Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Putin’s view. Occasionally we get a succinct indication of Putin’s thinking. Here’s one from a meeting with the State Council on Friday: “We must not allow our political culture to follow a Ukrainian scenario, and we must also prevent it from sliding into totalitarianism and despotism. Unfortunately, we know examples of this within the post-Soviet space”. A not unreasonable via media.

NATO. Relations proceed as NATO continues its self-educational process of realising Russia is more important than it used to think it was.

Prediction. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that, by 2050, Russia’s economy will be the sixth-largest in the world and larger than any in Europe. There are too many future unknowns to put much stock in these kinds of predictions but it is interesting (amusing?) to juxtapose this with the commonplace predictions that Russia will collapse, sink into permanent poverty or that Russians will disappear from the earth.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

By Patrick Armstrong

Reality bites. NATO, having enjoyed a decade of expanding and ignoring Russia’s concerns, now finds itself, in the person of its Secretary-General, asking Moscow for help. Rasmussen was in Moscow looking for weapons and training to support NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan. Too bad the people in NATO didn’t listen harder in 2000 and early 2001, when Putin and Ivanov were warning about the common enemy. While Moscow certainly has no desire to see a jihadist-controlled Afghanistan, it has no reason to trust NATO which has failed to keep any of its promises to it. What can NATO offer Moscow in return? Will it make a binding declaration that there will be no more expansion? Can it, filled as it now is with new members who regard it as nothing but an anti-Russia organisation? It’s not surprising that Rasmussen left without any commitments.  Just asking is not going to do the trick: NATO must acknowledge the mistrust it has built up.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Russia and Europe. Readers will know that since the Ossetia war I have been predicting a change in European attitudes towards Russia. My argument is that many there have realised what a bill of goods they were sold about Saakashvili, Georgia and Russia (to say nothing about the gas supply problem) and will therefore be re-considering their ideas about Russia’s alleged hostility. Some more indications: Medvedev seems to have had a fruitful visit to France and I would expect similar results when he visits Italy today. Furthermore, it appears that his ideas on a new security treaty (Russ, Eng) are at least being listened to rather than dismissed as they first were. And, interestingly enough, Berlusconi just visited Belarus signalling the end of the shunning of “Europe’s last dictator”.

NATO expansion. Russians have been saying NATO promised not to expand. Are they right? Apparently.

Iran. Russia’s representative on the IAEA voted with Western countries to criticise Tehran for its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad was not best pleased. So, Bushehr delayed, no SS-300s and now this.

WORKING WITH RUSSIA TO PREVENT EURASIAN COLLAPSE

REPRINTS

by Andrey Tsygankov

RFERL, Oct 29, 2009 

The Eurasian region continues to disintegrate, and neither Russia nor the West has been able to arrest the destabilizing dynamics.

Evidence of rising instability throughout the region include the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war, renewed terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus, the persistent failure of Western forces to stabilize Afghanistan, the inability of Central Asian rulers to reign in local clans and drug lords, and the paralysis of legitimately elected bodies of power in Ukraine and Moldova.

Violence is gradually spreading, waiting for an opportunity to erupt into a large-scale conflict. Transregional transportation routes may soon be choked due to Russia's conflicts with Ukraine, Georgia, and Turkmenistan.

The West's attempts to secure and stabilize Eurasia after the end of the Cold War must be recognized as a failure. In the mid-1990s, U.S. geostrategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski recommended that the United States pursue a policy of replacing Russia as the referee and protector of the newly established non-Russian states in the region. After initial hesitation, the United States and other Western states followed this advice.

Yet Eurasia has not become stable or peaceful and continues to disintegrate. The bureaucrats in Washington and Brussels have failed to understand that they lack the resources, the will, and the experience to stabilize the complex region. Today -- after the Iraq war and the global financial crisis -- the United States is beginning to recognize its overextension, but it is not at all clear if Washington and Brussels are prepared to act differently in Eurasia.

Continue reading this article 

MISSING FROM THE GEORGIA REPORT

REPRINTS

New York Times, Op-ed contributor

October 3, 2009

By Jorg Himmelreich 

BERLIN — The Russian-Georgian “five-day war” in August 2008 did not end the political conflict: It has all the potential to explode into a new armed confrontation any day.

This week, a much-anticipated report by an independent European Union fact-finding commission, of which I was a member, into the origins and causes of this conflict confirmed the common view that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, bears responsibility for the outbreak of the war and that Russia is equally responsible by escalating the political pressures that led to the hostilities.

But the report has a major flaw. It fails to thoroughly analyze the decisive role that the United States played before, during and after the conflict. Only a detailed assessment of President George W. Bush’s Georgia policy and its failures can fully explain the outbreak of the war and help the E.U. and President Obama shape new policies toward Russia and Georgia.

