by Mark N. Katz
What a difference a few months make. During much of 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin was riding high. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine quickly and relatively bloodlessly. Putin was also able to help pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine effectively secede from the rest of the country and prevent the Ukrainian government from retaking these areas. Western governments howled in protest and even imposed economic sanctions on Russia, but were unable to force Putin to back down. Putin’s unsettling actions also seemed to help keep the price of oil high, which Russia benefited from as a leading petroleum exporter. And while the West was highly critical of him, many governments elsewhere—most notably in Asia—seemed indifferent or even sympathetic toward Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
At present, though, things look very different for the Russian president. Western sanctions, which initially seemed quite weak, now appear to be having an increasingly negative effect on the Russian economy. More importantly, the dramatic decrease in the price of oil over the past few months has contributed to a sharp drop in Russia’s export income as well as to the value of the ruble. Eastern Ukraine has meanwhile become an increasingly costly venture for Moscow—not least because of the mounting deaths of Russian soldiers engaged in the fighting there. Absorbing Crimea is also proving costly for an increasingly cash-strapped Moscow. As Western disapproval and even fear of Russia have grown, the ranks of European political and economic leaders calling for accommodating Moscow and cooperating with Putin have thinned. Finally, those non-Western governments that earlier seemed indifferent or sympathetic to Putin’s policy toward Ukraine now seem either indifferent or eager to take advantage of Russia’s increasing economic difficulties.
Putin, in short, now seems to be facing something of a dilemma. Continuing his current policies toward eastern Ukraine will probably not bring about an end to what is becoming a quagmire there for Moscow, and will mean that Western economic sanctions on Russia remain in place or even worsen. Yet withdrawing from Ukraine could weaken Putin domestically since the Russian public has supported his forward policy on Ukraine and would not be happy to see it reversed.
So what will Putin do now? Many fear that he will lash out at the West by supporting Russian secessionists in the Baltics or elsewhere. Putin himself has contributed to this fear by talking about how a cornered rat will attack its pursuers. But despite the deteriorating situation that he now faces, the Russian president need not become that rat in the corner. Indeed, he can be expected to ensure that he does not.
This is because Putin is basically a pragmatist. While he can support Russian secessionists in the Baltics, Belarus, northern Kazakhstan, or elsewhere in Ukraine—as he did with those in Crimea and eastern Ukraine—Putin cannot now be certain that he can gain control over these territories quickly and easily like he did with Crimea. Instead, supporting such groups or intervening directly may only result in more drawn-out conflicts such as the one now taking place in eastern Ukraine. If it is increasingly costly for Russia to be involved in just one such conflict, it will be even costlier still for it to become involved in more of them. If he thought he could replicate what happened in Crimea, Putin might be tempted to do this. Indeed, his quick victory in Crimea may have persuaded him that he could also win in eastern Ukraine. But now that eastern Ukraine has proven to be so problematic, Putin must be aware that similar adventures elsewhere could prove similarly risky—and that Russian forces could only get more thinly spread if they become involved in more such conflicts.
Some fear that Putin might lash out in some other manner by, for example, ending Russian support for the ongoing negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. But this also seems unlikely because: 1) Russia does not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, either and 2) the United States and its Western allies could still reach an agreement with Tehran on this matter without Russian help—which would only serve to demonstrate Russian impotence.
Russia stepping up its support for the Assad regime in Syria is another possibility. Doing so, though, would make Russia more of a target for Islamic State (ISIS or IS). Nor does it seem plausible that Putin would want Russia to become more involved in Syria when Moscow is far more concerned about what is happening in Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
Some fear, though, that reported Russian submarine deployments in Swedish waters, military overflights over several countries, and claims in the Arctic are all signs that Putin is preparing something even worse. However, while hardly reassuring, these moves seem aimed more at showing the Russian public how strong Putin is than as precursors to Russian initiation of conflict.
What all this suggests is that while Putin is aggressive, he is not reckless, and he demonstrated this during a Dec. 18 press conference. Indeed, while insisting that any Russian troops in eastern Ukraine are “volunteers,” he seemed also to hold open the door to cooperation with Kiev—and with Georgia, too (which Russia won a brief war against in 2008).
Returning to the rodentine analogy that Putin himself has used: if a cornered rat lashes out, one that is not cornered is more likely to find a safe place to run to instead. What this means for the West is that while it should assist Ukraine in resisting Russian incursions, it should reassure Putin that if he compromises on Ukraine, the West will not use this as an opportunity to rout him altogether. By continuing to cooperate with Russia on problems of common concern (such as Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear issue, and terrorism) and by reiterating how Western sanctions would be lifted if Russia modifies its policy toward Ukraine, we can help Putin achieve his own goal of not ending up in a corner.
]]>The leading Bolshevik historian Mikhail Pokrovsky famously defined history as “politics projected into the past.” Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is taking that concept, and running with it.
The importance of history to the Kremlin was on full display at Putin’s recent meeting with young scholars and teachers of history at Moscow’s Museum of Contemporary History of Russia. Putin made it clear that he believes control of Russia’s past will enable him to command the future. Referring to Russia’s culture wars being fought against both external and internal foes, Putin stated; “We see attempts being made … to recode our society,” adding that these malicious actions aimed at change “always go hand-in-hand with attempts to rewrite history and shape it to particular geopolitical interests.”
In earlier meetings with Russian academics, Putin has advanced a two-pronged message on the significance of shaping and controlling historical narratives: “Past events should be portrayed in a way that fuels national pride” and “We cannot allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us.”
The Kremlin’s overriding concerns in the Putin era when it comes to history have been to assert Russia’s status as a great power and not allow Moscow’s detractors to chip away at its political and moral capital, which rests largely on Russia’s victory over Nazism in the Second World War. It is within this context that Putin has argued there was nothing particularly “bad” in concluding a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. “These were the foreign policy methods at the time,” he contended. To help justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, he noted that Western leaders cut a notorious agreement of their own, the 1938 Munich Agreement, with Hitler.
