The state of play in Russo-Chinese relations shows the two behemoths moving closer together on a couple of key fronts. One is economic. The other is diplomatic.
In economic matters it is clear that the two are close to a pricing agreement on the sale of thirty billion cubic meters of natural gas annually starting in 2015. The deal is good for both. There is no doubt but China needs the energy and Russia would very much like to diversify its hydrocarbon market--and pocket a good deal of cash in the process.
While the natural gas agreement is important, it must take a backseat to the increasing harmony between Moscow and Beijing in international matters. It is clear that both are using the Libyan adventure of NATO (and, at least indirectly, the US) as the catalyst for what the Russians have termed "tight cooperation" on such key questions as the UN, R2P and interventions generally.
Both states have guarded the rights of states to be free of UN interference for decades. Since the end of the Cold War, the stance of both in this area has become, if anything, more and more hardline. Both countries have more than a bit of self-interest at stake in their guarding of national sovereignty as each faces recurrent political unrest. While both signed the convention on responsibility to protect there is no doubt but each saw the document as being one of those feel-good productions like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which everybody signs but not everyone takes seriously.
The doubts held by the Lads in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing regarding the interventionary ambitions of the US and the West were given a shot of growth hormone by the passage of the Security Council resolution authorizing the no-fly zone in Libya and further calling upon member states to take actions such as to protect the civilian population of that country. While delicately (and misleadingly) worded so as to avoid a veto, the resolution was troubling to Russia and China as well as other countries such as India and Brazil because its loose wording could be generously interpreted by Western states.
That a generous interpretation was intended from the beginning was obvious in the statements of assorted leaders including President Obama which declared goals far more expansive than simply assuring the safety and humanitarian relief of endangered civilians. As the bombs fell in ever widening patterns, the Russians took the lead in stentorian denunciations of the NATO effort. In the past few days they have been joined in the chorus by China.
When Chinese president Hu goes to St Petersburg on 16 June to attend the "Russian Davos," it is highly probable that the opportunity will be used to further orchestrate joint Sino-Russian opposition to an extension of the no-fly mandate as well as any introduction of NATO ground forces under any guise. The fear is the US and its NATO partners, France and England, will arm twist Secretary General Ban into requesting NATO protection for UN humanitarian operations with the result the troops will land in regime changing force.
While there is a whiff of the conspiratorial in this Russian (and Chinese) apprehension, it is not baseless. The air campaign is not only obviously biased in favor of the rebels, it is also not working rapidly or all that well. Despite the attrition inflicted on loyalist arsenals, the pro-Gaddafi forces still have a robust combat power, effective tactics, and political will. Even if the rebels are no longer losing dramatically, neither are they winning in any meaningful sense of the word.
To the Russian and Chinese observer, it seems only natural that the West would seek to retrieve victory nearly lost by the introduction of ground forces. Should this move occur before the mid-June sidebar summit, one can anticipate very vigorous resistance from both states. They will be joined by others. Brazil, India, South Africa, various Central Asian republics--and the members of the Arab League.
The Arab League has repented of its early enthusiasm for internationalization of the Libyan internal conflict. This is seen by the monolithic opposition from both the AL and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to any robust action being taken against Syria. The AL, having tossed one Arab leader off the troika, is now covering itself with self-protecting protection of Bashir al-Assad. To circle the Arab and Muslim wagons under the protective banner of two Great Powers is comforting to the Arabs and the OIC alike.
It will be comforting as well to the African Union (AU), which has been consigned by events to the further shores of irrelevance not only in Libya but deep in the heart of the continent with the way in which the UN and France dealt with events in the Ivory Coast. This has allowed the Russian and Chinese diplomats to pull out and play the fear of neo-colonialism card with effect. To many in Africa as in the Arab and Muslim majority states, the specter of Western neo-colonial acts has risen from the grave (if indeed it was ever really buried, which is debatable at best).
All of this implies that push-comes-to-shove time is arriving rapidly in Libya. Unless the NATO/rebel combine can pull a rabbit (or better yet, a dead Gaddafi) out of their collective hat, there will be very rough diplomatic waters ahead. Renewing the no-fly zone mandate (due by 24 June) or the use of ground forces will produce a diplomatic contretemps at Turtle Bay of major proportions. Even absent that, the opposition to future application of R2P by China and Russia backed by an impressive number of lesser states will be massive and monolithic.
Even though the current administration has been staying deep in the shadows, the US still has a bull in the herd. Our declaratory policy is still one of Gaddafi must go. We are still more or less committed to R2P--at least when it is convenient and doable. We are still trying to sort out just what direction we will take with the fast and sharp changes in Egyptian foreign relations.
All of this implies the US must carve out a defensible and credible stance vis a vis both Russia and China in their current mood of totally distrusting NATO and the force they perceive to be motivating the alliance--the US. This may mean concessions to the Russians on the ABM basing issue as well as current plans to base US aircraft in former Warsaw Pact states. It may mean backing down a bit in Asia to mollify Chinese fears.
Both of these would be quite negative for American national and strategic interests. Yet the temptation to offer appeasing gestures of some substance may prove all too appealing to members of the Obama administration who would like to see foreign policy concerns recede to the back burner. After all they have an election to win in only slightly less than eighteen months, an election which will hinge far more on economic issues than foreign policy concerns.
Or, of course, Mr Obama might want to see if Boat Six can take a whack at Brother Leader.
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Monday, May 9, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Meanwhile In The North Caucasus...
The Kremlin hates to be outpointed, really doesn't like being one upped by the Imperialist Camp. OK, so Putin did congratulate the US on the Great Abbottabad Raid, but he had to spoil the moment by suggesting that his boys and ours get together on a joint campaign against, well, you know, those pesky terrorists. Behind the smiles Putin and Company sought to prove that their counterterror forces were every bit as high speed, low drag as Boat Six.
The Lads in the Kremlin did have a small reason to crow over recent developments in the North Caucasus, but, regardless of the best efforts of the spin masters, the "liquidation" of a few Koran-waving trigger pullers is not equivalent to sending Osama bin Laden to his rewards. April proved to be a very good month for the forces of law and order (or the Russian equivalents thereof.)
Around mid-month the security forces liquidated (don't you love that term?) Israpil Validzhanov. Israpil had been the jefe grande of Dagestani jamaat, the major exponent of violent political Islam in Dagestan before his final, fatal encounter with FSB operatives. This was followed on 23 April by the removal of a high profile genuine foreign fighter, an Arab who went by the moniker of Emir Mukhannad. This Mighty Warrior of the Prophet was a leading (and very controversial) figure in the Chechen Islamist insurgency.
Six days later the adherents of violent political Islam (the Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat) took a very large hit in their leadership echelon when the security forces hit a house in the outskirts of the village of Progress (no joke, that is the name). When the shooting stopped some hours later, the occupants of the house were all dead--a total of eight men and two women. The dead were identified as having been the leaders of the group.
In the aftermath of the firefight, the Russian authorities did what so many US prosecutors do--greatly inflate the charges. The dead men (and women) were held responsible for almost every terrorist operations other than 9/11, 7/7, and the Madrid Subway bombing. The insurgent group confirmed both the deaths and the critical leadership roles performed by the deceased.
Allowing for the normal Soviet--oops! Bad Geek!--Russian tendency to inflate accomplishments, the dead were very bad actors and the region is better off without them. What is open to question now is whether or not the government will be able to capitalize on the confusion within insurgent ranks this decapitation operation must necessarily produce. Based on past experience the prognosis in this area is not wildly optimistic.
This contention is underscored by events in Dagestan following the death of Israpil. There the insurgents continued to mount at least one operation per day. On occasion the Islamists oversubcribe their production norm to the embarrassment of the authorities.
During the same period Chechnya has been dominated by government efforts. Despite some blatant missteps, the government apparently wrested and maintained the initiative. The situation there shows repeated government initiated strikes against the insurgents. One can conclude that Chechnya is the epicenter of a major, region wide campaign by the Kremlin to bring the political Islamists to their knees well before the next hot spot grows even hotter.
That next hot spot is the Sochi region of the former Circassian tribal area of the western Caucasus plains. The Circassian tribes roamed far and free in this area until roughly two hundred years ago when the Russians started their long campaign of conquest. At the present moment the critical group is the Shapsugs. They constitute only 12,000 of the five million people living in the Krasnodar region. This pitiful remnant is important only because (1) the upcoming Winter Olympics of 2014 and (2) there are a lot more Circassians living not too far away.
The Kremlin has started meeting with Shapsug representatives in order to "address their questions." The Circassians have more than questions; they have a series of very serious complaints not dissimilar from those which motivated the American Indian Movement thirty plus years ago. These include cultural destruction, poverty, lack of economic development, and the biased nature of social and political institutions and processes.
The larger Circassian population is getting increasingly restless with the Kremlin's ongoing foot dragging. There has been at least one minor effort to internationalize the contretemps using Georgia as the mechanism. At the minimum this will cause some pinking of faces in the Kremlin, so there will be a push back directed at Georgia, a state with few cards to play following the border skirmish of a couple of years back. The Circassians may be hoping that Georgia will seek the aid and support of the EU and/or the US as a way of countering Russian ripostes on the Circassian question.
No matter how the specifics of the Georgia connection play out, the move constitutes an escalation in expressed nationalism on the part of the Circassians, which has taken full advantage of the impending Winter Games. This enhanced nationalistic sentiment is also reflected in recent attempts by the Circassian National Congress to foster repatriation of Circassians from Turkey, the Mideast, and, perhaps most disturbing to the Kremlin, Libya. Since the foundation of the modern nationalist movement in 1989, the Circassians have been moving slowly but seemingly inexorably toward a serious push for autonomy at the least and independence at the most. Russian counter proposals have been vague, amorphous, and amount to the offer of decrees easy to cancel when the Olympics are over.
The Kremlin's strategy is obviously one of stall, delay, and equivocate. There is little doubt that some Circassians will take this to mean that they must emulate the more robust methods used in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus. While there have not yet been any episodes of violence directly linked to Circassian independence, these will be coming soon.
The tipping point will most probably come when Moscow doesn't allow any significant resettlement of Circassians in the region. To allow resettlement would be a reversal of decades of Kremlin policy as well as being against the personal inclinations of Putin. It may be expected that Moscow will seek the cooperation of Turkey in preventing any wholesale relocation of expat Circassians. Given the current good state of Russian-Turkish relations, it may be anticipated that Ankara will respect Russian desires in this matter. Considering the relatively lower levels of Circassian population in the Mideast and North Africa, stopping significant migration from Turkey would put a stop to Circassian efforts to bring the tribe back home.
Should the tipping point be reached, the Kremlin will face a problem in counter insurgency rivaling or surpassing the challenges present in the North Caucasus. This implies the security forces throughout the region must work against the clock big time. The "siloviki" have their work cut out for them.
It's no wonder that Vladimir of the Bare Chest would like to have some cooperative counter terrorist operations with the US. Perhaps President Obama can just offer to loan him Team Six for a few weeks?
The Lads in the Kremlin did have a small reason to crow over recent developments in the North Caucasus, but, regardless of the best efforts of the spin masters, the "liquidation" of a few Koran-waving trigger pullers is not equivalent to sending Osama bin Laden to his rewards. April proved to be a very good month for the forces of law and order (or the Russian equivalents thereof.)
Around mid-month the security forces liquidated (don't you love that term?) Israpil Validzhanov. Israpil had been the jefe grande of Dagestani jamaat, the major exponent of violent political Islam in Dagestan before his final, fatal encounter with FSB operatives. This was followed on 23 April by the removal of a high profile genuine foreign fighter, an Arab who went by the moniker of Emir Mukhannad. This Mighty Warrior of the Prophet was a leading (and very controversial) figure in the Chechen Islamist insurgency.
Six days later the adherents of violent political Islam (the Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat) took a very large hit in their leadership echelon when the security forces hit a house in the outskirts of the village of Progress (no joke, that is the name). When the shooting stopped some hours later, the occupants of the house were all dead--a total of eight men and two women. The dead were identified as having been the leaders of the group.
In the aftermath of the firefight, the Russian authorities did what so many US prosecutors do--greatly inflate the charges. The dead men (and women) were held responsible for almost every terrorist operations other than 9/11, 7/7, and the Madrid Subway bombing. The insurgent group confirmed both the deaths and the critical leadership roles performed by the deceased.
Allowing for the normal Soviet--oops! Bad Geek!--Russian tendency to inflate accomplishments, the dead were very bad actors and the region is better off without them. What is open to question now is whether or not the government will be able to capitalize on the confusion within insurgent ranks this decapitation operation must necessarily produce. Based on past experience the prognosis in this area is not wildly optimistic.
This contention is underscored by events in Dagestan following the death of Israpil. There the insurgents continued to mount at least one operation per day. On occasion the Islamists oversubcribe their production norm to the embarrassment of the authorities.
During the same period Chechnya has been dominated by government efforts. Despite some blatant missteps, the government apparently wrested and maintained the initiative. The situation there shows repeated government initiated strikes against the insurgents. One can conclude that Chechnya is the epicenter of a major, region wide campaign by the Kremlin to bring the political Islamists to their knees well before the next hot spot grows even hotter.
That next hot spot is the Sochi region of the former Circassian tribal area of the western Caucasus plains. The Circassian tribes roamed far and free in this area until roughly two hundred years ago when the Russians started their long campaign of conquest. At the present moment the critical group is the Shapsugs. They constitute only 12,000 of the five million people living in the Krasnodar region. This pitiful remnant is important only because (1) the upcoming Winter Olympics of 2014 and (2) there are a lot more Circassians living not too far away.
The Kremlin has started meeting with Shapsug representatives in order to "address their questions." The Circassians have more than questions; they have a series of very serious complaints not dissimilar from those which motivated the American Indian Movement thirty plus years ago. These include cultural destruction, poverty, lack of economic development, and the biased nature of social and political institutions and processes.
The larger Circassian population is getting increasingly restless with the Kremlin's ongoing foot dragging. There has been at least one minor effort to internationalize the contretemps using Georgia as the mechanism. At the minimum this will cause some pinking of faces in the Kremlin, so there will be a push back directed at Georgia, a state with few cards to play following the border skirmish of a couple of years back. The Circassians may be hoping that Georgia will seek the aid and support of the EU and/or the US as a way of countering Russian ripostes on the Circassian question.