EU REPORT ON THE CONFLICT IN GEORGIA

REPORTS

Russia: Other Points of View (ROVP) has followed the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia since its first hours. The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal maintained a facade obscuring the truth about which country invaded.  Apparently to get to the truth of the situation, the Europeans made a first-ever decision to do a thorough investigation of events of the invasion and the culmination of the 'five-day' war.  The long-awaited EU Report was finally released on September 30, after having been held up since July, most likely since its analysis didn't reflect major stockholders' interests.  In any case, the full EU Report can be studied here Download EU Report on Conflict in Georgia

Additional articles:

- War report wounds isolated Georgian leader

- Georgia/Russia: how our political discourse works

- What do you do when your ally is the aggressor?

- Russia and Georgia both hail report on war

MISSILE DEFENSE IN EUROPE

ARTICLE CRITIQUE

Comment on "Missile Defence in Europe - Pie in the Sky," The Economist, September 19-25, 2009

A recent Economist editorial "Missile Defence in Europe - Pie in the Sky" from September 19-25 argued the following:

"Although Poles may bemoan the timing, America's calendar may be shaped by the forthcoming UN General Assembly. Russia and China have been reluctant to agree to further sanctions or other pressure on Iran. Mr Obama may hope that by demonstrating a willingness to engage Russia in Europe he might have a better chance of co-operation in the Middle East. "But the big task for America now is to reassure the Poles and other twitchy ex-communist countries such as the Baltic states, that it remains committed to their defence. It stresses that plenty of high-level structures exist to discuss these worries and that NATO is actively rethinking its plans for defence in the east. The question is what will really be on offer in these discussions. The east European countries, squeezed between an increasingly close Russian-German friendship, look anxiously towards America to safeguard their interests. But is America looking at them?"

Gordon Hahn's rebuttal:

The fact is that the Obama Administration has looked out for Polish and Czech interests in refashioning its missile defense plans.  At the same time it is taking Russia's interests into account. 

RUSSIA, POLAND, and “HISTORY”

ROPV CONTRIBUTORS

by Rodric Braithwaite

(A revised version of the original "Russia, Poland and the History Wars", which appeared on www.opendemocracy.net and other sites)

A senior Russian official once asked me why Poland needed to join NATO: after all, Russia wasn’t about to invade the place. I agreed that he was probably right. But the Poles didn’t know that: three partitions in the eighteenth century; two risings in the nineteenth century and two in the twentieth; the carve-up in 1939; and more. “Why do you bring up all that old stuff?” my friend responded.

History is an essential part of a nation’s self-image. It is rewritten by every generation. Even the settled democracies can find it hard to come to terms with their past. The British have barely brought their relationship with Ireland into an objective historical focus. The Irish, with good reason, find it even harder.

History is politics in all countries. But in countries which have been through the traumas suffered by Russia and Eastern Europe in the past century, it is unrealistic to hope that they will soon be able to write what the rest of us would regard as “objective” history. 

BLACK SEA WARS

REPRINTS

By Patrick Buchanan

Sep 22, 2009

In August, the Georgian navy seized a Turkish tanker carrying fuel to Abkhazia, Georgia's former province whose declaration of independence a year ago is recognized by Russia but not the West. 

The Turkish captain was sentenced to 24 years. When Ankara protested, he was released. Abkhazia has now threatened to sink any Georgian ship interfering in its "territorial waters," but it has no navy. 

Russia, however, has a Black Sea Fleet and a treaty of friendship with Abkhazia, and has notified Tbilisi that the Russian coast guard will assure, peacefully, the sea commerce of Abkhazia. 

Not backing down, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili -- who launched and lost a war for South Ossetia in 48 hours in August 2008 -- has declared the blockade of Abkhazia, which he claims as Georgian national territory, will remain in force. And he has just appointed as defense minister a 29-year-old ex-penitentiary boss with a questionable record on human rights who wants to tighten ties to NATO. 

EUROPE WELCOMES US MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD DECISION

REPRINTS 

German analysts say this gives the US and Europe more leeway in negotiations with Russia, and give Poland a ‘healthier’ foreign policy.

By Robert Marquand

The Christian Science Monitor 

With President Barack Obama facing Republican charges that backing off a missile shield in eastern Europe is appeasing Russia and abandoning Poland, European officials are strongly applauding the American decision.

German and French diplomats see the White House move as changing a US policy imposed unilaterally on Europe – and allowing greater running room with Moscow on issues from Iran to North Korea, Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation, and with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

But Alexander Rahr of the German Council of Foreign Relations, a Russian expert, says the original US missile shield plan was ill-conceived. He says that in eastern Europe and Russia the decision to shelve it is raising a new question: "Is Obama doing this out of American strength, or out of American weakness?" He adds, "I know that sounds pretty 19th century. But that's the question."

Last week, the White House decided to shelve an expensive and untested missile shield, agreed to by the Bush administration days after Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008. The US now supports smaller, tested defense systems, unambiguously deployed to intercept short and mid-range Iranian rockets.