In the last few years, a new, third priority has emerged for Kremlin historiography, one prompted by the popular uprisings that swept away dictators and authoritarian-minded leaders in the Middle East and Ukraine. This new tenet of Kremlin historiography preaches social cohesion and damns the idea of loyal opposition to the ruling line.
During his exchange with young historians, Putin raised the theme of societal consolidation at least twice. Perhaps the most significant point in Putin’s talk came when he touched on the leadership style of Yaroslav the Wise, who ruled Kievan Rus in the 11th century. While Yaroslav presided over a cultural flowering and established his kingdom as a military power, Putin noted with veiled criticism that the grand prince failed to institute the type of clear-cut system of succession that had already been adopted by a number of early feudal Western societies. By contrast, “the procedure for succession to the throne in Russia was very complicated and tangled, and created fragmentation.” Ultimately, internecine strife among princes after Yaroslav’s death weakened the Russian state and endangered its very existence. “This is exceedingly important,” Putin said. “This history lesson about periods of fragmentation must trigger a danger signal. We must treat this very carefully, and not allow such things under any circumstances.”
Putin returned to this theme when he discussed the reasons behind Russia’s defeat in the First World War. By the end of 1917, Putin argued, Russia had found itself in “an entirely unique situation.” It “declared itself a loser” in the war and “lost enormous territories,” although “we were not beaten in battles on the front.” So why did this disaster occur? Putin gave a blunt answer; “We were torn apart from within, that’s what happened,” referring to internal disorder that ultimately enabled the relatively small Bolshevik faction to seize power in a coup.
Two interconnected factors underlie the governing elite’s approach to history writing. The first is connected with a deep-rooted authoritarian political culture in Russia. Scholars have long noted the close correlation between regime type and the degree of a regime’s reliance on historical myths. True, all regimes resort to and rely on myth-making. But political legitimacy in liberal democracies is much less dependent than in authoritarian regimes on a unifying historical narrative that fosters compliance with government policies. Genuine democracies are thus much more tolerant of dissent, controversy and competing ideas. Ultimately, democracies can afford the luxury of treating with relative equanimity a tradition of historiography that challenges habitual assumptions.
The second factor in Putin’s approach deals with how the Russian public has tended to view history as immutable: once written, it should not change. “History is a science and if you are serious about it, it cannot be rewritten,” Putin asserted at one point during his meeting with young historians.
Sociological data supports the view that Russians in the post-Soviet era do not see the writing of history as a constantly evolving process, in which what is received as “historical truth” in one era can (and should) be challenged and debunked when new evidence comes to light, or new interpretations are advanced. According to the recent data provided by VTsIOM, a Russian pollster, 60 percent of respondents believed past events should be studied in such a way that would exclude “repeat research” leading to new approaches and interpretations. Only 31 percent of those polled believed that the study of history is a continuous and open-ended process. Furthermore, 79 percent spoke in favor of using a single history textbook in schools so as not to confuse young minds with competing interpretations. Symptomatically, 60 percent said the passing of a “memory law” criminalizing the “revision of WWII results” would be a good thing.
Such polling results suggest that, in more ways than one, the prevailing attitudes toward history and memory demonstrate a meeting of minds between the rulers and the ruled in contemporary Russia.
Igor Torbakov is Senior Fellow at Uppsala University and at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. This article was first published by EurasiaNet and was reprinted here with permission.
]]>Twenty-five years ago, on “9/11”—November 9th in European date-notation—the Berlin Wall opened and, it seemed, everything changed. Freedom was no longer just an aspiration across much of Europe but a rising reality. The transformation was so profound that it is now hard to remember the bad old days of communist oppression and Soviet dominance, when peoples all across Central Europe lacked hope for the future and feared the secret police.
A quarter century beyond the settlement of the 75-year European civil war (1914-89), what is the balance of achievement following that remarkable overturning of European history and of much of global politics and economics? There is much good, but also some bad, and history did not “come to an end.”
The Soviet empires—internal and external—are both gone, and so is the Cold War, which was the most dangerous time in all of history, when the planet was at risk of being destroyed. The world escaped, although as the Duke of Wellington said about the Battle of Waterloo: It was a damn close-run thing.
Other good things happened, notably a definitive answer to the 120-year-old question: “What do we do about Germany?” It became unified, was anchored to the West, and, with the wisdom of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, it surrounded itself with NATO and the EU and sank the Deutschmark in the Euro. Thus Germany is again becoming economically the top nation in Central Europe, but there is no valid basis for fearing a German national menace.
Meanwhile, President George H.W. Bush led in working to create a “Europe whole and free” and at peace. The US stayed in Europe, NATO was not wrapped up but has continued to keep European history pacified. Central Europe was taken off the geopolitical chessboard with the Partnership for Peace Program and, for many countries, NATO and EU membership. Ukraine was encouraged in its Western, democratic vocation, but without first being pulled into a Western alliance system that could be perceived as a challenge to Russian Federation. (The fact that a succession of Ukrainian governments largely funked the task is another matter).
The first President Bush, followed by Bill Clinton, also tried to prevent the growth of revanchism in Russia, to avoid what happened with the Treaty of Versailles, whose punitive features against Germany helped produce Hitler. This effort, too, went awry, as leaders in the G. W. Bush and then Barack Obama administrations forgot this central lesson and heaped fuel on the fire of Russian nationalism that was set alight by Vladimir Putin. Maybe the result (in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine) would have been the same, under Putin or any other Russian leader who appealed to his people’s sense of lost position and prestige, but the US failure to take account of legitimate Russian concerns certainly did not help.
