 Darfurians were killed and millions made refugees.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo assured reporters in The Hague Wednesday that Mr. Bashir will face "justice" just as Slobodan Milosevic did. But the Serbian dictator's trial took place only after NATO had put an end to his ethnic-cleansing campaign, and after a regime change in Belgrade. The new Serbian prime minister had Milosevic arrested and sent to The Hague. The Sudanese leader can avoid a trial simply by staying comfortably at home or visiting only those countries, such as China, that won't arrest him.
The Obama Administration welcomed the ICC indictment as a "helpful step." It reportedly is considering re-signing the ICC, in what would be a reversal of President Bush's reversal of President Clinton's signature. Mr. Bush feared the prosecution of U.S. officials and soldiers in a politicized court. The fact that the ICC in its indictment of Mr. Bashir is going after a real war criminal doesn't rule out that the court -- answerable to no one -- may still be misused for political agendas. Mr. Ocampo told the Times of London last month that he's exploring whether the court could follow Palestinian complaints and prosecute Israeli commanders over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
We'd like to see Mr. Bashir and his henchmen stand trial for their crimes. Even more, we'd like those crimes to stop. But the ICC's indictment serves neither justice nor the Darfurians.
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629943823446641.html
Moralism on the Shelf
By Richard Cohen
The 19th century ended, as we all know, not in 1900 but 14 years later, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo -- and the world promptly went mad. In a similar way, the 20th century did not end until this very year, when, among other things, President Barack Obama implied that he would not rule out talking with more moderate elements of the Taliban. What Henry Luce called "the American Century" is over.
Obama's apparent willingness to divide the Taliban into awful and less awful is just the latest sign that a sterile but necessary realism has settled over American foreign policy. In recent days alone, the Obama administration has indicated that it is willing -- for the moment -- to hold its tongue regarding China's voluminous human rights abuses and has hit the "reset button" on relations with Moscow, Vladimir Putin's neo-Stalinist fits notwithstanding. As for Israel's insistence on expanding West Bank settlements, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced it as "unhelpful" -- a whisper of a rebuke that, in the transcript, should have been rendered in italics.
The Obama administration is talking to the Syrians. It is willing to talk to the Iranians. It will parley with the North Koreans. It has kicked the wheels off the "Axis of Evil" and has, in general, shied from the lofty language of the Bush years, especially all that stuff about wars on terrorism and spreading democracy. This is an administration to bring a lump to the throat of Brent Scowcroft, the arch realist, who has never mistaken foreign policy for missionary work, even though they both usually take place abroad.
For the most part, this is good. Even George Bush was starting to realize that he had overreached, overdreamed, underthought and underanalyzed. The war in Iraq is coming up on its seventh year, and the one in Afghanistan has lasted even longer. The Taliban have gone and come, and the democracy movement in the Middle East has withered from an utter lack of enthusiasm, not to mention a lack of democratic leaders.
Obama will get no lip from the left about his new foreign policy. Liberalism has been blanched of a pronounced moral component. That -- in furious exaggeration -- is now the province of conservatism. The liberal New York Review of Books published an open letter from literary notables asking President-elect Obama to "negotiate with the Taliban [and] withdraw all troops from Afghanistan." No mention was made of Afghanistan's shaky neighbor, Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons, or for that matter of Afghan girls who have the effrontery to crack a book.
Right there is the danger Obama runs. The Taliban are bad. They kill their opposition. They are hideous to women, and when they were in control of Afghanistan, they sheltered al-Qaeda. In Vietnam, it was always possible to insist that the communists were really agrarian reformers -- or some such mindless formulation -- and so when the United States capitulated, the resulting horror came as a surprise to some. No one, though, can be surprised by what the Taliban will do. In the very recent past, they have already done it.
Winston Churchill supposedly once asked his wife to have a pudding removed from his table -- because "it has no theme." In the same way, a "realistic" foreign policy also lacks theme or, more to the point, an overarching desire to do good. America's enemies are never merely our opponents; they are evil. We are good. This is the way we see ourselves. The abandonment of Vietnam was sickening to observe. The disfigurement of schoolgirls by Taliban zealots will be no different.
Obama is right to be realistic and to abjure bombastic rhetoric. Moralism is expensive -- costly in blood and treasure. This is the new reality. The danger is that we will turn inward -- not isolationist, because that is impossible -- but financially exhausted and callously indifferent to the rest of the world.
This is a tricky, auspicious moment for a young president. He is ending one century, beginning another. Concisely, he essentially laid out his approach to foreign policy in a blurb for a recently reissued book by the late theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He wrote that he took away from Niebuhr's works "the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain." He added that "we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction."
This, then, is the Obama Doctrine: wisely, to have none at all.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902231.html
The 19th century ended, as we all know, not in 1900 but 14 years later, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo -- and the world promptly went mad. In a similar way, the 20th century did not end until this very year, when, among other things, President Barack Obama implied that he would not rule out talking with more moderate elements of the Taliban. What Henry Luce called "the American Century" is over.
Obama's apparent willingness to divide the Taliban into awful and less awful is just the latest sign that a sterile but necessary realism has settled over American foreign policy. In recent days alone, the Obama administration has indicated that it is willing -- for the moment -- to hold its tongue regarding China's voluminous human rights abuses and has hit the "reset button" on relations with Moscow, Vladimir Putin's neo-Stalinist fits notwithstanding. As for Israel's insistence on expanding West Bank settlements, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced it as "unhelpful" -- a whisper of a rebuke that, in the transcript, should have been rendered in italics.
The Obama administration is talking to the Syrians. It is willing to talk to the Iranians. It will parley with the North Koreans. It has kicked the wheels off the "Axis of Evil" and has, in general, shied from the lofty language of the Bush years, especially all that stuff about wars on terrorism and spreading democracy. This is an administration to bring a lump to the throat of Brent Scowcroft, the arch realist, who has never mistaken foreign policy for missionary work, even though they both usually take place abroad.
For the most part, this is good. Even George Bush was starting to realize that he had overreached, overdreamed, underthought and underanalyzed. The war in Iraq is coming up on its seventh year, and the one in Afghanistan has lasted even longer. The Taliban have gone and come, and the democracy movement in the Middle East has withered from an utter lack of enthusiasm, not to mention a lack of democratic leaders.
Obama will get no lip from the left about his new foreign policy. Liberalism has been blanched of a pronounced moral component. That -- in furious exaggeration -- is now the province of conservatism. The liberal New York Review of Books published an open letter from literary notables asking President-elect Obama to "negotiate with the Taliban [and] withdraw all troops from Afghanistan." No mention was made of Afghanistan's shaky neighbor, Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons, or for that matter of Afghan girls who have the effrontery to crack a book.
Right there is the danger Obama runs. The Taliban are bad. They kill their opposition. They are hideous to women, and when they were in control of Afghanistan, they sheltered al-Qaeda. In Vietnam, it was always possible to insist that the communists were really agrarian reformers -- or some such mindless formulation -- and so when the United States capitulated, the resulting horror came as a surprise to some. No one, though, can be surprised by what the Taliban will do. In the very recent past, they have already done it.
Winston Churchill supposedly once asked his wife to have a pudding removed from his table -- because "it has no theme." In the same way, a "realistic" foreign policy also lacks theme or, more to the point, an overarching desire to do good. America's enemies are never merely our opponents; they are evil. We are good. This is the way we see ourselves. The abandonment of Vietnam was sickening to observe. The disfigurement of schoolgirls by Taliban zealots will be no different.
Obama is right to be realistic and to abjure bombastic rhetoric. Moralism is expensive -- costly in blood and treasure. This is the new reality. The danger is that we will turn inward -- not isolationist, because that is impossible -- but financially exhausted and callously indifferent to the rest of the world.
This is a tricky, auspicious moment for a young president. He is ending one century, beginning another. Concisely, he essentially laid out his approach to foreign policy in a blurb for a recently reissued book by the late theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He wrote that he took away from Niebuhr's works "the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain." He added that "we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction."
This, then, is the Obama Doctrine: wisely, to have none at all.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902231.html
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
An Obama A-Team for Iran
By David IgnatiusThursday, February 5, 2009;
Whom should President Obama appoint as his emissary to Iran, to take on what may be the most important diplomatic mission in decades? The right person (or persons) would have the stature and experience to engage Iran at the highest level -- and to explore what Obama in his inaugural address called "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
My nominees are Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisers for Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, respectively. They would elevate the Iran mission, connecting it to the tradition of bipartisan strategic thinking that shaped America's role in the modern world. And, like our youthful new president, these two octogenarians understand the need for America to "turn a page" in its foreign policy and to connect with what Brzezinski has called a "global political awakening."
I know Brzezinski's and Scowcroft's views about dialogue with Iran because I spent many days with them last spring, moderating a discussion that yielded a book, "America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy."
The book was an experiment to see whether a prominent Democrat and a prominent Republican could find common ground for new approaches to the world. Indeed they did: On nearly every issue, from the Arab-Israeli dispute to the war in Afghanistan, the two had similar insights about how to use diplomacy better to align America with a changing world.
This willingness to embrace new ideas was especially clear when Brzezinski and Scowcroft talked about Iran. Both believed that the Bush administration's policy of isolating Iran -- and trying to dictate terms for negotiations about its nuclear program -- had been a mistake. Scowcroft argued that the United States had approached Iran "emotionally," while Brzezinski said the administration had followed "a self-defeating policy that simply perpetuates the existing difficulty."
In the book, I asked the two what message they would carry if the next president asked them to serve as joint emissaries to Iran.
Scowcroft replied that his brief to the Iranians would begin this way: "First, that we're aware you live in a dangerous region, and we're prepared to discuss a regional security framework. . . . Second, whether or not you want nuclear weapons, you're proceeding on a course that psychologically destabilizes the whole region. It is dangerous. It will bring about a counterreaction. And let's work on this security framework. You don't need nuclear weapons."
Brzezinski said he agreed and added: "The only way we can accomplish [mutual security] is by sitting together and figuring out some mechanism whereby you achieve what you say you want, which is a peaceful nuclear program, and we achieve what we need, which is a real sense of security that it's not going to go any further."
The two former national security advisers talked hopefully about engaging Tehran. But they are hardly of the gee-whiz school of foreign policy. Brzezinski advocated a military coup in 1978 to check the Muslim revolution; Carter rejected his advice. Scowcroft tilted toward Iraq until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; he then became the chief strategist of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Both men start from a realist's appreciation of Iranian power, but both believe that the Iranian challenge is best addressed by diplomacy.
The advantage of sending these two distinguished senior statesmen is that they would make it harder for the Iranians to play political games. Brzezinski and Scowcroft are part of what I call "the great chain of being" of American foreign policy. Their presence as emissaries would signal that engagement with Iran is a matter of the greatest seriousness to the United States, equivalent to their predecessor Henry Kissinger's secret diplomacy with China in 1971. Perhaps most important, the two would have the confidence to walk away from the talks if they made no progress.
One of the few things Brzezinski and Scowcroft disagreed about was whether the initial contacts with Iran should be open (Brzezinski's view) or secret (Scowcroft's preference). Both believe that America's emissaries must meet with an Iranian representative who is close to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
I'm biased. I like Brzezinski and Scowcroft, and I don't know anyone who thinks more clearly about foreign policy. If they did become President Obama's emissaries, they should take along someone who could coordinate the dialogue and its aftermath. Dennis Ross, expected to be the State Department's senior adviser on Iran, could play that role.
This one matters, and President Obama would be wise to send the A-team.
The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020402883.html
Whom should President Obama appoint as his emissary to Iran, to take on what may be the most important diplomatic mission in decades? The right person (or persons) would have the stature and experience to engage Iran at the highest level -- and to explore what Obama in his inaugural address called "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
My nominees are Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisers for Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, respectively. They would elevate the Iran mission, connecting it to the tradition of bipartisan strategic thinking that shaped America's role in the modern world. And, like our youthful new president, these two octogenarians understand the need for America to "turn a page" in its foreign policy and to connect with what Brzezinski has called a "global political awakening."