No matter how the specifics of the Georgia connection play out, the move constitutes an escalation in expressed nationalism on the part of the Circassians, which has taken full advantage of the impending Winter Games. This enhanced nationalistic sentiment is also reflected in recent attempts by the Circassian National Congress to foster repatriation of Circassians from Turkey, the Mideast, and, perhaps most disturbing to the Kremlin, Libya. Since the foundation of the modern nationalist movement in 1989, the Circassians have been moving slowly but seemingly inexorably toward a serious push for autonomy at the least and independence at the most. Russian counter proposals have been vague, amorphous, and amount to the offer of decrees easy to cancel when the Olympics are over.
The Kremlin's strategy is obviously one of stall, delay, and equivocate. There is little doubt that some Circassians will take this to mean that they must emulate the more robust methods used in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus. While there have not yet been any episodes of violence directly linked to Circassian independence, these will be coming soon.
The tipping point will most probably come when Moscow doesn't allow any significant resettlement of Circassians in the region. To allow resettlement would be a reversal of decades of Kremlin policy as well as being against the personal inclinations of Putin. It may be expected that Moscow will seek the cooperation of Turkey in preventing any wholesale relocation of expat Circassians. Given the current good state of Russian-Turkish relations, it may be anticipated that Ankara will respect Russian desires in this matter. Considering the relatively lower levels of Circassian population in the Mideast and North Africa, stopping significant migration from Turkey would put a stop to Circassian efforts to bring the tribe back home.
Should the tipping point be reached, the Kremlin will face a problem in counter insurgency rivaling or surpassing the challenges present in the North Caucasus. This implies the security forces throughout the region must work against the clock big time. The "siloviki" have their work cut out for them.
It's no wonder that Vladimir of the Bare Chest would like to have some cooperative counter terrorist operations with the US. Perhaps President Obama can just offer to loan him Team Six for a few weeks?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
He's Back And He's BAAAD!
Vladimir Putin, every Russian's "Good Czar" was at his self-promoting, uber-nationalist best speaking to the Duma yesterday. The assembled parliamentarians--most of whom are card carrying members of Putin's United Russia Party--interrupted the Czar's speech with applause a number of times. It was almost like the good old days when the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union spoke to his adoring sycophants.
The Putin speech gave one the impression that it is a tryout for next year's presidential campaign. If so one wants to know one fact above all else: Have Vladimir and his one time protegee, Dimitri Medvedev, reached an agreement on executing another swap of offices or will Vlad of the Bare Chest be squaring off against Dimitri the Techno-Nerd?
In either event the smart money will be on Putin. Many of the reasons for this contention are to be found in the substance and tone of yesterday's speech. At the very core of Putin's remarks as of his worldview is nationalism, pure and quite unapologetic nationalism.
This puts Czar Vladimir at a sharp contrast with Dimitri the Sophisticated. Medvedev is quite cosmopolitan in comparison with Putin. He is familiar with the West and is happy with his familiarity. Dimitri sees much in Western economics, technology, society, and politics worthy of translation into Russian. He does not see the West, either the EU or the US, as a threat--now or into the far future. If Russia faces a threat in Medvendev's view, it comes from within, from corruption, from inefficiency, from outdated technology, from lack of venture capital, from disease, from alcohol, from despair.
Putin incarnates all the ancient and defining characteristics of Russian nationalism, the free floating fear of outside threats, the sense of inferiority in comparison with the West, the belief that either a state must expand or it will collapse, the sullen withdrawal into plotting a future caper when challenged or defeated in a current ploy. Like the Russian people generally over the long sweep of the centuries, Putin can swing almost instantly between grandiose euphoria of triumphs in the making to profound, Arctic nights of bleak and cold feelings of failure. As has been the case so often with so many of his predecessors--both czars and commissars--Vladimir is eager to be suspicious, alert to the faintest hint of potential threat, trembling on the ragged edge of paranoia, and quite sure that no matter how well affairs are going at the moment, the knife in the back and the kick in the groin are soon to happen.
Putin's speech reflected all of these characteristics. It was ripe, over ripe, with hosannas onto Vladimir the Brilliant, Vladimir the Resolute, Vladimir the Unbelievably Successful. It was also stuffed with dire warnings of unspecified foreign threats looming over Russia's present and future. Putin demanded that Russia be stronger, much stronger, in order to counter these threats. He declaimed more than once that not only did Russia need more, newer, and better weapons of all categories, it needed more births, more children, more sturdy Russian citizens to carry the burden of defending against the array of unspecified but potentially lethal threats confronting nation and state.
Putin took credit and warned of the need to do more, much more, to improve the economy. Because Putin was so prescient as to have practiced a form of economic autarchy, Russia had come out of the global recession faster and in better shape than all other states. He warned that only by following the Putin Paradigm and avoiding "sharp moves and ill-conceived experiments" could Russian prosperity be continued and expanded. This was a less than well-concealed blow directed against Dimitri who is open to both "moves" and "experiments" imported from the Big Boys of the G-whatever. Even more pointed was his follow-on comment, "those who are weak will get advice from foreign visitors on which way to go and what policy course to pursue."
Ouch!
However, the observation might have been directed as well at the US which has a sorry record extending from Bill Clinton through George W. Bush to Joe Biden of offering gratuitous and semi-insulting advice to various Russian leaders, including both Putin and Medvedev. The lesson for future American politicians is simple: Never stoke a Russian's inherent bent toward holding on to his inferiority complex.
The Russian prime minister, the once and (perhaps) future president, rejected any notion that Russia might be swept by a people power movement such as those which have so visibly perturbed the Arab states. Putin assured any nervous auditors that as long as his firm and steady hand is on the helm and as long as his wise and farsighted mind is on the job, the policies of his government will keep the Russian people happy and fully in support of the government.
In line with his keep-the-peasants-happy philosophy of governance, Vladimir the Most Generous and Compassionate took pride in his past and projected increases in state pensions, welfare programs, and the birth incentive scheme. In addition, the workers and peasants could take joy in the proposed weapons acquisition program, the best part of a trillion dollars over the next five or so years. The same constituency would receive benefits beyond counting from the Putin Economic Diversification Plan which would reduce Russia's dependency on resource exploitation. (This served to steal some of Medvedev's thunder as he has been plumping this approach for years now.)
While Good Czar Vladimir did not name any specific "foreign threat," the repeated references to such plays well to the natural and historically deeply rooted Russian fear of invasion. There are several candidates for the title of "main enemy."
One, of course, is the old standby, the US. The technological asymmetries between the US and Russian military forces do not operate to Russia's advantage. The aging and decrepit nature of so much of the old Soviet military machine particularly in the strategic and force projection categories must be worrisome to a crew given to paranoia. The difficulties experienced to date in bringing a new ICBM online have done nothing to reduce the apprehensions of American superiority rampant in the highest levels of Russian political and military life. While the Boys in the Kremlin know perfectly well they have nothing to fear from the current American administration, they cannot be sure that We the People will not toss another George W. Bush, or, worse, Ronald Reagan, into the Oval.
A credible alternative is China. Putin along with the entire military high command is very well aware that the vast majority of China's nuclear delivery systems have Russian zip codes in their reentry vehicles. They also fret over the basing of the large and increasingly competent Peoples Liberation Army. It is clear from the locations of the bases that China is not poised to go to war with Vietnam--or India. So, much as the US is getting Xanax moments from China's adventures in naval construction, the Russians are having an even larger need for Valium from the positioning of the ground combat forces.
There is a prevalent, vague anxiety over the intents of NATO and the EU with respect to the "near abroad," those constituents of the former Soviet Union which have gone their own independent ways since the early Nineties. The Kremlin will not be ready to sleep with any degree of soundness unless and until it has reestablished operational dominance over places such as Georgia and the Ukraine. Strategists in Putin's service undoubtedly see these former glacis states as potential points of conflict between Russia and an expansionist oriented NATO/EU combine. (Hey! Paranoia does not require realism simply rationality.)
Then there are the Muslims. The ongoing operations against purveyors of violent political Islam in the North Caucasus represent but one part of the emerging challenge presented by militant Islam. The difficulties currently experienced by several of the now independent Central Asian Republics have already spilled over into Russia and show strong signs of doing more of the same in the near future. Coupled with ideological appeal and backed by Iran, the advocates of violent political Islam are poised to be a "foreign threat" without equal. They are a "main enemy" in the process of being created.
Vladimir Putin is a vastly skilled and able Russian politician. He understands nationalism of the Russian sort and uses it to advance his claim on the throne. As a Russian nationalist he is guided in foreign affairs by one guiding principle--the national interests of Russia. Given the high probability of his being elected president once again next year, there is a strong likelihood the US will be dealing with him for some years to come. In a way he is the best possible interlocutor for the US to have in the Kremlin. He is a prime example of what you see is what you get. This means he will continue to be a very difficult person with whom to make a diplomatic deal, but his motives and goals will never be obscure or hazy--and once he has made a deal he will stick with it, provided such is in Russia's national interest.
The Deep Thinkers of the Obama administration would be well advised to parse Putin's speech very closely and carefully. To do so is to understand the man and his policy context. To blow off his speech as mere politics, or to deprecate Putin as an imitation Western politician is to do him and us a great disservice. Vladimir is not just another politician or one more Russian dictator. No, he is the Good Czar, and a Good Czar with a totally Russian soul.
The Putin speech gave one the impression that it is a tryout for next year's presidential campaign. If so one wants to know one fact above all else: Have Vladimir and his one time protegee, Dimitri Medvedev, reached an agreement on executing another swap of offices or will Vlad of the Bare Chest be squaring off against Dimitri the Techno-Nerd?
In either event the smart money will be on Putin. Many of the reasons for this contention are to be found in the substance and tone of yesterday's speech. At the very core of Putin's remarks as of his worldview is nationalism, pure and quite unapologetic nationalism.
This puts Czar Vladimir at a sharp contrast with Dimitri the Sophisticated. Medvedev is quite cosmopolitan in comparison with Putin. He is familiar with the West and is happy with his familiarity. Dimitri sees much in Western economics, technology, society, and politics worthy of translation into Russian. He does not see the West, either the EU or the US, as a threat--now or into the far future. If Russia faces a threat in Medvendev's view, it comes from within, from corruption, from inefficiency, from outdated technology, from lack of venture capital, from disease, from alcohol, from despair.
Putin incarnates all the ancient and defining characteristics of Russian nationalism, the free floating fear of outside threats, the sense of inferiority in comparison with the West, the belief that either a state must expand or it will collapse, the sullen withdrawal into plotting a future caper when challenged or defeated in a current ploy. Like the Russian people generally over the long sweep of the centuries, Putin can swing almost instantly between grandiose euphoria of triumphs in the making to profound, Arctic nights of bleak and cold feelings of failure. As has been the case so often with so many of his predecessors--both czars and commissars--Vladimir is eager to be suspicious, alert to the faintest hint of potential threat, trembling on the ragged edge of paranoia, and quite sure that no matter how well affairs are going at the moment, the knife in the back and the kick in the groin are soon to happen.
Putin's speech reflected all of these characteristics. It was ripe, over ripe, with hosannas onto Vladimir the Brilliant, Vladimir the Resolute, Vladimir the Unbelievably Successful. It was also stuffed with dire warnings of unspecified foreign threats looming over Russia's present and future. Putin demanded that Russia be stronger, much stronger, in order to counter these threats. He declaimed more than once that not only did Russia need more, newer, and better weapons of all categories, it needed more births, more children, more sturdy Russian citizens to carry the burden of defending against the array of unspecified but potentially lethal threats confronting nation and state.
Putin took credit and warned of the need to do more, much more, to improve the economy. Because Putin was so prescient as to have practiced a form of economic autarchy, Russia had come out of the global recession faster and in better shape than all other states. He warned that only by following the Putin Paradigm and avoiding "sharp moves and ill-conceived experiments" could Russian prosperity be continued and expanded. This was a less than well-concealed blow directed against Dimitri who is open to both "moves" and "experiments" imported from the Big Boys of the G-whatever. Even more pointed was his follow-on comment, "those who are weak will get advice from foreign visitors on which way to go and what policy course to pursue."
Ouch!
However, the observation might have been directed as well at the US which has a sorry record extending from Bill Clinton through George W. Bush to Joe Biden of offering gratuitous and semi-insulting advice to various Russian leaders, including both Putin and Medvedev. The lesson for future American politicians is simple: Never stoke a Russian's inherent bent toward holding on to his inferiority complex.
The Russian prime minister, the once and (perhaps) future president, rejected any notion that Russia might be swept by a people power movement such as those which have so visibly perturbed the Arab states. Putin assured any nervous auditors that as long as his firm and steady hand is on the helm and as long as his wise and farsighted mind is on the job, the policies of his government will keep the Russian people happy and fully in support of the government.
In line with his keep-the-peasants-happy philosophy of governance, Vladimir the Most Generous and Compassionate took pride in his past and projected increases in state pensions, welfare programs, and the birth incentive scheme. In addition, the workers and peasants could take joy in the proposed weapons acquisition program, the best part of a trillion dollars over the next five or so years. The same constituency would receive benefits beyond counting from the Putin Economic Diversification Plan which would reduce Russia's dependency on resource exploitation. (This served to steal some of Medvedev's thunder as he has been plumping this approach for years now.)
While Good Czar Vladimir did not name any specific "foreign threat," the repeated references to such plays well to the natural and historically deeply rooted Russian fear of invasion. There are several candidates for the title of "main enemy."
One, of course, is the old standby, the US. The technological asymmetries between the US and Russian military forces do not operate to Russia's advantage. The aging and decrepit nature of so much of the old Soviet military machine particularly in the strategic and force projection categories must be worrisome to a crew given to paranoia. The difficulties experienced to date in bringing a new ICBM online have done nothing to reduce the apprehensions of American superiority rampant in the highest levels of Russian political and military life. While the Boys in the Kremlin know perfectly well they have nothing to fear from the current American administration, they cannot be sure that We the People will not toss another George W. Bush, or, worse, Ronald Reagan, into the Oval.