There have been other negatives, unintended byproducts of success following the Berlin Wall’s opening. Many West European countries wisely shifted limited security resources from military spending not needed after the Cold War to economic support for Central Europe—beginning with the Federal Republic of Germany’s investment of trillions of Euros in the old East Germany. But the US did not. Today in the United States, non-military instruments are starved while it maintains the mightiest military in history at a time where there is no “peer competitor.” Thus, while priding itself on being the “indispensable nation,” the US was caught short by the Ebola epidemic and has done so much less in other countries compared to the good it could do and the security it could promote in the broadest sense of that term.
The US did not totally ignore Will Roger’s warning: “When you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it.” But after our “9/11,” the US did overdo Afghanistan by trying to get its political and social cultures to leapfrog centuries of development; and the US then committed one of the worse follies in American history, by invading Iraq for no good reason. The results have been more than 5,000 US servicemen and women dead, thousands more wounded, little promise in either Afghanistan or Iraq, and more than 3 trillion dollars of treasure wasted when it could have been used to refurbish the American homeland and create a more solid and lasting basis for US power and influence.
It is doubtful that either excess—in Afghanistan or Iraq—would have been possible during the Cold War, when the United States had to be worried about a superpower competitor, prepared to promote its own, contending interests. The lesson for today has to be that, just because it is possible to do something, it is not necessarily wise or prudent to do it.
So chto delat? As Lenin asked, “What is to be done?” Here are some ideas, mostly for America:
- Reassess what we do in the outside world. What is needed for our security and that of friends and allies, and what can be “given a pass” or handed off to others (including our European friends)? Where is it wiser, in our own interests, to stand apart rather than to become engaged?
- Recruit a first-class team of people in the Obama administration who know how to “think strategically.” This essential quality began to decline near the end of the Cold War and continues on a steep downward trajectory. With the collapse of the Cold War’s organizing principle, it seemed that less strategic thinking was needed. Yet it has been just the reverse, when so much is in play, there are so many variables, the US cannot “do it all,” it cannot count on the American people to support all foreign ventures, and it thus faces a greater need to set priorities and to make choices than it did when the Soviet threat could justify a wide range of courses of action and involvement. At the same time, press the think-tank community to do the same, instead of continuing to serve largely as means of building political consensus to implement an agreed foreign policy—when there is no clarity of strategy purpose and methodology around which to build a consensus to meet America’s future needs.
- Put more money into USAID, change the balance of funding between military and non-military instruments from the current 13:1 to a ratio that will better enable us to promote our interests and values, and recreate the United States Information Agency, one of our best “unsecret weapons” that was foolishly scrapped.
- Recommit the US to being a European power. Washington’s interest in NATO dropped to an all-time low before Mr. Putin stirred up interest by his misbehavior in Ukraine. Now that interest is sinking again, and the number of people in Washington fully engaged in European security or in other aspects of US engagement in Europe is declining radically. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is charged with implementing decisions of last September’s NATO summit in Wales, in part to reassure Central European allies wary of Russia, but it is doling out only peanuts for people in and out of government to think through what has to be done.
- Challenge the Europeans allies to do even more for security on the continent and in selected places beyond—not through increased defense spending in each allied country to at least 2% of GDP, an American obsession left over from the Cold War. Most of that 2% should go to non-military political and economic instruments to help integrate Central Europe more fully in Europe, to do more in Africa, and to get on with the critical work of building a solid Ukrainian economy. Also tell the Ukrainians to dismantle their kleptocracy and tell Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, either to restore his country’s democracy or both NATO and the EU will send it packing.
- Start work on a long-term security structure for the Persian Gulf and other parts of the Middle East. End the illusion that getting rid of the Assad regime in Syria is the answer to anything—it would likely only produce more regional chaos and a Shi’a bloodbath. Meanwhile, put the Saudis and others who have turned a blind eye to the export of terrorism and the fostering of al-Qaeda and Islamic State, to stop immediately the flow from their countries of Islamist ideas, money, and arms, as the price of continued good relations with the US.
More needs to be done to deal effectively with the requirements of a world newly created in the wake of the end of the Cold War’s certainties, a product of the Berlin wall’s opening, but this is enough to be getting on with. It befits America’s role as a great power, a champion of freedom, a protector of those most in need of protecting, a beacon of hope. It is what we expect in terms of leadership by our president and Congress. It would be a fitting commemoration of what a lot of courageous people did across Central Europe a quarter century ago. Can we be less committed and far-sighted than they were?
]]>Almost 80 years ago, ideological true believers from all over the world flocked to Spain to fight in a civil war, serving in the famed International Brigades on the Republican side. These days, echoes of Spain can be found in Ukraine, where foreign ideologues now can be found battling separatists backed by [...]]]>
Almost 80 years ago, ideological true believers from all over the world flocked to Spain to fight in a civil war, serving in the famed International Brigades on the Republican side. These days, echoes of Spain can be found in Ukraine, where foreign ideologues now can be found battling separatists backed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
So far, the scale of foreigners going to Ukraine to fight is far smaller than was the case during the Spanish Civil War. For example, of the roughly 250 volunteers in the Azov Battalion, an irregular unit fighting for the Ukrainian government, 12 are foreign and 24 reinforcements from abroad are expected to arrive soon.
“We are not mercenaries, we are volunteers who receive no pay at all and fight for a righteous cause,” said Gaston Besson, a former French paratrooper who helps oversee the battalion’s foreign cohort. “We are anti-communist, but the spirit is the same as that of the International Brigades that fought [against Fascism] in Spain in the thirties.”
In June, Besson posted an appeal for foreign volunteers to join the Azov Battalion on his Facebook page. “You will find nothing but trouble, war, adventure, and perhaps death or serious injury, but you will definitely have great memories and make life-long friends,” he wrote.
“Every day I receive dozens of requests to join us by e-mail, especially from countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden,” added Besson, who has lots of combat experience from conflicts all over the world. “I reject 75 percent of them. We do not want trigger-happy fanatics, drug addicts, or alcoholics. The volunteers must pay for their own ticket and then begin training in Kyiv before being sent to the front lines.”