I know Brzezinski's and Scowcroft's views about dialogue with Iran because I spent many days with them last spring, moderating a discussion that yielded a book, "America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy."
The book was an experiment to see whether a prominent Democrat and a prominent Republican could find common ground for new approaches to the world. Indeed they did: On nearly every issue, from the Arab-Israeli dispute to the war in Afghanistan, the two had similar insights about how to use diplomacy better to align America with a changing world.
This willingness to embrace new ideas was especially clear when Brzezinski and Scowcroft talked about Iran. Both believed that the Bush administration's policy of isolating Iran -- and trying to dictate terms for negotiations about its nuclear program -- had been a mistake. Scowcroft argued that the United States had approached Iran "emotionally," while Brzezinski said the administration had followed "a self-defeating policy that simply perpetuates the existing difficulty."
In the book, I asked the two what message they would carry if the next president asked them to serve as joint emissaries to Iran.
Scowcroft replied that his brief to the Iranians would begin this way: "First, that we're aware you live in a dangerous region, and we're prepared to discuss a regional security framework. . . . Second, whether or not you want nuclear weapons, you're proceeding on a course that psychologically destabilizes the whole region. It is dangerous. It will bring about a counterreaction. And let's work on this security framework. You don't need nuclear weapons."
Brzezinski said he agreed and added: "The only way we can accomplish [mutual security] is by sitting together and figuring out some mechanism whereby you achieve what you say you want, which is a peaceful nuclear program, and we achieve what we need, which is a real sense of security that it's not going to go any further."
The two former national security advisers talked hopefully about engaging Tehran. But they are hardly of the gee-whiz school of foreign policy. Brzezinski advocated a military coup in 1978 to check the Muslim revolution; Carter rejected his advice. Scowcroft tilted toward Iraq until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; he then became the chief strategist of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Both men start from a realist's appreciation of Iranian power, but both believe that the Iranian challenge is best addressed by diplomacy.
The advantage of sending these two distinguished senior statesmen is that they would make it harder for the Iranians to play political games. Brzezinski and Scowcroft are part of what I call "the great chain of being" of American foreign policy. Their presence as emissaries would signal that engagement with Iran is a matter of the greatest seriousness to the United States, equivalent to their predecessor Henry Kissinger's secret diplomacy with China in 1971. Perhaps most important, the two would have the confidence to walk away from the talks if they made no progress.
One of the few things Brzezinski and Scowcroft disagreed about was whether the initial contacts with Iran should be open (Brzezinski's view) or secret (Scowcroft's preference). Both believe that America's emissaries must meet with an Iranian representative who is close to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
I'm biased. I like Brzezinski and Scowcroft, and I don't know anyone who thinks more clearly about foreign policy. If they did become President Obama's emissaries, they should take along someone who could coordinate the dialogue and its aftermath. Dennis Ross, expected to be the State Department's senior adviser on Iran, could play that role.
This one matters, and President Obama would be wise to send the A-team.
The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020402883.html
Iran in Orbit
By MICHAEL LEDEEN
Last week Iran put its own telecommunications satellite into orbit. U.S. officials in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon were certainly right to warn that this shows that the mullahs have now mastered the technology needed to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. But the terror masters in Tehran believe the satellite has an even greater significance -- another step toward the return of the Shiite messiah, or Mahdi, the long-vanished 12th Imam.
AP
Many Iranian leaders believe that the 12th Imam will return in the Last Days, which will be marked by global chaos and conflict, at the end of which Muslim believers will have conquered the infidels and the mullahs will rule the world. According to medieval Shiite texts, a message announcing the Mahdi's return will be carried to the four corners of the world so that none will be able to say he did not know that the Last Days were soon to arrive.
Eerily, the rocket that carried the telecommunications satellite into space was named "Safir" (message) and the satellite itself "Omid" (hope). In short order we can expect to hear Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announcing the imminent return of the Mahdi. He has already described the launch as a "holy event." These believers see the launch of Omid as the fulfillment of the Mahdi prophecy.
They see other portents as well. The ancient Shiite texts forecast that the seas will turn blood red just prior to the return of the Mahdi, and lo and behold some Iranian newspapers are reporting a rapid growth of red seaweed in the Persian Gulf. To this, the believers add the economic convulsion of the West, the defeat of the hated neocons in the recent U.S. elections, the failure of the West to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and what they insist was the heroic victory of Hamas in Gaza. The mullahs are desperately trying to convince their restive citizens, and perhaps even themselves, that they are going to be saved by the ultimate miracle.
The Opinion Journal Widget
Download Opinion Journal's widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page.
Any serious person looking at Iran today, however, would be more likely to conclude that their doom, not their triumph, is right around the corner. No country has been hit harder by the global economic crisis. Nearly 90% of Iran's national revenues come from oil, which has crashed to $40 a barrel from $140. Suddenly the mullahs are short of cash. And while the mullahs boast of a glorious victory in Gaza, most everyone in the Middle East knows that their proxy, Hamas, was badly battered, and that neither Iran nor its favorite terrorists in Hezbollah risked any of their own to challenge the Israeli Defense Forces.
Moreover, Iran's considerable support for al Qaeda in Iraq was doubly defeated, first on the battlefield and last week at the ballot box. The Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq was also a blow, as Tehran's mullahs, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had gone all-out to block it.
Even the magical auguries are less than advertised: The satellite launch was carried out by 50-year-old technology, similar to that of the Soviets at the time of Sputnik, and the red seaweed has been around for a very long time and noted by scientists for decades. The Iranian people are unlikely to believe that this regime will lead a victorious global jihad when they are enduring economic misery and enhanced repression. Executions are running at a record rate. The mullahs are so insecure that they have cracked down on Iran's most famous woman, the Nobel Prize-winning human-rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
The mullahs know their own people hate them, and the combination of economic failure and the defeat of their proxy forces increases their peril. The appeal to miracles is a sign of desperation, suggesting that this is a particularly good time for the U.S. finally to begin to support the Iranians against their oppressors.
The Obama administration wants to talk to the Iranians, and some reports suggest they have been talking for months. American negotiators should take every opportunity to call for respect for human rights -- on behalf of the labor leaders demanding that salaries be paid, women demanding equal rights, students asserting their freedom to criticize, and even dissident ayatollahs, such as Montazeri and Boroujedi, who have branded the regime as heretical. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would seem an ideal champion for these victims.
Above all, the U.S. must not make the mistake of limiting demands to the nuclear program. A free Iran must be the objective. There is abundant evidence that the overwhelming majority of Iranians want to be part of the Western world and live in peace with their neighbors. If Iran were free and democratic, we would not lose sleep over uranium enrichment at Natanz. We must be the people's voice. We can offer more hope than Mr. Ahmadinejad's broadcasts from outer space.
Mr. Ledeen is a scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. His new book, "Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West" will be published later this year by St. Martin's Press.
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123414344863961949.html
Last week Iran put its own telecommunications satellite into orbit. U.S. officials in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon were certainly right to warn that this shows that the mullahs have now mastered the technology needed to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. But the terror masters in Tehran believe the satellite has an even greater significance -- another step toward the return of the Shiite messiah, or Mahdi, the long-vanished 12th Imam.
AP
Many Iranian leaders believe that the 12th Imam will return in the Last Days, which will be marked by global chaos and conflict, at the end of which Muslim believers will have conquered the infidels and the mullahs will rule the world. According to medieval Shiite texts, a message announcing the Mahdi's return will be carried to the four corners of the world so that none will be able to say he did not know that the Last Days were soon to arrive.
Eerily, the rocket that carried the telecommunications satellite into space was named "Safir" (message) and the satellite itself "Omid" (hope). In short order we can expect to hear Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announcing the imminent return of the Mahdi. He has already described the launch as a "holy event." These believers see the launch of Omid as the fulfillment of the Mahdi prophecy.
They see other portents as well. The ancient Shiite texts forecast that the seas will turn blood red just prior to the return of the Mahdi, and lo and behold some Iranian newspapers are reporting a rapid growth of red seaweed in the Persian Gulf. To this, the believers add the economic convulsion of the West, the defeat of the hated neocons in the recent U.S. elections, the failure of the West to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and what they insist was the heroic victory of Hamas in Gaza. The mullahs are desperately trying to convince their restive citizens, and perhaps even themselves, that they are going to be saved by the ultimate miracle.
The Opinion Journal Widget
Download Opinion Journal's widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page.
Any serious person looking at Iran today, however, would be more likely to conclude that their doom, not their triumph, is right around the corner. No country has been hit harder by the global economic crisis. Nearly 90% of Iran's national revenues come from oil, which has crashed to $40 a barrel from $140. Suddenly the mullahs are short of cash. And while the mullahs boast of a glorious victory in Gaza, most everyone in the Middle East knows that their proxy, Hamas, was badly battered, and that neither Iran nor its favorite terrorists in Hezbollah risked any of their own to challenge the Israeli Defense Forces.
Moreover, Iran's considerable support for al Qaeda in Iraq was doubly defeated, first on the battlefield and last week at the ballot box. The Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq was also a blow, as Tehran's mullahs, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had gone all-out to block it.
Even the magical auguries are less than advertised: The satellite launch was carried out by 50-year-old technology, similar to that of the Soviets at the time of Sputnik, and the red seaweed has been around for a very long time and noted by scientists for decades. The Iranian people are unlikely to believe that this regime will lead a victorious global jihad when they are enduring economic misery and enhanced repression. Executions are running at a record rate. The mullahs are so insecure that they have cracked down on Iran's most famous woman, the Nobel Prize-winning human-rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
The mullahs know their own people hate them, and the combination of economic failure and the defeat of their proxy forces increases their peril. The appeal to miracles is a sign of desperation, suggesting that this is a particularly good time for the U.S. finally to begin to support the Iranians against their oppressors.
The Obama administration wants to talk to the Iranians, and some reports suggest they have been talking for months. American negotiators should take every opportunity to call for respect for human rights -- on behalf of the labor leaders demanding that salaries be paid, women demanding equal rights, students asserting their freedom to criticize, and even dissident ayatollahs, such as Montazeri and Boroujedi, who have branded the regime as heretical. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would seem an ideal champion for these victims.
Above all, the U.S. must not make the mistake of limiting demands to the nuclear program. A free Iran must be the objective. There is abundant evidence that the overwhelming majority of Iranians want to be part of the Western world and live in peace with their neighbors. If Iran were free and democratic, we would not lose sleep over uranium enrichment at Natanz. We must be the people's voice. We can offer more hope than Mr. Ahmadinejad's broadcasts from outer space.
Mr. Ledeen is a scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. His new book, "Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West" will be published later this year by St. Martin's Press.
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123414344863961949.html
Obama's Supine Diplomacy
By Charles Krauthammer
The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.
Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.
Consider the long list of brazen Russian provocations:
(a) Pressuring Kyrgyzstan to shut down the U.S. air base in Manas, an absolutely crucial NATO conduit into Afghanistan.
(b) Announcing the formation of a "rapid reaction force" with six former Soviet republics, a regional Russian-led strike force meant to reassert Russian hegemony in the Muslim belt north of Afghanistan.
(c) Planning to establish a Black Sea naval base in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia, conquered by Moscow last summer.
(d) Declaring its intention to deploy offensive Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if Poland and the Czech Republic go ahead with plans to station an American (anti-Iranian) missile defense system.
President Bush's response to the Kaliningrad deployment -- the threat was issued the day after Obama's election -- was firm. He refused to back down because giving in to Russian threats would leave Poles and Czechs exposed and show the world that, contrary to post-Cold War assumptions, the United States could not be trusted to protect Eastern Europe from Russian bullying.