A credible alternative is China. Putin along with the entire military high command is very well aware that the vast majority of China's nuclear delivery systems have Russian zip codes in their reentry vehicles. They also fret over the basing of the large and increasingly competent Peoples Liberation Army. It is clear from the locations of the bases that China is not poised to go to war with Vietnam--or India. So, much as the US is getting Xanax moments from China's adventures in naval construction, the Russians are having an even larger need for Valium from the positioning of the ground combat forces.
There is a prevalent, vague anxiety over the intents of NATO and the EU with respect to the "near abroad," those constituents of the former Soviet Union which have gone their own independent ways since the early Nineties. The Kremlin will not be ready to sleep with any degree of soundness unless and until it has reestablished operational dominance over places such as Georgia and the Ukraine. Strategists in Putin's service undoubtedly see these former glacis states as potential points of conflict between Russia and an expansionist oriented NATO/EU combine. (Hey! Paranoia does not require realism simply rationality.)
Then there are the Muslims. The ongoing operations against purveyors of violent political Islam in the North Caucasus represent but one part of the emerging challenge presented by militant Islam. The difficulties currently experienced by several of the now independent Central Asian Republics have already spilled over into Russia and show strong signs of doing more of the same in the near future. Coupled with ideological appeal and backed by Iran, the advocates of violent political Islam are poised to be a "foreign threat" without equal. They are a "main enemy" in the process of being created.
Vladimir Putin is a vastly skilled and able Russian politician. He understands nationalism of the Russian sort and uses it to advance his claim on the throne. As a Russian nationalist he is guided in foreign affairs by one guiding principle--the national interests of Russia. Given the high probability of his being elected president once again next year, there is a strong likelihood the US will be dealing with him for some years to come. In a way he is the best possible interlocutor for the US to have in the Kremlin. He is a prime example of what you see is what you get. This means he will continue to be a very difficult person with whom to make a diplomatic deal, but his motives and goals will never be obscure or hazy--and once he has made a deal he will stick with it, provided such is in Russia's national interest.
The Deep Thinkers of the Obama administration would be well advised to parse Putin's speech very closely and carefully. To do so is to understand the man and his policy context. To blow off his speech as mere politics, or to deprecate Putin as an imitation Western politician is to do him and us a great disservice. Vladimir is not just another politician or one more Russian dictator. No, he is the Good Czar, and a Good Czar with a totally Russian soul.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Form Up The Battalions!
The French are not only punching above their weight in the tough arena of coercive diplomacy, the go-out-and-get-them approach of President Nicholas Sarkozy has taken France from the doldrums of diplomatic irrelevance where it languished as recently as February to the position of calling the West's diplomatic tune. Not a bad record even for an inveterate gambler, addicted to high-risk, high-payoff ways of playing politics with enough personal energy to (if focused) replace the lost Japanese nuclear reactors.
Sarko currently has French forces deployed in six actual or nearly actual shooting wars--Ivory Coast, Libya, Afghanistan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Somalia. As one French observer noted recently, in comparison George W. Bush was a blooming pacifist. While the French public has exhibited a fair degree of disenchantment with the Afghan operation, the other "overseas contingency operations" have not met with significant disapprobation.
More than a little ink--both physical and virtual--has been expended on the possible motives for the new French assertiveness. To many onlookers, the prime reason has been assigned to Sarkozy's political ambitions coupled with his low standing in the polls, strong opposition, and poor showing in recent municipal elections. While there is some measure of truth in this interpretation, it is doubtful it is the whole story.
Another input to the Sarko decision making process in recent weeks has been the embarrassment caused by France having botched policy during the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Make no mistake about it, the French policy debacle was an embarrassment to Sarkozy, his party, and, most importantly, the French public. Simply sending an inept--or merely unfortunate--foreign minister to the scaffold was not enough to repair the damage to both reputation and influence.
Another input may well have been a strong desire on the part of Sarkozy to step out from the shadow cast by Germany and its chancellor in the Eurozone. Germany and France have not been good yokemates, to say the least, with respect to the economic challenges which have beset the EU the past several months. But, foreign policy gave France--and Sarkozy personally--the chance to shine, shine much brighter than the timid Germans with their fear of all things military and love of all things financial.
Not to be dismissed without consideration is the gentlemanly pushing and shoving between Sarkozy and David Cameron regarding leadership in the newly emerging military relationship. A robust policy backed by military force gave the French a leg up by demonstrating just which country had the real muscle now.
Nor is it possible to overlook the role played by the US. Or, somewhat more accurately, the failure of the US to act in its traditional Great Power role. Whether this deficiency was attributed to the cover story of American overextension and budgetary limitations or the weak kneed nature of the American president, the vacuum existed at the top. And, Sarkozy well understands that international politics like nature abhors a vacuum.
Then, of course, one might take Sarkozy at his word. France does have a set of norms, values, and customs by which right is parsed from wrong. Acting quickly and robustly to protect unarmed civilians from mortal harm at the hands of a regime which had announced its intentions to inflict bloody repression was in complete tandem with French norms and values. Bombing tanks in Libya or mortar positions in Ivory Coast were exercises meeting the highest tests of French morality regarding governmental conduct.
M. Sarkozy's motives were, as psychiatrists would put it, "overdetermined." They were the expectable mix of the cynical and the principled, the transient and the eternal, the personal and the disinterested. The issues which matter most are not those of motivation or intent but rather those of outcome and precedent.
Both Libya and the Ivory Coast constitute situations in which the outcome is not clear. Should, as seems quite likely at the present, the war in Libya bog down into a protracted stalemate with a de facto partition of the place, the cheers which met Sarko's actions initially are highly likely to turn into jeers of disillusionment. In the Ivory Coast should it prove out that the supporters of the internationally recognized incoming president, Ouattara, have been responsible for atrocities on a large scale (again as currently appears to have been the case) the applause within France will be replaced by shrugs of disengagement and sneers of disapproval.
In either case the presumption of failed overreach will go a long way to assuring that M. Sarkozy is a one term president. High-risk, high-payoff gambles are like that. And, as Clausewitz pointedly noted, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy".
Win, lose, or draw, the precipitous action of the French government has gone a far piece toward reinforcing the notion of R2P as an overarching responsibility of civilized states. Arguably, R2P, as the Russians and Chinese have maintained, constitutes an unwarranted increase of UN authority. It is ironic, but France's exercise in sovereign decision making particularly as regards two former colonial possessions and particularly the Ivory Coast intervention, transforms R2P into just what its opponents claim it to be--colonialism under a different and nicer term.
The reality is that most of the world's governments and publics accept the nation-state as the basic unit of global political organization. This runs against the world view of the Western elites which hold the nation-state to be a relic of the past--and a very dangerous one at that. The Western elites have embraced the supra-national organization with a lust which boggles the imagination. The underlying proposition in the mind of the collective Western elite is that the planet is too small and common problems too large to allow nation-states the unfettered sovereignty which they have enjoyed for the past five hundred years. The size and scope of problems coupled with the lethality of contemporary technologies of war fighting and the power of ideological conviction demand that power reside with international organizations alone.
The historical record of the past half century is littered with examples of governments run amok, of mounds of bodies piled up at the command of governments or non-state actors both fueled by racial, religious, or ideological hatreds. The ability with which governments can and have killed their own people, generated refugees in the millions, inflicted fear along with physical casualties and destruction has been demonstrated with nausea producing regularity.
It is small wonder that the R2P doctrine was formulated and formally approved by an overwhelming majority of the UN membership. It is equally of no surprise that the precursors of R2P all the way back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were similarly passed by universal acclamation. In the waves of disgust and enthusiasm for having created a "better way" on paper, the assembled diplomats lost sight of what might occur when some country and some future time took the strictures seriously and demanded effective enforcement.
The inevitable result of such a demand would be the bringing into sharp conflict of the basic principle of sovereignty and the ideal of international duty. The always realistic men in the Kremlin and Forbidden City have always held a firm line against the international community intervening in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Both have always relied upon their Security Council veto to protect against excesses of Western enthusiasm for intervention of this sort.
For reasons of short-term diplomatic interest both abstained on the Libyan no-fly/civilian protection resolution. Both are probably regretting having done so as by not going the "No!" route, they have allowed for a crack of precedent to be formed. How quickly the crack could be widened was seen by the UN peace keeping force in the Ivory Coast ordering four Ukrainian gunships into action against forces loyal to outgoing president Gbagbo. This attack constituted a significant change in UN peacekeeping operational practice.
The French have pushed a precedent which seems good at the present moment but is fraught with problems for the future. Chief among these are where will the line be drawn At what level of international nausea will the civilized states or one of them seek R2P authorization? What will happen if and when the Security Council does not give its blessings? Or can the UN be bypassed, with reliance upon one regional organization or another acting in its place? What happens if the UN says, "yes," but the regional entity decrees "no?"
There are other problems as well. Some have been outlined in Libya. Who is responsible for executing any specific R2P operation? What about the internal mechanisms of any state for approving such expeditions? This is particularly relevant with regard to the US while totally lacking relevance for the French whose president has royal level prerogative to employ armed force for reasons of state.
Nicholas Sarkozy has well and truly kicked the fire ant hill when it comes to looking ahead. Without any intention to do so, he has created a precedent with more problems than solutions, more difficulties for tomorrow than certainties. It may even prove that more civilians in the future will die at the hands of their governments than otherwise would have been the case as an unintended consequence of M. Sarkozy's motives and consequent action.
Who ever said that irony is not a major feature of history?
Sarko currently has French forces deployed in six actual or nearly actual shooting wars--Ivory Coast, Libya, Afghanistan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Somalia. As one French observer noted recently, in comparison George W. Bush was a blooming pacifist. While the French public has exhibited a fair degree of disenchantment with the Afghan operation, the other "overseas contingency operations" have not met with significant disapprobation.
More than a little ink--both physical and virtual--has been expended on the possible motives for the new French assertiveness. To many onlookers, the prime reason has been assigned to Sarkozy's political ambitions coupled with his low standing in the polls, strong opposition, and poor showing in recent municipal elections. While there is some measure of truth in this interpretation, it is doubtful it is the whole story.
Another input to the Sarko decision making process in recent weeks has been the embarrassment caused by France having botched policy during the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Make no mistake about it, the French policy debacle was an embarrassment to Sarkozy, his party, and, most importantly, the French public. Simply sending an inept--or merely unfortunate--foreign minister to the scaffold was not enough to repair the damage to both reputation and influence.
Another input may well have been a strong desire on the part of Sarkozy to step out from the shadow cast by Germany and its chancellor in the Eurozone. Germany and France have not been good yokemates, to say the least, with respect to the economic challenges which have beset the EU the past several months. But, foreign policy gave France--and Sarkozy personally--the chance to shine, shine much brighter than the timid Germans with their fear of all things military and love of all things financial.
Not to be dismissed without consideration is the gentlemanly pushing and shoving between Sarkozy and David Cameron regarding leadership in the newly emerging military relationship. A robust policy backed by military force gave the French a leg up by demonstrating just which country had the real muscle now.
Nor is it possible to overlook the role played by the US. Or, somewhat more accurately, the failure of the US to act in its traditional Great Power role. Whether this deficiency was attributed to the cover story of American overextension and budgetary limitations or the weak kneed nature of the American president, the vacuum existed at the top. And, Sarkozy well understands that international politics like nature abhors a vacuum.
Then, of course, one might take Sarkozy at his word. France does have a set of norms, values, and customs by which right is parsed from wrong. Acting quickly and robustly to protect unarmed civilians from mortal harm at the hands of a regime which had announced its intentions to inflict bloody repression was in complete tandem with French norms and values. Bombing tanks in Libya or mortar positions in Ivory Coast were exercises meeting the highest tests of French morality regarding governmental conduct.
M. Sarkozy's motives were, as psychiatrists would put it, "overdetermined." They were the expectable mix of the cynical and the principled, the transient and the eternal, the personal and the disinterested. The issues which matter most are not those of motivation or intent but rather those of outcome and precedent.
Both Libya and the Ivory Coast constitute situations in which the outcome is not clear. Should, as seems quite likely at the present, the war in Libya bog down into a protracted stalemate with a de facto partition of the place, the cheers which met Sarko's actions initially are highly likely to turn into jeers of disillusionment. In the Ivory Coast should it prove out that the supporters of the internationally recognized incoming president, Ouattara, have been responsible for atrocities on a large scale (again as currently appears to have been the case) the applause within France will be replaced by shrugs of disengagement and sneers of disapproval.
In either case the presumption of failed overreach will go a long way to assuring that M. Sarkozy is a one term president. High-risk, high-payoff gambles are like that. And, as Clausewitz pointedly noted, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy".
Win, lose, or draw, the precipitous action of the French government has gone a far piece toward reinforcing the notion of R2P as an overarching responsibility of civilized states. Arguably, R2P, as the Russians and Chinese have maintained, constitutes an unwarranted increase of UN authority. It is ironic, but France's exercise in sovereign decision making particularly as regards two former colonial possessions and particularly the Ivory Coast intervention, transforms R2P into just what its opponents claim it to be--colonialism under a different and nicer term.
The reality is that most of the world's governments and publics accept the nation-state as the basic unit of global political organization. This runs against the world view of the Western elites which hold the nation-state to be a relic of the past--and a very dangerous one at that. The Western elites have embraced the supra-national organization with a lust which boggles the imagination. The underlying proposition in the mind of the collective Western elite is that the planet is too small and common problems too large to allow nation-states the unfettered sovereignty which they have enjoyed for the past five hundred years. The size and scope of problems coupled with the lethality of contemporary technologies of war fighting and the power of ideological conviction demand that power reside with international organizations alone.
The historical record of the past half century is littered with examples of governments run amok, of mounds of bodies piled up at the command of governments or non-state actors both fueled by racial, religious, or ideological hatreds. The ability with which governments can and have killed their own people, generated refugees in the millions, inflicted fear along with physical casualties and destruction has been demonstrated with nausea producing regularity.
It is small wonder that the R2P doctrine was formulated and formally approved by an overwhelming majority of the UN membership. It is equally of no surprise that the precursors of R2P all the way back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were similarly passed by universal acclamation. In the waves of disgust and enthusiasm for having created a "better way" on paper, the assembled diplomats lost sight of what might occur when some country and some future time took the strictures seriously and demanded effective enforcement.
