Tag: Russia
Where strong men rule
I spent most of last week in Moscow talking with Russian Middle East experts. It was a deeply saddening experience. Not because of the Middle East: that is a gloomy subject even in Washington DC. It was above all Ukraine, but more broadly Putin’s Russia that darkened the mood.
First, the good news: Moscow looks good, the Russians I met were friendly and helpful, and the Bolshoi Opera is once again open. Contrary to my expectations, downtown the skyline has not changed much, Lenin is still in Red Square (though it is unclear how often his mausoleum is open or whether anyone bothers to visit it), and traffic is light compared other European capitals. Skyscrapers have not been allowed in the center. I saw them only at a distance from the Foreign Ministry, near the Arbat market. Most of the older buildings in the center are renovated, some like the GUM department store beautifully. Ditto the churches.
Walking streets lined with high-end fashion as well as low-end chic lace the center. As in the Gulf petro-states, the number of customers seems inadequate to support the investment. Recently enforced parking rules have cleared the streets of double parked cars and limited the number of people interested in paying a couple of dollars per hour for a space. Drivers are surprisingly respectful of pedestrians and each other. Public spaces (Red Square, parks, walking streets) are well-groomed. Security guards, private and public, are everywhere. Order prevails, at least in the center.
The smiling Moscow I found on the street evaporated quickly in the meetings I attended. Ukraine cast a long shadow. American and Russian leaders, the Russians said, are not communicating. There is a lack of trust. The media are biased. Russia has pursued integration with the rest of the world only to find itself blocked by sanctions, even after the recent ceasefire in Ukraine. US/Russia relations are at a nadir. Is it wise to sacrifice global issues for the sake of Kiev? Fascism is reemerging in Ukraine, which the West is using as a pretext for blocking Russia. All Russia wants is for Ukraine not to join NATO, for the Black Sea not to become a NATO lake threatening to Russia, and for the Russian navy to remain in Sevastopol. Crimea did not join Ukraine voluntarily. There is no reason why it shouldn’t return to Russia.
From the American perspective, the Russians are in denial. They deny their army has anything to do with the rebellion in Ukraine. They ask Americans to understand that Ukraine for them is an emotionally searing internal question, apparently unaware that this implies that they do not recognize the independence or sovereignty of their neighbor. They deny Ukraine the right to make a free choice about joining the European Union and NATO. They fail to mention the downing of the Malaysian airliner, the deaths of Russian soldiers, or the photographic evidence of Russian army tanks and other heavy equipment crossing the border. They insist that Russia is in no way involved in Ukraine, even while trying to justify anything Moscow and its proxies might be doing there.
The Russian attitude on Ukraine is linked to broader themes. The Russians I spoke with do not regard Moscow as having lost the Cold War. It liberated itself from the Soviet Union, defeated totalitarianism and initiated a democratic transition on its own. While this was achieved under Boris Yeltsin, no one has anything good to say about him. President Putin is viewed as the best available leader, attractive because of his efforts to restore Russian power. Nostalgia for that power is palpable: even a casual conversation produces admiration for the Soviet Union. Czarist Russia is not far behind in the memory pantheon. The opposition to Putin is all more nationalist than he is, claim his defenders. Americans should view Russia as an equal, a superpower that Washington should treat with caution and respect.
It is not easy to convey what the Russians had to say about the Middle East with this static in the air. Harking back to Condoleezza Rice’s “transformational diplomacy,” we were told rigid American ideologically driven efforts to export democracy triggered the Arab uprisings, even though democracy is inappropriate for traditional societies in which family relations are predominant. The UN, the G7, the G8 and the G20 are all fronts for American ambitions, which are driven by an “energy elite” thirsting for hydrocarbons (no mention was made of America’s soaring energy production and reduced dependence on imports). Ukraine is part of the American democratization program. Ultimately, Washington aims at regime change in Moscow.