The battalion, which was formed in April, had its baptism of fire on June 13, when the unit participated in an operation to retake the pro-Russian controlled city of Mariupol, situated on the north coast of the Sea of Azov, in southeastern Ukraine.
Many of the Azov Battalion members describe themselves as ultra-right Ukrainian nationalists. They proudly wear symbols and use slogans associated with neo-Nazis, such as black t-shirts with the Celtic cross. Football ultras have also joined the ranks of the battalion, which was founded by the National Social Assembly, a confederation of ultra-nationalist organizations, as well as Ukrainian groups that oppose alignment with the European Union and NATO. This far-right ideology is what continues to draw like-minded activists from Sweden, Italy, France, Italy, Canada and even Russia.
For an Italian citizen in the Azov Battalion, 53-year-old Francesco F., the fight in Ukraine has given him a sense of purpose. “On the Maidan barricades I was like ET, finding ‘home’ on the side of Ukrainian nationalists”, said Francesco, who during the 1970s and 80s was affiliated with the National Vanguard ultra-right movement in Italy. “After the annexation of the Crimea and the explosion of the Eastern part of the country, I could not abandon them [Ukrainians] to face the Russian threat alone. That’s why I chose to enlist and fight.”
At their camp at Berdyansk, a city on the Azov Sea roughly 80 miles southwest of Donetsk, members of the battalion lined up one day recently, all wearing balaclavas to cover their faces for fear of repercussions should they be identified. At the order of their commander, they ran to a battered van that was to take them to a firing range.
On their way to shooting practice and maneuvers, fighters paid homage to their Italian comrade Francesco F. by singing a hymn honoring Mussolini. Francesco, whom everybody calls “Don,” or “uncle,” fights under the nom de guerre Stan.
Francesco was sitting next to Severin, a 20 year-old Swedish volunteer who has a tattoo on his bodybuilder-like biceps with the inscription “son of Odin.” A pounding nationalist rock song called “Death to the Enemy” played from a mobile phone, and battalion members took turns insulting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s manhood.
At the firing range, a Swedish instructor offered training on urban warfare. The man, who did not want to be identified, was dressed in black, shaved, lean, and muscular. “I came to train you in the most difficult tactics, urban warfare.” He harangued the battalion with the attitude of an officer. “I will show you how to break into a building, take it and, if you are lucky, get out of it alive.”
Mikael Skillt is perhaps the most well-known foreign fighter of the battalion. This Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard, was a member of the neo-Nazi Svenskarnas party in Sweden. He is one of the few fighters who agreed to speak without covering his face; he supposedly has a 5,000 euro (80,000 gryvna) bounty put on his head by pro-Russian elements. This amount in Ukraine is worth over the average yearly wage.
“They can come get me if they want. I fight against the idiots who believe in what Putin says,” he declared. “At Mariupol, a sniper tried to shoot me from a window. After locating him, I waited until he was a little uncovered and then pulled the trigger. He just had no hope,” Skillt said.
Dressed in his camouflage combat fatigues, Skillt explained what drove him to enlist in the Azov Battalion, “I saw on TV snipers killing civilians and nationalists on Maidan Square, so I decided to join in.” He confessed that he gets a rush out of combat, “There is something special when your heart is beating like mad and you see all these bullets flying around and bouncing on the ground near you.”
Muran, a young Russian who also fights with the Azov Battalion, said he came to Ukraine because he wanted to help bring down Putin’s government. He does not know if he will be able to go back to Russia, as he is now considered a traitor. “I would rather blow myself up with a grenade than be captured alive,” said the masked 24 year old from the Ural Mountains.
– Fausto Biloslavo is a freelance journalist who works in Ukraine. Laura Lesevre served as a translator in gathering information for this report. This article was first published by EurasiaNet and was reprinted here with permission. Copyright EurasiaNet.
Photo: The Azov Battalion, a volunteer paramilitary unit, consists primarily of far-right activists, including around a dozen foreign volunteer fighters from countries such as Sweden, France, Finland, Italy and Russia. Credit: Fausto Biloslavo/TRANSTERRA Media
]]>by Sara Vakhshouri
After almost a decade of negotiations, Moscow reached a 400 billion dollar energy deal with Beijing yesterday, allowing the Russian state-controlled Gazprom to export gas to China for 30 years.
The key agreement guarantees long-term market access for Russian gas in the Asian market, where Russia has historically had [...]]]>
by Sara Vakhshouri
After almost a decade of negotiations, Moscow reached a 400 billion dollar energy deal with Beijing yesterday, allowing the Russian state-controlled Gazprom to export gas to China for 30 years.
The key agreement guarantees long-term market access for Russian gas in the Asian market, where Russia has historically had a negligible market share. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will meanwhile receive discounted gas prices for the duration of the contract.
Yet the logistics are daunting. For Russian gas to actually arrive in China, Russia has to invest $55 billion in exploration and pipeline construction. For its part, China has to provide $20 billion for gas development and infrastructure. Ultimately, the gas will be transported to China through a pipeline in the Siberian gas field. The flow of gas to China is scheduled to start in 2018, and will gradually increase to 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year. The exported volume could be increase to 60 bcm a year.
There has been much speculation as to why the two countries finally agreed to the mega-deal after so many years of not being able to find common ground. Analysts have pointed to a Russian desire to counter the growing Western pressure it faces, to a China that’s now desperately seeking long-term access to clean and discounted energy.
The agreed gas prices have not been announced yet, but the pricing method is similar to the European price formula, which is tied to crude oil prices. Russia obviously would not want to sell its gas at prices that are lower than those it offers Europe, between $350-$380 per thousand cubic meters. But China would not agree to higher prices; this is a long-term deal, and with expected growth in North American shale gas production, markets generally expect a downward price trend.
Another reason China expects lower prices is that it is in the early stages of producing gas from its own shale reserves, particularly from the three basins of Sichuan, Yangtze Platform and Tarim.