The inevitable result of such a demand would be the bringing into sharp conflict of the basic principle of sovereignty and the ideal of international duty. The always realistic men in the Kremlin and Forbidden City have always held a firm line against the international community intervening in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Both have always relied upon their Security Council veto to protect against excesses of Western enthusiasm for intervention of this sort.
For reasons of short-term diplomatic interest both abstained on the Libyan no-fly/civilian protection resolution. Both are probably regretting having done so as by not going the "No!" route, they have allowed for a crack of precedent to be formed. How quickly the crack could be widened was seen by the UN peace keeping force in the Ivory Coast ordering four Ukrainian gunships into action against forces loyal to outgoing president Gbagbo. This attack constituted a significant change in UN peacekeeping operational practice.
The French have pushed a precedent which seems good at the present moment but is fraught with problems for the future. Chief among these are where will the line be drawn At what level of international nausea will the civilized states or one of them seek R2P authorization? What will happen if and when the Security Council does not give its blessings? Or can the UN be bypassed, with reliance upon one regional organization or another acting in its place? What happens if the UN says, "yes," but the regional entity decrees "no?"
There are other problems as well. Some have been outlined in Libya. Who is responsible for executing any specific R2P operation? What about the internal mechanisms of any state for approving such expeditions? This is particularly relevant with regard to the US while totally lacking relevance for the French whose president has royal level prerogative to employ armed force for reasons of state.
Nicholas Sarkozy has well and truly kicked the fire ant hill when it comes to looking ahead. Without any intention to do so, he has created a precedent with more problems than solutions, more difficulties for tomorrow than certainties. It may even prove that more civilians in the future will die at the hands of their governments than otherwise would have been the case as an unintended consequence of M. Sarkozy's motives and consequent action.
Who ever said that irony is not a major feature of history?
Friday, March 11, 2011
James Clapper Has Problems With Words
Yesterday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Director Of National Intelligence, James Clapper, made a series of blunt statements which perturbed the senators massively. The remarks regarding the possibility of Gaddafi prevailing in the current insurgency were bad enough apparently. Even worse was Clapper's contention that Russia and China presented the greatest "mortal threats" to the US.
The Clapper testimony coming as it did on top of his earlier contention that the Muslim Brotherhood had become a primarily secular organization sent at least one powerful Republican senator, Lindsey Graham (SC), into high Earth orbit level dudgeon. The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the antediluvian Democrat from Michigan, Carl Levin, confessed himself nonplussed, saying that Iran and North Korea came to mind far ahead of Russia and China. With its usual courage and eagerness to defend honestly held and expressed conclusions, the White House dispatched National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to declare Clapper off the reservation and damn his interpretation of events in Libya as too static and having failed to take into account the fluid, dynamics of the situation.
A less impassioned view of the Clapper comments shows that the DNI was not being overly pessimistic. Nor does it show the man to be somehow demented or terminally out to lunch. Rather, the larger context indicates that Clapper, a man with nearly a half century in the intelligence racket, was providing an assessment based on capacities without regard to intentions.
The Geek has never been a fan of the Office of National Intelligence. He saw it (and sees it) as an unnecessary complication in the already overly complex US intelligence community. The ONI arguably is an artifact of Congress, a disfiguring carbuncle created by poorly informed politicians in response to an overly rapid and superficial analysis undertaken in the panic ridden aftermath of 9/11. The gestation of ONI was the consequence not so much of a documented need for such an addition but rather the result of the usual politician's need to appear to able to take charge and move out, to do something, anything, so as to reassure We the People that someone, somewhere, is taking care of the store.
The ONI and its Director are presumably the tip of the Great American Intelligence Community Pyramid. It is to be presumed that the DNI has the best analyses available predicated upon the totality of the best catch. So, what is wrong? Why are the senators--and some representatives--so torqued off with Clapper that they want his head detached from the rest of his body? Is Clapper's view so out of touch with the facts and the analyses that his comments merit only contempt?
Or does the retired Air Force general simply have a problem with words? Does he choose to speak too bluntly? Would he be better off if he were to have shaded his assessments, qualified them with appropriate covers of vagueness, and expressed them with well nuanced euphemisms?
Well, let's step back and take a closer look at what Clapper said and what predicates support his views.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a many faceted creature. As testimony before Representative King's subcommittee brought forth yesterday, the vast majority of Muslim terror plots in the US can be traced in one way or another to some faction or personality in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Homegrown terror appears to develop best if provided with foreign fertilizer.
At the same time, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has had to learn to deal with the real world's real problems in realistic ways during its years of operating an impressive array of social and educational services throughout the country. It is not surprising that the Brotherhood has discovered the strictures and duties of the Koran do not provide all, or even most, of the solutions which must be constructed to meet the real and pressing needs of Egypt's massive impoverished population. This has provided a significant impetus to adopting secular answers to the challenges confronting the Egyptians.
The tension between these two poles of the Brotherhood has existed for some years. It has grown in recent months and weeks. The uprising in Egypt and the consequent removal of Hosni Mubarak have accelerated the growth of the tension.
This implies strongly that Clapper was not wrong in his assessment but did not express it in a way which properly noted that while tensions exist, it is too early to say with certainty that the Brotherhood would tilt more and more to the secular side of the continuum as the outflow from the Mubarak overthrow continues. He would have been far better off to have noted the foundations of the tensions, the results to date, and the range of most probable outcomes over the next few months.
In short, Clapper wasn't so much wrong as he was inarticulate.
In his assessment of Gaddafi's potential for success in the insurgency, Clapper was on solid ground. Gaddafi has billions of dollars worth of cash stashed in and around Tripoli. He has sufficient money to keep his mercenaries well paid. He has sufficient cash on hand to hire more. He has more than enough of the old vigorish to pay off his indigenous supporters. He even has enough bread to get more weapons and munitions on the black market where cash is king and ethics totally situational.
Given that Gaddafi has no safe harbor (other than, perhaps, Venezuela) as well as a world class case of megalomania, it is certain that he has the political will to continue the war. The US and the rest of the West have stiffened this political will by the threats of criminal prosecution. (Way to go, guys!)
At the same time, the insurgents have a number of very serious problems. Compared to the "elite" battalions of the Libyan army commanded by Gaddafi's kids, the rebels are untrained, poorly armed, badly organized, and overstretched in the logistics area. While they have many reasons to keep on fighting, the coherent political will required for protracted insurgency has not had time enough to develop. Also, compared to Gaddafi, the insurgents lack financial resources. This, in and of itself, is a major, major disadvantage.
Overall, the correlation of forces is such as to favor Gaddafi greatly over the longer term. The rebels failed to take the country by assault. Now the war is rather like a siege. There are serious reasons to doubt the capacity of the insurgents to maintain coherence and will as the siege drags on.
Neither the Senate nor the White House might have liked to hear Clapper's contentions. That does not make the DNI wrong. He would have been better off had he been vague, superficial, and hewed to the official White House line. Of course, this ignores the reality that intelligence officers are presumed to have the intellectual and moral courage necessary to tell it as they see it regardless of the reaction up the chain of command. In short, Clapper did his job.
Russia and China, "mortal threats" or not? James Clapper was asked to rate threats. He concluded, after having touched on Iran, North Korea, and violent political Islam, that Russia and China constituted the only "mortal threats" to the US. This assessment sent Graham into his high Earth orbit. This position nonplussed Levin. Clapper's words will also disturb the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing, who will use the characterization as being "Cold War rhetoric" and similar shopworn slogans.
Clapper based his contention on perceptions of capability. This is a well established and conservative way to measure threats. There can be no doubt but in current and near term potential capabilities, only Russia and China present a genuine threat to the US as well as its national and strategic interests. Both countries have impressive conventional and nuclear forces today. Both are committed to major upgrades in both the conventional and nuclear areas. In either case, but more so with respect to China than Russia, the proposed procurement plans will result in forces far in excess of those necessary for purely defensive measures.
Both countries, again China more than Russia, are current threats with the capacity to deal a mortal blow to CONUS. Given the upgrades both are undertaking, each will be even more of a potentially "mortal threat" in a very few years.
It is true that the US has requested "clarification" from the Trolls of Beijing and the Boys in the Kremlin regarding current and future intentions. Neither have responded in unambiguous fashion. This is how it should be. No self-respecting nation-state would believe itself to be obligated to justify its military expenditures to another nation-state. (It boggles the mind that the Obama administration actually believed it had the right to ask let alone expect an honest answer from either county.)
Historically, intelligence agencies, military services, and governments have used perceptions of capability to equate with perceptions of intent. While Clapper did not directly address intent, his accurate assessment of capabilities demands close attention be paid to probable intents in both the Kremlin and Forbidden City. No one in Congress or the White House wants to do this.
If one takes Clapper's assessment to its logical conclusion, the US would have no choice but to assume the intentions of either or both the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing are not beneficent toward the US. One would have no choice but to conclude that at the least either or both governments want to challenge US national and strategic interests. This would require the US to invest more in its own military capabilities both conventional and nuclear (as well as newer critical arenas such as space and cyberwarfare.)
Spending more on defense (to use the polite euphemism) is not a popular notion today. Ideology and fiscal constraints conspire to put defense on the slow track.
This is a tough matter. On the one hand, there is a strong impetus not to spend more on the military. On the other, the DNI honestly and too bluntly identified the "mortal threats" facing the US. So, the best answer is to do the equivalent of shooting the messenger. Denial is cheaper and ideologically more satisfying than facing a highly unpleasant and most inconvenient truth.
And, when the balloon does go up, when the US wakes up to find itself outclassed by one or two countries that have an agenda opposing our own, the politicians of both parties have an easy out. They will point fingers and claim with one united voice, "Intelligence failure!" Then they will create yet one more senior intelligence office.
The Clapper testimony coming as it did on top of his earlier contention that the Muslim Brotherhood had become a primarily secular organization sent at least one powerful Republican senator, Lindsey Graham (SC), into high Earth orbit level dudgeon. The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the antediluvian Democrat from Michigan, Carl Levin, confessed himself nonplussed, saying that Iran and North Korea came to mind far ahead of Russia and China. With its usual courage and eagerness to defend honestly held and expressed conclusions, the White House dispatched National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to declare Clapper off the reservation and damn his interpretation of events in Libya as too static and having failed to take into account the fluid, dynamics of the situation.
A less impassioned view of the Clapper comments shows that the DNI was not being overly pessimistic. Nor does it show the man to be somehow demented or terminally out to lunch. Rather, the larger context indicates that Clapper, a man with nearly a half century in the intelligence racket, was providing an assessment based on capacities without regard to intentions.
The Geek has never been a fan of the Office of National Intelligence. He saw it (and sees it) as an unnecessary complication in the already overly complex US intelligence community. The ONI arguably is an artifact of Congress, a disfiguring carbuncle created by poorly informed politicians in response to an overly rapid and superficial analysis undertaken in the panic ridden aftermath of 9/11. The gestation of ONI was the consequence not so much of a documented need for such an addition but rather the result of the usual politician's need to appear to able to take charge and move out, to do something, anything, so as to reassure We the People that someone, somewhere, is taking care of the store.
The ONI and its Director are presumably the tip of the Great American Intelligence Community Pyramid. It is to be presumed that the DNI has the best analyses available predicated upon the totality of the best catch. So, what is wrong? Why are the senators--and some representatives--so torqued off with Clapper that they want his head detached from the rest of his body? Is Clapper's view so out of touch with the facts and the analyses that his comments merit only contempt?
Or does the retired Air Force general simply have a problem with words? Does he choose to speak too bluntly? Would he be better off if he were to have shaded his assessments, qualified them with appropriate covers of vagueness, and expressed them with well nuanced euphemisms?
Well, let's step back and take a closer look at what Clapper said and what predicates support his views.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a many faceted creature. As testimony before Representative King's subcommittee brought forth yesterday, the vast majority of Muslim terror plots in the US can be traced in one way or another to some faction or personality in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Homegrown terror appears to develop best if provided with foreign fertilizer.
At the same time, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has had to learn to deal with the real world's real problems in realistic ways during its years of operating an impressive array of social and educational services throughout the country. It is not surprising that the Brotherhood has discovered the strictures and duties of the Koran do not provide all, or even most, of the solutions which must be constructed to meet the real and pressing needs of Egypt's massive impoverished population. This has provided a significant impetus to adopting secular answers to the challenges confronting the Egyptians.
The tension between these two poles of the Brotherhood has existed for some years. It has grown in recent months and weeks. The uprising in Egypt and the consequent removal of Hosni Mubarak have accelerated the growth of the tension.
This implies strongly that Clapper was not wrong in his assessment but did not express it in a way which properly noted that while tensions exist, it is too early to say with certainty that the Brotherhood would tilt more and more to the secular side of the continuum as the outflow from the Mubarak overthrow continues. He would have been far better off to have noted the foundations of the tensions, the results to date, and the range of most probable outcomes over the next few months.
In short, Clapper wasn't so much wrong as he was inarticulate.
In his assessment of Gaddafi's potential for success in the insurgency, Clapper was on solid ground. Gaddafi has billions of dollars worth of cash stashed in and around Tripoli. He has sufficient money to keep his mercenaries well paid. He has sufficient cash on hand to hire more. He has more than enough of the old vigorish to pay off his indigenous supporters. He even has enough bread to get more weapons and munitions on the black market where cash is king and ethics totally situational.
Given that Gaddafi has no safe harbor (other than, perhaps, Venezuela) as well as a world class case of megalomania, it is certain that he has the political will to continue the war. The US and the rest of the West have stiffened this political will by the threats of criminal prosecution. (Way to go, guys!)
At the same time, the insurgents have a number of very serious problems. Compared to the "elite" battalions of the Libyan army commanded by Gaddafi's kids, the rebels are untrained, poorly armed, badly organized, and overstretched in the logistics area. While they have many reasons to keep on fighting, the coherent political will required for protracted insurgency has not had time enough to develop. Also, compared to Gaddafi, the insurgents lack financial resources. This, in and of itself, is a major, major disadvantage.
Overall, the correlation of forces is such as to favor Gaddafi greatly over the longer term. The rebels failed to take the country by assault. Now the war is rather like a siege. There are serious reasons to doubt the capacity of the insurgents to maintain coherence and will as the siege drags on.