The Russians see what is happening in Syria as vindicating their support for Bashar al Assad, even as they repeat the refrain that they are not necessarily attached to him personally. The Russian port facilities at Tartous are not vital to Moscow. The Russians attribute the emergence of Islamic extremists, in particular the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to American mistakes and even to American assistance. At the root of the crisis is the American invasion of Iraq, which gave power to the Shia and incited the Sunni rebellion in both Syria and Iraq.
Fearing that it will eventually infect Russia’s Muslim population, the Russians want ISIS defeated. It will take a long time. The US should team up with Russia for the fight. Russia can be helpful in identifying and blocking foreign fighters, especially Chechnyans coming not only from Russia but also from Austria and other European countries. Bombing ISIS in Syria without permission of Damascus would be wrong and likely counter-productive. Arms sent to the opposition will end up in the hands of jihadists. Rejection of the election results in Syria while accepting them in Ukraine demonstrates America’s double standard. Assad has to play a role in the Syrian transition. Russia may prove useful in promoting intra-Syrian dialogue, though the regime has not yet accepted this idea.
My last night in Moscow was spent at a marvelous performance of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.” This iconic Russian opera features a guilt-ridden hero who rises to the throne by murdering the heir apparent. Guilt was not something I found in Moscow last week, but confidence in strong men was much in evidence.
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Moscow then
I’m heading for Moscow tonight. It is 40 years since I first visited there to sell the idea of an International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals to the Soviets on behalf of the then new-born United Nations Environment Programme. My companion was a well-known radiation biologist of the time, Alexander Hollaender, who had retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. My job was to arrange the logistics, take notes, and explain the details of the project. Alex got the doors opened and got the Soviets to say yes.
Moscow was a gray and forbidding place. Leonid Brezhnev was in charge. There were few cars on its wide avenues. The Rossiya hotel had the amenities of a Motel 6 with 10,000 rooms. It was later torn down. Except at a then well-known Georgian restaurant near the center, menus were short, service was surly and the food abysmal. A matronly prostitute attacked Alex one night in a hotel lobby–we thought it might be an attempt to compromise us and shooed her away angrily.
The visit nevertheless had its high points. Our hosts arranged tickets to the Bolshoi opera. I managed to get tickets for two more nights during the same week as a visit to the Moscow sewage works. The music was extraordinary by any standards. My card-flashing handler was surprised when his comrade citizens tried to buy blue jeans from me. I bought a lot of phonograph records, which had superb performances by pianist Emil Gilels and other Soviet classical music stars. But you could only play them once before the crackling started, due to poor manufacturing techniques. I stopped playing them and still have them stored away, now for eventual digitalization.
Alex and I called on the head of the genetics institute at the Academy of Sciences. I don’t remember his name, but high on the wall above him was a full-length portrait of Nikolai Vavilov, antagonist of the Stalinist para-geneticist Trofim Lysenko. Vavilov was arrested and died in prison in 1943. His presence on the wall was a stark reminder of what Stalin had wrought.
The Soviets came around to supporting the UN project we were selling.
I was less successful more than 20 years later in 1995, when as a State Department official I returned to Moscow to sell the Russians on supporting the Bosnian Federation. As luck would have it, Washington had done something (I don’t remember what) that annoyed the Russians, so the deputy foreign minister I called on took the occasion to ream me out for half hour before listening inattentively to my pitch on the Federation. I suppose by now I could get the declassified reporting cable I wrote, but I’m not sure I want to relive that experience, which caused Undersecretary Tarnoff at State to chortle when I returned to the fold. The best I can say about that visit is that the prostitutes in the Radisson piano bar were visually a cut above their Soviet forebears. I suppose that was progress.
Everyone I’ve mentioned this impending trip to assures me I won’t recognize Moscow, where the grand boulevards are now packed with cars, the hotels are luxurious, the restaurants are first rate and the skyline is far more modern. I suppose the prostitutes are downright classy.
I look forward to a visit to Red Square and the GUM department store, where 40 years ago I could get good ice cream, so long as I wanted vanilla. Lenin is gone, and I’m sure the store is much improved, but will the ice cream be better? I suppose I’ll feel a bit of nostalgia for Soviet Moscow. Things were simpler, and clearer, then.