In 2013, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimated that China possessed 1,115 trillion cubic feet (31 trillion cubic meters) of technically recoverable shale gas. That same year China produced 7.1 billion cubic feet (200 million cubic meters) of natural gas from shale formations. This puts China in the third place of shale gas producing countries after the US and Canada.
Russia, however, sees things differently. Although Russian gas prices in Europe are too low to be replicable with other alternatives, this deal still undermines broader Western attempts to isolate Russia’s economy. President Vladimir Putin knows very well that low gas prices to Europe make it a relatively unattractive destination, particularly for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) shipments. But American LNG cannot be shipped to Europe at the same prices Russia offers — here again, logistics is the main issue.
Iranian natural gas is also not an option for Europe at present. Iran’s low natural gas export capacity makes it impossible for Tehran to be able to compete with Moscow in this market.
All this explains Putin’s plan for the Asian market: securing market share and access in Asia for the long-term by offering low gas prices. Russia is preparing to compete with US supplies in Asia, a region that potentially could become a major market for US shale gas and condensate. Indeed, the 30-year gas export deal between Gazprom and CNPC not only ensures the security of demand for Russian gas, it also allows Russia to compete with the US by sending its gas to Asia via pipeline at a time when the prospects of LNG exports from this country do not look very promising.
This landmark deal will also help Russia recover from its budgetary issues and partial revenue loss from the European market in the short- and long-term. In other words, Russia’s geopolitical influence in Asia will increase at a time when, due to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, Europe has lost its trust in Russia as a long-term and reliable energy supplier.
For the Chinese, promoting natural gas is a top priority for their economic and energy policy strategies. Securing long-term access to Russian discounted natural gas therefore occupies an important place in Beijing’s energy security plan. Access to natural gas transferred via pipeline not only offers price advantages in comparison to LNG imports, it also reduces Chinese dependency on international waters. This will significantly reduce the transportation risks of energy flow to this country.
]]>by Mark N. Katz
As if the crisis in Ukraine wasn’t bad enough, the resulting tensions between Russia on the one hand and the US and most of Europe on the other will likely cause increased tension between Moscow and the West in the Middle East. Moscow can be expected to become [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
As if the crisis in Ukraine wasn’t bad enough, the resulting tensions between Russia on the one hand and the US and most of Europe on the other will likely cause increased tension between Moscow and the West in the Middle East. Moscow can be expected to become even more supportive of the Assad regime’s campaign against its opponents in Syria and even less willing to pressure it to pursue peace. Additionally, Moscow may be less willing to pressure Iran to make concessions in its ongoing negotiations with world powers over the nuclear issue. Russia will also try to expand its influence to other Middle Eastern countries.
However, apart from the Syrian regime, others in the Middle East may not welcome these efforts. No matter how much they disagree with Washington on various issues, America’s Arab allies do not see Russia as willing or able to underpin their security like the United States. Indeed, those concerned that the Obama administration is withdrawing from the Middle East will not be pleased about Moscow diverting Washington’s attention to European affairs. Furthermore, Russia and the Middle East compete with each other in the petroleum market. Middle Eastern gas exporters in particular will see a growing European desire to reduce dependence on Russian gas as an opportunity to increase their sales to Europe.
In Syria Moscow played on Western hopes for cooperation with Russia as a means of dissuading Washington from arming the Syrian opposition or intervening on their behalf. Now that the Ukraine crisis has shattered these hopes, the West may become less reluctant to arm the Syrian opposition and more willing to look for alternatives to the jihadist groups they want to avoid. Moscow may still succeed in helping the Assad regime recapture most (if not all) of Syria, but the cost of doing so will now go up.
Iran may also pose more of a problem for Moscow. Now that Russian ties with the West have soured over Ukraine, Moscow may prefer to see Iran remaining at odds with the West rather than improving relations. While there is certainly debate in Iran about the desirability of moving closer to the West, Russia is generally seen by Iranians as a rival and not a friend. Indeed, there are some in Iran who see the worsening of Russian-Western relations as an opportunity for Iran. Growing Western interest in seeing Iranian gas as an alternative to dependence on Russian resources could actually increase the West’s willingness to reduce its economic sanctions on Tehran.
Moscow can also be expected to seek improved ties with other Middle Eastern governments that differ with America over various issues, including its support for Israel and its half-hearted efforts to promote democratization. It is doubtful, though, that Arab governments or publics will see Moscow as much of a champion for the Palestinian cause at a time when Russian-Israeli relations have grown increasingly close. Egypt’s military-dominated government may be unhappy with President Barack Obama for suspending arms transfers over Cairo’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other internal opponents, but the Egyptian military’s threat of turning to Russia for arms may not be realistic. Egyptian armed forces would have a hard time integrating Russian weaponry into what is now a mainly US-trained and armed force structure. And like Iran, Arab gas exporters (Qatar, Algeria, and potentially Libya) all stand to benefit from European efforts to reduce dependence on Russian gas supplies.
Moreover, Moscow’s annexation of Crimea could lead to an important problem for Russia’s image among Sunnis in the Middle East and elsewhere. If the Muslim Crimean Tatar population, which largely opposed Russia’s move on their territory, is treated badly by their new rulers, concern for their plight could rise in the Muslim World. Renewed opposition activity inside Russia’s North Caucasus and other predominantly Muslim regions and the brutal response this would elicit from Moscow, combined with continued Russian support for Syria’s Alawite minority regime and Shi’a Iran, could contribute to Turks and Sunni Arabs also seeing Russia as anti-Sunni — and to their seeing the West as an essential ally against a common Russian threat.
Finally, the more absorbed the Russian leadership becomes with affairs in Ukraine and Europe in general, the more Moscow’s ability to devote attention and resources to the Middle East may actually decline. Whether Moscow will now be able to increase its influence in the Middle East, then, is very much open to doubt.
