by Derek Davison
When flight MH17 was hit with a missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, US officials immediately blamed pro-Russian separatists for bringing the plane down. Secretary of State John Kerry said the evidence “obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists,” using “a system that was [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
When flight MH17 was hit with a missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, US officials immediately blamed pro-Russian separatists for bringing the plane down. Secretary of State John Kerry said the evidence “obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists,” using “a system that was transferred from Russia.” The preliminary evidence — including photographs allegedly showing a Buk system in the area where the aircraft was shot down, satellite imagery supposedly showing a missile plume that trailed back to separatist-controlled territory, and intercepts of separatists purportedly discussing the shooting — supported Kerry’s assertion, but was at best circumstantial (Kerry himself called it “extraordinary circumstantial evidence”), and in the case of the missile plume, has not been made public.
Doubts have been raised about the veracity of the initial MH17 story, particularly by independent journalist Robert Parry, who claims that a reliable (though anonymous) source told him that US satellite imagery actually suggests the flight was shot down by a Buk battery under the control of Ukrainian forces. Parry’s reporting initially suggested that the battery fired on MH17 accidentally, or due to carelessness on the part of its crew, but he has since reported (based on additional anonymous sourcing) that the attack may have been a deliberate attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was returning from the World Cup in Brazil that day and whose plane may have resembled MH17 in both physical appearance and flight path.
Obviously Parry’s story suffers from its reliance on anonymous sources and the lack of any publicly available evidence supporting it. However, it remains a plausible alternative to the Western narrative about MH17, in large part due to the failure of the US government to bolster the initial circumstantial evidence it raised against the separatists with anything more substantive (it claims doing so would compromise its intelligence-gathering capabilities). Parry is certainly not the only journalist to notice this failure, as shown by a heated July 25 exchange between AP reporter Matt Lee and State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. As Gawker’s Matthew Phelan points out, the evidence that has been made public so far is hardly impressive considering the massive US intelligence apparatus that is supposed to be investigating what really happened to MH17. Yet for the most part, American mainstream news outlets have hardly challenged the US’ official MH17 story.
Others have publicly raised questions. A group of former intelligence and foreign service officials called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) released a public memo on July 29 to President Obama via Parry’s website. The authors argued that “the charges against Russia should be rooted in solid, far more convincing evidence” and asked that “if you [Obama] indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay.” VIPS has also critiqued Colin Powell’s February 2003 speech to the UN Security Council making the case for the Iraq War, the Obama administration’s unwillingness to investigate and prosecute those behind the Bush-era torture program, and last year’s plans to launch cruise missile strikes against Syria. Granted, some of this group’s claims have been seriously challenged.
In any case, if VIPS demand for more conclusive evidence seemed premature early on, their demands seem considerably more reasonable now that Russia’s supposed culpability in MH17′s downing has been used to justify additional US and EU sanctions. Yet there has still been no effort by the Obama administration to release more substantive evidence to support allegations of the separatists’ culpability. Gawker spoke to members of VIPS, who argued that given all the assets that must have been sent to eastern Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing fighting, the US government probably has substantial evidence showing what really happened to MH17. They also said that the seriousness of the deteriorating US-Russia relationship warranted releasing that evidence even if doing so would compromise intelligence-gathering operations. “We’re talking about the possibility of an armed confrontation with Russia. I mean, you couldn’t think of higher stakes,” retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern told Gawker.
Barring a massive escalation by Russia, the separatist war in Ukraine is nearing its end. Ukrainian forces have reached one of the two remaining rebel strongholds, Luhansk, where “street fighting” is said to be ongoing between the army and the remaining separatist resistance. The other stronghold, Donetsk, has been taking heavy shelling from Ukrainian forces and is unlikely to hold out much longer. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is due to meet with Putin in Minsk next Tuesday, in an effort to reach an agreement that would end the fighting.
At this critical juncture, one hopes that Western media will keep a watchful eye on events in eastern Ukraine as they unfold. Poroshenko, and his supporters in Europe and America, must be held accountable for the treatment of defeated rebels and the Donetsk and Luhansk civilians who have been essentially caught in the crossfire over the past several months. He must also be held accountable for the actions of neo-Nazi militias like the Azov Battalion, which continues to serve openly on the front lines of the Ukrainian advance despite its extremism and the potential threat it poses to post-war reconciliation. When civilians are targeted, as in the August 18 shelling of a refugee convoy fleeing Luhansk, the true story about such incidents must be told. The failure of leading news media outlets to get more answers from Washington about what really happened to MH17 does not bode well for future coverage of this conflict.
Photo: A memorial at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport for the victims of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which was reportedly show down while flying over Ukraine on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
]]>Ukraine’s next crisis will be a devastatingly economic one, as violent conflict destroys critical infrastructure in the east and brings key industry to a halt, furthering weakening the energy sector by crippling coal-based electricity production.
The Ukrainian military’s showdown with separatists in the industrial east has forced coal mines to severely cut [...]]]>
Ukraine’s next crisis will be a devastatingly economic one, as violent conflict destroys critical infrastructure in the east and brings key industry to a halt, furthering weakening the energy sector by crippling coal-based electricity production.
The Ukrainian military’s showdown with separatists in the industrial east has forced coal mines to severely cut production or close down entirely. This has led to an electricity crisis that can only be staunched by cutting domestic production along with exports to Europe, Crimea, and Belarus — or worse, getting more imports from Russia.
In the coal centers of Ukraine’s industrial east—Luhansk and Donetsk—fighting has forced the full closure of an estimated 50 percent of coal mines, while overall coal production has fallen 22 percent over the same period last year.
Key industry sources say they will potentially run out of coal in less than three weeks.
For Ukraine, the second largest producer of coal in Europe, this will have a devastating impact on the energy sector, which is in a state of emergency, unable to get coal to thermal power plants that provide some 40 percent of the entire country’s electricity.
In the wider energy picture, the halt of coal production sets Ukraine back a decade. The plan was to rely more on coal in order to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas.
