Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Ukraine-Russia. The big news is, of course, the cheap gas for base agreement announced last week. Russia/Gazprom (is there a difference?) will knock 30% off the going rate and the Sevastopol lease will be extended to 2042. I don’t think that this is a very good deal for either side: Moscow will pay more than it would cost to build a new base in Russia and Ukraine will have another period of cheap gas that it will probably use no more wisely than it has for the last 20 years. Plus all the complications of a foreign (and sovereign) military base on its territory. (Although apparently forbidden by Art 17 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court approved it). And, ten years down the road, a differently flavoured government in Kiev may seek to reverse the base agreement. On the other hand, as I suspected, Ukraine has been paying its gas bill with IMF loans and, by all accounts, is pretty close to bankruptcy (this seems to be Yanukovych’s justification). Another benefit is that the price of gas for Ukraine is known for a long time in the future, so downstream customers of Russian gas should be spared the tense negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. The old base agreement had Moscow give credits; this time it will pay cash (and more). So everything is more transparent. The agreement appears to have opened up other possibilities of mutual trade and cooperation so there may be good effects over time. The Ukrainian opposition is furious, of course, but a poll suggests that the agreement has good support in the country.

WHAT MAKES RUSSIA'S JIHADISTS SO DANGEROUS

COMMENTARY

By Gordon Hahn

In their March 31st opinion piece “What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?” Robert Pape, Lindsey O’Rourke and Jenna McDermit convincingly show that they know little about the “insurgents” in Russia’s North Caucasus.  "Something is driving Chechen suicide bombers, but it is hardly global jihad," they claim.   Few statements could be more false.

The jihadization of the Chechen separatist movement began early on, from a seed in 1994 when Shamil Basaev visited to Al Qa`ida (AQ) training camps in Khost, Afghanistan.  A July 2002 Shura meeting consolidated the globally-oriented Salafist jihadi element's hold on the top command of the then ‘Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’ (ChRI).  By October 2007 the jihadist element had taken full control, abolishing the ChRI, excommunicating the diminished and largely self-exiled nationalist/Sufi element, and declaring a strict Sharia law state, the “Caucasus Emirate” (CE). The CE laid claim to the entire North Caucasus and declared jihad on the U.S., Great Britain, Israel and any other country fighting Muslims anywhere on the globe.  Does this sound like a battle for mere ‘Chechen independence’?

ISLAM, ISLAMISM AND POLITICS IN EURASIA REPORT, No.13, April 2010

 by Gordon M. Hahn

Monterey Institute of International Studies

CONTENTS

• Kathleen Collins, “Kyrgyzstan’s Revolution and U.S. Interests”
• CAUCASUS EMIRATE’S TERRORISM TALLY FOR MARCH 2010
• MOSCOW SUBWAY BOMBINGS – UPDATE
• UPDATE ON MARCH 31 DOUBLE SUICIDE BOMBONG IN DAGESTAN
• APRIL 5TH SUICIDE BOMB ATTACK IN INGUSHETIA
• MVD ESTIMATES 500 MUJAHEDIN IN NORTH CAUCASUS
• CE UNITED VELAYAT OF KABARDIA, BALKARIA AND KARACHAI AMIR SEIFULLAH’S SUCCESSOR KILLED
• CE’S ‘KAVKAZ TSENTR’ PUBLISHES 2002 MASKHADOV LETTER DECLARING HIS TURN AWAY FRO SECULARISM TO SHARIAH-BASED “COMPLETELY ISLAMIC STATE”
• CE MUJAHEDIN IN BASHKORTOSTAN?
• CE SITE PUBLISHES AWLAKI LETTER
• WEBSITE OF  ‘JAMAAT SHARIAT’ OF THE CE’S ‘DAGESTAN VELAYAT’ PUBLISHES ARTICLE CLAIMING U.S. IS A MUSLIM LAND

 To access the full report,  click here Download KAVKAZJIHAD_MonTREP_IIPER_13_23Apr2010

 

THE ANTI-TULIP REVOLUTION

COMMENTARY

By Gordon M. Hahn

U.S. officialdom and mainstream media grossly overestimated the extent to which the ‘colored’ Orange, Tulip and Rose “revolutions” were truly democratic and revolutions – that is, broad revolts seeking fundamental political, economic, and social systems turnovers and driven largely ‘from below’ rather than by inter-clan and intra-strate power struggles.  

Following the Ukrainian people’s rejection of the leader of Orange Revolution n January––April saw the overturn of the Tulip revolution and the ouster of President Bakiev by the Kyrgyz precisely because he rolled back rather than developed democracy.  Unfortunately he maintained the corrupt, regional clan-style politics extant in Kyrgyzstan and much of Central Asia and the former USSR.

The Washington Post, Stratfor and a few other media organs did their best to charge Russia with orchestrating the anti-Tulip revolution.  The WP claimed that Russia “fueled” the revolt in Kyrgyzstan against the Tulip “putsch.” 

Now the vaunted democratic Tulip Revolution has been relegated to a lowly putsch.  The only evidence of Russian ‘fuel,’ amounted to little more than routine levers of foreign policy: presidential ‘lectures’, offering or cutting foreign aid, and media campaigns.  