The Obama response? "Biden Signals U.S. Is Open to Russia Missile Deal," as the New York Times headlined Biden's Feb. 7 Munich speech to a major international gathering. This followed strong messages from the Obama transition team even before the inauguration that Obama was not committed to the missile shield. And just to make sure everyone understood that the Bush policy no longer held, Biden said in Munich that the United States wanted to "press the reset button" on NATO-Russian relations.
Not surprisingly, the Obama wobble elicited a favorable reaction from Russia. (There are conflicting reports that Russia might suspend the Kaliningrad blackmail deployment.) The Kremlin must have been equally impressed that the other provocations -- Abkhazia, Kyrgyzstan, the rapid-reaction force -- elicited barely a peep from Washington.
Iran has been similarly charmed by Obama's overtures. A week after the new president went about sending sweet peace signals via al-Arabiya, Iran launched its first homemade Earth satellite. The message is clear. If you can put a satellite into orbit, you can hit any continent with a missile, North America included.
And for emphasis, after the roundhouse hook, came the poke in the eye. A U.S. women's badminton team had been invited to Iran. Here was a chance for "ping-pong diplomacy" with the accommodating new president, a sporting venture meant to suggest the possibility of warmer relations.
On Feb. 4, Tehran denied the team entry into Iran.
Then, just in case Obama failed to get the message, Iran's parliament speaker rose in Munich to offer his response to Obama's olive branch. Executive summary: Thank you very much. After you acknowledge 60 years of crimes against us, change not just your tone but your policies, and abandon the Zionist criminal entity, we might deign to talk to you.
With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a "kick me" sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital. Not only will sharia law now reign there, but members of the democratically elected secular party will be hunted as the Pakistani army stands down.
These Pakistani capitulations may account for Obama's hastily announced 17,000-troop increase in Afghanistan even before his various heralded reviews of the mission have been completed. Hasty, unexplained, but at least something. Other than that, a month of pummeling has been met with utter passivity.
I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e., domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chávez's president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was "for the most part . . . a process that was fully consistent with democratic process," you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021902579.html
The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.
Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.
Consider the long list of brazen Russian provocations:
(a) Pressuring Kyrgyzstan to shut down the U.S. air base in Manas, an absolutely crucial NATO conduit into Afghanistan.
(b) Announcing the formation of a "rapid reaction force" with six former Soviet republics, a regional Russian-led strike force meant to reassert Russian hegemony in the Muslim belt north of Afghanistan.
(c) Planning to establish a Black Sea naval base in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia, conquered by Moscow last summer.
(d) Declaring its intention to deploy offensive Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if Poland and the Czech Republic go ahead with plans to station an American (anti-Iranian) missile defense system.
President Bush's response to the Kaliningrad deployment -- the threat was issued the day after Obama's election -- was firm. He refused to back down because giving in to Russian threats would leave Poles and Czechs exposed and show the world that, contrary to post-Cold War assumptions, the United States could not be trusted to protect Eastern Europe from Russian bullying.
The Obama response? "Biden Signals U.S. Is Open to Russia Missile Deal," as the New York Times headlined Biden's Feb. 7 Munich speech to a major international gathering. This followed strong messages from the Obama transition team even before the inauguration that Obama was not committed to the missile shield. And just to make sure everyone understood that the Bush policy no longer held, Biden said in Munich that the United States wanted to "press the reset button" on NATO-Russian relations.
Not surprisingly, the Obama wobble elicited a favorable reaction from Russia. (There are conflicting reports that Russia might suspend the Kaliningrad blackmail deployment.) The Kremlin must have been equally impressed that the other provocations -- Abkhazia, Kyrgyzstan, the rapid-reaction force -- elicited barely a peep from Washington.
Iran has been similarly charmed by Obama's overtures. A week after the new president went about sending sweet peace signals via al-Arabiya, Iran launched its first homemade Earth satellite. The message is clear. If you can put a satellite into orbit, you can hit any continent with a missile, North America included.
And for emphasis, after the roundhouse hook, came the poke in the eye. A U.S. women's badminton team had been invited to Iran. Here was a chance for "ping-pong diplomacy" with the accommodating new president, a sporting venture meant to suggest the possibility of warmer relations.
On Feb. 4, Tehran denied the team entry into Iran.
Then, just in case Obama failed to get the message, Iran's parliament speaker rose in Munich to offer his response to Obama's olive branch. Executive summary: Thank you very much. After you acknowledge 60 years of crimes against us, change not just your tone but your policies, and abandon the Zionist criminal entity, we might deign to talk to you.
With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a "kick me" sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital. Not only will sharia law now reign there, but members of the democratically elected secular party will be hunted as the Pakistani army stands down.
These Pakistani capitulations may account for Obama's hastily announced 17,000-troop increase in Afghanistan even before his various heralded reviews of the mission have been completed. Hasty, unexplained, but at least something. Other than that, a month of pummeling has been met with utter passivity.
I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e., domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chávez's president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was "for the most part . . . a process that was fully consistent with democratic process," you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021902579.html
A 'Reset' That Doesn't Compute
Jackson Diehl
MOSCOW -- Normally sour Russian officials are almost jaunty in describing their first engagements with the Obama administration. "We are excited," says one at the Foreign Ministry.
It's not just Vice President Biden's recent promise of a "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations that prompts this outward cheer from the government of Vladimir Putin. A first visit by a senior U.S. delegation here 10 days ago quickly produced agreement on an agenda that begins with a new nuclear arms control treaty to replace the START agreement, which expires at the end of the year. There is discussion of re-creating bilateral cooperation committees, and of U.S. support for Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. And the Russians are thrilled by what they perceive to be Obama's incipient retreat from Bush administration agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to begin building a European missile defense.
So is this the beginning of a new era of cooperation between Washington and Moscow -- a detente that could deliver another big cut in nuclear arsenals, more effective pressure on Iran's nuclear program, and a diminishment of the growing tensions between the United States and Europe over how to handle Russia? A few days spent here with a group of Americans and Germans organized by the German Marshall Fund left me with some considerable doubts.
The first concerns the Russian economy -- the basis of Russians' acceptance of Putin's autocracy -- which has plummeted far faster and further than any in the developed West. This year will see, at best, a massive reversal in Russian output, from the 8 percent growth rate of 2008 to a 2 percent contraction. Industrial production in January dropped 16 percent, and unemployment rose to more than 8 percent. Independent economists predict that the jobless rate will rise as high as 15 percent and that the government's once-vast reserve of dollars will be exhausted sometime next year.
This city remains a showcase of bright lights and choking traffic, but outside the capital popular demonstrations and strikes have begun. With Kremlin funding drying up, regional governments are showing signs of rebelliousness. And in Moscow itself there are hints of an ugly debate among the competing political clans around Putin over how to divide what money is left.
These are all familiar symptoms of the political and economic "chaos" of the Russian 1990s, the rescue from which has been the foundation of Putin's domestic popularity. Little surprise then, to hear a seasoned foreign businessman here agree with the almost universal assessment by Moscow's small democratic opposition movement: "Putinism as it has existed until now is dead." Former chess champion-turned-dissident Garry Kasparov said, "The situation will inevitably lead to political change. What kind of change? I don't know."
To that uncertainty must be added Putin's unaltered domestic political formula: harsh repression of critics such as Kasparov, the unsolved murders of leading journalists and human rights activists, and relentless television propaganda that describes Russia as a great power encircled by enemies -- foremost among them the United States. "Of course the authorities understand that they need good relations with America now," said Arsenii Roginski of the human rights group Memorial, whose main office, in St. Petersburg, was recently ransacked by security forces. "But also the authorities understand that the population should be told who is the enemy, and why you don't live well -- and that is America. And this is the contradiction."
Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, a longtime student of Russia, liked to point out that, historically, deepening Russian domestic repression has correlated with greater external belligerence. Will this era be an exception? The Obama administration and European governments seem to hope so; the latest Moscow political murders have not slowed their rush to "reset." Yet the cheery Russian response has covered a series of policy moves that are, at best, ambiguous.
Despite its dire budget problems, Putin's government offered $2.1 billion in aid this month to the government of Kyrgyzstan, which promptly announced the closure of a U.S. air base vital to operations in Afghanistan. Russian officials then smilingly offered a supply corridor to Afghanistan through Russia, providing Putin with a potential chokehold over NATO operations. Officials here were blunt in describing their objective: to be treated as an equal partner by Washington in deciding Afghanistan's future.
Then there are the disturbing signs that Putin's ambition to subjugate Georgia -- manifest in the hysterical rhetoric with which officials here continue to describe its democratic and pro-Western government -- remains very much alive. Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected military reporter for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, offers a detailed case for his conclusion that the possibility of a Russian military operation this summer to "finish the job" of toppling Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is "frighteningly high."
Naturally, those betting on a new spring in U.S.-Russian relations scoff at such speculation. But Felgenhauer is used to that. He was also dismissed last year -- when he correctly predicted that a Russian invasion of Georgia would come by August.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022202005.html
MOSCOW -- Normally sour Russian officials are almost jaunty in describing their first engagements with the Obama administration. "We are excited," says one at the Foreign Ministry.
It's not just Vice President Biden's recent promise of a "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations that prompts this outward cheer from the government of Vladimir Putin. A first visit by a senior U.S. delegation here 10 days ago quickly produced agreement on an agenda that begins with a new nuclear arms control treaty to replace the START agreement, which expires at the end of the year. There is discussion of re-creating bilateral cooperation committees, and of U.S. support for Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. And the Russians are thrilled by what they perceive to be Obama's incipient retreat from Bush administration agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to begin building a European missile defense.
So is this the beginning of a new era of cooperation between Washington and Moscow -- a detente that could deliver another big cut in nuclear arsenals, more effective pressure on Iran's nuclear program, and a diminishment of the growing tensions between the United States and Europe over how to handle Russia? A few days spent here with a group of Americans and Germans organized by the German Marshall Fund left me with some considerable doubts.
The first concerns the Russian economy -- the basis of Russians' acceptance of Putin's autocracy -- which has plummeted far faster and further than any in the developed West. This year will see, at best, a massive reversal in Russian output, from the 8 percent growth rate of 2008 to a 2 percent contraction. Industrial production in January dropped 16 percent, and unemployment rose to more than 8 percent. Independent economists predict that the jobless rate will rise as high as 15 percent and that the government's once-vast reserve of dollars will be exhausted sometime next year.
This city remains a showcase of bright lights and choking traffic, but outside the capital popular demonstrations and strikes have begun. With Kremlin funding drying up, regional governments are showing signs of rebelliousness. And in Moscow itself there are hints of an ugly debate among the competing political clans around Putin over how to divide what money is left.
These are all familiar symptoms of the political and economic "chaos" of the Russian 1990s, the rescue from which has been the foundation of Putin's domestic popularity. Little surprise then, to hear a seasoned foreign businessman here agree with the almost universal assessment by Moscow's small democratic opposition movement: "Putinism as it has existed until now is dead." Former chess champion-turned-dissident Garry Kasparov said, "The situation will inevitably lead to political change. What kind of change? I don't know."
To that uncertainty must be added Putin's unaltered domestic political formula: harsh repression of critics such as Kasparov, the unsolved murders of leading journalists and human rights activists, and relentless television propaganda that describes Russia as a great power encircled by enemies -- foremost among them the United States. "Of course the authorities understand that they need good relations with America now," said Arsenii Roginski of the human rights group Memorial, whose main office, in St. Petersburg, was recently ransacked by security forces. "But also the authorities understand that the population should be told who is the enemy, and why you don't live well -- and that is America. And this is the contradiction."
Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, a longtime student of Russia, liked to point out that, historically, deepening Russian domestic repression has correlated with greater external belligerence. Will this era be an exception? The Obama administration and European governments seem to hope so; the latest Moscow political murders have not slowed their rush to "reset." Yet the cheery Russian response has covered a series of policy moves that are, at best, ambiguous.