But the new reality has insiders wondering how Ukraine will produce more of its own natural gas, after the implementation earlier this month of an amended tax code that targets private gas producers with a tax so high that they will significantly reduce production through the end of the year and beyond that is anyone’s guess. (Full disclosure: my firm, Pelicourt LLC, is the majority shareholder of Ukraine’s third-largest gas producer, Cub Energy, and I have advised the U.S. and Canadian governments on the potential harm the new tax will cause.)
Economically, the conflict in the east is a disaster for Ukraine, which has traditionally been a net exporter of thermal coal for power generation. Now it will have to increase imports of fuel to make up for the loss. But even then, the destruction of supply routes makes this challenging.
Not only have coal supply routes been destroyed in the conflict, but other critical infrastructure has taken a hit as well, threatening other industries.
Across the board, Ukraine’s industrial heartland is reeling from cut-off supply and shipping chains that threaten to destroy as much as 5 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product in the second half of this year.
In the meantime, observers can be forgiven their confusion over various measures Kiev has taken since the intensification of the conflict. Indeed, the signals coming out of Kiev have been mixed, at best.
While parliament has passed a bill allowing for sanctions against Russia, the state-run Naftogaz leadership has been quick to point out that we probably shouldn’t expect sanctions against Russian gas giant Gazprom, and the new bill doesn’t implement sanctions of any kind—it simply makes it legal to slap sanctions on Russian individuals should Kiev decide to do so. Another paper tiger.
Parliament has also adopted a bill approving the joint-venture lease of Ukraine’s gas-transit facilities with Western firms.
At the same time, however, Kiev passed a new amendment to the tax code that doubles taxes for private gas producers and promises to keep Western investors as far away from Ukraine as they can get.
Each move is designed to negate the other. The economy is being destroyed, yet Kiev is itself destroying any chance of bringing in Western investment to prop it up. Western firms are invited to invest in Ukraine, while at the same time Ukraine makes a mockery of transparency and ensures that the investment climate is suddenly even less attractive than it was two weeks ago. Lip service is paid to developing more resources to build energy independence, but a new tax doubles costs for private producers who will stop producing and pick up stakes.
It’s hard not to conclude that Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan is working hard to discourage new investment in the energy sector.
This article was first published by Oil Price and was reprinted here with permission. Copyright Oil Price.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
Less than a month from now, September 4-5, the 28 NATO allies will hold a summit in Wales. It was originally figured to be a “ho-hum” meeting, focusing on the end of the Alliance’s decade-long military campaign in Afghanistan and plans for “adapting” NATO for an uncertain future [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
Less than a month from now, September 4-5, the 28 NATO allies will hold a summit in Wales. It was originally figured to be a “ho-hum” meeting, focusing on the end of the Alliance’s decade-long military campaign in Afghanistan and plans for “adapting” NATO for an uncertain future of potential engagements “outside of area” — to use the technical term for any place beyond Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, aided and abetted by a lengthy period of instability, incompetence, and corruption by various Ukrainian governments, has changed the agenda. Now the allies need to come up with a plan for dealing not just with Putin’s peremptory seizure of Crimea but also with continuing military clashes between Russian-speakers in southeast Ukraine, who wish to be united with Mother Russia, and forces of the Ukrainian central government in Kiev. There is even speculation in various parts of the West that, in order to save loyalists from defeat by Ukraine, Putin will intervene directly with military force. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.
The Ukrainian crisis was sidelined in media focus everywhere but in Central Europe until the accidental — other than an act of sheer insanity, that’s what it was — shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, which took 298 lives. Almost certainly, however, the weapon used was a high-altitude anti-aircraft system supplied to Russian rebels in Ukraine by authorities in Moscow. At that point, it became impossible for Western leaders, especially in Washington, to hope that the Ukraine crisis could be easily de-escalated. That includes diplomacy to see whether it could be possible, in time, to return to the vision that President George H.W. Bush had of trying to create a “Europe whole and fee,” which he believed (correctly) had to include Russia in some way acceptable to all.
Throughout this rolling crisis, the question for the West, especially the United States (as “leader of the West”), and for NATO has been, in the Russian phrase popularized by Lenin, Shto Delat’? (Что делать?) –“What is to be done?”
This has not been an easy question to answer, for a number of reasons.
Countering Russia
In the first place, there has been a general willingness by Western governments, except those closest to Ukraine and Russia, to separate “Crimea” from the rest of “Ukraine.” The former was for two centuries part of Russia, with a population that is almost entirely Russian (Stalin having expelled the native Crimean Tatars in 1944), until given as a birthday present to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev (himself a Ukrainian) in 1954. But so what? It was still part of the Soviet Union.
In the process, Putin clearly violated agreements signed by Russia, notably the 1975 Helsinki Final Act (signed by Russia’s legal predecessor, the Soviet Union) and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine relinquished nuclear weapons left on its territory when the Soviet Union collapsed, in exchange for security guarantees by the US, UK, and Russia. Nevertheless, it was convenient for most Western governments to view the seizure of Crimea as a “one-off” or “correction” of boundaries that should never have put Russians in Ukraine.
What has caught universal attention among Western governments is the campaign by Russian nationalists to dominate southeast Ukraine and, presumably, to detach it, probably with the objective of joining Russia. The Budapest Memorandum does commit the US and UK to refer any violation to the United Nations Security Council, but that is a standard weak-kneed diplomatic formulation. Something more had to be done, if only to keep from setting a precedent that borders in Europe can be changed by force and, in the process, giving aid and comfort to other states — not just those with significant Russian populations — to seek extra-legal territorial redress.
But the “something” to be done by the West cannot, by common agreement, include direct military action. Most importantly, in the local region itself, Russian military forces would have a clear advantage over anything that NATO or any member thereof could bring to bear. And what is happening in Ukraine would not justify the invocation of the US trump card, escalation to nuclear confrontation. Among other things, such an escalation of threats would not be credible to Moscow.
What the West has done is begin the process of providing Ukraine with some limited military support, while relying on the government in Kiev to begin, under its newly elected government, to take steps to recognize that the Russian-speaking minority should have some form of autonomy or role in a federal system. Under US leadership, NATO has also begun beefing up the symbols of military reassurance to other countries in Central Europe, those like the three Baltic states that are formal members of NATO and are thus subject to its political-security guarantees in the case of their being subjected to external aggression.