Neither the Senate nor the White House might have liked to hear Clapper's contentions. That does not make the DNI wrong. He would have been better off had he been vague, superficial, and hewed to the official White House line. Of course, this ignores the reality that intelligence officers are presumed to have the intellectual and moral courage necessary to tell it as they see it regardless of the reaction up the chain of command. In short, Clapper did his job.
Russia and China, "mortal threats" or not? James Clapper was asked to rate threats. He concluded, after having touched on Iran, North Korea, and violent political Islam, that Russia and China constituted the only "mortal threats" to the US. This assessment sent Graham into his high Earth orbit. This position nonplussed Levin. Clapper's words will also disturb the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing, who will use the characterization as being "Cold War rhetoric" and similar shopworn slogans.
Clapper based his contention on perceptions of capability. This is a well established and conservative way to measure threats. There can be no doubt but in current and near term potential capabilities, only Russia and China present a genuine threat to the US as well as its national and strategic interests. Both countries have impressive conventional and nuclear forces today. Both are committed to major upgrades in both the conventional and nuclear areas. In either case, but more so with respect to China than Russia, the proposed procurement plans will result in forces far in excess of those necessary for purely defensive measures.
Both countries, again China more than Russia, are current threats with the capacity to deal a mortal blow to CONUS. Given the upgrades both are undertaking, each will be even more of a potentially "mortal threat" in a very few years.
It is true that the US has requested "clarification" from the Trolls of Beijing and the Boys in the Kremlin regarding current and future intentions. Neither have responded in unambiguous fashion. This is how it should be. No self-respecting nation-state would believe itself to be obligated to justify its military expenditures to another nation-state. (It boggles the mind that the Obama administration actually believed it had the right to ask let alone expect an honest answer from either county.)
Historically, intelligence agencies, military services, and governments have used perceptions of capability to equate with perceptions of intent. While Clapper did not directly address intent, his accurate assessment of capabilities demands close attention be paid to probable intents in both the Kremlin and Forbidden City. No one in Congress or the White House wants to do this.
If one takes Clapper's assessment to its logical conclusion, the US would have no choice but to assume the intentions of either or both the Boys in the Kremlin and the Trolls of Beijing are not beneficent toward the US. One would have no choice but to conclude that at the least either or both governments want to challenge US national and strategic interests. This would require the US to invest more in its own military capabilities both conventional and nuclear (as well as newer critical arenas such as space and cyberwarfare.)
Spending more on defense (to use the polite euphemism) is not a popular notion today. Ideology and fiscal constraints conspire to put defense on the slow track.
This is a tough matter. On the one hand, there is a strong impetus not to spend more on the military. On the other, the DNI honestly and too bluntly identified the "mortal threats" facing the US. So, the best answer is to do the equivalent of shooting the messenger. Denial is cheaper and ideologically more satisfying than facing a highly unpleasant and most inconvenient truth.
And, when the balloon does go up, when the US wakes up to find itself outclassed by one or two countries that have an agenda opposing our own, the politicians of both parties have an easy out. They will point fingers and claim with one united voice, "Intelligence failure!" Then they will create yet one more senior intelligence office.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Darkness Of The Future
Some years the future is clear. For example, the global political stage was highly visible and future developments easy to predict during much of the 1990s. It was evident that the weak responses of the Clinton administration to the aggressive acts and "declaration of war" by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda would result in more, larger attacks. It was not exactly difficult to predict that the "opening" of China to US trade would result in an ever growing torrent of money flowing to the Trolls of Beijing who would use the swag to power up their ambitions to have a global footprint. Nor was it mentally taxing to conclude that the combination of hectoring and paternalism with which the US treated Russia would stoke the two primary characteristics of Russian policy--messianic zeal and galloping feelings of inferiority vis a vis the West coupled with a pervasive sense of insecurity.
In the background lurked the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the impact of which was growing across the Islamic world during the Nineties. The growth of political Islam, particularly violent political Islam was evident not only with al-Qaeda but with the triumph of Taliban in Afghanistan, the presence of Iranian agents in the southern Philippines, the rise of political Islam in Pakistan, and the sectarian conflict in the rubble of Yugoslavia. From that context prediction of the future trajectory was close to being a no-brainer.
It is not so easy today. The rapid series of political disruptions in North Africa and the Mideast has introduced a set of complications which greatly complicates the prediction of future international trajectories. If the current conflict in Libya continues and becomes a long duration (more than three months) internal war, the complications will be magnified.
It is plain that Iran will continue to seek advantage in the Gulf region. Its struggle with Saudi Arabia for regional hegemon status will both continue and grow. Tehran will seek to exploit the Shiite disaffiliation in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Similarly, it will use its agents of influence in the less than monolithic Iraqi government to fill the vacuum which will necessarily develop further as the American presence recedes. At the same time there is no doubt Ayatollah Khamenei will keep on consolidating power in his hands. The carefully orchestrated removal of Ayatollah Akbar Rafsanjani from his post as head of the important Assembly of Experts is the most recent gambit in Khamenei's march to total and unquestioned authority. It can be expected that the handpicked tool, Ahmedinejad, will follow up on this with a move against the Larjani family.
The imponderable (at least as to timing) in Iran is when will the lash back take place. The Rafsanjani family like that of the Larjanis is both wealthy and powerful. The more moderate clerics of Qom are much enamored of Rafsanjani and not overly impressed with the theological credentials of Khamenei. Nor are they thrilled with the progress of Iran socially and economically the past few years. The Green Movement has demonstrated a degree of committed perseverance totally unexpected in the wake of the first protests nearly two years ago. So, the big question is: When will the balloon go up?
There are some features of the future which are clear. Russia will continue to be an obstruction to effective collective action in Libya. So too will China. Both countries will also act to impede the implementation of a solution to the North Korean nuclear question. And, should the continued centralization of authority in Iran reach the point of provoking widespread and violent internal unrest, both will be an obstacle to finding a viable solution for that challenge.
Another clear future of the tomorrows to come is the increasing potency of political Islam oriented groups and individuals in the new governments of Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries with governments under internal threat. The presence of advocates of political Islam in governments of Egypt or Tunisia or Bahrain tends to scare the hell out of at least some Americans. This degree of alarm is not necessarily justified as shown by the AKP in Turkey which is far more nationalist in its political philosophy than Islamist.
The head of Tunisia's Renaissance Party has pointed to Erdogan and the AKP as a relevant role model. So has Moussa, a leading candidate for the first post-Mubarak civilian president. The historical experience tends to favor nationalism trumping Islam. This does not mean there will be a total absence of Islam, a wall between mosque and state. Rather it implies that while features of a country's internal and judicial policies will be tilted strongly in the direction of Islamic requirements and strictures, and public criticism or opposition to Muslim groups practicing violent political Islam will be muted in deference to the Islamic imperative on community solidarity, the governments will pursue national interest and not that of some mythical caliphate.
While there is some historically based reasoning to be calm in the face of governments dominated by political Islam, this does not imply that the future is secure or even that it can be seen so clearly that one has a high confidence in predictions at this point. The assorted advocates of violent political Islam including those with the unlimited goal of a global caliphate will continue to exist. They will also continue to be creative in their use of local grievances in the context of the "will of Allah" to recruit supporters and silence dissent from their goals. But their potential growth will be limited if the US and other Western states pursue policies which give due regard to the very easily bruised nationalism which exists in all the countries experiencing unrest or its aftermath.
This suggests strongly that caution is the word to use when considering no-fly zones or any other intervention in Libya--or in some country yet to implode. Interventions no matter how justified in terms of stopping massacres outrage national sentiments. When the national sentiments are magnified by feelings of religious persecution, the result is very negative for the outsiders. It is like domestic violence situations--ask any street cop what happens when the battling partners are faced by the well intentioned outsiders there to enforce the impartial law. So it is with people generally--unite against the outsider, particularly when that outsider represents another, maligned religious community.
The combination of prickly nationalism and religious imperatives also suggests that the US and other Western countries had best develop realistic and limited goals for their policies concerning new governments. It is all well and good to play upbeat mood music about democracy, but that is not a policy, let alone a realistic and limited one. The process of formulating appropriate policy goals starts with a coldly realistic assessment of just what national and strategic interests are in play in each country of the regions.
Here we encounter the real basis of why the future is dark. The current administration has yet to demonstrate that it understands what national and strategic interests might be. There is no general text covering national interest or its extension, strategic interest. Rather there have been hazy almost bumper sticker mouthings such as "comprehensive Mideast peace" or "fostering democratic and transparent government without corruption" or "assuring women play their full role in the new system."
Nice sound bites do not make policy, let alone realistic, achievable policy oriented toward the goal of achieving American national and strategic interests. Nor are appeals to the "international community" and multilateral bodies a substitute for policy aimed at US interests.
To say the Obama administration is adrift at the policy level is almost too kind. Yet that is the ground truth at work today. This means there is a real danger that Congress will interject itself into the making of foreign policy. Congress may have its strengths, but the formulation and execution of foreign policy is not numbered among them. Worse, absent definite policy a severe uptick in the level of violence in Libya or one of the other instable venues might excite the emotions of We the People to the point that political considerations compel action. History records that such hasty, politically predicated excuses for reasoned policy are well described by a single word: failure.
The US has lurched from failure to failure under the forces of ideology and sheer naivety for most of the past eighteen years. As a consequence, an avoidable one, the US has witnessed a progressive decline in its status and influence around the world. If this sorry record continues through the current round of developments, the result will be a US which is irrelevant, a US which finally merits that Sixties vintage appellation, "a pitiful helpless giant."
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Meanwhile, Far Away From The Mideast
While events in the Mideast, most recently Libya, have been sucking all the media and diplomatic oxygen, a faraway state in Central Asia faces both internal and external threats. Tajikistan hasn't made the news, but it is currently facing set of challenges which threaten to turn it into either a failing state or a hollow one.
Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics. Its poverty has not helped in the process of repairing the deep social and political wounds inflicted on the country by the five years of warfare between Tajiks and Uzbeks. Even though that particular war ended nearly fourteen years ago, the scars run Grand Canyon deep across economy, society, and polity alike. Insofar as there has been any recovery from that disastrous little war, it has been the inadvertent consequence of the attention and money flowing into Tajikistan following the invasion of Afghanistan.
Not unexpectedly that money and the "recovery" have served just as much to exacerbate underlying problems as it has to rehabilitate the place.
The sole reason the US or anyone other than either Russia or China is interested in the remote Wisconsin sized region is Afghanistan. Tajikistan has a twelve hundred mile border with Afghanistan. This border edges the formerly peaceful northeastern portion of Afghanistan. The operative word here is "formerly."
Tajikistan borders China for a bit more than four hundred kilometers. While much less than the borders with any of its other neighbors, the Chinese one has been the focus of international tensions. Recently the tensions slacked apparently with the signing of a treaty which ceded some Tajik territory to China. The government of Tajikistan crowed about its victory in that the Chinese gained only a small percentage of the territory it claimed. But, to Tajiks living near the Chinese border, the victory was hollow at best. In a side agreement the government agreed to lease ten square miles of land to China at, to put it delicately, well below market rates. Also, the government permitted China to provide several hundred (thousand? reports differ) farmers to use the land.
President Rahmon has been attacked over the China deal which is seen even in Dushanbe by the microscopic local elite as a sell-out to Beijing. There is a fair amount of belief that China will seek to "lease" more agricultural and pastoral land in the near future while defenders of the president see him as a canny player of the China card as a make weight to Russia.
There is a good deal of accuracy in the notion that President Rahmon is attempting a balancing act so as to curb the possible de facto takeover of Tajikistan by the Kremlin. At the moment Tajikistan is heavily dependent upon Russia for external defense as well as the heavy lifting regarding the insurgency mounted by advocates of violent political Islam.
Rashmon is shaking in his boots over the ever increasing presence of the advocates of political Islam, particularly those of the violent sort. He has been facing a shooting war for the past five years in which the security forces of Tajikistan have not covered themselves with glory--or even much success. Not to overstate the matter, there is a direct link between the uptick of insurgents in the border region and the insertion of larger numbers of lethal and well motivated Afghan Taliban into the northern part of Afghanistan. Given that the Tajik-Afghan border is so porous as to make the Great Fence of the Southwest look more impenetrable than ever was the Berlin Wall, this development should not have surprised anyone--even the Germans who sought service in north Afghanistan as a way of doing something for NATO without actually having to be involved in a shooting war.
The only effective force on the Tajikistan side of the border is a unit of the Russian army. It is there both to stop insurgent border crossers and drug smugglers. The border area is a primary, perhaps the primary, land route for opium and its derivatives on route to Russia and Eastern Europe. The most recent estimates from the Tajikistan government is that some 130 million "doses" of heroin cross the border every year. There was, of course, no source for this figure.
While the amount of drug traffic may be in doubt, there is no doubt who controls the route to and through Tajikistan. The men who run the affair are all advocates of violent political Islam. Most are native Tajiks. The drugs are, along with unemployed workers, the major export of Tajikistan. The Kremlin is of the view, with accuracy, that many of the migrant workers from Tajikistan are themselves members of groups espousing violent political Islam which increases the domestic threat from that quadrant.
The Rahmon regime has taken measures against the growth of political Islam. Some of these have been unique and wide reaching. Notable are the severe restrictions placed upon Tajiks studying in foreign madrassas. Equally severe limits have been placed upon the number of mosques, madrassas, and religious students allowed in Tajikistan. Most recently Rahmon's ministers have proposed prohibiting any person younger than eighteen from attending religious services of any sort. This would affect Muslims primarily as ninety percent of the people are Muslims (eighty-five percent Sunni, five percent Shiite.)
The government has taken the firm position that the unrest, the drug trafficking, and the internal instability are all the result of Islam. While the suppression of the religion may be impossible, it is clear the government has determined to lower the impact of political Islam to an irreducible minimum. As a one time Soviet nomenclatura member, he recalls the old ways and days with fondness.
The Kremlin is quite willing to back Rahmon as it is better to rule the Tajiks from a distance than up close and personal. At the same time any significant growth of the Tajik presence in the North Caucasus based Muslim insurgency will result in more direct, more significant Kremlin involvement in Tajikistan.