Despite its dire budget problems, Putin's government offered $2.1 billion in aid this month to the government of Kyrgyzstan, which promptly announced the closure of a U.S. air base vital to operations in Afghanistan. Russian officials then smilingly offered a supply corridor to Afghanistan through Russia, providing Putin with a potential chokehold over NATO operations. Officials here were blunt in describing their objective: to be treated as an equal partner by Washington in deciding Afghanistan's future.
Then there are the disturbing signs that Putin's ambition to subjugate Georgia -- manifest in the hysterical rhetoric with which officials here continue to describe its democratic and pro-Western government -- remains very much alive. Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected military reporter for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, offers a detailed case for his conclusion that the possibility of a Russian military operation this summer to "finish the job" of toppling Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is "frighteningly high."
Naturally, those betting on a new spring in U.S.-Russian relations scoff at such speculation. But Felgenhauer is used to that. He was also dismissed last year -- when he correctly predicted that a Russian invasion of Georgia would come by August.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022202005.html
Obama's Intelligence Choice
By GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
During the presidential campaign, a constant refrain of Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates was that the Bush administration had severely politicized intelligence, resulting in such disasters as the war in Iraq.
AP
Chinese President Hu Jintao, left, greets Chas Freeman Jr., right, at a reception prior to a dinner in his honor in Washington, April 2006.
The irony of course is that, if anything, President Bush badly failed at depoliticizing a CIA that was often hostile to his agenda. Witness the repeated leaks of classified information that undercut his policies. It now appears Mr. Obama has appointed a highly controversial figure to head the National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing National Intelligence Estimates. The news Web site Politico.com yesterday reported that it could confirm rumors that a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles "Chas" Freeman Jr., has been appointed chairman. (My calls to the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence produced neither confirmation nor denial.)
Without question, Mr. Freeman has a distinguished résumé, having served in a long list of State and Defense Department slots. But also without question, he has distinctive political views and affiliations, some of which are more than eyebrow-raising.
In 1997, Mr. Freeman succeeded George McGovern to become the president of the Middle East Policy Council. The MEPC purports to be a nonpartisan, public-affairs group that "strives to ensure that a full range of U.S. interests and views are considered by policy makers" dealing with the Middle East. In fact, its original name until 1991 was the American-Arab Affairs Council, and it is an influential Washington mouthpiece for Saudi Arabia.
The Opinion Journal Widget
Download Opinion Journal's widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page.
As Mr. Freeman acknowledged in a 2006 interview with an outfit called the Saudi-US Relations Information Service, MEPC owes its endowment to the "generosity" of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. Asked in the same interview about his organization's current mission, Mr. Freeman responded, in a revealing non sequitur, that he was "delighted that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has, after a long delay, begun to make serious public relations efforts."
Among MEPC's recent activities in the public relations realm, it has published what it calls an "unabridged" version of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. This controversial 2006 essay argued that American Jews have a "stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, which they employ to tilt the U.S. toward Israel at the expense of broader American interests. Mr. Freeman has both endorsed the paper's thesis and boasted of MEPC's intrepid stance: "No one else in the United States has dared to publish this article, given the political penalties that the Lobby imposes on those who criticize it."
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Freeman has views about Middle East policy that differ rather sharply from those held by supporters of the state of Israel. More surprisingly, they also differ rather sharply from the views -- or at least the views stated during the campaign -- of the president who has invited him to serve.
While President Obama speaks of helping the people of Israel "search for credible partners with whom they can make peace," Mr. Freeman believes, as he said in a 2007 address to the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, that "Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them." The primary reason America confronts a terrorism problem today, he continued, is "the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by an Israeli occupation that is about to mark its fortieth anniversary and shows no sign of ending."
Although initial reaction to Mr. Freeman's selection has focused on his views of the Middle East, that region is by no means Mr. Freeman's only area of interest. He has pronounced on a wide variety of other subjects, including China, where he has attempted to explain away the scale and scope of the starkly intensive buildup of the People's Liberation Army. The specter of a Chinese threat, he remarked during a China forum at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in October 2006, is nothing more than "a great fund-raiser for the hyper-expensive advanced weaponry our military-industrial complex prefers to make and our armed forces love to employ."
On the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Freeman unabashedly sides with the Chinese government, a remarkable position for an appointee of an administration that has pledged to advance the cause of human rights. Mr. Freeman has been a participant in ChinaSec, a confidential Internet discussion group of China specialists. A copy of one of his postings was provided to me by a former member. "The truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities," he wrote there in 2006, "was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud." Moreover, "the Politburo's response to the mob scene at 'Tiananmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action." Indeed, continued Mr. Freeman, "I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be."
We have already seen a string of poorly vetted appointments from the Obama White House, like those of Tom Daschle and Bill Richardson, that after public scrutiny were tossed under the bus. The chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council differs from those cases, for it does not require Senate confirmation. If someone with such extreme views has been appointed to such a sensitive position, is this a reflection of Mr. Obama's true predilections, or is it proof positive that the Obama White House has never gotten around to vetting its own vetters?
Either way, if those complaining loudest about politicized intelligence have indeed placed a China-coddling Israel basher in charge of drafting the most important analyses prepared by the U.S. government, it is quite a spectacle. The problem is not that Mr. Freeman will shade National Intelligence Estimates to suit the administration's political views. The far more serious danger is that he will steer them to reflect his own outlandish perspectives and prejudices.
Mr. Schoenfeld, a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., is writing a book about secrecy and national security
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123552619980465801.html
During the presidential campaign, a constant refrain of Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates was that the Bush administration had severely politicized intelligence, resulting in such disasters as the war in Iraq.
AP
Chinese President Hu Jintao, left, greets Chas Freeman Jr., right, at a reception prior to a dinner in his honor in Washington, April 2006.
The irony of course is that, if anything, President Bush badly failed at depoliticizing a CIA that was often hostile to his agenda. Witness the repeated leaks of classified information that undercut his policies. It now appears Mr. Obama has appointed a highly controversial figure to head the National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing National Intelligence Estimates. The news Web site Politico.com yesterday reported that it could confirm rumors that a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles "Chas" Freeman Jr., has been appointed chairman. (My calls to the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence produced neither confirmation nor denial.)
Without question, Mr. Freeman has a distinguished résumé, having served in a long list of State and Defense Department slots. But also without question, he has distinctive political views and affiliations, some of which are more than eyebrow-raising.
In 1997, Mr. Freeman succeeded George McGovern to become the president of the Middle East Policy Council. The MEPC purports to be a nonpartisan, public-affairs group that "strives to ensure that a full range of U.S. interests and views are considered by policy makers" dealing with the Middle East. In fact, its original name until 1991 was the American-Arab Affairs Council, and it is an influential Washington mouthpiece for Saudi Arabia.
The Opinion Journal Widget
Download Opinion Journal's widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page.
As Mr. Freeman acknowledged in a 2006 interview with an outfit called the Saudi-US Relations Information Service, MEPC owes its endowment to the "generosity" of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. Asked in the same interview about his organization's current mission, Mr. Freeman responded, in a revealing non sequitur, that he was "delighted that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has, after a long delay, begun to make serious public relations efforts."
Among MEPC's recent activities in the public relations realm, it has published what it calls an "unabridged" version of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. This controversial 2006 essay argued that American Jews have a "stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, which they employ to tilt the U.S. toward Israel at the expense of broader American interests. Mr. Freeman has both endorsed the paper's thesis and boasted of MEPC's intrepid stance: "No one else in the United States has dared to publish this article, given the political penalties that the Lobby imposes on those who criticize it."
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Freeman has views about Middle East policy that differ rather sharply from those held by supporters of the state of Israel. More surprisingly, they also differ rather sharply from the views -- or at least the views stated during the campaign -- of the president who has invited him to serve.
While President Obama speaks of helping the people of Israel "search for credible partners with whom they can make peace," Mr. Freeman believes, as he said in a 2007 address to the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, that "Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them." The primary reason America confronts a terrorism problem today, he continued, is "the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by an Israeli occupation that is about to mark its fortieth anniversary and shows no sign of ending."
Although initial reaction to Mr. Freeman's selection has focused on his views of the Middle East, that region is by no means Mr. Freeman's only area of interest. He has pronounced on a wide variety of other subjects, including China, where he has attempted to explain away the scale and scope of the starkly intensive buildup of the People's Liberation Army. The specter of a Chinese threat, he remarked during a China forum at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in October 2006, is nothing more than "a great fund-raiser for the hyper-expensive advanced weaponry our military-industrial complex prefers to make and our armed forces love to employ."
On the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Freeman unabashedly sides with the Chinese government, a remarkable position for an appointee of an administration that has pledged to advance the cause of human rights. Mr. Freeman has been a participant in ChinaSec, a confidential Internet discussion group of China specialists. A copy of one of his postings was provided to me by a former member. "The truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities," he wrote there in 2006, "was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud." Moreover, "the Politburo's response to the mob scene at 'Tiananmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action." Indeed, continued Mr. Freeman, "I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be."
We have already seen a string of poorly vetted appointments from the Obama White House, like those of Tom Daschle and Bill Richardson, that after public scrutiny were tossed under the bus. The chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council differs from those cases, for it does not require Senate confirmation. If someone with such extreme views has been appointed to such a sensitive position, is this a reflection of Mr. Obama's true predilections, or is it proof positive that the Obama White House has never gotten around to vetting its own vetters?
Either way, if those complaining loudest about politicized intelligence have indeed placed a China-coddling Israel basher in charge of drafting the most important analyses prepared by the U.S. government, it is quite a spectacle. The problem is not that Mr. Freeman will shade National Intelligence Estimates to suit the administration's political views. The far more serious danger is that he will steer them to reflect his own outlandish perspectives and prejudices.
Mr. Schoenfeld, a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., is writing a book about secrecy and national security
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123552619980465801.html
A Strategy for Afghanistan
By Henry A. KissingerThursday, February 26, 2009
The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.
The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.
Heretofore, America has pursued traditional anti-insurgency tactics: to create a central government, help it extend its authority over the entire country and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and democratic society.
That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan -- especially not as an essentially solitary effort. The country is too large, the territory too forbidding, the ethnic composition too varied, the population too heavily armed. No foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan. Even attempts to establish centralized Afghan control have rarely succeeded and then not for long. Afghans seem to define their country in terms of a common dedication to independence but not to unitary or centralized self-government.
The truism that the war is, in effect, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan population is valid enough in concept. The low standard of living of much of the population has been exacerbated by 30 years of civil war. The economy is on the verge of sustaining itself through the sale of narcotics. There is no significant democratic tradition. Reform is a moral necessity. But the time scale for reform is out of sync with the requirements of anti-guerrilla warfare. Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security -- but it cannot be the precondition for it.
The military effort will inevitably unfold at a pace different from the country's political evolution. Immediately, however, we are able to make sure that our aid efforts, now diffuse and inefficient, are coherent and relevant to popular needs. And much greater emphasis should be given to local and regional entities.
Military strategy should concentrate on preventing the emergence of a coherent, contiguous state within the state controlled by jihadists. In practice, this would mean control of Kabul and the Pashtun area. A jihadist base area on both sides of the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border would become a permanent threat to hopes for a moderate evolution and to all of Afghanistan's neighbors. Gen. David Petraeus has argued that, reinforced by the number of American forces he has recommended, he should be able to control the 10 percent of Afghan territory where, in his words, 80 percent of the military threat originates. This is the region where the "clear, hold and build" strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable.