The phrase “symbols of military reassurance” is used advisedly, because whatever is done to show that the NATO guarantees are real would not in fact be sufficient to prevent Russian military action, if Putin were either stupid or reckless enough to take such action. (And if Putin were either so stupid or reckless, the world of European security and even much more would be changed fundamentally, leading to another “long, twilight struggle,” to quote President John F. Kennedy on the Cold War.).
These can be called prophylactic measures, and they will be buttressed and emphasized at the NATO summit in Wales. The Alliance can do no less, and many things are already being done, including training, exercises, supply of equipment, and the prospective periodic moving of US forces back to Europe for brief periods (given that only the United States, within the Alliance, has any capacity to deal effectively with Russia. In order to guarantee this US role, after all, was the reason that the NATO allies sent troops to far-off Afghanistan).
These are negative steps, in the sense that they are designed to show Putin that by taking further military actions — possibly even within Ukraine, though it has no formal NATO commitment — would be a major raising of the stakes and that there would be “consequences” that would not be to Putin’s liking. Unless he is willing to have Russia become a pariah in the West for the foreseeable future, he will take this general notion of “consequences” most seriously. This is, after all, not 1923, when Lenin could accept the economic and political isolation of the Soviet Union from the outside world. Even though Russia is not yet a major player in the global economy, it is already tightly and, one is tempted to say, irrevocably tied to it.
Sanctions
This proposition has led the US, and now its European allies (including, formally, the European Union) to impose what are called “targeted” economic sanctions against Russia. This was not easy to achieve, especially because of uncertainties on the part of some European countries that are not directly affected — so they believe — by Putin’s actions. There is a clear division across the continent between what former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once called “old” and “new” Europe, its western and its eastern parts. The exception has been Britain, which has chosen to emphasize its special relationship with Washington, a decision not disconnected with the continuing debate about British membership in the EU. There is also the heavy dependence of much of Western Europe on Russian hydrocarbons, reflecting two decades of foolishness in not diversifying sources of supply, and which will now take many years to do.
Sanctions, however, are tools that almost never work in the short-term and usually only against weak economies. Indeed, hoped-for political pressures on Russia (Putin) to change course will, if at all, be some time in coming and will depend on a passing of the current popularity among most Russians of what Putin is doing. This is a product, in major part, both of the retained sense of Russian humiliation in losing the Cold War and also in being taken advantage of by many Western countries, and especially by the United States — actions that Washington chooses to “misremember” — since about the second half of the Clinton administration through the onset of the current Ukraine crisis.
Putin is also now trying to show that sanctions are a double-edged sword, by beginning to impose restrictions on the import of Western agricultural products. Ironically, if implemented, these could hit the EU countries (about $15 billion in exports a year) much harder than the US (about $1 billion), which pressed for these actions.
Of course, this is also a “triple-edged sword” if one can imagine such a thing, in that restrictions on Western imports will have an impact on Russian consumers and thus, presumably, over time on their support for Putin.
Sizing Up Russia
This crisis very likely has a long way to go before it is over, even if Ukrainian forces do prevail over the Russian separatists and Putin decides not to intervene militarily.
In the process, a number of other factors need to be considered as the US and its allies and partners decide what to do next.
First, Russia is a big country. The importance of that simple statement is that it is contiguous to virtually all of the territories in the Northeastern “quadrisphere,” from Europe through the Middle East and South Asia, to the Far East, and even the Artic. It is not possible to separate out the different areas of interaction — where the US is more universally engaged than any West European countries — from one another.
Thus Putin is already seeking to exploit the penchant of many people in Washington to see China as a looming threat by trying to work more closely with Beijing. Not being fools, the Chinese will exact high prices for responding, and have already been doing so; they have an interest in at least exploring the possibility.
The US also had a continuing interest in retaining Russian support in Afghanistan as NATO’s presence there winds down and, more importantly, in containing Iran. Moscow does share an interest in keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but it has never taken this problem as seriously as do the United States and Israel. While Iran would be foolish to back-off on current negotiations with the so-called P5+1 because of the US-Russian mini-confrontation, Russia is already beginning to leave the fold when it comes to the broader interest of both Israel and Persian Gulf Arab states to keep Iran from rejoining the international community. Perhaps strategists in the Obama administration have weighed the trade-offs; perhaps not.
A final point that the West and especially the United States need to bear in mind is that a confrontation, the stigmatizing of a country as the “enemy,” is easy to get going but even more difficult to stop, without the abject surrender of the offending party. Of course, Putin also had to bear this problem in mind. Already, the psychological apparatus of the old Cold War is being trundled out in Washington and in much of the think-tank and media communities. This is coupled with the traditional US problem of having difficulty in talking the game of realpolitik, as opposed to occasionally practicing it. As a culture, Americans have difficulty in foreign affairs in dealing with uncertainties. While exaggerated, the notion of dividing the world into “friends” versus “foes” — reflected in President George W. Bush’s remark about the invasion of Iraq: “you are either with us or against us” — is buried deeply within American culture.
At the end of the day, it is Putin who, through his actions, undertaken for whatever motive, most has the tiger by the tail. If there is a final accounting of winners and losers from this crisis, he will be included in the latter category. But that can be a long and difficult time for us all. The first requirement is for us to see the global picture of relations with Russia in its entirety, and to do nothing further without thinking carefully about the potential consequences.
This should be Task Number One between now and the NATO summit, with its requirement that “something” be seen to be done, expectations both by Central European states and the media, including a demonstration of what everyone in the West wants: US leadership. Getting that right in the next few weeks is a tall order.
]]>by François Nicoullaud
Defining the size of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has become a major sticking point in the negotiations between Iran and world powers expected to resume next month. The scale of this enrichment program, however, greatly relies upon undecided agreements between Tehran and Moscow on the long-term supply of nuclear fuel [...]]]>
by François Nicoullaud
Defining the size of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has become a major sticking point in the negotiations between Iran and world powers expected to resume next month. The scale of this enrichment program, however, greatly relies upon undecided agreements between Tehran and Moscow on the long-term supply of nuclear fuel for the Russian-built reactors: a 1,000 Megawatt reactor already operating in Bushehr since 2012 and two other reactors that will likely be built on the same site if the talks between Russia and Iran conclude successfully.