The most basic need of the country is money. The problem is the place has little to offer in return for investment. Only the Chinese can see a real potential in Tajikistan. That potential comes not from the microscopic hydrocarbon resources under the soil but the soil itself. The areas closest to the Chinese border are those with the best soil, longest growing season and, the big consideration, the best water. China is facing crop and water shortages at home such as to occasion investment in farmland in Africa. Extending Chinese agriculture and pastoral activities over a few hundred (or thousand) square kilometers of Tajikistan is both cheaper and more convenient.
Should the proposed hydroelectric dams be completed either with World Bank or Chinese investment, they will produce not only quite a bit of electricity (most of which will have to be transported hundreds of kilometers to market), but also irrigation water. This implies that even more land can be brought under (Chinese?) cultivation. If the Chinese insist on providing their own labor force, the difficulties with Tajikistan could be monumental given that nearly eighty percent of the Tajik population is agrarian or pastoral.
Should the Chinese displacement of native Tajik workers continue, and the Islamist insurgency not be fully suppressed, the combination would spell failed state for the Dushanbe government. The only alternative would be to become an independent government and state in name only. This would make Tajikistan the first "hollow state" within the Central Asian Republics. It would probably not be the last.
While most US attention has been directed to other of the several "stans" in Central Asia, it has a dog in the Tajikistan fight. The long, open border with Tajikistan means Taliban and others have free access to Afghanistan not only from Pakistan. As has been seen in recent months, this provides the insurgents with opportunities for horizontal escalation which render American battlefield victories less impressive in their overall effect. Also the convenience of Tajikistan as well as the tightly organized Muslim Tajik cartels which handle the cargo provide an alternative cash cow route. This, in turn, means that even a total halt to flows through Iran or Pakistan will not end the utility of narcotics to the Taliban and others.
All of the various assessments of the state of American strategy (if what we are doing really deserves that term) in Afghanistan have given very, very short shrift to the Tajikistan connection both material and religious. This has been another of the numerous blind spots which have plagued American Deep Thinkers tasked with finding success in that dismal contest.
Just a little reminder that important things are underway far from the attention of the fly-by-night media and their diplomatic cousins. It is an interesting world even when the television cameras aren't there to record.
Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics. Its poverty has not helped in the process of repairing the deep social and political wounds inflicted on the country by the five years of warfare between Tajiks and Uzbeks. Even though that particular war ended nearly fourteen years ago, the scars run Grand Canyon deep across economy, society, and polity alike. Insofar as there has been any recovery from that disastrous little war, it has been the inadvertent consequence of the attention and money flowing into Tajikistan following the invasion of Afghanistan.
Not unexpectedly that money and the "recovery" have served just as much to exacerbate underlying problems as it has to rehabilitate the place.
The sole reason the US or anyone other than either Russia or China is interested in the remote Wisconsin sized region is Afghanistan. Tajikistan has a twelve hundred mile border with Afghanistan. This border edges the formerly peaceful northeastern portion of Afghanistan. The operative word here is "formerly."
Tajikistan borders China for a bit more than four hundred kilometers. While much less than the borders with any of its other neighbors, the Chinese one has been the focus of international tensions. Recently the tensions slacked apparently with the signing of a treaty which ceded some Tajik territory to China. The government of Tajikistan crowed about its victory in that the Chinese gained only a small percentage of the territory it claimed. But, to Tajiks living near the Chinese border, the victory was hollow at best. In a side agreement the government agreed to lease ten square miles of land to China at, to put it delicately, well below market rates. Also, the government permitted China to provide several hundred (thousand? reports differ) farmers to use the land.
President Rahmon has been attacked over the China deal which is seen even in Dushanbe by the microscopic local elite as a sell-out to Beijing. There is a fair amount of belief that China will seek to "lease" more agricultural and pastoral land in the near future while defenders of the president see him as a canny player of the China card as a make weight to Russia.
There is a good deal of accuracy in the notion that President Rahmon is attempting a balancing act so as to curb the possible de facto takeover of Tajikistan by the Kremlin. At the moment Tajikistan is heavily dependent upon Russia for external defense as well as the heavy lifting regarding the insurgency mounted by advocates of violent political Islam.
Rashmon is shaking in his boots over the ever increasing presence of the advocates of political Islam, particularly those of the violent sort. He has been facing a shooting war for the past five years in which the security forces of Tajikistan have not covered themselves with glory--or even much success. Not to overstate the matter, there is a direct link between the uptick of insurgents in the border region and the insertion of larger numbers of lethal and well motivated Afghan Taliban into the northern part of Afghanistan. Given that the Tajik-Afghan border is so porous as to make the Great Fence of the Southwest look more impenetrable than ever was the Berlin Wall, this development should not have surprised anyone--even the Germans who sought service in north Afghanistan as a way of doing something for NATO without actually having to be involved in a shooting war.
The only effective force on the Tajikistan side of the border is a unit of the Russian army. It is there both to stop insurgent border crossers and drug smugglers. The border area is a primary, perhaps the primary, land route for opium and its derivatives on route to Russia and Eastern Europe. The most recent estimates from the Tajikistan government is that some 130 million "doses" of heroin cross the border every year. There was, of course, no source for this figure.
While the amount of drug traffic may be in doubt, there is no doubt who controls the route to and through Tajikistan. The men who run the affair are all advocates of violent political Islam. Most are native Tajiks. The drugs are, along with unemployed workers, the major export of Tajikistan. The Kremlin is of the view, with accuracy, that many of the migrant workers from Tajikistan are themselves members of groups espousing violent political Islam which increases the domestic threat from that quadrant.
The Rahmon regime has taken measures against the growth of political Islam. Some of these have been unique and wide reaching. Notable are the severe restrictions placed upon Tajiks studying in foreign madrassas. Equally severe limits have been placed upon the number of mosques, madrassas, and religious students allowed in Tajikistan. Most recently Rahmon's ministers have proposed prohibiting any person younger than eighteen from attending religious services of any sort. This would affect Muslims primarily as ninety percent of the people are Muslims (eighty-five percent Sunni, five percent Shiite.)
The government has taken the firm position that the unrest, the drug trafficking, and the internal instability are all the result of Islam. While the suppression of the religion may be impossible, it is clear the government has determined to lower the impact of political Islam to an irreducible minimum. As a one time Soviet nomenclatura member, he recalls the old ways and days with fondness.
The Kremlin is quite willing to back Rahmon as it is better to rule the Tajiks from a distance than up close and personal. At the same time any significant growth of the Tajik presence in the North Caucasus based Muslim insurgency will result in more direct, more significant Kremlin involvement in Tajikistan.
The most basic need of the country is money. The problem is the place has little to offer in return for investment. Only the Chinese can see a real potential in Tajikistan. That potential comes not from the microscopic hydrocarbon resources under the soil but the soil itself. The areas closest to the Chinese border are those with the best soil, longest growing season and, the big consideration, the best water. China is facing crop and water shortages at home such as to occasion investment in farmland in Africa. Extending Chinese agriculture and pastoral activities over a few hundred (or thousand) square kilometers of Tajikistan is both cheaper and more convenient.
Should the proposed hydroelectric dams be completed either with World Bank or Chinese investment, they will produce not only quite a bit of electricity (most of which will have to be transported hundreds of kilometers to market), but also irrigation water. This implies that even more land can be brought under (Chinese?) cultivation. If the Chinese insist on providing their own labor force, the difficulties with Tajikistan could be monumental given that nearly eighty percent of the Tajik population is agrarian or pastoral.
Should the Chinese displacement of native Tajik workers continue, and the Islamist insurgency not be fully suppressed, the combination would spell failed state for the Dushanbe government. The only alternative would be to become an independent government and state in name only. This would make Tajikistan the first "hollow state" within the Central Asian Republics. It would probably not be the last.
While most US attention has been directed to other of the several "stans" in Central Asia, it has a dog in the Tajikistan fight. The long, open border with Tajikistan means Taliban and others have free access to Afghanistan not only from Pakistan. As has been seen in recent months, this provides the insurgents with opportunities for horizontal escalation which render American battlefield victories less impressive in their overall effect. Also the convenience of Tajikistan as well as the tightly organized Muslim Tajik cartels which handle the cargo provide an alternative cash cow route. This, in turn, means that even a total halt to flows through Iran or Pakistan will not end the utility of narcotics to the Taliban and others.
All of the various assessments of the state of American strategy (if what we are doing really deserves that term) in Afghanistan have given very, very short shrift to the Tajikistan connection both material and religious. This has been another of the numerous blind spots which have plagued American Deep Thinkers tasked with finding success in that dismal contest.
Just a little reminder that important things are underway far from the attention of the fly-by-night media and their diplomatic cousins. It is an interesting world even when the television cameras aren't there to record.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Russia Chooses A Side
While it is not a surprise, the decision of Vladimir Putin's regime to join China in the support of North Korea (or, if not precisely that, in opposition to the South Koreans and thus the US) must be a disappointment to the Obama administration. If the vaunted "Team of Rivals" which constitutes the Obama inner circle had a realpolitik view of life, the sharp turn against Seoul and Washington would not be a disappointing further rejection of the "Reset Button" policy.
In calling for an emergency closed door UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Korean Peninsula, the Russians were doing the expectable. In the Russian condemnation of the US for not immediately convening the emergency meeting in its role as this month's chair, Moscow was doing the predictable. When Moscow called for the cancellation of the impending South Korean live fire exercises on Yeonpyeong Island, the Masters of the Kremlin went over the edge. No longer could they maintain the pretense of evenhandedness; the characterization of the military exercises as a "dangerous aggravation" demonstrates clear partisan orientation.
In so closely associating itself with China, the Russians have embarked on a risky course of diplomacy, a course with one intention which may well result in a defeat on another, far more important diplomatic front.
The Russian move is linked to the ratification of the new START pending in the Senate. As the Russians have no bull in the Korean herd unlike Beijing, the goal of their demarche in the UNSC must be that of demonstrating to the Obama administration the consequences of a failure on the part of the "US side" to ratify the treaty without further delay or modification. The Kremlin is flexing its trouble making muscles in a high profile venue to show unmistakably that there will be a price to be paid should the Republicans stall the ratification process or insist upon modifications which would necessitate reopening the entire negotiation effort.
In the present Korean context, the North Koreans continue to be very much in the wrong. Their actions, whether sinking a South Korean warship or bombarding an island located to the south of the Northern Limit Line, Pyongyang has acted contrary to the provisions of the 1953 Armistice as well as relevant international law. The South Korean responses to date including the live fire exercises have been both "restrained" (to use the favorite word of both Beijing and, now, Moscow) and completely within its rights as a sovereign state. No observer unless blinded by the requirements of ulterior motives and objectives can deny that.
In its support of South Korea, which includes a refusal to engage in a re-run of the Six Power Talks without Pyongyang making serious and severe concessions in advance, the Obama administration is on the side of the angels. To hold talks with the Hermits of the North without the Hermits first demonstrating a genuine repentance would be to reward aggression, submit to extortion, and unduly reinforce the foundations of a regime facing a possible succession crisis. It would be, in short, counterproductive and self-defeating.
The Russian leadership is not comprised of situationally naive people. Putin, Medvedev and company well understand that the US position is both realistic and justified by regional political dynamics. More than most governments, that of Russia understands the political and diplomatic games of extortion from both sides of the relationship.
So there is no direct rationale for the Russian effort to muck about in the Korean swamp. There is, however, a very powerful indirect one. The Kremlin wants the new START ratified quickly and cleanly. The Boys at the Top understand that there is a potent opposition to the new treaty within the Republicans of the Senate. Thus they are hopeful that a bit of pressure might somehow, someway, push the Obama administration into doing something to pull the Republican fangs.
It is even possible that Putin, et al may even entertain the notion that the Republicans in the Senate might get the message, might come to understand what is at risk should the new START not be ratified. If this is the case, the Geek fears they have vastly overestimated the mentality of the Republican opposition. The current exhibition of Russian intransigence is more likely to stimulate left over Cold War apprehensions regarding the intentions of the Kremlin than to serve as an example of what might be expected absent START ratification.
The proposed treaty is not perfect from the American perspective particularly with respect to force modernization and anti-ballistic missile system development. Objections in these areas are not figments of feverish Republican imaginations, nor are they baseless renewals of Cold War fears.
Even with the asymmetries built into the treaty, it deserves ratification. There are benefits to the US. The most important of these is the reestablishment of the inspection regime which lapsed with the expiry of the former treaty. The reduction in (to use the old Soviet term) "nuclear charges" is to the advantage of the US as well given the expense of maintaining the larger number of active and reserve "charges" and delivery systems. Provided that the current or some future administration does not use the new START as a cover for an unwillingness to pay the economic and political price of force modernization, that feature of the treaty should not serve as an obstacle.
This leaves the objections centering on ABM research, development, and deployment as a legitimate point. This point along with the very ticklish problem of theater or tactical nuclear weapons can be put to one side for the moment without the US suffering any real disadvantage over time.
This implies that most of the Republican objections are not so much rooted in the language of START as they are in a general distrust or dislike of the Russian government today. While superficially resembling the so-called "Cold War mentality" so often invoked by rhetoricians in both Beijing and Moscow, it is not the same. The distrust and dislike of Russia's government stems instead from the highly nationalistic behavior of that government coupled with the perception that the Russian government is, in fact, a non-democratic regime tainted with corrupt authoritarianism.
These perceptions are accurate. Russia is not and never has been a democracy. It is not and never has been noted for honest, transparent governance. Russia is not and never has been free of a strong authoritarian bent.
So what?
It matters not that Vladimir of the Bare Chest cannot live up to the requirements of the Boy Scout Oath. It matters not that a Russian election is not open, fair, honest. It is utterly irrelevant that corruption is rampant. It is of no consequence that the rule of law consists of whatever the Person in Charge says it is.
All that really matters is the ground truth that Russia is what it always has been--a country strongly motivated by nationalism, by the unqualified pursuit of national interest. The very fact that Russia is nationalistic to an extent that few in the American elite can comprehend is the greatest single reason in favor of ratifying START. A new treaty puts some verifiable limits on Russian expansion in the nuclear arena. It places a ring fence around nuclear deployment and the size of the ready use nuclear arsenal.
To put it in very simple words: The more nationalistic a government is, the more vital it is to put limits, verifiable limits on its actions.
While imperfect, this is what START does. It is all it does. And, doing so is very much in US interests.