In the rest of the country, our military strategy should be more fluid, aimed at forestalling the emergence of terrorist strong points. It should be based on close cooperation with local chiefs and coordination with their militias to be trained by U.S. forces -- the kind of strategy that proved so successful in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold in Iraq. This is a plausible approach, though it seems improbable that the 17,000 reinforcements President Obama recently committed are enough. In the end, the fundamental issue is not so much how the war will be conducted but how it will be ended. Afghanistan is almost the archetypal international problem requiring a multilateral solution for a political framework to emerge. In the 19th century, formal neutrality was sometimes negotiated to impose a standstill on interventions in and from strategically located countries. This provided a framework for defusing day-to-day international relations. (Belgian neutrality, for example, was not challenged for nearly 100 years.) Is it possible to devise a modern equivalent?
In Afghanistan, such an outcome is achievable only if its principal neighbors agree on a policy of restraint and opposition to terrorism. Their recent conduct argues against such prospects. Yet history should teach them that unilateral efforts at dominance are likely to fail in the face of countervailing intervention by other outside actors. To explore such a vision, the United States should propose a working group of Afghanistan's neighbors, India and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Such a group should be charged with assisting in the reconstruction and reform of Afghanistan and establishing principles for the country's international status and obligations to oppose terrorist activities. Over time, America's unilateral military efforts can merge with the diplomatic efforts of this group. As the strategy envisaged by Petraeus succeeds, the prospects for a political solution along these lines would grow correspondingly.
The precondition for such a policy is cooperation with Russia and Pakistan. With respect to Russia, it requires a clear definition of priorities, especially a choice between partnership or adversarial conduct insofar as it depends on us.
The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan's leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries -- or continued impotence with respect to them -- will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom. If the jihadists were to prevail in Afghanistan, Pakistan would surely be the next target -- as is observable by activity already taking place along the existing borders and in the Swat Valley close to Islamabad. If that were to happen, the affected countries would need to consult each other about the implications of the nuclear arsenal of a Pakistan being engulfed or even threatened by jihadists. Like every country engaged in Afghanistan, Pakistan has to make decisions that will affect its international position for decades.
Other countries, especially our NATO allies, face comparable choices. Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant. But save for some notable exceptions, public support for military operations is negligible in almost all NATO countries. It is possible, of course, that Obama's popularity in Europe can modify these attitudes -- but probably to only a limited extent. The president would have to decide how far he will carry the inevitable differences and face the reality that disagreements concern fundamental questions of NATO's future and reach. Improved consultation would ease this process. It is likely to turn out, however, that the differences are not procedural. We may then conclude that an enhanced NATO contribution to Afghanistan's reconstruction is more useful than a marginal military effort constrained by caveats. But if NATO turns into an alliance a la carte in this manner, a precedent that can cut both ways would be set. Those who tempt a U.S. withdrawal by their indifference or irresolution evade the prospect that it would be the prelude to a long series of accelerating and escalating crises.
President Obama said Tuesday night that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world." Whatever strategy his team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022503124.html
The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.
The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.
Heretofore, America has pursued traditional anti-insurgency tactics: to create a central government, help it extend its authority over the entire country and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and democratic society.
That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan -- especially not as an essentially solitary effort. The country is too large, the territory too forbidding, the ethnic composition too varied, the population too heavily armed. No foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan. Even attempts to establish centralized Afghan control have rarely succeeded and then not for long. Afghans seem to define their country in terms of a common dedication to independence but not to unitary or centralized self-government.
The truism that the war is, in effect, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan population is valid enough in concept. The low standard of living of much of the population has been exacerbated by 30 years of civil war. The economy is on the verge of sustaining itself through the sale of narcotics. There is no significant democratic tradition. Reform is a moral necessity. But the time scale for reform is out of sync with the requirements of anti-guerrilla warfare. Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security -- but it cannot be the precondition for it.
The military effort will inevitably unfold at a pace different from the country's political evolution. Immediately, however, we are able to make sure that our aid efforts, now diffuse and inefficient, are coherent and relevant to popular needs. And much greater emphasis should be given to local and regional entities.
Military strategy should concentrate on preventing the emergence of a coherent, contiguous state within the state controlled by jihadists. In practice, this would mean control of Kabul and the Pashtun area. A jihadist base area on both sides of the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border would become a permanent threat to hopes for a moderate evolution and to all of Afghanistan's neighbors. Gen. David Petraeus has argued that, reinforced by the number of American forces he has recommended, he should be able to control the 10 percent of Afghan territory where, in his words, 80 percent of the military threat originates. This is the region where the "clear, hold and build" strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable.
In the rest of the country, our military strategy should be more fluid, aimed at forestalling the emergence of terrorist strong points. It should be based on close cooperation with local chiefs and coordination with their militias to be trained by U.S. forces -- the kind of strategy that proved so successful in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold in Iraq. This is a plausible approach, though it seems improbable that the 17,000 reinforcements President Obama recently committed are enough. In the end, the fundamental issue is not so much how the war will be conducted but how it will be ended. Afghanistan is almost the archetypal international problem requiring a multilateral solution for a political framework to emerge. In the 19th century, formal neutrality was sometimes negotiated to impose a standstill on interventions in and from strategically located countries. This provided a framework for defusing day-to-day international relations. (Belgian neutrality, for example, was not challenged for nearly 100 years.) Is it possible to devise a modern equivalent?
In Afghanistan, such an outcome is achievable only if its principal neighbors agree on a policy of restraint and opposition to terrorism. Their recent conduct argues against such prospects. Yet history should teach them that unilateral efforts at dominance are likely to fail in the face of countervailing intervention by other outside actors. To explore such a vision, the United States should propose a working group of Afghanistan's neighbors, India and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Such a group should be charged with assisting in the reconstruction and reform of Afghanistan and establishing principles for the country's international status and obligations to oppose terrorist activities. Over time, America's unilateral military efforts can merge with the diplomatic efforts of this group. As the strategy envisaged by Petraeus succeeds, the prospects for a political solution along these lines would grow correspondingly.
The precondition for such a policy is cooperation with Russia and Pakistan. With respect to Russia, it requires a clear definition of priorities, especially a choice between partnership or adversarial conduct insofar as it depends on us.
The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan's leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries -- or continued impotence with respect to them -- will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom. If the jihadists were to prevail in Afghanistan, Pakistan would surely be the next target -- as is observable by activity already taking place along the existing borders and in the Swat Valley close to Islamabad. If that were to happen, the affected countries would need to consult each other about the implications of the nuclear arsenal of a Pakistan being engulfed or even threatened by jihadists. Like every country engaged in Afghanistan, Pakistan has to make decisions that will affect its international position for decades.
Other countries, especially our NATO allies, face comparable choices. Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant. But save for some notable exceptions, public support for military operations is negligible in almost all NATO countries. It is possible, of course, that Obama's popularity in Europe can modify these attitudes -- but probably to only a limited extent. The president would have to decide how far he will carry the inevitable differences and face the reality that disagreements concern fundamental questions of NATO's future and reach. Improved consultation would ease this process. It is likely to turn out, however, that the differences are not procedural. We may then conclude that an enhanced NATO contribution to Afghanistan's reconstruction is more useful than a marginal military effort constrained by caveats. But if NATO turns into an alliance a la carte in this manner, a precedent that can cut both ways would be set. Those who tempt a U.S. withdrawal by their indifference or irresolution evade the prospect that it would be the prelude to a long series of accelerating and escalating crises.
President Obama said Tuesday night that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world." Whatever strategy his team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022503124.html
Editorial: Playing With Fire in Pakistan
Almost no one wants to say it out loud. But between the threats from extremists, an unraveling economy, battling civilian leaders and tensions with its nuclear rival India, Pakistan is edging ever closer to the abyss.
In a report this week, The Atlantic Council warned that Pakistan’s stability is imperiled and that the time to change course is fast running out. That would be quite enough for any government to deal with. Then on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court added new fuel upholding a ruling barring opposition leader Nawaz Sharif — a former prime minister — and his brother from holding elected office. That touched off protests across Punjab Province, the Sharifs’ power base and Pakistan’s richest and politically most important province.
The Sharifs charge that the Supreme Court is a tool of President Asif Ali Zardari. They are backing anti-government lawyers who have long campaigned for the reinstatement of the country’s former top judge who was dismissed by former Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2007.
We don’t know if Mr. Zardari orchestrated this ruling, as Nawaz Sharif and many others have charged. (The government actually argued Mr. Sharif’s side in the case, which stems from an earlier politically motivated criminal conviction.) We do know the danger of letting this situation get out of control.
When Mr. Zardari became president, he pledged to unite the country. He has not. Like Mr. Zardari, Mr. Sharif is a flawed leader and no doubt is manipulating the combustible court ruling for personal political gain.
For Pakistan’s democracy to survive, a robust opposition must be allowed to flourish and participate peacefully in the country’s political life. That includes finding a way for Mr. Sharif to run for office.
It also means Pakistan must get serious about tackling its problems, including the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mr. Zardari, whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by extremists, seems to understand.
Unfortunately, the powerful chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, still seems far more focused on the potential threat of India than the clear and present danger of the extremists. He is said to have supported the recent deal in which the government effectively ceded the Swat Valley — in the border region but just 100 miles from Islamabad — to militants in a misguided bid for a false peace.
Pakistanis need to understand that this is their fight, not just America’s. We hope top American officials delivered that message loudly and clearly when General Kayani visited Washington this week.
There was a time when Messrs. Zardari and Sharif pledged to work together for the good of Pakistan. Their country is in mortal danger. And they need to find a way to work together to save it.
New York Times
In a report this week, The Atlantic Council warned that Pakistan’s stability is imperiled and that the time to change course is fast running out. That would be quite enough for any government to deal with. Then on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court added new fuel upholding a ruling barring opposition leader Nawaz Sharif — a former prime minister — and his brother from holding elected office. That touched off protests across Punjab Province, the Sharifs’ power base and Pakistan’s richest and politically most important province.
The Sharifs charge that the Supreme Court is a tool of President Asif Ali Zardari. They are backing anti-government lawyers who have long campaigned for the reinstatement of the country’s former top judge who was dismissed by former Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2007.
We don’t know if Mr. Zardari orchestrated this ruling, as Nawaz Sharif and many others have charged. (The government actually argued Mr. Sharif’s side in the case, which stems from an earlier politically motivated criminal conviction.) We do know the danger of letting this situation get out of control.
When Mr. Zardari became president, he pledged to unite the country. He has not. Like Mr. Zardari, Mr. Sharif is a flawed leader and no doubt is manipulating the combustible court ruling for personal political gain.
For Pakistan’s democracy to survive, a robust opposition must be allowed to flourish and participate peacefully in the country’s political life. That includes finding a way for Mr. Sharif to run for office.
It also means Pakistan must get serious about tackling its problems, including the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mr. Zardari, whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by extremists, seems to understand.
Unfortunately, the powerful chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, still seems far more focused on the potential threat of India than the clear and present danger of the extremists. He is said to have supported the recent deal in which the government effectively ceded the Swat Valley — in the border region but just 100 miles from Islamabad — to militants in a misguided bid for a false peace.
Pakistanis need to understand that this is their fight, not just America’s. We hope top American officials delivered that message loudly and clearly when General Kayani visited Washington this week.
There was a time when Messrs. Zardari and Sharif pledged to work together for the good of Pakistan. Their country is in mortal danger. And they need to find a way to work together to save it.
New York Times
Disable Pakistan's nuclear weapons
Kapil Komireddi
Pakistani leaders often blame outsiders for their problems, but Pakistan is a country defeated by its origins. Created for India's Muslims on the premise that, in Pakistan, no Muslim would be killed for being Muslim, it bred an atmosphere where Muslims are today being killed for not being "good Muslims". Legitimising religious exclusivism promoted militant puritanism.
So it is hardly surprising that Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, went on television last week to admit that his country was fighting for its survival against religious extremists. "The Taliban [are] trying to take over the state of Pakistan," he told CBS's Steve Kroft. "We are fighting for the survival of Pakistan." Last year, the Taliban struck at the heart of Islamabad, reducing the Marriott Hotel, redoubt of Pakistan's rich and powerful, to rubble; and the CIA believes that Benazir Bhutto's assassination a year before was helped by tribal leaders in the Swat region aligned with the Taliban.