]]>by James A. Russell
Russia’s storming of the Ukrainian naval base in Crimea just as Iran and world powers wrapped up another round of negotiations in Vienna earlier this week represent seemingly contradictory bookends to a world that some believe is spinning out of control.
It’s hard not to argue that the [...]]]>
by James A. Russell
Russia’s storming of the Ukrainian naval base in Crimea just as Iran and world powers wrapped up another round of negotiations in Vienna earlier this week represent seemingly contradictory bookends to a world that some believe is spinning out of control.
It’s hard not to argue that the world seems a bit trigger-happy these days. Vladimir Putin’s Russian mafia thugs armed with weapons bought with oil money calmly annex the Crimea. Chinese warships ominously circle obscure shoals in the Western Pacific as Japan and other countries look on nervously. Israel and Hezbollah appear eager to settle scores and start another war in Lebanon. Syria and Libya continue their descent into a medieval-like state of nature as the world looks on not quite knowing what to do.
The icing on the cake is outgoing Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s telling the United States to get stuffed and leave his country — after we’ve spent billions dollars of borrowed money and suffered thousands of casualties over 13 years propping up his corrupt kleptocracy. Karzai and his cronies are laughing all the way to their secret Swiss banks with their pockets stuffed full of US taxpayer dollars. Why the United States thinks it needs to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan remains a mystery — but that’s another story altogether.
In the United States, noted foreign policy experts like Senator John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Condoleeza Rice have greeted these developments with howls of protest and with a call to arms to reassert America’s global leadership to tame a world that looks like it’s spinning out of control. They appear to believe that we should somehow use force or the threat of force as an instrument to restore order. Never mind that these commentators have exercised uniformly bad judgment on nearly all the major foreign policy issues of the last decade.
The protests of these commentators notwithstanding, however, it is worth engaging in a debate about what all these events really mean; whether they are somehow linked and perhaps emblematic of a more important structural shift in international politics towards a more warlike environment. For the United States, these developments come as the Obama administration sensibly tries to take the country’s military off a permanent war-footing and slow the growth in the defense budget — a budget that will still see the United States spend more on its military than most of the rest of the world combined.
The first issue is whether the events in Crimea are emblematic of a global system in which developed states may reconsider the basic calculus that has governed decision-making since World War II — that going to war doesn’t pay. Putin may have correctly calculated that the West doesn’t care enough about Crimea to militarily stop Russia, but would the same calculus apply to Moldova, Poland, or some part of Eastern Europe? Similarly, would the Central Committee in Beijing risk a wider war in the Pacific over the bits of rocks in the South China Sea that are claimed by various countries?
While we can’t know the answer to these questions, the political leadership of both Russia and China clearly would face significant political, economic, and military costs in choosing to exercise force in a dispute in which the world’s developed states could not or would not back down. These considerations remain a powerful deterrent to a resumption of war between the developed states, events in Crimea notwithstanding– although miscalculations by foolhardy leaders are always a possibility. Putin could have chosen some other piece of real estate that might have led to a different reaction by the West, but it seems unlikely.
The second kind of inter-state dispute troubling the system are those between countries/actors that have a healthy dislike for one another. Clearly, the most dangerous of these situations is the relationship between India and Pakistan — two nuclear-armed states that have been exchanging fire directly and indirectly for much of the last half century. By the same token, however, there is really nothing new in this dispute that has remained a constant since both states were created after Britain’s departure from the subcontinent.
Similarly, the situation in the Middle East stemming from Israel’s still unfinished wars of independence remains a constant source of regional instability. Maybe one day, Israel and its neighbors will finally decide on a set of agreeable borders, but until they do we can all expect them to resort to occasional violence until the issue is settled. Regrettably, neither Israel nor its neighbors shows any real interest in peaceful accommodation.
The third kind of war is the intra-national conflicts like those in Syria, the Congo, and Libya that some believe is emblematic of a more general slide into a global state-of-nature Hobbesian world in which the weak perish and the strong survive. If this is the case, what if anything can be done about it?
Here again, however, we have to wonder what if anything is new with these wars. As much as we might not like it, internal political evolution in developing states can and often does turn violent until winners emerge. The West’s own evolution in Europe took hundreds of years of bloodshed until winners emerged and eventually established political systems capable of resolving disputes peacefully through politics and national institutions. The chaos in places like Syria, the Congo, Libya, and Afghanistan has actually been the norm of international politics over much of the last century — not the exception.
This returns us to the other bookend cited at the outset of this piece — the reconvened negotiations in Vienna that are attempting to resolve the standoff between Iran and the international community. These meetings point to perhaps the most significant change in the international system over the last century that has seen global institutions emerge as mechanisms to control state behavior through an incentive structure that discourages war and encourages compliance with generally accepted behavioral norms.
These institutions, such as the United Nations, and their supporting regulatory structures like the International Atomic Energy Agency have helped establish new behavioral norms and impose costs on states that do not comply with the norms. While we cannot be certain of what caused Iran to seek a negotiated solution to its standoff with the international community over its nuclear program, it is clear that the international community has imposed significant economic costs on Iran over the last eight years of ever-tightening sanctions.
Similarly, that same set of global institutions and regulatory regimes supported by the United States will almost certainly impose sanctions that will increase the costs of Putin’s violation of international norms in Russia’s seizure of Crimea. Those costs will build up over time, just as they have for Iran and other states like North Korea that find themselves outside of the general global political and economic system. As Iran has discovered, and as Russia will also discover — it’s an expensive and arguably unsustainable proposition to be the object of international obloquy.
For those hawks arguing for a more militarized US response to these disparate events, it’s worth returning to George F. Kennan’s basic argument for a patient, defensive global posture. Kennan argued that inherent US and Western strength would see it through the Cold War and triumph over its weaker foes in the Kremlin. As Kennan correctly noted: we were strong, they were weaker. Time was on our side, not theirs. The world’s networked political and economic institutions only reinforce the strength of the West and those other members of the international community that choose to play by the accepted rules for peaceful global interaction.