The decision to build several reactors on the Bushehr site basically conforms to general practice in the nuclear industry, as it generates important economies of scale. Tehran justifies its controversial enrichment ambitions by noting its intention to use, in the medium-term, domestically enriched uranium in its reactors.
Iran has already stored around nine tons of low-enriched uranium, about a third of the quantity necessary to run a Bushehr-type reactor for a year, consuming in the process about 40,000 Separative Work Units (SWU, a type of energy unit in the field of uranium enrichment). If Iran preserves its present capacity of about 10,000 SWU per year, corresponding to the 10,000 or so first-generation centrifuges currently in operation, it will need about eight more years to produce enough low-enriched uranium to operate a Bushehr-type reactor for one year. This brings us to around 2022, when the present contract for the delivery of Russian fuel for the first reactor in Bushehr comes to an end. It would also be around that time, according to best estimates, that two new reactors would have to be fed with an initial load of fuel to start functioning.
However, using such a stockpile of domestic uranium for Bushehr assumes that it would initially be incorporated in fuel elements complying with Russian standards. This would require Russia’s agreement and its active cooperation as long as Iran does not master the corresponding know-how. At first, this cooperation could take the form of fabricating the fuel in Russia using low-enriched uranium provided by Iran. In the second stage, the Russians could help the Iranians build and operate a fuel fabrication plant on Iranian soil. As for the introduction of Iranian-made fuel elements in the Bushehr reactor, this would once again require the agreement and the cooperation of the Russians, who could otherwise rightly withdraw their guarantee on the safe operation of the reactor.
What will the origin of the nuclear fuel used in the operating Bushehr reactors be in, say, 2022? Moscow would like to supply the reactors with Russian fuel, as this would vastly enhance their economic benefits. But Tehran will want to use Iranian fuel in at least the first reactor, as this would justify the expansion of their enrichment capacities (it should be remembered that the Iranians, under the terms of the Joint Plan of Action, must demonstrate that the enrichment capacity they desire responds to “practical needs”). Ultimately, the Russians will have to respond at least partially to Iran’s expectations if they want to retain their chance to sell Tehran two new reactors.
Within this framework, a possible compromise could be, for example, entrusting the Iranians with the fabrication of fuel for the first Bushehr reactor and leaving the Russians to take care of the other two. A similar formula would let the Iranians produce about a third or fourth of the fuel necessary for the three reactors (after the initial loading of the second and third reactors) while the Russians maintained responsibility of the rest. This would compel the Iranians to reach an enrichment capacity of about 90,000 to 120,000 SWU per year by around 2022. Adding Iran’s needs for its research reactors would bring the total required capacity to approximately 100,000 to 130,000 SWU per year.
This last figure is somewhat below the 190,000 SWU per year put forward by Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Organization for Atomic Energy, and quoted later by the Supreme Leader, but this discrepancy can probably be explained by different modes of calculation. Indeed, when one remembers that the production of highly enriched uranium for a nuclear explosive engine using the implosion method requires no more than 5,000 SWU, variations of capacities beyond 100,000 SWU per year are no longer relevant in terms of non-proliferation.
Of course, Russia could refuse to allow Iran to manufacture even part of the Bushehr fuel. This would greatly benefit the Americans and the Europeans, who would be happy to deprive Iran of arguments for developing a significant enrichment capacity. But in doing so, Moscow would likely forego the opportunity to sign a contract with Iran for the construction and operation of the two additional Bushehr reactors, which would result in a big loss for its nuclear industry.
On the other hand, if Russia were to announce its readiness to share the fuel fabrication process for Bushehr with Iran, that would be enough to validate Tehran’s view of its “practical needs” and justify an Iranian enrichment capacity of about 10,000 SWU per year for 6 or 7 years, eventually increasing to 100,000 and beyond. In this case, Western powers would find it extremely difficult to convince Tehran to limit its capacity to a few thousand first-generation centrifuges, corresponding to a capacity of 4,000 to 6,000 SWU — a long-sought goal.
All in all, one has to face the fact that Russian and Western interests diverge on the core issue of Iran’s enrichment capacity. If the Americans and Europeans want to keep the P5+1 unified, they should be especially thoughtful when considering Moscow’s dilemma in its bilateral trade negotiations with Tehran. Perhaps most importantly, these powers should prevent other subjects of contention, such as Syria or Ukraine, from interfering with the negotiations as a whole.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif shares a laugh with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
]]>by Mark N. Katz
Just a few months ago, everything seemed to be going well for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. After the initial setback of Moscow’s ally, President Viktor Yanukovich, fleeing Kiev and being replaced by a pro-Western government, Putin seized control of Crimea in a surprise move that succeeded very [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
Just a few months ago, everything seemed to be going well for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. After the initial setback of Moscow’s ally, President Viktor Yanukovich, fleeing Kiev and being replaced by a pro-Western government, Putin seized control of Crimea in a surprise move that succeeded very quickly and almost bloodlessly. Small numbers of pro-Russian separatists then took over several cities in eastern Ukraine where there are large Russian populations. The new Ukrainian government was powerless to prevent this, and its American and European allies appeared either unwilling or unable to help. Indeed, Germany, France, and Italy in particular seemed more concerned about retaining their lucrative trade relations with Russia than with preserving the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Nor did there appear to be any significant barrier to Putin seizing all of eastern and southern Ukraine. The image of a “rising Russia” stood in stark contrast to that of a weak, ineffectual, and divided West.
Now the situation seems quite different. Ukrainian forces have managed to retake much of eastern Ukraine from the pro-Russian separatists. Western public opinion has become increasingly critical of Russia in the wake of flight MH17 being shot down over territory held by the separatists, and over their truly boorish behavior in allowing Western access to the crash site and recovering the bodies. The United States and the European Union have now gone beyond the largely cosmetic sanctions they first imposed after the Russian takeover of Crimea; this week they announced broader sanctions affecting weapons sales, technology transfer, and Russian access to Western capital markets. Many Western corporations have already announced plans to limit further investment in Russia, or even to pull out of the Russian market. More tellingly, Russians themselves are moving massive amounts of money out of Russia to safer havens.