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Scotland and Ukraine
While the OSCE has not yet posted an English version of Friday’s agreement involving Russia and Ukraine, there is one available on www.slavyangrad.org that reads well (I can’t judge whether it is accurate).
The text isn’t as bad as Ukraine’s parlous military situation suggests it might have been.
A good deal of it is unobjectionable: the ceasefire, OSCE monitoring and verification not only of the ceasefire but also of the border on a “permanent” basis, removal of unlawful military forces, release of detainees, national dialogue, humanitarian relief, and economic recovery. Details are lacking, but these are all things that the international community, the Ukrainians and the Russians know how to do if there is political will to do them.
The tougher things are point 3
Implement decentralization of power, including by means of enacting the Law of Ukraine “With respect to the temporary status of local self-government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions” (Law on Special Status)
and point 6
Enact a law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment of persons in connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
There is also (point 9) provision for early local elections in Donbas.
Moscow is headlining the decentralization associated with the Law on Special Status, which is to be passed in the future. The Russians will seek maximum powers of self-governance for Luhansk and Donetsk. It will also seek some means by which its proxies there can block European Union and NATO membership for Ukraine as a whole. But the fact that the self-governance will be established by a law passed in the Ukrainian parliament gives Kiev an upper hand, especially on the question of any veto powers over Ukraine’s affiliation with Euro-Atlantic institutions.
The question of amnesty (point 6) is also fraught. It is difficult to picture an amnesty that would cover the downing of Malaysia Air 17, or some of the other atrocities perpetrated in the Donbas region in recent months. But that appears to be what has been promised. We’ll just have to wait and see what that provision means. Amnesty, like the new special law on status, will need to pass in the Ukrainian parliament.
Nothing in the current agreement appears to offer or promise to the rebels in Donbas or to Moscow anything like a veto over EU or NATO membership. No doubt the Russians would like an arrangement like the one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Serb entity has a veto over just about anything it wants to block. I find it hard to believe that something like that isn’t lurking, likely in the national dialogue. But its outcome is far from certain, and implementation of its results could be long in the making.
Much as Ukraine may have suffered in recent days on the battlefield, Corey Flintoff’s interesting report this morning on Russia’s handling of its combat deaths suggests that President Poroshenko isn’t the only one anxious to stop the fighting. Russians are starting to feel the pain. Vladimir Putin no doubt also hopes to forestall European expansion of sanctions, which has been imminent for a week. Russia is no democracy these days, and Putin is riding high, but maybe his nervousness about whether he can make it last is showing.
That said, it is one more sad fact of our current events that Scotland votes September 18 on independence from the United Kingdom. If that goes in the “yes” direction polls are now pointing, we can expect the repercussions to be felt not only in Ukraine but also in the Balkans, the Caucasus and elsewhere. Scotland has nothing to do with those other places, but demonstration effects can be powerful.
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How to degrade and destroy
President Obama has now clarified his goal in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): it is to degrade and destroy. His model is what was accomplished against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That should be little comfort to those who live in areas where ISIL operates. A dozen years of war have rendered parts of the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan even more lawless and ungovernable than it was before the US intervened there starting in 2001. But it is fair enough to say that the remnants of Al Qaeda that remain there are little threat to the United States.
What will it take to defeat ISIL?
The military campaign will require a 360 degree effort against ISIL. This means an international coalition that includes not only those NATO members willing to engage but also the security forces of Iraq and Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan as well as Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), all of which are seriously threatened if ISIL is able to consolidate its position inside Iraq and Syria. The precise division of labor will have to be negotiated, but the United States should expect that its bombing of ISIL in both Syria and Iraq is only the tip of the spear. Iraq and the Syrian rebels will need to provide the biggest share of the ground forces. The others should be prepared to attack from the air or provide funding, advice and equipment.