The same holds true today. Putin’s Russia is a paper tiger that is awash in oil money but with huge structural problems. Russia’s corrupt, mafia-like dictatorship will weaken over time as it is excluded from the system of global political and economic interactions that rewards those that play by the rules and penalizes those that don’t.
As for other wars around the world in places like Syria, we need to recognize they are part of the durable disorder of global politics that cannot necessarily be managed despite the awful plight of the poor innocent civilians and children — who always bear the costs of these tragic conflicts.
We need to calm down and recognize that the international system is not becoming unglued; it is simply exhibiting immutable characteristics that have been with us for much of recorded history. We should, however, be more confident of the ability of the system (with US leadership) to police itself and avoid rash decisions that will only make these situations worse.
Photo: A Russian armoured personnel carrier in Simferopol, the provincial capital of Crimea. Credit: Zack Baddorf/IPS.
]]>Looking back over the past year, Moscow appears to have good reason to congratulate itself on the success of its foreign policy toward Iran and Syria in particular, and toward the Middle East in general. Indeed, while they did not necessarily do so at Moscow’s behest, several actors that play an [...]]]>
Looking back over the past year, Moscow appears to have good reason to congratulate itself on the success of its foreign policy toward Iran and Syria in particular, and toward the Middle East in general. Indeed, while they did not necessarily do so at Moscow’s behest, several actors that play an important role in the Middle East have come around to adopting policy approaches that Russian leaders have been urging on them.
The Russian position on the Iranian nuclear issue has long been that while Moscow does not want Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons, it does not want America and its allies to pursue this goal either through the use force or further ratcheting up of economic sanctions against Iran. Moscow has long called for a negotiated settlement to this issue involving Tehran taking steps to reassure the international community that it is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a relaxation of the international sanctions regime.
In the past few months, this is exactly what has happened. Secret Iranian-American negotiations led to an interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue, and to subsequent negotiations for a permanent settlement. The prospects for armed conflict over the nuclear issue, which Moscow has sought to prevent, have definitely receded.
Since the inception of the Arab Spring conflict in Syria, Putin and his associates have claimed that the Assad regime, despite its problems, is better than the opposition forces seeking to replace it, which Moscow has characterized as consisting largely of radical Sunni Islamists whose victory would threaten Western interests as much as Russian ones. While not outwardly agreeing with Moscow on Assad, several other governments that have called for him to step aside have grown increasingly nervous about the nature of the Syrian opposition.
Further, three governments in particular have made policy changes that support the Russian goal of keeping Assad in power. In Egypt, the ouster of the elected Islamist President, Mohamed Morsi, by Egypt’s secular military also resulted in Cairo moving from being sympathetic to unsympathetic toward the Syrian opposition.
After the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its opponents in August 2013, the Obama administration first threatened the use of force against it but then accepted the Russian proposal for an internationally sanctioned effort to remove chemical weapons from Syria. Since this process depended heavily on the cooperation of the Assad regime, the Obama administration’s support for it resulted in tacit American acceptance of its continuation in power — something that the Syrian opposition and their supporters in the Gulf resented bitterly.
In addition, while the Turkish government has previously been strongly supportive of Syrian opposition efforts to oust Assad, recently Ankara launched military strikes against jihadist forces inside Syria — thus signaling it may be coming round to accepting the Russian view that the Assad regime is better than that which seeks to replace it.
Regarding both Iran and Syria, then, policy changes by others have recently become more supportive of Russian foreign policy preferences. There is no guarantee, however, that this will remain the case going forward.
The US Government has recently expressed concern that the Assad regime is dragging its feet on the chemical weapons agreement. If this continues, Russian interests could be hurt. If the US Government comes to believe that Moscow is supportive of the Assad regime’s lack of cooperation in this matter, a decidedly negative image of Russian intentions is likely to re-emerge in Washington. Under these circumstances, the Obama administration might well be unable to resist the likely rise of demands in Congress and by some US allies to seek retaliatory measures against Moscow for having duplicitously led Obama to believe that Assad would cooperate on the chemical accord. But even if Moscow were not blamed for the Syrian government’s recalcitrance, Washington would still come to see Putin as unable to deliver Assad on the chemical issue (as had been previously believed) — and thus there would be no point in further coordinating with Moscow on this issue.
While a deterioration of the situation regarding Syria could serve to marginalize Russia, an improvement of the situation regarding Iran could do so too. If indeed real progress is made in resolving the nuclear issue, then economic sanctions against Iran will be lifted either in whole or in part and Iranian cooperation with the West will increase. To the extent that Iranian relations with the West (especially the U.S.) improves, the less need Iran will have for relying on Russia — with which it has had a prickly relationship up to now despite their common animosity toward the U.S.
Furthermore, reduced economic sanctions on Iran could well result in Tehran producing and exporting far more oil than it does now, thus depressing oil prices and reducing the income of other oil exporters, including Russia. The desire to avoid this may have motivated Moscow to enter negotiations with Tehran over a bilateral exchange agreement worth $1.5 billion per month whereby Russia would reportedly buy up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day in exchange for Russian goods. But even if such a Russian-Iranian agreement comes into force, Tehran is hardly likely to forego the opportunity to increase oil exports to the rest of the world if the sanctions regime is relaxed.
So while Russian foreign policy toward Iran and Syria has benefited from recent events going Moscow’s way, its success is highly fragile as it could easily be damaged by the situation in Syria further deteriorating or by the situation regarding Iran improving.
]]>by Mark N. Katz
The prospects for improved ties between Washington and Tehran have dramatically increased since Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran in August 2013. This has made several parties quite nervous, including American conservatives (who fear it is a trick) as well as Iranian conservatives, Arab Gulf [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
The prospects for improved ties between Washington and Tehran have dramatically increased since Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran in August 2013. This has made several parties quite nervous, including American conservatives (who fear it is a trick) as well as Iranian conservatives, Arab Gulf states, and Israel (who all fear that it is not). There is one other party, though, that is quite nervous about what the prospects of improved Iranian-American relations will mean for it: Russia.