Yet, unable to prevail by force, a day after the interview's broadcast Zardari's government struck a deal with the Taliban in the Swat region, effectively ceding authority to its principal nemesis in an area that is only 100 miles away from Pakistan's capital. Having made incremental gains over many years, the Taliban are now at the gates of Islamabad – and Islamabad possesses at least 55 nuclear warheads.
Anticipating such an event, the Bush administration had moved to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal by offering to share with Islamabad the sophisticated Pals ("permissive action links") technology, which would have linked Pakistan's nuclear weapons to secret codes that would control their activation. Legal restrictions prevented this from happening.
But in a country where the civilian government is in a sempiternal struggle for supremacy against its powerful military and intelligence services – and where elements within the military and intelligence services have a proven track record of sponsoring terrorism against countries the civilian government has taken pains to befriend – even the Pals would have proved inadequate.
Rebuilding Pakistan with long-term fiscal aid has been a top priority so far, but Islamabad's paymasters in the west must now seriously consider the option of comprehensively de-nuclearising Pakistan. It is dangerously delusional to carry on pretending that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are perfectly safe when the custodian of those weapons, the president of Pakistan, is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and when the country itself is on the brink of collapse.
The consequences of Pakistan's failure have been felt most severely by Pakistanis; and India, as Ashley J Tellis noted, has unfortunately become the "sponge" that has protected the west by absorbing many of the attacks emanating from Pakistan. But the implications of nuclear-armed Pakistan's instability, and the results of its decades-long flirtation with religious fundamentalists, go beyond the subcontinent. As Gordon Corera has documented in his book Shopping for Bombs, it was Pakistan that supplied nuclear secrets to bidders in North Korea and Iran, among others.
Islamabad is not likely to yield easily to requests to de-nuclearise, but the most plausible way to start the process would be to use the leverage that Pakistan's donors, particularly in Washington and London, have gained over the last decade to begin talks to ship its nuclear weapons out of the country. In return, as Bret Stephens has suggested, the US should promise increased fiscal aid, superior conventional arms and even nuclear protection.
Numerous proposals to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, indubitably the most vulnerable in the world, have been offered, but western attempts have been repeatedly frustrated by Islamabad. Now, however, things have moved beyond the point at which western inaction can be explained away as deference to Pakistani sensibilities. The price of respecting the supposed sovereignty of an imploding state which in reality is incapable of controlling much of the territory it claims will be too heavy. The west will pay a heavy price if it does not act now.
Guardian
Pakistani leaders often blame outsiders for their problems, but Pakistan is a country defeated by its origins. Created for India's Muslims on the premise that, in Pakistan, no Muslim would be killed for being Muslim, it bred an atmosphere where Muslims are today being killed for not being "good Muslims". Legitimising religious exclusivism promoted militant puritanism.
So it is hardly surprising that Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, went on television last week to admit that his country was fighting for its survival against religious extremists. "The Taliban [are] trying to take over the state of Pakistan," he told CBS's Steve Kroft. "We are fighting for the survival of Pakistan." Last year, the Taliban struck at the heart of Islamabad, reducing the Marriott Hotel, redoubt of Pakistan's rich and powerful, to rubble; and the CIA believes that Benazir Bhutto's assassination a year before was helped by tribal leaders in the Swat region aligned with the Taliban.
Yet, unable to prevail by force, a day after the interview's broadcast Zardari's government struck a deal with the Taliban in the Swat region, effectively ceding authority to its principal nemesis in an area that is only 100 miles away from Pakistan's capital. Having made incremental gains over many years, the Taliban are now at the gates of Islamabad – and Islamabad possesses at least 55 nuclear warheads.
Anticipating such an event, the Bush administration had moved to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal by offering to share with Islamabad the sophisticated Pals ("permissive action links") technology, which would have linked Pakistan's nuclear weapons to secret codes that would control their activation. Legal restrictions prevented this from happening.
But in a country where the civilian government is in a sempiternal struggle for supremacy against its powerful military and intelligence services – and where elements within the military and intelligence services have a proven track record of sponsoring terrorism against countries the civilian government has taken pains to befriend – even the Pals would have proved inadequate.
Rebuilding Pakistan with long-term fiscal aid has been a top priority so far, but Islamabad's paymasters in the west must now seriously consider the option of comprehensively de-nuclearising Pakistan. It is dangerously delusional to carry on pretending that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are perfectly safe when the custodian of those weapons, the president of Pakistan, is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and when the country itself is on the brink of collapse.
The consequences of Pakistan's failure have been felt most severely by Pakistanis; and India, as Ashley J Tellis noted, has unfortunately become the "sponge" that has protected the west by absorbing many of the attacks emanating from Pakistan. But the implications of nuclear-armed Pakistan's instability, and the results of its decades-long flirtation with religious fundamentalists, go beyond the subcontinent. As Gordon Corera has documented in his book Shopping for Bombs, it was Pakistan that supplied nuclear secrets to bidders in North Korea and Iran, among others.
Islamabad is not likely to yield easily to requests to de-nuclearise, but the most plausible way to start the process would be to use the leverage that Pakistan's donors, particularly in Washington and London, have gained over the last decade to begin talks to ship its nuclear weapons out of the country. In return, as Bret Stephens has suggested, the US should promise increased fiscal aid, superior conventional arms and even nuclear protection.
Numerous proposals to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, indubitably the most vulnerable in the world, have been offered, but western attempts have been repeatedly frustrated by Islamabad. Now, however, things have moved beyond the point at which western inaction can be explained away as deference to Pakistani sensibilities. The price of respecting the supposed sovereignty of an imploding state which in reality is incapable of controlling much of the territory it claims will be too heavy. The west will pay a heavy price if it does not act now.
Guardian
The Financial Crisis and the Six Pillars of Russian Strength
By Lauren Goodrich and Peter Zeihan
Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia has been re-establishing much of its lost Soviet-era strength. This has given rise to the possibility — and even the probability — that Russia again will become a potent adversary of the Western world. But now, Russia is yet again on the cusp of a set of massive currency devaluations that could destroy much of the country’s financial system. With a crashing currency, the disappearance of foreign capital, greatly decreased energy revenues and currency reserves flying out of the bank, the Western perception is that Russia is on the verge of collapsing once again. Consequently, many Western countries have started to grow complacent about Russia’s ability to further project power abroad.
But this is Russia. And Russia rarely follows anyone else’s rulebook.
The State of the Russian State
Russia has faced a slew of economic problems in the past six months. Incoming foreign direct investment, which reached a record high of $28 billion in 2007, has reportedly dried up to just a few billion. Russia’s two stock markets, the Russian Trading System (RTS) and the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX), have fallen 78 and 67 percent respectively since their highs in May 2008. And Russians have withdrawn $290 billion from the country’s banks in fear of a financial collapse.
One of Moscow’s sharpest financial pains came in the form of a slumping Russian ruble, which has dropped by about one-third against the dollar since August 2008. Thus far, the Kremlin has spent $200 billion defending its currency, a startling number given that the currency still dropped by 35 percent. The Russian government has allowed dozens of mini-devaluations to occur since August; the ruble’s fall has pushed the currency past its lowest point in the 1998 ruble crash.
The Kremlin now faces three options. First, it can continue defending the ruble by pouring more money into what looks like a black hole. Realistically, this can last only another six months or so, as Russia’s combined reserves of $750 billion in August 2008 have dropped to just less than $400 billion due to various recession-battling measures (of which currency defense is only one). This option would also limit Russia’s future anti-recession measures to currency defense alone. In essence, this option relies on merely hoping the global recession ends before the till runs dry.
The second option would be to abandon any defense of the ruble and just let the currency crash. This option will not hurt Moscow or its prized industries (like those in the energy and metals sectors) too much, as the Kremlin, its institutions and most large Russian companies hold their reserves in dollars and euros. Smaller businesses and the Russian people would lose everything, however, just as in the August 1998 ruble crash. This may sound harsh, but the Kremlin has proved repeatedly — during the Imperial, Soviet and present eras — that it is willing to put the survival of the Russian state before the welfare and survival of the people.
The third option is much like the second. It involves sealing the currency system off completely from international trade, relegating it only to use in purely domestic exchanges. But turning to a closed system would make the ruble absolutely worthless abroad, and probably within Russia as well — the black market and small businesses would be forced to follow the government’s example and switch to the euro, or more likely, the U.S. dollar. (Russians tend to trust the dollar more than the euro.)
According to the predominant rumor in Moscow, the Kremlin will opt for combining the first and second options, allowing a series of small devaluations, but continuing a partial defense of the currency to avoid a single 1998-style collapse. Such a hybrid approach would reflect internal politicking.
The lack of angst within the government over the disappearance of the ruble as a symbol of Russian strength is most intriguing. Instead of discussing how to preserve Russian financial power, the debate is now over how to let the currency crash. The destruction of this particular symbol of Russian strength over the past ten years has now become a given in the Kremlin’s thinking, as has the end of the growth and economic strength seen in recent years.
Washington is interpreting the Russian acceptance of economic failure as a sort of surrender. It is not difficult to see why. For most states — powerful or not — a deep recession coupled with a currency collapse would indicate an evisceration of the ability to project power, or even the end of the road. After all, similar economic collapses in 1992 and 1998 heralded periods in which Russian power simply evaporated, allowing the Americans free rein across the Russian sphere of influence. Russia has been using its economic strength to revive its influence as of late, so — as the American thinking goes — the destruction of that strength should lead to a new period of Russian weakness.
Geography and Development
But before one can truly understand the roots of Russian power, the reality and role of the Russian economy must be examined. From this perspective, the past several years are most certainly an aberration — and we are not simply speaking of the post-Soviet collapse.
All states economies’ to a great degree reflect their geographies. In the United States, the presence of large, interconnected river systems in the central third of the country, the intracoastal waterway along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, the vastness of San Francisco Bay, the numerous rivers flowing to the sea from the eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and the abundance of ideal port locations made the country easy to develop. The cost of transporting goods was nil, and scarce capital could be dedicated to other pursuits. The result was a massive economy with an equally massive leg up on any competition.
Russia’s geography is the polar opposite. Hardly any of Russia’s rivers are interconnected. The country has several massive ones — the Pechora, the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena and the Kolyma — but they drain the nearly unpopulated Siberia to the Arctic Ocean, making them useless for commerce. The only river that cuts through Russia’s core, the Volga, drains not to the ocean but to the landlocked and sparsely populated Caspian Sea, the center of a sparsely populated region. Also unlike the United States, Russia has few useful ports. Kaliningrad is not connected to the main body of Russia. The Gulf of Finland freezes in winter, isolating St. Petersburg. The only true deepwater and warm-water ocean ports, Vladivostok and Murmansk, are simply too far from Russia’s core to be useful. So while geography handed the United States the perfect transport network free of charge, Russia has had to use every available kopek to link its country together with an expensive road, rail and canal network.
One of the many side effects of this geography situation is that the United States had extra capital that it could dedicate to finance in a relatively democratic manner, while Russia’s chronic capital deficit prompted it to concentrate what little capital resources it had into a single set of hands — Moscow’s hands. So while the United States became the poster child for the free market, Russia (whether the Russian Empire, Soviet Union or Russian Federation) has always tended toward central planning.
Russian industrialization and militarization began in earnest under Josef Stalin in the 1930s. Under centralized planning, all industry and services were nationalized, while industrial leaders were given predetermined output quotas.
Perhaps the most noteworthy difference between the Western and Russian development paths was the different use of finance. At the start of Stalin’s massive economic undertaking, international loans to build the economy were unavailable, both because the new government had repudiated the czarist regime’s international debts and because industrialized countries — the potential lenders — were coping with the onset of their own economic crisis (e.g., the Great Depression).