This is why the Russian posture on Korea is so troublesome. By its unnecessary skewing in favor of the Chinese defined line and totally unjustifiable tilt against South Korea exercising its sovereign rights, the Kremlin may have strengthened the opposition to START. It may even have provided a political impetus or at least cover for some conservative Democrats to break with Obama administration and vote against the treaty.
If this assessment of Russian motives and goals is close to accurate, it implies something larger and more important about the current Russian leadership. The implication is both simple and alarming. The Kremlin Boys, or at least the one who counts most, Vladimir Putin, has no clear understanding of how American politics operate or how Americans at the top of the political pyramid think.
Of course, with its emphasis on the fiction of a "Rest Button," the Obama administration generally and the president in particular have done nothing to educate the Russians topside in the whys and ways of US politics. If anything the administration and president have convinced the ever-so-muscular Putin that the US has gone soft, flabby, and irresolute, and, thus, is suitable for a bit of creative bullying.
If that is the case, the Kremlin has made another serious miscalculation. One mile of bad diplomatic road almost always leads to another.
In calling for an emergency closed door UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Korean Peninsula, the Russians were doing the expectable. In the Russian condemnation of the US for not immediately convening the emergency meeting in its role as this month's chair, Moscow was doing the predictable. When Moscow called for the cancellation of the impending South Korean live fire exercises on Yeonpyeong Island, the Masters of the Kremlin went over the edge. No longer could they maintain the pretense of evenhandedness; the characterization of the military exercises as a "dangerous aggravation" demonstrates clear partisan orientation.
In so closely associating itself with China, the Russians have embarked on a risky course of diplomacy, a course with one intention which may well result in a defeat on another, far more important diplomatic front.
The Russian move is linked to the ratification of the new START pending in the Senate. As the Russians have no bull in the Korean herd unlike Beijing, the goal of their demarche in the UNSC must be that of demonstrating to the Obama administration the consequences of a failure on the part of the "US side" to ratify the treaty without further delay or modification. The Kremlin is flexing its trouble making muscles in a high profile venue to show unmistakably that there will be a price to be paid should the Republicans stall the ratification process or insist upon modifications which would necessitate reopening the entire negotiation effort.
In the present Korean context, the North Koreans continue to be very much in the wrong. Their actions, whether sinking a South Korean warship or bombarding an island located to the south of the Northern Limit Line, Pyongyang has acted contrary to the provisions of the 1953 Armistice as well as relevant international law. The South Korean responses to date including the live fire exercises have been both "restrained" (to use the favorite word of both Beijing and, now, Moscow) and completely within its rights as a sovereign state. No observer unless blinded by the requirements of ulterior motives and objectives can deny that.
In its support of South Korea, which includes a refusal to engage in a re-run of the Six Power Talks without Pyongyang making serious and severe concessions in advance, the Obama administration is on the side of the angels. To hold talks with the Hermits of the North without the Hermits first demonstrating a genuine repentance would be to reward aggression, submit to extortion, and unduly reinforce the foundations of a regime facing a possible succession crisis. It would be, in short, counterproductive and self-defeating.
The Russian leadership is not comprised of situationally naive people. Putin, Medvedev and company well understand that the US position is both realistic and justified by regional political dynamics. More than most governments, that of Russia understands the political and diplomatic games of extortion from both sides of the relationship.
So there is no direct rationale for the Russian effort to muck about in the Korean swamp. There is, however, a very powerful indirect one. The Kremlin wants the new START ratified quickly and cleanly. The Boys at the Top understand that there is a potent opposition to the new treaty within the Republicans of the Senate. Thus they are hopeful that a bit of pressure might somehow, someway, push the Obama administration into doing something to pull the Republican fangs.
It is even possible that Putin, et al may even entertain the notion that the Republicans in the Senate might get the message, might come to understand what is at risk should the new START not be ratified. If this is the case, the Geek fears they have vastly overestimated the mentality of the Republican opposition. The current exhibition of Russian intransigence is more likely to stimulate left over Cold War apprehensions regarding the intentions of the Kremlin than to serve as an example of what might be expected absent START ratification.
The proposed treaty is not perfect from the American perspective particularly with respect to force modernization and anti-ballistic missile system development. Objections in these areas are not figments of feverish Republican imaginations, nor are they baseless renewals of Cold War fears.
Even with the asymmetries built into the treaty, it deserves ratification. There are benefits to the US. The most important of these is the reestablishment of the inspection regime which lapsed with the expiry of the former treaty. The reduction in (to use the old Soviet term) "nuclear charges" is to the advantage of the US as well given the expense of maintaining the larger number of active and reserve "charges" and delivery systems. Provided that the current or some future administration does not use the new START as a cover for an unwillingness to pay the economic and political price of force modernization, that feature of the treaty should not serve as an obstacle.
This leaves the objections centering on ABM research, development, and deployment as a legitimate point. This point along with the very ticklish problem of theater or tactical nuclear weapons can be put to one side for the moment without the US suffering any real disadvantage over time.
This implies that most of the Republican objections are not so much rooted in the language of START as they are in a general distrust or dislike of the Russian government today. While superficially resembling the so-called "Cold War mentality" so often invoked by rhetoricians in both Beijing and Moscow, it is not the same. The distrust and dislike of Russia's government stems instead from the highly nationalistic behavior of that government coupled with the perception that the Russian government is, in fact, a non-democratic regime tainted with corrupt authoritarianism.
These perceptions are accurate. Russia is not and never has been a democracy. It is not and never has been noted for honest, transparent governance. Russia is not and never has been free of a strong authoritarian bent.
So what?
It matters not that Vladimir of the Bare Chest cannot live up to the requirements of the Boy Scout Oath. It matters not that a Russian election is not open, fair, honest. It is utterly irrelevant that corruption is rampant. It is of no consequence that the rule of law consists of whatever the Person in Charge says it is.
All that really matters is the ground truth that Russia is what it always has been--a country strongly motivated by nationalism, by the unqualified pursuit of national interest. The very fact that Russia is nationalistic to an extent that few in the American elite can comprehend is the greatest single reason in favor of ratifying START. A new treaty puts some verifiable limits on Russian expansion in the nuclear arena. It places a ring fence around nuclear deployment and the size of the ready use nuclear arsenal.
To put it in very simple words: The more nationalistic a government is, the more vital it is to put limits, verifiable limits on its actions.
While imperfect, this is what START does. It is all it does. And, doing so is very much in US interests.
This is why the Russian posture on Korea is so troublesome. By its unnecessary skewing in favor of the Chinese defined line and totally unjustifiable tilt against South Korea exercising its sovereign rights, the Kremlin may have strengthened the opposition to START. It may even have provided a political impetus or at least cover for some conservative Democrats to break with Obama administration and vote against the treaty.
If this assessment of Russian motives and goals is close to accurate, it implies something larger and more important about the current Russian leadership. The implication is both simple and alarming. The Kremlin Boys, or at least the one who counts most, Vladimir Putin, has no clear understanding of how American politics operate or how Americans at the top of the political pyramid think.
Of course, with its emphasis on the fiction of a "Rest Button," the Obama administration generally and the president in particular have done nothing to educate the Russians topside in the whys and ways of US politics. If anything the administration and president have convinced the ever-so-muscular Putin that the US has gone soft, flabby, and irresolute, and, thus, is suitable for a bit of creative bullying.
If that is the case, the Kremlin has made another serious miscalculation. One mile of bad diplomatic road almost always leads to another.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Resetting The "Reset" Button?
Life is getting tougher for the Guy In The Oval in the old foreign relations corral. You know matters are heading down the tubes when Afghan president Hamid Karzai demands--in the WaPo no less--that the US, in a term beloved by noted pundit Sarah Palin, "cease and desist" in executing the highly successful nighttime raids on suspected Taliban and Haqqani sites.
Admittedly this latest twist in the Saga of Hamid puts one in a position of accepting the diagnosis of manic-depressive psychosis once offered by Ambassador Eikenberry. In the real world the probability of the hours of darkness operations taken always in conjunction with Afghan National Force members being halted is somewhat less than Ron Paul voting to expand the powers of the Federal Reserve System. Hitting the heavyweights, the hard core of an insurgent group with a rapid tempo is a highly effective means of degrading both the combat efficiency and political will of the target groups.
The fact that some Afghans are bothered by the notion of women and children being rousted by Americans whose combat kit makes them look about as sympathetically human as the Imperial Stormtroops of Star Wars fame is a case of TS. A few hurt Islamic sensibilities is a small cost to pay for the prospect of genuine lowering of the violence, the blood and death which falls disproportionately on the same civilian population. Even Karzai must be aware of this governing reality and its necessary corollary: You can't be president of anything if the purveyors of violent political Islam take over or even remain as a viable, nascent threat to the Kabul regime.
The takeaway from the latest gust from the mouth of Hamid is simple: This too will pass. Swiftly.
The same realistic optimism cannot be applied to the growing frictions between the Obama administration and the Dynamic Duo in the Kremlin. The festering issue of American ratification of the pending new START is developing with the rapidity of a case of gas gangrene.
Senator Jon Kyl, (R) Arizona, who is the point man for the GOP on the START ratification, has cut Mr Obama off at the knees. Obama was so ill-advised (or so unrealistically certain of his own political juice) that he assured Russian president Medvedev that the treaty would be brought to a successful conclusion during the lame duck session. Kyl has demurred. This means the treaty in all its contentious whole will linger on until the next Congress with the increased Republican presence in the Senate.
The administration has attempted to sweeten the deal--or, more accurately--has genuflected to Republican fears that the new version of START will limit the capacity of the US to upgrade and modernize its rather elderly nuclear arsenal. The difficulty comes in that the money pledges are scheduled over a ten year period with no enforceable means of assuring that future administrations and congresses will honor the promises. Kyl and other Republicans want more money upfront so that work can be started and a dynamic created to make future funding more probable. On this the current administration has dragged its collective feet.
Overall, the new START is a decent treaty. It does, as usually has been the case in this sort of matter, give advantages to the Russians. However none of these seriously alter the balance of terror which has worked so well so long to keep the peace between Russia and the US. Ratification would provide a reasonably firm basis for other agreements on "tactical" nuclear systems, for example, or a new and more comprehensive test ban understanding. It might even serve to increase mutual confidence such as to allow the Kremlin to work with the US in the anti-ballistic missile arena. A creative and mutual understanding in this area would serve both countries' interests in a measurable way.
When the proposed treaty is finally brought to the Senate, the debate may be quite contentious. There are more than a few Republicans there who are unreconstructed Cold Warriors who seem to believe that the collapse of the Soviet Union was some sort of shrewd commie plot. There is a bit of truth here, but not in the way presumed.
Vladimir Putin shows both his age and background in his fundamental distrust of the US. The current prime minister and past (as well as possible future) Russian president is rather much of the Cold Warrior himself albeit in more nationalistic ways than his predecessors of the pre-1991 sort. That is why he has so obviously left the America brief in the hands of Medvedev. Putin anticipates failure and is not going to have the tar of catastrophe sticking to his hands. The Bare Chested Man On Horseback sees the US as the Main Enemy to this day and his attitude is not going to change for the better.
This is another good reason to ratify START. A quick and relatively low contention ratification process will weaken Putin's hold on the internal levers of power in the Kremlin coterie. The relative reduction of the power of Putin's anti-American view will enhance the possibilities of enhanced cooperation in the myriad of matters of coinciding national interest which rest on the table currently.
Putin's suspicions about and distrust of the US received a shot of steroids with the sudden, unannounced rendition of Viktor Bout by the government of Thailand. Bout, a long time international dealer in weapons whose favored customers were rogue states and insurgent or terrorist groups, was indicted for violation of US law following a Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation. Arrested in Thailand the legal wrangle was finally settled in favor of the American demand that the man be extradited for trial in the US.
When the rendition went down the Russians screamed bloody murder. It was an unusual event. Even the Russian foreign minister got into the act. Rarely, if ever, has an international criminal received such massive and vocal support from the government of a major state.
To the Russians--who had used any amount of pressure and inducement to free Bout from the clutches of the Thais--the extradition as well as the process leading to it were redolent of American arrogance, of the sort of unilateralism regularly decried by Vladimir Putin back in the days of George W. His foreign ministry and other organs of official opinion singled out the unwillingness of the American side to put its case on the table for mutual examination and joint determination. This perspective is not uniquely Russian but the passion with which it is stated is as Russian as Ivan the Terrible.
There is, of course, more than insulted Russian national ego involved in the Bout Affair. Faced with a horrific number of years as a guest of the Bureau of Prisons, there is a chance that Viktor will have an attack of the Talking Disease. Certainly there are a lot of questions the US would like to place before the one time Russian air force interpreter. We would like to know just how he got his hands on the more major weapons he peddled. And, it would be interesting to determine who authorized the use of Russian Air Force transports to carry his "private enterprise" cargo. The list goes on at some length but you get the point, eh, bucko?
Bout knows where the bodies are buried. He knows just how ranking the buried bodies are. He has a set of very good reasons to dime out anybody and everybody. This gives Viktor a great capacity to produce fear in major sections of the Russian elite both in and out of the government and military services.
Coming hard on the heels of the revelations regarding the defection of a very high ranking spook in the successor agency of Vladimir's alma mater KGB, the prospects of the damage which a fast talking Bout might do is and will cause sleepness nights in the Kremlin and its ancillaries. Both the Bout Affair and its spook community predecessor have heightened the Putin fear and loathing of the US. Any delay or modification of the proposed START ratification process will do the same only more so.
President Obama will be meeting the "good cop" of the Dynamic Duo in the context of the upcoming NATO conference at which the top topics will be Afghanistan and the (not officially of course due to Turkish sensibilities) anti-Iran missile defense system. Both subjects would be benefited greatly by Russian cooperation. At this juncture, due to the ability of Mr Obama to promise what he cannot deliver and the bonfire of the Bout Affair, this cooperation is less rather than more likely.
In terms of US national interest Medvedev is greatly to be preferred as an interlocutor over his higher profile and nominally junior prime minister, Putin. It is important, therefore, that both Mr Obama and the Republicans understand this as well as the ground truth that Russia is not going to go away. It is not and never has been--pace the unfortunate and misguided remarks and policies of George W. Bush and, later, Joe Biden--one with Nineveh and Tyre.