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Kaczynski death. Medvedev’s address to the Polish people; Putin and Tusk (and Sergey Shoygu) at the crash site; RIAN’s roundup of coverage; mourning in Russia. There was a very similar crash in Poland in 2008 in which a lot of the Air Force’s leadership was killed. There are assertions that Kaczynski had failed (or succeeded) in overruling his pilot once before. The joint Polish-Russian investigative team promises a conclusion soon.

Conspiracies. Some in the Rightosphere were quick to look for a conspiracy. Some reacted almost hysterically foretelling: “new, perhaps irresistible, pressure on Poland to toe the Kremlin line” (piece savaged here). Others were more subtle about looking in Moscow’s direction. Some flatout accused Moscow of engineering the crash. In these cases the beginning and the end of their accusation was cui bono? Moscow benefits (but they never quite spell out how it benefits, other than their assumption of an omni-directional malevolence); therefore Putindunnit. Connect the dots, there are no accidents. Ridiculous and revealing.

STATEMENT ON TRANSATLANTIC SECURITY

STATEMENT BY THOMAS GRAHAM

Senior Director at Kissinger Associates

Prepared for the Hearing on Transatlantic Security in the 21st Century. Do new threats require new approaches?

March 17, 2010

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The issue of European (and transatlantic) security has been engaged in earnest.  Two years ago, shortly after his inauguration, Russian President Medvedev called for rethinking European security architecture in a major speech in Berlin.  A year later, in part in response to Russian appeals, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) launched the Corfu process on European security challenges at an informal meeting of foreign ministers.  At the same time, NATO initiated a review process that should lead to the adoption of a new strategic concept, to replace the current one from 1999, and a NATO-commissioned Group of Experts has conducted four seminars on the new concept, the last in Washington, DC, on February 22-23, 2010.

The reasons Russia, on the one hand, and Europe and the United States, on the other, began this review of European security were related, but ultimately reflected different concerns.

For Russia, the reason was a profound, long-standing, and growing dissatisfaction with developments in Europe since the breakup of the Soviet Union.   It saw NATO expansion and military action against Yugoslavia, colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, a mounting U.S. security presence in Central Asia, and the U.S. decision (since rescinded) to locate missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, among other things, as part of a concerted Western effort to weaken and contain Russia.  Russia had little choice but to acquiesce in the immediate post-Soviet years, because it was indeed weak.  But as it recovered earlier in this decade, it became more vocal in expressing its displeasure and more assertive in defending its interests.  The war against Georgia in August 2008 was meant to send the message that Russia had the will and ability to defend its interests, by force if necessary.  It underscored the urgency of reviewing the state of European security.

WASHINGTON TIMES ON A RESET IN US-RUSSIA POLICY

REPRINTS

You can also access the article at http://advstage.washingtontimes.com/timeforamerica.html

RUSSIAN RESPONSE WINS POLES' HEARTS

REPRINTS

by Gregory White, Wall Street Journal 

MOSCOW — It was to be a week of reconciliation, bringing closure after 70 years of lies and recrimination over the murders of thousands Poland's best and brightest at the hands of Soviet agents.

But when the Soviet-made plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other top officials to memorial ceremonies crashed on landing in western Russia early Saturday, the bloodstained woods of Katyn claimed new victims. The spirit of reconciliation seems to have survived.

"The funeral mass that was planned for the souls of the [Polish] prisoners killed 70 years ago turned into a funeral for those who died in the crash," said Alexander Guryanov, a Russian historian who was at the Katyn memorial complex Saturday with hundreds of others waiting for the Polish officials to arrive. "It was deeply affecting for everyone, not just the Catholics."

The US Media and Moscow Subway Bombings – Cynical Obfuscation

COMMENTARY 

By Gordon M. Hahn

“Still, neither the WSJ nor any of the U.S. mainstream media has yet given the American public a detailed analysis of the North Caucasus mujahedin, the so-called ‘Caucasus Emirate’, who were behind these attacks and over a thousand others since its formation in October 2007.  This was another chance; they passed it up.”  GH 

U.S. mainstream media continued to report from the same one-sided view in covering Moscow’s subway bombings that killed 39 and wounded 74. Refusing to unmask “militants” likely behind the attacks, what they stand for––and how the U.S. media and think tank community has gotten it wrong from the beginning, the the New York Times on the left to the Wall Street Journal on the right, chastised Moscow and Russian PM Vladimir Putin for the attacks and relied on the same politicized and ignorant sources for their ‘analysis’.

Take a look at the following titles:

“Moscow Attack a Test for Putin and His Record Against Terror,” New York Times, March 30, 2010;

“Home to Roost - The Russian government told its citizens that it had defeated Islamists in the Caucasus. This morning's attack belies the point,” Newsweek.com, March 29, 2010;

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Nukes. Medvedev and Obama signed the strategic arms treaty in Prague today. The text of the treaty is here. Such agreements are, no doubt, important but have little to do with the threats the two actually face.

Missile defence. On Tuesday Foreign Minister Lavrov said “The initial focus [of Washington’s current missile defence plans] is on regional systems, systems that do not prejudice strategic stability, and do not create risks for the Russian strategic nuclear forces.” Everything else is “when and if” Moscow thinks something else is happening (Moscow has appended to the Treaty a statement stressing that it only holds if Washington “refrains from developing its missile defence capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively”). Serving the ball to Washington, Medvedev said: “We offered to the United States that we help them establish a global anti-missile defence system, and we should think about this, given the vulnerability of our world, the terrorist challenges and the possibility of using nuclear arms by terrorists existing in this world”.