With loans and bonds unavailable, Stalin turned to another centrally controlled resource to “fund” Russian development: labor. Trade unions were converted into mechanisms for capturing all available labor as well as for increasing worker productivity. Russia essentially substitutes labor for capital, so it is no surprise that Stalin — like all Russian leaders before him — ran his population into the ground. Stalin called this his “revolution from above.”
Over the long term, the centralized system is highly inefficient, as it does not take the basic economic drivers of supply and demand into account — to say nothing of how it crushes the common worker. But for a country as geographically massive as Russia, it was (and remains) questionable whether Western finance-driven development is even feasible, due to the lack of cheap transit options and the massive distances involved. Development driven by the crushing of the labor pool was probably the best Russia could hope for, and the same holds true today.
In stark contrast to ages past, for the past five years foreign money has underwritten Russian development. Russian banks did not depend upon government funding — which was accumulated into vast reserves — but instead tapped foreign lenders and bondholders. Russian banks took this money and used it to lend to Russian firms. Meanwhile, as the Russian government asserted control over the country’s energy industries during the last several years, it created a completely separate economy that only rarely intersected with other aspects of Russian economic life. So when the current global recession helped lead to the evaporation of foreign credit, the core of the government/energy economy was broadly unaffected, even as the rest of the Russian economy ingloriously crashed to earth.
Since Putin’s rise, the Kremlin has sought to project an image of a strong, stable and financially powerful Russia. This vision of strength has been the cornerstone of Russian confidence for years. Note that STRATFOR is saying “vision,” not “reality.” For in reality, Russian financial confidence is solely the result of cash brought in from strong oil and natural gas prices — something largely beyond the Russians’ ability to manipulate — not the result of any restructuring of the Russian system. As such, the revelation that the emperor has no clothes — that Russia is still a complete financial mess — is more a blow to Moscow’s ego than a signal of a fundamental change in the reality of Russian power.
The Reality of Russian Power
So while Russia might be losing its financial security and capabilities, which in the West tend to boil down to economic wealth, the global recession has not affected the reality of Russian power much at all. Russia has not, currently or historically, worked off of anyone else’s cash or used economic stability as a foundation for political might or social stability. Instead, Russia relies on many other tools in its kit. Some of the following six pillars of Russian power are more powerful and appropriate than ever:
Geography: Unlike its main geopolitical rival, the United States, Russia borders most of the regions it wishes to project power into, and few geographic barriers separate it from its targets. Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states have zero geographic insulation from Russia. Central Asia is sheltered by distance, but not by mountains or rivers. The Caucasus provide a bit of a speed bump to Russia, but pro-Russian enclaves in Georgia give the Kremlin a secure foothold south of the mountain range (putting the August Russian-Georgian war in perspective). Even if U.S. forces were not tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States would face potentially insurmountable difficulties in countering Russian actions in Moscow’s so-called “Near Abroad.” Russia can project all manner of influence and intimidation there on the cheap, while even symbolic counters are quite costly for the United States. In contrast, places such as Latin America, Southeast Asia or Africa do not capture much more than the Russian imagination; the Kremlin realizes it can do little more there than stir the occasional pot, and resources are allotted (centrally, of course) accordingly.
Politics: It is no secret that the Kremlin uses an iron fist to maintain domestic control. There are few domestic forces the government cannot control or balance. The Kremlin understands the revolutions (1917 in particular) and collapses (1991 in particular) of the past, and it has control mechanisms in place to prevent a repeat. This control is seen in every aspect of Russian life, from one main political party ruling the country to the lack of diversified media, limits on public demonstrations and the infiltration of the security services into nearly every aspect of the Russian system. This domination was fortified under Stalin and has been re-established under the reign of former President and now-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. This political strength is based on neither financial nor economic foundations. Instead, it is based within the political institutions and parties, on the lack of a meaningful opposition, and with the backing of the military and security services. Russia’s neighbors, especially in Europe, cannot count on the same political strength because their systems are simply not set up the same way. The stability of the Russian government and lack of stability in the former Soviet states and much of Central Europe have also allowed the Kremlin to reach beyond Russia and influence its neighbors to the east. Now as before, when some of its former Soviet subjects — such as Ukraine — become destabilized, Russia sweeps in as a source of stability and authority, regardless of whether this benefits the recipient of Moscow’s attention.
Social System: As a consequence of Moscow’s political control and the economic situation, the Russian system is socially crushing, and has had long-term effects on the Russian psyche. As mentioned above, during the Soviet-era process of industrialization and militarization, workers operated under the direst of conditions for the good of the state. The Russian state has made it very clear that the productivity and survival of the state is far more important than the welfare of the people. This made Russia politically and economically strong, not in the sense that the people have had a voice, but in that they have not challenged the state since the beginning of the Soviet period. The Russian people, regardless of whether they admit it, continue to work to keep the state intact even when it does not benefit them. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia kept operating — though a bit haphazardly. Russians still went to work, even if they were not being paid. The same was seen in 1998, when the country collapsed financially. This is a very different mentality than that found in the West. Most Russians would not even consider the mass protests seen in Europe in response to the economic crisis. The Russian government, by contrast, can count on its people to continue to support the state and keep the country going with little protest over the conditions. Though there have been a few sporadic and meager protests in Russia, these protests mainly have been in opposition to the financial situation, not to the government’s hand in it. In some of these demonstrations, protesters have carried signs reading, “In government we trust, in the economic system we don’t.” This means Moscow can count on a stable population.
Natural Resources: Modern Russia enjoys a wealth of natural resources in everything from food and metals to gold and timber. The markets may take a roller-coaster ride and the currency may collapse, but the Russian economy has access to the core necessities of life. Many of these resources serve a double purpose, for in addition to making Russia independent of the outside world, they also give Moscow the ability to project power effectively. Russian energy — especially natural gas — is particularly key: Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas for a quarter of its demand. This relationship guarantees Russia a steady supply of now-scarce capital even as it forces the Europeans to take any Russian concerns seriously. The energy tie is something Russia has very publicly used as a political weapon, either by raising prices or by cutting off supplies. In a recession, this lever’s effectiveness has only grown.
Military: The Russian military is in the midst of a broad modernization and restructuring, and is reconstituting its basic warfighting capability. While many challenges remain, Moscow already has imposed a new reality through military force in Georgia. While Tbilisi was certainly an easy target, the Russian military looks very different to Kiev — or even Warsaw and Prague — than it does to the Pentagon. And even in this case, Russia has come to rely increasingly heavily on its nuclear arsenal to rebalance the military equation and ensure its territorial integrity, and is looking to establish long-term nuclear parity with the Americans. Like the energy tool, Russia’s military has become more useful in times of economic duress, as potential targets have suffered far more than the Russians.
Intelligence: Russia has one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful intelligence services. Historically, its only rival has been the United States (though today the Chinese arguably could be seen as rivaling the Americans and Russians). The KGB (now the FSB) instills fear into hearts around the world, let alone inside Russia. Infiltration and intimidation kept the Soviet Union and its sphere under control. No matter the condition of the Russian state, Moscow’s intelligence foundation has been its strongest pillar. The FSB and other Russian intelligence agencies have infiltrated most former Soviet republics and satellite states, and they also have infiltrated as far as Latin America and the United States. Russian intelligence has infiltrated political, security, military and business realms worldwide, and has boasted of infiltrating many former Soviet satellite governments, militaries and companies up to the highest level. All facets of the Russian government have backed this infiltration since Putin (a former KGB man) came to power and filled the Kremlin with his cohorts. This domestic and international infiltration has been built up for half a century. It is not something that requires much cash to maintain, but rather know-how — and the Russians wrote the book on the subject. One of the reasons Moscow can run this system inexpensively relative to what it gets in return is because Russia’s intelligence services have long been human-based, though they do have some highly advanced technology to wield. Russia also has incorporated other social networks in its intelligence services, such as organized crime or the Russian Orthodox Church, creating an intricate system at a low price. Russia’s intelligence services are much larger than most other countries’ services and cover most of the world. But the intelligence apparatus’ most intense focus is on the Russian periphery, rather than on the more expensive “far abroad.”
Thus, while Russia’s financial sector may be getting torn apart, the state does not really count on that sector for domestic cohesion or stability, or for projecting power abroad. Russia knows it lacks a good track record financially, so it depends on — and has shored up where it can — six other pillars to maintain its (self-proclaimed) place as a major international player. The current financial crisis would crush the last five pillars for any other state, but in Russia, it has only served to strengthen these bases. Over the past few years, there was a certain window of opportunity for Russia to resurge while Washington was preoccupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This window has been kept open longer by the West’s lack of worry over the Russian resurgence given the financial crisis. But others closer to the Russian border understand that Moscow has many tools more potent than finance with which to continue reasserting itself.
STRATFOR
Global Intelligence
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090302_financial_crisis_and_six_pillars_russian_strength
Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia has been re-establishing much of its lost Soviet-era strength. This has given rise to the possibility — and even the probability — that Russia again will become a potent adversary of the Western world. But now, Russia is yet again on the cusp of a set of massive currency devaluations that could destroy much of the country’s financial system. With a crashing currency, the disappearance of foreign capital, greatly decreased energy revenues and currency reserves flying out of the bank, the Western perception is that Russia is on the verge of collapsing once again. Consequently, many Western countries have started to grow complacent about Russia’s ability to further project power abroad.
But this is Russia. And Russia rarely follows anyone else’s rulebook.
The State of the Russian State
Russia has faced a slew of economic problems in the past six months. Incoming foreign direct investment, which reached a record high of $28 billion in 2007, has reportedly dried up to just a few billion. Russia’s two stock markets, the Russian Trading System (RTS) and the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX), have fallen 78 and 67 percent respectively since their highs in May 2008. And Russians have withdrawn $290 billion from the country’s banks in fear of a financial collapse.
One of Moscow’s sharpest financial pains came in the form of a slumping Russian ruble, which has dropped by about one-third against the dollar since August 2008. Thus far, the Kremlin has spent $200 billion defending its currency, a startling number given that the currency still dropped by 35 percent. The Russian government has allowed dozens of mini-devaluations to occur since August; the ruble’s fall has pushed the currency past its lowest point in the 1998 ruble crash.
The Kremlin now faces three options. First, it can continue defending the ruble by pouring more money into what looks like a black hole. Realistically, this can last only another six months or so, as Russia’s combined reserves of $750 billion in August 2008 have dropped to just less than $400 billion due to various recession-battling measures (of which currency defense is only one). This option would also limit Russia’s future anti-recession measures to currency defense alone. In essence, this option relies on merely hoping the global recession ends before the till runs dry.
The second option would be to abandon any defense of the ruble and just let the currency crash. This option will not hurt Moscow or its prized industries (like those in the energy and metals sectors) too much, as the Kremlin, its institutions and most large Russian companies hold their reserves in dollars and euros. Smaller businesses and the Russian people would lose everything, however, just as in the August 1998 ruble crash. This may sound harsh, but the Kremlin has proved repeatedly — during the Imperial, Soviet and present eras — that it is willing to put the survival of the Russian state before the welfare and survival of the people.
The third option is much like the second. It involves sealing the currency system off completely from international trade, relegating it only to use in purely domestic exchanges. But turning to a closed system would make the ruble absolutely worthless abroad, and probably within Russia as well — the black market and small businesses would be forced to follow the government’s example and switch to the euro, or more likely, the U.S. dollar. (Russians tend to trust the dollar more than the euro.)
According to the predominant rumor in Moscow, the Kremlin will opt for combining the first and second options, allowing a series of small devaluations, but continuing a partial defense of the currency to avoid a single 1998-style collapse. Such a hybrid approach would reflect internal politicking.