The military campaign against ISIL will go much faster and much better if the mainly Sunni populations in the areas it controls rise against it. This is what enabled the American “surge” in 2006 and 2007 to succeed against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Then it was the Sunni tribes that rebelled and helped the Americans to destroy Al Qaeda. Any serious effort to destroy ISIL will need to make something similar happen now. But it won’t be easy: without boots on the ground, the Americans will be unable to organize or pay for a Sunni “awakening.” The Saudis and UAE have shown little aptitude in this direction, but it is high time they learned how to get what they pay for.
While confronting ISIL militarily, the coalition acting against it will need to weaken its sources of financing and recruitment. This is shadowy work that requires the best efforts of many intelligence agencies working together. The focus on foreign fighters coming from the US and Western Europe may be necessary to prevent their flow back to those places. But most of them appear to be coming from other places and need to be slowed or stopped, whatever their origins. This is an area where the Russians can contribute: Chechnyans play a significant role, as do others from the Caucusus. Rumors of Qatari financing have been rife. It is time to stop any supposedly private contributions going from Doha to ISIL or its supporters.
The toughest issue in dealing with ISIL will be preventing its return to the places where it is militarily defeated. President Obama may think leaving the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan devoid of effective governance is all right, because eventually Kabul and Islamabad will fill in. But it is going to be a long time before Damascus or Baghdad can govern effectively in the eastern provinces of Syria or the western provinces of Iraq, respectively. If you want to degrade and destroy ISIL there you are going to have to make some provision for governance, justice and public services.
This cannot be done by remote control. Someone is going to need to establish a presence in the areas ISIS currently controls, unless we want to see it go the way of Libya, whose various militias are tearing the country to shreds. In Syria, it might be the moderate revolutionaries, but then they will need protection from Bashar al Asad so long as he rules Damascus. In Iraq, it will likely need to be Sunni Iraqis who take control and govern–initially at least–without much reference to Baghdad. International humanitarian and other assistance in both countries will be vital, unless we want to see them go the way of Libya, where militias are now battling each other for control of the state. The UN or maybe the Arab League had better get ready for big challenges.
Presidents have to deal with the world they are dealt, not the one they prefer. “Degrade and destroy” will take years, not months. Obama would prefer to do retrenchment. Maybe his successor will get the opportunity.
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Gloomy but determined
That was a gloomy but determined President Obama who spoke today in Talinn, Estonia about hope for the future of human dignity, liberty and respect for human rights. He said everything the most frightened Baltic citizen would want to hear: the NATO Alliance is all for one, one for all, America will preposition equipment and rotate its forces through more than in the past, Russian aggression against any NATO member will trigger an Alliance-wide response. He was also clear that the United States would not accept changing borders by force, in Ukraine or elsewhere.
He explicitly invoked the Baltic example: the United States never accepted their incorporation into the Soviet Union. When I was growing up, we were taught that Lativa, Lithuania and Estonia were “captive nations” that would one day be free. Most of us thought this was laughable, since it was impossible to imagine that the Soviet Union would one day evaporate. But that is precisely what happened.
What this means for Ukraine is not cheering. The Alliance has no obligation to defend Ukraine against Russia and will not do so. The best Ukraine can hope for is a refusal by NATO members to accept the annexation of Ukraine, the independence of Luhansk or Donetsk, or incorporation of any part of the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine into Russia.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Poroshenko seems to think Russian President Putin has agreed to a ceasefire, while the Russians are still claiming they are not a party to the conflict so any ceasefire has to be with the rebels. That is not a good sign, since it is clear Moscow is not only sending in its own army and equipment but also financing, arming and training rebel forces. It is high time that Putin accept responsibility for the mess he has created. It is hard to picture any ceasefire holding for long that does not stop the flow of Russians, arms and financing across the border into Ukraine.
Moldova and Georgia, both of which have unwelcome Russian troops on part of their territory, got a bit of cheer from the President. He promised them support for their democratic aspirations, though not for removing the Russian troops. That leaves them more or less where they were before the speech, but failure to mention them would have been interpreted as abandonment.