Some have criticized the European Union for only imposing sanctions that do not hurt its own economic interests. The EU has, for example, placed sanctions on the Russian oil industry, but not the gas industry, which it is more dependent on. Nor does the ban on future EU weapons sales to Russia affect current contracts, including the sale of two aircraft carriers that France has been building for Moscow. Still, these sanctions are much stronger than what appeared likely just a few months ago. And both European and American leaders have declared that they could ratchet up sanctions if Putin does not change course on Ukraine.
Will he? Moscow, predictably, has reacted to these new sanctions “with defiance,” as numerous press reports have indicated. These measures cannot force Putin to withdraw from Crimea or end Moscow’s support for the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. However, Western sanctions, combined with the Ukrainian government’s success in retaking some territory in the east, have worked to increase the costs Putin must pay for his Ukraine policy. If the Russian leader previously calculated that he could seize Crimea and eastern Ukraine cheaply and easily and that the West would be unable to impose meaningful costs on him because it “needs Russia” more than vice versa, he now has cause to revise his thinking.
In other words, the broader Western sanctions as well as the more effective Ukrainian opposition to Putin’s policies have served to raise questions about whether the benefits of his efforts to take territory from Kiev are worth the increasing costs of doing so. Putin may accept these costs, but his supporters, who have up to now benefited from doing business with the West, might not agree. If they don’t, the Russian president could find himself in serious trouble.
Western sanctions cannot force Putin to change course in Ukraine, but by raising the costs of his aggressive policies, they can undermine support from the powerful Russian economic actors that he has previously relied on. If he is not careful, the glorious victory he has envisioned in Ukraine will turn into a trap of his own making.
Photo: A memorial for the victims of Flight MH17 at the Amsterdam International Airport (Schiphol), July 21, 2014. Credit: Pejman Akbarzadeh/Persian Dutch Network
]]>by Derek Davison
They say “everybody’s a critic,” and they’re right. Who wouldn’t want to be a critic? Not only is criticism important, but being a critic can be fun and easy. The Greek historian Plutarch once wrote, “It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
They say “everybody’s a critic,” and they’re right. Who wouldn’t want to be a critic? Not only is criticism important, but being a critic can be fun and easy. The Greek historian Plutarch once wrote, “It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome,” and he was also right. As long as you don’t have to come up with an alternative, being a critic is awesome.
Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham carefully consider the many problems with US foreign policy.
When it comes to President Obama’s foreign policy, no two people have availed themselves of the ease and joy of being critics more than Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Luckily, the American news media is always ready to offer them optimal TV time to expound on their nuanced view that Things Are Really Bad Right Now, Because Barack Obama. They’re a formidable pair; the venerable senators’ foreign policy critiques are so often in agreement that when even a sliver of daylight appears between the two, it’s literally national news.
For the critic, then, the only hard and fast rule is to avoid talking about what you would do at all costs. However, when Senator Graham shared his critical thoughts about Obama’s foreign policy record July 20 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he let his guard down a little, and we got a glimpse of what a Lindsey Graham foreign policy agenda might look like:
DAVID GREGORY:
Well, Senator, there’s a lot to unpack there, specifically with regards to Russia. This crisis over the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight. What did Secretary Kerry not say? What is the administration not yet prepared to do that you think must be done?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM:
One, he didn’t call Putin the thug that he is. He didn’t call for arming the Ukraine so they can defend themselves against rebel separatists supported by Russia. All of the enemies of our nation are being well supplied. Russia and Iran are helping Syria. 160,000 Syrians have been slaughtered, John Kerry, by Russian-supplied weapons to Assad.
While “arming the Ukraine” to help it defeat an enemy it’s already soundly defeating on the battlefield might seem a bit redundant (also, it’s not “the” Ukraine, but I digress), it’s really the first part of the Graham Agenda that could break new ground in international diplomacy. It’s impossible to know for sure without reviewing all the relevant literature, but it seems safe to say that Senator Graham’s “Call Other Leaders Names if You Don’t Like Them” tactic is a real innovation in the field.
Imagine the implications of the Graham Plan on the world stage. If President Obama were to call Vladimir Putin a “thug,” for example, he would decisively “pwn” the Russian leader and thus fundamentally shift the balance of power throughout Eurasia. Similar “pwns” of other key US adversaries, if deployed strategically, could have comparable effects.
While Senator Graham is understandably reluctant to reveal the rest of his foreign policy playbook, given how much it could benefit President Obama and damage Republican chances of a big victory this fall, we have exclusively obtained a few of his other key insights from a reliable source, though we are unable to confirm the authenticity. Still, it’s no exaggeration to say that this is world-changing stuff:
- Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev: “Thug Junior”
- Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi/Caliph Ibrahim: “Jerk-Faced Jerk”
- Chinese President Xi Jinping: “Putzy McPutzerson”
- Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: “Captain Doody-Head”
- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: “Polly Prissypants”
- Hamas leader Khaled Mashal: “Mr. I.P. Freely”
- Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar: “Amanda Hugnkiss”
- Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri: “President Lamewad”
- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: “El Matón”
- Former Cuban President Fidel Castro: “Barack Obama”
Hopefully someone will be able to make good use of this information. The future security of the United States — indeed, of the entire world — could hang in the balance.
Photo: Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a break in testimony at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 7, 2013. Credit: US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/DOD
]]>by Derek Davison
A week of increasing tension between Ukraine and Russia was given a terrible cap on July 17 when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), a Boeing 777 bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, was apparently shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. The tragedy was [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
A week of increasing tension between Ukraine and Russia was given a terrible cap on July 17 when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), a Boeing 777 bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, was apparently shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. The tragedy was another blow to Malaysia Airlines, whose flight MH370 disappeared, probably somewhere in the Indian Ocean, on March 8, but the larger concern with respect to the downing of MH17 has been the impact it will have on the crisis in Ukraine.