The lack of angst within the government over the disappearance of the ruble as a symbol of Russian strength is most intriguing. Instead of discussing how to preserve Russian financial power, the debate is now over how to let the currency crash. The destruction of this particular symbol of Russian strength over the past ten years has now become a given in the Kremlin’s thinking, as has the end of the growth and economic strength seen in recent years.
Washington is interpreting the Russian acceptance of economic failure as a sort of surrender. It is not difficult to see why. For most states — powerful or not — a deep recession coupled with a currency collapse would indicate an evisceration of the ability to project power, or even the end of the road. After all, similar economic collapses in 1992 and 1998 heralded periods in which Russian power simply evaporated, allowing the Americans free rein across the Russian sphere of influence. Russia has been using its economic strength to revive its influence as of late, so — as the American thinking goes — the destruction of that strength should lead to a new period of Russian weakness.
Geography and Development
But before one can truly understand the roots of Russian power, the reality and role of the Russian economy must be examined. From this perspective, the past several years are most certainly an aberration — and we are not simply speaking of the post-Soviet collapse.
All states economies’ to a great degree reflect their geographies. In the United States, the presence of large, interconnected river systems in the central third of the country, the intracoastal waterway along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, the vastness of San Francisco Bay, the numerous rivers flowing to the sea from the eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and the abundance of ideal port locations made the country easy to develop. The cost of transporting goods was nil, and scarce capital could be dedicated to other pursuits. The result was a massive economy with an equally massive leg up on any competition.
Russia’s geography is the polar opposite. Hardly any of Russia’s rivers are interconnected. The country has several massive ones — the Pechora, the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena and the Kolyma — but they drain the nearly unpopulated Siberia to the Arctic Ocean, making them useless for commerce. The only river that cuts through Russia’s core, the Volga, drains not to the ocean but to the landlocked and sparsely populated Caspian Sea, the center of a sparsely populated region. Also unlike the United States, Russia has few useful ports. Kaliningrad is not connected to the main body of Russia. The Gulf of Finland freezes in winter, isolating St. Petersburg. The only true deepwater and warm-water ocean ports, Vladivostok and Murmansk, are simply too far from Russia’s core to be useful. So while geography handed the United States the perfect transport network free of charge, Russia has had to use every available kopek to link its country together with an expensive road, rail and canal network.
One of the many side effects of this geography situation is that the United States had extra capital that it could dedicate to finance in a relatively democratic manner, while Russia’s chronic capital deficit prompted it to concentrate what little capital resources it had into a single set of hands — Moscow’s hands. So while the United States became the poster child for the free market, Russia (whether the Russian Empire, Soviet Union or Russian Federation) has always tended toward central planning.
Russian industrialization and militarization began in earnest under Josef Stalin in the 1930s. Under centralized planning, all industry and services were nationalized, while industrial leaders were given predetermined output quotas.
Perhaps the most noteworthy difference between the Western and Russian development paths was the different use of finance. At the start of Stalin’s massive economic undertaking, international loans to build the economy were unavailable, both because the new government had repudiated the czarist regime’s international debts and because industrialized countries — the potential lenders — were coping with the onset of their own economic crisis (e.g., the Great Depression).
With loans and bonds unavailable, Stalin turned to another centrally controlled resource to “fund” Russian development: labor. Trade unions were converted into mechanisms for capturing all available labor as well as for increasing worker productivity. Russia essentially substitutes labor for capital, so it is no surprise that Stalin — like all Russian leaders before him — ran his population into the ground. Stalin called this his “revolution from above.”
Over the long term, the centralized system is highly inefficient, as it does not take the basic economic drivers of supply and demand into account — to say nothing of how it crushes the common worker. But for a country as geographically massive as Russia, it was (and remains) questionable whether Western finance-driven development is even feasible, due to the lack of cheap transit options and the massive distances involved. Development driven by the crushing of the labor pool was probably the best Russia could hope for, and the same holds true today.
In stark contrast to ages past, for the past five years foreign money has underwritten Russian development. Russian banks did not depend upon government funding — which was accumulated into vast reserves — but instead tapped foreign lenders and bondholders. Russian banks took this money and used it to lend to Russian firms. Meanwhile, as the Russian government asserted control over the country’s energy industries during the last several years, it created a completely separate economy that only rarely intersected with other aspects of Russian economic life. So when the current global recession helped lead to the evaporation of foreign credit, the core of the government/energy economy was broadly unaffected, even as the rest of the Russian economy ingloriously crashed to earth.
Since Putin’s rise, the Kremlin has sought to project an image of a strong, stable and financially powerful Russia. This vision of strength has been the cornerstone of Russian confidence for years. Note that STRATFOR is saying “vision,” not “reality.” For in reality, Russian financial confidence is solely the result of cash brought in from strong oil and natural gas prices — something largely beyond the Russians’ ability to manipulate — not the result of any restructuring of the Russian system. As such, the revelation that the emperor has no clothes — that Russia is still a complete financial mess — is more a blow to Moscow’s ego than a signal of a fundamental change in the reality of Russian power.
The Reality of Russian Power
So while Russia might be losing its financial security and capabilities, which in the West tend to boil down to economic wealth, the global recession has not affected the reality of Russian power much at all. Russia has not, currently or historically, worked off of anyone else’s cash or used economic stability as a foundation for political might or social stability. Instead, Russia relies on many other tools in its kit. Some of the following six pillars of Russian power are more powerful and appropriate than ever:
Geography: Unlike its main geopolitical rival, the United States, Russia borders most of the regions it wishes to project power into, and few geographic barriers separate it from its targets. Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states have zero geographic insulation from Russia. Central Asia is sheltered by distance, but not by mountains or rivers. The Caucasus provide a bit of a speed bump to Russia, but pro-Russian enclaves in Georgia give the Kremlin a secure foothold south of the mountain range (putting the August Russian-Georgian war in perspective). Even if U.S. forces were not tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States would face potentially insurmountable difficulties in countering Russian actions in Moscow’s so-called “Near Abroad.” Russia can project all manner of influence and intimidation there on the cheap, while even symbolic counters are quite costly for the United States. In contrast, places such as Latin America, Southeast Asia or Africa do not capture much more than the Russian imagination; the Kremlin realizes it can do little more there than stir the occasional pot, and resources are allotted (centrally, of course) accordingly.
Politics: It is no secret that the Kremlin uses an iron fist to maintain domestic control. There are few domestic forces the government cannot control or balance. The Kremlin understands the revolutions (1917 in particular) and collapses (1991 in particular) of the past, and it has control mechanisms in place to prevent a repeat. This control is seen in every aspect of Russian life, from one main political party ruling the country to the lack of diversified media, limits on public demonstrations and the infiltration of the security services into nearly every aspect of the Russian system. This domination was fortified under Stalin and has been re-established under the reign of former President and now-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. This political strength is based on neither financial nor economic foundations. Instead, it is based within the political institutions and parties, on the lack of a meaningful opposition, and with the backing of the military and security services. Russia’s neighbors, especially in Europe, cannot count on the same political strength because their systems are simply not set up the same way. The stability of the Russian government and lack of stability in the former Soviet states and much of Central Europe have also allowed the Kremlin to reach beyond Russia and influence its neighbors to the east. Now as before, when some of its former Soviet subjects — such as Ukraine — become destabilized, Russia sweeps in as a source of stability and authority, regardless of whether this benefits the recipient of Moscow’s attention.
Social System: As a consequence of Moscow’s political control and the economic situation, the Russian system is socially crushing, and has had long-term effects on the Russian psyche. As mentioned above, during the Soviet-era process of industrialization and militarization, workers operated under the direst of conditions for the good of the state. The Russian state has made it very clear that the productivity and survival of the state is far more important than the welfare of the people. This made Russia politically and economically strong, not in the sense that the people have had a voice, but in that they have not challenged the state since the beginning of the Soviet period. The Russian people, regardless of whether they admit it, continue to work to keep the state intact even when it does not benefit them. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia kept operating — though a bit haphazardly. Russians still went to work, even if they were not being paid. The same was seen in 1998, when the country collapsed financially. This is a very different mentality than that found in the West. Most Russians would not even consider the mass protests seen in Europe in response to the economic crisis. The Russian government, by contrast, can count on its people to continue to support the state and keep the country going with little protest over the conditions. Though there have been a few sporadic and meager protests in Russia, these protests mainly have been in opposition to the financial situation, not to the government’s hand in it. In some of these demonstrations, protesters have carried signs reading, “In government we trust, in the economic system we don’t.” This means Moscow can count on a stable population.
Natural Resources: Modern Russia enjoys a wealth of natural resources in everything from food and metals to gold and timber. The markets may take a roller-coaster ride and the currency may collapse, but the Russian economy has access to the core necessities of life. Many of these resources serve a double purpose, for in addition to making Russia independent of the outside world, they also give Moscow the ability to project power effectively. Russian energy — especially natural gas — is particularly key: Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas for a quarter of its demand. This relationship guarantees Russia a steady supply of now-scarce capital even as it forces the Europeans to take any Russian concerns seriously. The energy tie is something Russia has very publicly used as a political weapon, either by raising prices or by cutting off supplies. In a recession, this lever’s effectiveness has only grown.
Military: The Russian military is in the midst of a broad modernization and restructuring, and is reconstituting its basic warfighting capability. While many challenges remain, Moscow already has imposed a new reality through military force in Georgia. While Tbilisi was certainly an easy target, the Russian military looks very different to Kiev — or even Warsaw and Prague — than it does to the Pentagon. And even in this case, Russia has come to rely increasingly heavily on its nuclear arsenal to rebalance the military equation and ensure its territorial integrity, and is looking to establish long-term nuclear parity with the Americans. Like the energy tool, Russia’s military has become more useful in times of economic duress, as potential targets have suffered far more than the Russians.
Intelligence: Russia has one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful intelligence services. Historically, its only rival has been the United States (though today the Chinese arguably could be seen as rivaling the Americans and Russians). The KGB (now the FSB) instills fear into hearts around the world, let alone inside Russia. Infiltration and intimidation kept the Soviet Union and its sphere under control. No matter the condition of the Russian state, Moscow’s intelligence foundation has been its strongest pillar. The FSB and other Russian intelligence agencies have infiltrated most former Soviet republics and satellite states, and they also have infiltrated as far as Latin America and the United States. Russian intelligence has infiltrated political, security, military and business realms worldwide, and has boasted of infiltrating many former Soviet satellite governments, militaries and companies up to the highest level. All facets of the Russian government have backed this infiltration since Putin (a former KGB man) came to power and filled the Kremlin with his cohorts. This domestic and international infiltration has been built up for half a century. It is not something that requires much cash to maintain, but rather know-how — and the Russians wrote the book on the subject. One of the reasons Moscow can run this system inexpensively relative to what it gets in return is because Russia’s intelligence services have long been human-based, though they do have some highly advanced technology to wield. Russia also has incorporated other social networks in its intelligence services, such as organized crime or the Russian Orthodox Church, creating an intricate system at a low price. Russia’s intelligence services are much larger than most other countries’ services and cover most of the world. But the intelligence apparatus’ most intense focus is on the Russian periphery, rather than on the more expensive “far abroad.”
Thus, while Russia’s financial sector may be getting torn apart, the state does not really count on that sector for domestic cohesion or stability, or for projecting power abroad. Russia knows it lacks a good track record financially, so it depends on — and has shored up where it can — six other pillars to maintain its (self-proclaimed) place as a major international player. The current financial crisis would crush the last five pillars for any other state, but in Russia, it has only served to strengthen these bases. Over the past few years, there was a certain window of opportunity for Russia to resurge while Washington was preoccupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This window has been kept open longer by the West’s lack of worry over the Russian resurgence given the financial crisis. But others closer to the Russian border understand that Moscow has many tools more potent than finance with which to continue reasserting itself.
STRATFOR
Global Intelligence
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090302_financial_crisis_and_six_pillars_russian_strength
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)