There have already been some signs that Moscow is worried about this. For example, back in February, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told journalists that while Moscow did not object to an Iranian-American bilateral dialogue, the Russian government “would like to know the essence of the agreements in order to be certain that no steps are taken in this sphere at Russia’s expense or [that] harm Russian interests.”
While Iran’s first revolutionary leader–Ayatollah Khomeini–was as hostile toward the Soviet Union as he was toward the United States, Moscow managed to improve relations after his death in 1989. Since then, Moscow has benefited from continued Iranian-American hostility in several ways.
First and foremost, American opposition to the export of oil and gas from Central Asia and the Caucasus through Iran to the world market has meant that much of the petroleum exports from these former Soviet republics has had to go through Russia (thus providing Moscow both with transit revenue and political leverage over them). Further, the success of American efforts to decrease Iranian petroleum exports has served to strengthen demand for petroleum from Russia (as well as other petroleum exporters).
In addition, American economic sanctions against Iran as well as Washington’s successful efforts to pressure many Western and other countries not to do business with Tehran has presented opportunities for Russian businesses to gain stakes in Iran that they might not have had otherwise (though, admittedly, the Russians have not done nearly as well in this regard as the Chinese). Finally, Iranian-American hostility has served to simultaneously increase Russia’s importance both to Tehran (as a means of restraining the U.S. vis-à-vis Iran in the UN Security Council and other fora), and to Washington (which has long sought to elicit greater Russian support on the Iranian nuclear issue).
Should an Iranian-American rapprochement actually fully develop, Moscow will lose all these advantages. Improved Iranian-American relations could lead to Caspian Basin oil and gas flowing south via Iranian pipelines to the world market, thus reducing the excess transit revenue and political leverage that Moscow now has over the Caucasus and Central Asia. An end to American economic sanctions will also lead not only to increased Iranian oil exports, but also the opening of the door to Western investment in Iran’s huge but underdeveloped natural gas sector–thus increasing the competition Russian oil and gas faces on the world market. Indeed, Iran’s overall trade with the West will blossom, thereby decreasing Russia’s share in the Iranian market. Improved Iranian-American relations will also mean that neither Washington nor Tehran will need any help from Moscow in dealing with each other.
Finally, Moscow may worry that if improved Iranian-American relations leads to Tehran reducing its support for the Assad regime in Syria, Russia will either be forced to accept whatever agreement the US and Iran reach, or be left to support Damascus all on its own.
Moscow, then, obviously hopes that the budding Iranian-American courtship will fail; it will certainly not do anything to facilitate it. If Washington and Tehran are both serious about pursuing rapprochement, however, there is little that Moscow can do to prevent this from occurring, or to avoid losing the advantages Russia has enjoyed from Iranian-American hostility up to now.
]]>Foreign Affairs
Addressing an annual gathering of IRGC officials, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke of the necessity for “heroic flexibility” in diplomacy. President Hassan Rouhani welcomed a Russian proposal aimed at eliminating Syria’s nuclear weapons. Rouhani spoke of repairing relations with Saudi Arabia on Thursday, saying, “This issue has [...]]]>Foreign Affairs
- Addressing an annual gathering of IRGC officials, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke of the necessity for “heroic flexibility” in diplomacy.
- President Hassan Rouhani welcomed a Russian proposal aimed at eliminating Syria’s nuclear weapons.
- Rouhani spoke of repairing relations with Saudi Arabia on Thursday, saying, “This issue has been emphasized in the Saudi king’s congratulatory letter to me and in my thank-you letter to him. We are both eager to resolve the minor tensions between us in pursuit of our mutual interests and the interests of the Islamic world.”
- Rouhani met with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek. Putin accepted an invitation to meet with Rouhani in Tehran.
Nuclear Program
- At a gathering of SCO member states, Rouhani expressed optimism that his administration can “guarantee” the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program through “political will and mutual respect.” He added, “With mutual confidence building, a guarantee can be reached within a short period of time.”
- The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said in a IAEA conference on Monday, “I have come to Vienna to close Iran’s nuclear file.”
Military
- Speaking at an annual gathering of IRGC officials, Rouhani referenced Ayatollah Khomeini’s insistence that armed forces stay out of “political games,” telling the IRGC to operate “above political currents.”
- A delegation of senior Omani military officials led by the country’s foreign minister arrived in Tehran Tuesday to discuss and sign defense cooperation agreements between the two countries.
- In his address at the annual gathering of IRGC officials, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei affirmed statements made by Rouhani a day earlier on the need for political non-interference, “There is no need for the IRGC to be active in the political arena.
Human Rights
- Eleven political prisoners were freed Wednesday, including prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
- Freed political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh wrote an open letter to Rouhani calling on the president to safeguard the rights of religious minorities, particularly followers of the Baha’i faith, in light of the recent murder of a Baha’i man in Hormozgan Province.
Economic Issues
- The Tehran Stock Exchange saw a growth of 1.19% following positive political news and a drop in value of the US dollar.
At Home
- Mahmoud Vaezi, newly appointed head of Iran’s Ministry of Communication, said during a press conference, “On the basis of our 100-day plan, our goal is to make Internet speed twice as fast.”
- President Rouhani appointed Hesamedin Ashena as his advisor for cultural affairs. Ashena was one of Rouhani’s campaign managers and introduced the famous ‘key’ that came to symbolize Rouhani’s campaign.
- Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed recent presidential candidate and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to the Expediency Council.
– Shawn Amoei is a London-based foreign affairs analyst, specializing in US foreign policy and the Middle East. He writes for Iranwire and the Huffington Post, and can be reached by email.
- Photo: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets Omani Defense Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi in Tehran on 17 Sept. 2013. Photo Credit: ISNA/Hamid Forootan
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