Immediate efforts were made to identify how the aircraft was shot down and who was behind the attack. US and Ukrainian officials were quick to claim that a surface to air missile had caused the crash, and on this point “independent aviation experts” seem to agree. Suspicion has centered on the theory that a Russian/Soviet-made SA-11 Buk mobile anti-aircraft missile was responsible for bringing the plane down. Prior to this, the only publicly known anti-aircraft weapons that had been used in this conflict were handheld units with much lower effective ceilings, which may help to explain why MH17 was flying over eastern Ukraine despite the ongoing fighting; it was at an altitude thought to be above any hypothetical threat.
Who’s Responsible?
But identifying exactly who shot the plane down is a bigger challenge, especially since all three of the most obvious suspects — the Ukrainian military, the Russian military, and the pro-Russia Donbas separatists — have all denied any responsibility for the incident. Russian media is heavily pushing the theory that the plane was shot down by the Ukrainians, either by a Ukrainian fighter plane that it claims was flying close to MH17 at the time of the incident or by one of a number of Buk batteries that it claims the Ukrainian military was operating in the area at the time of the incident. The latter theory has also been advanced by American reporter Robert Parry.
Assuming that NATO is correct in claiming that it has evidence of a renewed Russian military buildup along its Ukrainian border, there is a possibility that a Russian-operated Buk battery mistook MH17 for a Ukrainian military aircraft and shot it down. However, US officials seem to be convinced that it was the separatists who shot down the craft — Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN that the evidence “obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists.” That evidence includes satellite imagery that may show the path of the missile, recordings of what Kiev claims are phone calls involving top separatist leaders, and intercepts from Russian social media that suggest the rebels acknowledged shooting down what they believed was another military transport in the area where MH17 went down.
If it was the rebels who shot down the plane, it raises questions as to how they obtained the Buk battery in the first place. The separatists have taken small arms (including shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles) and vehicles from Ukrainian military outposts since the conflict began in March, and there is evidence that other weapons and equipment have been trafficked into eastern Ukraine from Russia. But the Buk system is considerably more powerful and advanced than anything the rebels were known to have in their possession. They may have seized a battery from the Ukrainian military, but Russian media reported in late June that Ukrainian separatists “took” a Buk system under Russian control, which could suggest either that they stole the battery or that it was supplied to them, and videos have surfaced online that claim to show a Buk battery or batteries in the rebel-held towns of Torez and Snizhne around the time that MH17 crashed, which reportedly conforms with what US satellite imagery has shown.
Worsening Crisis
The already difficult task of investigating the crash has been made almost impossible by the situation in eastern Ukraine. Under international aviation regulations Ukrainian authorities should take the lead in the investigation, but the Ukrainian government simply doesn’t control the part of the country where the aircraft’s wreckage now lies. For several days after the crash, separatists refused to allow investigators unfettered access to the crash site and to MH17’s data recorders without a ceasefire agreement from Kiev, which drew ire from a number of world leaders. Rebels were even observed loading bodies from the crash site onto trains and taking them away. On July 21, President Barack Obama called on Putin to compel the separatists to comply with the investigation, and the UN Security Council unanimously (including Russia) adopted a resolution demanding full access to the crash site. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak later announced that the separatists had agreed to turn over the bodies and the data recorders to Dutch and Malaysian representatives, and that the investigators would henceforth have full access to the crash site.
The MH17 disaster was only the latest in a string of provocations that have raised the stakes in the area over the past week. On July 13, Russian authorities warned of “irreversible consequences” after the Russian village of Donetsk (which has the same name as the Ukrainian city that is one of the hubs of that country’s separatist rebellion) was struck by what Russia claimed was a Ukrainian artillery shell, killing one and injuring two. The following day, in an attack that foreshadowed the MH17 tragedy, a Ukrainian AN-26 military cargo plane was shot down near the Russian border. Ukrainian authorities claimed that the AN-26, like MH17, was flying too high to have been hit by portable anti-aircraft missiles, which has been disputed by analysts but which, if true, would again suggest the involvement of Russia or Russian weapons in the attack. Then, on July 15, an airstrike hit an apartment building in Snizhne, killing 11, with Kiev again accusing Moscow of perpetrating the attack even as the rebels pointed the finger at Kiev. Ukrainian forces reportedly took control of the Donetsk airport on July 21, suggesting that a major offensive was underway against one of the few remaining rebel strongholds.
If it can be proven that the separatists did shoot down MH17, especially if there is evidence that they did it with Russian support, it could lead to a significant increase in the amount of economic pressure that the US and EU are prepared to bring to bear against Moscow. Obama’s July 21 statement promised that there would be “costs” to Russia’s continued support of the separatists, on top of the new sanctions that the US levied on Russian banks, energy companies, and defense contractors on July 16, the day before MH17 was shot down. The fact that MH17 originated in Amsterdam and that most of its passengers were European could also spur stronger European sanctions than we’ve seen to date.
Photo: A memorial at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport for the victims of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which was reportedly show down while flying over Ukraine on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
]]>by Mark N. Katz
It is not clear when, or how, Vladimir Putin will give up power (as opposed to only pretending to do so as he did during the 2008-12 Medvedev interlude). Nor is it at all clear who will follow him as the most powerful politician in Russia. What is [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
It is not clear when, or how, Vladimir Putin will give up power (as opposed to only pretending to do so as he did during the 2008-12 Medvedev interlude). Nor is it at all clear who will follow him as the most powerful politician in Russia. What is fairly certain, though, is that whoever succeeds Putin will likely denounce him or radically alter his policies. Indeed, the successor will probably do both.
This will definitely occur if, despite all Putin’s preventative efforts, Russia finally undergoes democratization. But it will also probably occur in the far more likely event that the Russian political system stays the same, and Putin’s successor rules in much the same manner as the president does now.
This pattern has been in place at least since the 1917 Revolution. Lenin excoriated the policies of both Tsar Nicholas II and the Provisional government he overthrew. Stalin did not denounce Lenin, but he radically altered his domestic policy (replacing the mild New Economic Policy with the horrific collectivization of the First Five Year Plan) and eliminated much of the top leadership appointed by Lenin. Nikita Khrushchev, in turn, denounced Stalin, ended many of his harsh policies, and got rid of many of his supporters. Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin later denounced Khrushchev’s “hare-brained schemes” and changed his policies. The next two leaders, the aged and ailing Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, were not in office long enough to do much in this regard. Mikhail Gorbachev, though, would denounce Brezhnev’s rule as the “era of stagnation” and embark on a reform policy aimed at correcting its problems. Boris Yeltsin, in turn, denounced Gorbachev’s efforts as inadequate and launched an even more ambitious program of liberalization.