There was also some small comfort for Montenegro, Macedonia and other Balkan candidates for NATO membership. The President said the door would remain open for those who want to enter and meet the requirements. Both Montenegro and Macedonia meet them already. They won’t be admitted at the NATO Summit tomorrow and and Friday in Cardiff, Wales. Montenegro was too small an addition to the Alliance to risk irritating the Russians over. Greece is blocking Macedonia because of its name, over which Athens claims exclusive rights. Both Montenegro and Macedonia should get invitations to join the Alliance at the next opportunity if the President does what he promised.
There are times in diplomacy when reiterating policy is as important as making it. This was one of those times. Gloomy but determined is the right approach.
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NATO on the spot
NATO presidents and prime ministers meet next Thursday and Friday in Cardiff, Wales for their biannual summit. It was supposed to focus on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is already well-advanced. But that will be overshadowed now by the Russian invasion of southeastern Ukraine.
Some are still calling it a “stealth” invasion. Hardly. Russian personnel, tanks, artillery and other equipment are crossing the border and have taken the southeastern town of Novoazovsk. The fact that the troops don’t wear insignia makes them no less Russian. They could drive north from there to reinforce the rebel-held towns of Donestk and Luhansk or west to the important Ukrainian port of Mariulpol, which appears to be what they are doing.
NATO is under no obligation to defend Ukraine. It did little military to react during the Cold War to Soviet interventions in its then satellites Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But that is nothing to be proud of, even if it all worked out in the end. Both countries took advantage of the fall of the Berlin Wall to move as rapidly as they could into NATO and the European Union (EU). Those who take the long view may want to suggest that Putin’s incursion into Ukraine is nothing but folly. It will surely drive Ukraine into the arms of NATO and the EU.
It may also do harm to Putin’s standing at home. The Crimea annexation is proving difficult and expensive. Russians are beginning to notice the funerals of Russians killed in the Ukraine fighting. There are likely to be more. Moscow will discourage the media from reporting on these and encourage a drumbeat of alleged abuses against the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, but sooner or later the truth is likely to come out.
How NATO reacts will be important. Both its European and North American members have strengthened sanctions in reaction to Russian behavior in Ukraine. The rebel downing of Malaysia Air 17 with a Russian-supplied missile over Ukraine caused the latest turning of the screws. Moscow appears to be responding with cyber attacks on US and maybe other banks.
NATO has to decide whether to up the ante. Ideas on what to do are few and far between: start supplying lethal equipment to Kiev and deploy more NATO forces to allies who have borders with Russia. That’s thin gruel. The equipment won’t have any immediate effect on Ukrainian military capabilities and Putin will laugh off NATO deployments in the Baltics and Poland. He doesn’t plan to attack them.
Another turn of the sanctions screw, this time against Russian banks and other financial institutions, is another serious possibility. President Obama has to worry about whether that or othe moves will cause the Russians to fall off the P5+1 wagon (permanent five UN Security Council members plus Germany) that is trying to negotiate an end to Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions. But the Russians have good reasons of their own not to want Iran to get nuclear weapons. It would be a big strategic mistake for them to undermine the current negotiating effort.
The NATO summit would do well in any event to denounce the invasion of Ukraine in explicit and stentorian tones, making it clear that Russian annexation of territory taken by force, including Crimea, will never be recognized by the Alliance. It would be a serious mistake to let Crimea go unmentioned, as that would only suggest to Putin that he can get away with more territorial conquest. The United States took a principled position of this sort on the Baltic states during the Cold War, when there seemed little to no likelihood they would ever be anything but Soviet prisoners. That worked out well when the Soviet Union fell apart.
There are other things to consider that aren’t discussed in polite company in public. The US will want to help Ukraine with intelligence. It may also want to consider stirring trouble inside Russia, though that particular type of covert action has a very mixed record, at best. If Moscow has in fact conducted cyber attacks against Western banks, response in kind will need to be considered. Another possibility is to reply to the Russian invasion of Ukraine with vigorous military action not only against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) inside Syria but also against Bashar al Asad’s regime, which Russia supports.
NATO is on the spot. It hasn’t got a lot of good options. But it needs to react if it wants to stop Putin from going further.
PS: Vox.com provides video evidence:
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