Vladimir Putin with Dmitry Medvedev, March 2008
Putin continued this pattern when he came to power. Although he was Yeltsin’s hand-picked successor, Putin and his cohorts have never ceased to boast about how he has made things so much better in Russia than they were in the 1990s. Dmitry Medvedev, though, did not conform to this pattern. While making a few changes, he never denounced Putin, whom he appointed as his prime minister. In retrospect, Medvedev’s break from tradition was actually a sign that he was not fully in charge. When Putin resumed the presidency in 2012, though, he did not return the favor. Putin and his aides reversed or criticized several of Medvedev’s policies — especially Medvedev’s decision to allow the 2011 UN Security Council Resolution authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya, which Putin says the West used as a pretext to overthrow former President Muammar Qaddafi.
The Medvedev exception notwithstanding, what has happened after almost every Russian leadership change since the 1917 Revolution suggests that something similar will highly likely occur when Putin leaves office for good, even if the current authoritarian system survives. Indeed, the logic of the situation makes this practically inevitable. Even if Putin appoints his own successor — and especially if he does not — the new leader will soon find that he must denounce Putin. Part of what keeps Putin’s cronies loyal now is that there are many who can either hope (however unreasonably) that he will become the next president, or that his patron will. Once a new president has been appointed, though, he will have to deal with many disappointed rivals and those dependent on them. The new president will thus feel vulnerable, and thus seek to protect himself by replacing Putin loyalists with his own supporters. Once this process begins, the old Putin loyalists will attempt to stop it. The new president will then have little choice but to undercut them all by a wholesale denunciation of the Putin era and its “failed policies.” The more Putin’s policies can be discredited, the harder it will be for those people the new president claims are responsible for those policies to remain in office.
Ironically, while democratization would lead to Putin being heavily criticized, it would also afford a better opportunity for his close associates to remain part of the political system, despite their inevitable disagreements with the new president. By contrast, Putin’s success at stifling any progress toward democracy will make it more difficult for those who are not part of the new president’s entourage to do so.
But while his eventual successor will almost surely denounce Putin and change many of his policies dramatically, what cannot be foretold is how he will change them. If tensions between Russia and the West continue (as they undoubtedly will for as long as Putin remains president), the new leader may blame Russia’s increasing economic stagnation and dependence on an ever more powerful and threatening China on Putin’s needless pursuit of an antagonistic policy toward the West. On the other hand, relations with the West may be so bad by then that the new president would blame Putin for making insufficient concessions to Beijing to secure what by then will be desperately needed Chinese military and economic support for maintaining Moscow’s increasingly isolated and beleaguered authoritarian order.
The only real certainty is that whoever succeeds Putin will lay the blame for all of Russia’s problems squarely on Putin, as will those who support Putin now but who will eventually need to prove their loyalty to the new leader in order to gain promotion or just keep their jobs.
]]>by Mark N. Katz
Two storylines about Saudi-Russian relations have recently dominated the airwaves. One is that Moscow and Riyadh are sharply divided by several issues: not only Syria and Iran, but also Crimea and the Russian belief that the Saudis are supporting Muslim opposition inside Russia. The other is that Saudi [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
Two storylines about Saudi-Russian relations have recently dominated the airwaves. One is that Moscow and Riyadh are sharply divided by several issues: not only Syria and Iran, but also Crimea and the Russian belief that the Saudis are supporting Muslim opposition inside Russia. The other is that Saudi Arabia is about to buy $2-4 billion (reports vary) worth of Russian arms for Egypt.
It seemed unlikely to me that both these reports could be true. If Moscow and Riyadh can’t see eye to eye on issues of mutual concern, then their relationship is bad and the Kingdom would not buy such a large amount of weaponry for Egypt from Russia. On the other hand, if the Saudis do indeed intend to buy billions of dollars in Russian arms for Cairo, then clearly Saudi-Russian relations must not be as bad as has been reported. The question, then, is: what’s the true story?
A visit to Moscow last week convinced me that both storylines are indeed true. Seasoned Russian Middle East watchers I spoke to indicated that Saudi-Russian relations really are very poor. In 2013, Prince Bandar bin Sultan (who was then the Saudi intelligence chief) met twice with President Vladimir Putin to try to persuade him to end Moscow’s support for the Assad regime in Syria. The prince reportedly offered several inducements, including billions in arms purchases for the Saudi military and billions more in Saudi investments in Russia. Putin, however, rejected these offers.
The Saudis, one Russian source indicated, seemed to think that Moscow would change its policy on Syria if it were offered enough money. But for Putin, Syria is a Russian domestic political issue. To be seen as ending support for a long-time ally such as Assad would undermine Putin inside Russia. Thus, the Russian president refused Bandar’s offers.
Crimea’s secession from Ukraine only served to further worsen Saudi-Russian relations. Riyadh’s expression of concern over Russia’s treatment of the Muslim Crimean Tatar population has only fed Russian fears that the Kingdom wants to foment Muslim unrest inside Russia. The Saudi-Russian relationship, then, is indeed poor.
That said, Russian observers are convinced that Riyadh will make a large-scale arms purchase from Russia for Egypt. Riyadh strongly backs the Egyptian military leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (who was just elected president), and is extremely unhappy that Washington does not . After the Obama administration cut back American arms supplies to the Egyptian government for cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood (which el-Sisi ousted from power last summer), Riyadh became determined to find another supplier. Russia happens to be the arms producer that can most readily fulfill this need. Riyadh’s buying Russian arms for Cairo, then, is more a sign of Saudi annoyance with Washington and has no implication for improving Saudi-Russian relations more broadly.
Indeed, according to one source, receiving Russian arms will not even serve to greatly improve Russian-Egyptian relations. Egyptian army officers prefer to work with the US, and do not want to go back to working with Russia as their predecessors did from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s (the Egyptian Army officers I spoke to confirmed this). Egypt’s Saudi benefactors would also support the officers’ position.
A development that could serve to improve Saudi-Russian relations, one Russian observer noted, is the very recent trend toward improved Saudi-Iranian relations. One Saudi grievance against Russia is that it has close ties to Riyadh’s rivals in Tehran. But if Saudi-Iranian (as well as US-Iranian) relations improve, then Riyadh will have less reason to resent the Russian-Iranian relationship. Of course, even if Saudi-Iranian bilateral relations improve, the countries are likely to remain at loggerheads over Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Bahrain. With Moscow continuing to support or sympathize with the actors Tehran is backing in the first three of these states, the prospects for improved Saudi-Iranian relations, and improved Saudi-Russian relations, are limited.
Thus, just as the poor state of Saudi-Russian relations will not prevent Riyadh from buying Russian arms for Cairo, even large-scale Saudi purchases of Russian arms for Egypt will not lead to any appreciable improvement in ties between Moscow and Riyadh.
Photo: Prince Bandar bin Sultan (R), and then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin enter a hall for a signing ceremony in Moscow July 14, 2008. Credit: RUSSIA/RIA NOVOSTI/ALEXEI DRUZHININ
]]>by Derek Davison
As Ukraine’s internal stability continues to deteriorate, the United States and European Union have imposed additional sanctions against Russian leaders, punishing them for what increasingly appears to be Kiev’s failures. In the face of US and, especially, European hostility, Russia has accelerated plans to shift its attention, [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
As Ukraine’s internal stability continues to deteriorate, the United States and European Union have imposed additional sanctions against Russian leaders, punishing them for what increasingly appears to be Kiev’s failures. In the face of US and, especially, European hostility, Russia has accelerated plans to shift its attention, and its business interests, elsewhere.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Wednesday that his military was “pulling back” from Russia’s border with Ukraine, though “NATO officials” claimed that there was “no immediate sign that Russian forces had pulled back.” In his statement announcing the pullback, Putin called for the Ukrainian government to cease military activity in Ukraine’s separatist southeast. Violent clashes in recent days between pro-Russian paramilitaries and Ukrainian troops near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk have killed and wounded dozens of troops and pro-Russian fighters, and an untold numbers of civilians who may be caught in the crossfire. The deadliest fighting took place in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, where a confrontation between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian groups on May 2 killed “more than 40” people, including “dozens” of Russian sympathizers who were killed when a government building, in which they had barricaded themselves, caught fire.
While Moscow and Kiev blame each other for the violence, particularly the catastrophe in Odessa, the inability of Kiev’s governing coalition to bring any kind of stability to the country looms large. The interim government has seemingly been purged of anyone who could successfully reach out to separatists in the east and south, while the ultra-nationalist, and openly hostile to Russians, Svoboda Party is a key participant in the cabinet. Yet the US and EU have apparently elected to blame Moscow for the violence. On April 29, the two western powers imposed a new round of targeted sanctions against prominent Russians, including General Valery Gerasimov, head of the Russian General Staff (the equivalent of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff), and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak. Still more sanctions are reportedly being developed, in the event that Russia “dramatically ramped up aggression against Ukraine.”
In the face of these punitive economic measures, Russia has, quietly, been expanding its economic and military activity into Asia, conducting its own “Asian pivot” along the lines of US President Barack Obama’s promised, though unfulfilled, plan to refocus American foreign policy attention away from Europe and the Middle East and on to the Asia-Pacific region. In April, it was reported that the Russian natural gas firm Gazprom was “close” to reaching a long-term deal to supply natural gas to China (via a pipeline that would be built as part of the deal). Russian and Chinese officials have been negotiating such an agreement for over a decade, with Russia reluctant to reduce its prices in order to compete with the gas that China has been buying from former Soviet Republic Turkmenistan. However, tensions over Ukraine and the possibility of Europe looking elsewhere — to America, to Qatar, or even to Iran — for its energy needs, and the potential collapse of Russia’s under-construction Black Sea South Stream pipeline, may have spurred Gazprom to make concessions, possibly reducing its prices in exchange for considerable up-front payment by China (though the Ukraine crisis has likely weakened Gazprom’s negotiating leverage).
Economic ties between Russia and China are increasing in general. China has not joined Western sanctions against Russia, and its banks are expanding their business in Russia even as American banks are scaling back. There is a strong likelihood that a Chinese government firm, the China Railway Construction Corporation, will be involved in constructing a car and rail bridge to connect mainland Russia directly to newly-annexed Crimea, and Chinese investors are backing a multi-billion dollar natural gas exploration effort on Russia’s northern Yamal Peninsula.
Russia is also in talks with India to build a $30 billion oil pipeline that would connect the two countries through the Chinese province of Xinjiang, which would expand Russia’s energy footprint into South Asia. While the pipeline project could be thwarted by Chinese-Indian tensions or escalating unrest among Xinjiang’s Uyghur population, it still reflects a major commitment by Russia to seek out new Asian markets for its energy supplies. Russia is also expanding its reach into North Africa, boosting its energy exploration and arms sales in Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere on the continent. Given that competition with China over emerging African markets and resources is a key driver behind America’s Asian pivot, Russian moves here can be seen in a similar light.
It should be noted that these moves do not represent a change in Russian policy, but an acceleration of its already apparent commitment to expanding its economic and energy presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia completed a massive expansion of its East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline last year, and analysts have predicted that this expansion will make Russia “a major infrastructure player” for crude oil in the Asia-Pacific region and, not coincidentally, will give Moscow “more leverage over Europe.”
Russia’s increased economic interest in Asia seems to be, according to the US, accompanied with an increase in Russian military activity in the Pacific, with long-range Russian flights skirting close to Guam and even California, but these activities pose no greater threat to the US than similar American military activities pose to Russia. However, Russia’s economic moves in Asia and elsewhere will, over time, greatly reduce the impact of US and EU sanctions, and call into question the logic behind further punitive measures, particularly at a time when Western efforts could be much better spent encouraging the new government in Kiev to cut ties to far-right groups and take steps to deescalate, rather than provoke, tensions with its separatist south and east.
]]>