The Russians and the Russian leadership are both insecure and possessed of a prickly sense of national pride. In all diplomatic doings including presidential promises this foundation reality must be kept in mind. Russia is, at least in the minds of Russians high and low, a Great Power, and it is an absolute imperative that the US treat it as such in all matters, great and small. Only by doing so with the utmost of sedulousness can the US hope to accomplish critical matters of central national interest.
Admittedly this latest twist in the Saga of Hamid puts one in a position of accepting the diagnosis of manic-depressive psychosis once offered by Ambassador Eikenberry. In the real world the probability of the hours of darkness operations taken always in conjunction with Afghan National Force members being halted is somewhat less than Ron Paul voting to expand the powers of the Federal Reserve System. Hitting the heavyweights, the hard core of an insurgent group with a rapid tempo is a highly effective means of degrading both the combat efficiency and political will of the target groups.
The fact that some Afghans are bothered by the notion of women and children being rousted by Americans whose combat kit makes them look about as sympathetically human as the Imperial Stormtroops of Star Wars fame is a case of TS. A few hurt Islamic sensibilities is a small cost to pay for the prospect of genuine lowering of the violence, the blood and death which falls disproportionately on the same civilian population. Even Karzai must be aware of this governing reality and its necessary corollary: You can't be president of anything if the purveyors of violent political Islam take over or even remain as a viable, nascent threat to the Kabul regime.
The takeaway from the latest gust from the mouth of Hamid is simple: This too will pass. Swiftly.
The same realistic optimism cannot be applied to the growing frictions between the Obama administration and the Dynamic Duo in the Kremlin. The festering issue of American ratification of the pending new START is developing with the rapidity of a case of gas gangrene.
Senator Jon Kyl, (R) Arizona, who is the point man for the GOP on the START ratification, has cut Mr Obama off at the knees. Obama was so ill-advised (or so unrealistically certain of his own political juice) that he assured Russian president Medvedev that the treaty would be brought to a successful conclusion during the lame duck session. Kyl has demurred. This means the treaty in all its contentious whole will linger on until the next Congress with the increased Republican presence in the Senate.
The administration has attempted to sweeten the deal--or, more accurately--has genuflected to Republican fears that the new version of START will limit the capacity of the US to upgrade and modernize its rather elderly nuclear arsenal. The difficulty comes in that the money pledges are scheduled over a ten year period with no enforceable means of assuring that future administrations and congresses will honor the promises. Kyl and other Republicans want more money upfront so that work can be started and a dynamic created to make future funding more probable. On this the current administration has dragged its collective feet.
Overall, the new START is a decent treaty. It does, as usually has been the case in this sort of matter, give advantages to the Russians. However none of these seriously alter the balance of terror which has worked so well so long to keep the peace between Russia and the US. Ratification would provide a reasonably firm basis for other agreements on "tactical" nuclear systems, for example, or a new and more comprehensive test ban understanding. It might even serve to increase mutual confidence such as to allow the Kremlin to work with the US in the anti-ballistic missile arena. A creative and mutual understanding in this area would serve both countries' interests in a measurable way.
When the proposed treaty is finally brought to the Senate, the debate may be quite contentious. There are more than a few Republicans there who are unreconstructed Cold Warriors who seem to believe that the collapse of the Soviet Union was some sort of shrewd commie plot. There is a bit of truth here, but not in the way presumed.
Vladimir Putin shows both his age and background in his fundamental distrust of the US. The current prime minister and past (as well as possible future) Russian president is rather much of the Cold Warrior himself albeit in more nationalistic ways than his predecessors of the pre-1991 sort. That is why he has so obviously left the America brief in the hands of Medvedev. Putin anticipates failure and is not going to have the tar of catastrophe sticking to his hands. The Bare Chested Man On Horseback sees the US as the Main Enemy to this day and his attitude is not going to change for the better.
This is another good reason to ratify START. A quick and relatively low contention ratification process will weaken Putin's hold on the internal levers of power in the Kremlin coterie. The relative reduction of the power of Putin's anti-American view will enhance the possibilities of enhanced cooperation in the myriad of matters of coinciding national interest which rest on the table currently.
Putin's suspicions about and distrust of the US received a shot of steroids with the sudden, unannounced rendition of Viktor Bout by the government of Thailand. Bout, a long time international dealer in weapons whose favored customers were rogue states and insurgent or terrorist groups, was indicted for violation of US law following a Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation. Arrested in Thailand the legal wrangle was finally settled in favor of the American demand that the man be extradited for trial in the US.
When the rendition went down the Russians screamed bloody murder. It was an unusual event. Even the Russian foreign minister got into the act. Rarely, if ever, has an international criminal received such massive and vocal support from the government of a major state.
To the Russians--who had used any amount of pressure and inducement to free Bout from the clutches of the Thais--the extradition as well as the process leading to it were redolent of American arrogance, of the sort of unilateralism regularly decried by Vladimir Putin back in the days of George W. His foreign ministry and other organs of official opinion singled out the unwillingness of the American side to put its case on the table for mutual examination and joint determination. This perspective is not uniquely Russian but the passion with which it is stated is as Russian as Ivan the Terrible.
There is, of course, more than insulted Russian national ego involved in the Bout Affair. Faced with a horrific number of years as a guest of the Bureau of Prisons, there is a chance that Viktor will have an attack of the Talking Disease. Certainly there are a lot of questions the US would like to place before the one time Russian air force interpreter. We would like to know just how he got his hands on the more major weapons he peddled. And, it would be interesting to determine who authorized the use of Russian Air Force transports to carry his "private enterprise" cargo. The list goes on at some length but you get the point, eh, bucko?
Bout knows where the bodies are buried. He knows just how ranking the buried bodies are. He has a set of very good reasons to dime out anybody and everybody. This gives Viktor a great capacity to produce fear in major sections of the Russian elite both in and out of the government and military services.
Coming hard on the heels of the revelations regarding the defection of a very high ranking spook in the successor agency of Vladimir's alma mater KGB, the prospects of the damage which a fast talking Bout might do is and will cause sleepness nights in the Kremlin and its ancillaries. Both the Bout Affair and its spook community predecessor have heightened the Putin fear and loathing of the US. Any delay or modification of the proposed START ratification process will do the same only more so.
President Obama will be meeting the "good cop" of the Dynamic Duo in the context of the upcoming NATO conference at which the top topics will be Afghanistan and the (not officially of course due to Turkish sensibilities) anti-Iran missile defense system. Both subjects would be benefited greatly by Russian cooperation. At this juncture, due to the ability of Mr Obama to promise what he cannot deliver and the bonfire of the Bout Affair, this cooperation is less rather than more likely.
In terms of US national interest Medvedev is greatly to be preferred as an interlocutor over his higher profile and nominally junior prime minister, Putin. It is important, therefore, that both Mr Obama and the Republicans understand this as well as the ground truth that Russia is not going to go away. It is not and never has been--pace the unfortunate and misguided remarks and policies of George W. Bush and, later, Joe Biden--one with Nineveh and Tyre.
The Russians and the Russian leadership are both insecure and possessed of a prickly sense of national pride. In all diplomatic doings including presidential promises this foundation reality must be kept in mind. Russia is, at least in the minds of Russians high and low, a Great Power, and it is an absolute imperative that the US treat it as such in all matters, great and small. Only by doing so with the utmost of sedulousness can the US hope to accomplish critical matters of central national interest.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Another Fun War You May Have Missed
Considering all the wars of much higher profile currently underway around the world, a person may have missed the one steadily accelerating in Tajikistan. Not until eight days ago when the NYT performed its self-assigned task as "the newspaper of record," have events in the faraway Central Asian state of Tajikistan made even the smallest of blips on the Western media (and probably, political) radar scopes. The attention grabbing specific was one more exchange in the see-saw war between the central government and groups combining adherents of violent political Islam and nationalists who also are Muslims.
Tajikistan's southern border is with Afghanistan. Its eastern border is with China. To the west is Uzbekistan while the northern border is with Kyrgyzstan. Several features unite Tajikistan with its coterminous states or regions. They are all Muslim majority. They are all possessed of internal instability including violent unrest and the presence of groups advocating violent political Islam. With the exception of Afghanistan all are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO.)
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan went through five years of internal war. The war for control of the state was ethnic (usually camouflaged as "regional") between Uzbeks, who had run the place during the seventy years of Soviet overlordship, and the native Tajiks. The war ended in a peace of exhaustion which featured the appearance but not the reality of power sharing. While roughly eighty percent of the population is Tajik, these did not exercise an equivalent amount of power. Rather, it was the sixteen percent who were Uzbek who got the majority of the "say" as well as the benefits.
It is not surprising that many Tajiks did not find the settlement agreeable. Retreating to the remote, mountain ringed and almost totally isolated Rasht valley, the die hards rested and regained strength. They also gained both recruits from and combat experience in Afghanistan. For years, until May 2009, the valley was a no-go area for the central government and its army. During the years of immunity, the resting, regrouping insurgents also discovered a very prolific cash cow--establishing drug transportation routes. While the dollar amount accruing to this ever more lucrative activity cannot be estimated with any pretense of precision, there is no doubt but much, perhaps most of the morphine base flowing from Afghanistan to customers in Russia and beyond came through the friendly Rastht valley.
The Dushanbe government was under Kremlin pressure to "do something" about the embarrassing flow of drugs. To this end as well as with the expectation of speedily ending the pesky rebels, the army moved a regimental equivalent (say, 2000 men) into the valley in May 2009. It may be that the Tajik government anticipated goodies from the US and its NATO partners for playing an indirect roll in reducing the narco-trafficking from Afghanistan.
In the event, the insurgents did not pack it when the army showed its flag a year and half ago. What happened instead was a slow motion but still bloody exchange of raids and counter-raids, ambushes, snipers, vehicle bombings, and the usual accompaniment of atrocities, extra-judicial killings, and general human rights abuses. But, being remote and in part protected by the media blackout capabilities of both Russia and China, the nasty little war went unnoticed.
Then, in a dramatic change, the government opted for its own version of a war winning "surge." The surge resulted in a very dramatic culmination: On 19 September a platoon plus sized column of Tajik troops was ambushed in Komarob Gorge by forces headed by a veteran of the earlier civil war, Alovuddin Davlatov. When the bang-bang stopped, twenty-eight Tajik troopers were dead. At least twenty-five more were wounded. The insurgents took no known losses.
The government has made retaliatory raids. Small success has crowned the efforts. Effective escalation is not a viable option--unless it was underwritten by an outside power. And, this is unlikely as the only candidates, Russia and Uzbekistan, are preoccupied with internal problems such that neither would seek further complications either domestic or international.
The capacities of the Tajikistan government are limited by several very powerful constraints. The first is economic. Tajikistan is far and away the most impoverished of the states carved from the corpse of the Soviet Union. It is not a gross exaggeration to say that hunger is already stalking the land.
A second potent limitation on the government's ability to act decisively is the widespread nature of anti-government sentiment. The impoverished majority blame their situation on the government, its corruption, its inefficiency, its arrogant remoteness, and its minority nature. This combination propelled the overthrow of a seemingly well-entrenched regime in Kyrgyzstan. President Rahmon is not eager to share the same fate.
Yet another limitation arises from the low average age of the population. The median age of men in the place is under twenty-two. As history and contemporary events show clearly, it is young men who are most amenable to the appeals of true belief such as that offered by political Islam. Men of this age cohort are also afflicted with the adolescent belief in immortality and invulnerability so are perfect candidates for the excitement, challenge, and specious sense of meaning provided by war.
The US has a presence in Tajikistan which is linked to the overall infrastructure supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. So the current administration has some reason to worry about the direction of affairs in the country. So far our response to the growing problem in Tajikistan is an offer to establish an anti-terrorist training center. Beyond that there is probably a hope that no matter which way the governmental chips might fall whoever is in charge will still need the revenue provided by our base rights lease so we can afford a "what! Me, worry?" approach. (This level of non-response response is also predicated upon the Kremlin's automatic opposition to any American move which might undercut the presumed Russian preeminence in Tajikistan.)
Russia has much more to fret about, but given the failure of the Kremlin and its handpicked agents to "clarify and put to order" the Muslim insurgency in the Northern Caucasus, it has little to offer. Further, the relations between the Kremlin and Tajikistan are, to put it in polite terms, "strained."
Then there is China, China has been having more than a few problems with its homegrown advocates of violent political Islam coupled with nationalism. They have no reason to ignore a bunch of like minded Muslims next door in Tajikistan. That, after all, is one of the, more accurately, the reason behind Beijing creating the SCO. (Russia played a game of "me-too" in a defensive move protecting its privileged position in the Central Asian Republics and isn't thrilled about the SCO's existence.)
Beyond the SCO flexing its semi-mythical muscle, there is nothing real the Trolls of Beijing can do--except send money. To date the Trolls have seen no need to do this perhaps as they see Rahmon's regime as a poor investment.
Winter's winds are starting to blow from the mountains surrounding the Rasht valley. The government, having been soundly bested in its attempt to wind up the insurgency before the snow calls a time out, there is not much chance that anything spectacular will happen in the next few months. Yet, as is the case in most "time-outs" in insurgent guerrilla war, the advantage goes automatically to the insurgents. They have the greater opportunity to operate, recruit, gain resources. The government will have the time to be weakened further by the slow but sure erosion of legitimacy and support which comes with pervasive poverty and loss of confidence in the future.
Don't despair, bucko, we will be hearing and seeing a lot more from the fun little war in a very faraway place by the time the next equinox rolls around.
ADMIN NOTE Despite anti-spam comment defenses which can be frustrating the Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments.
Tajikistan's southern border is with Afghanistan. Its eastern border is with China. To the west is Uzbekistan while the northern border is with Kyrgyzstan. Several features unite Tajikistan with its coterminous states or regions. They are all Muslim majority. They are all possessed of internal instability including violent unrest and the presence of groups advocating violent political Islam. With the exception of Afghanistan all are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO.)
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan went through five years of internal war. The war for control of the state was ethnic (usually camouflaged as "regional") between Uzbeks, who had run the place during the seventy years of Soviet overlordship, and the native Tajiks. The war ended in a peace of exhaustion which featured the appearance but not the reality of power sharing. While roughly eighty percent of the population is Tajik, these did not exercise an equivalent amount of power. Rather, it was the sixteen percent who were Uzbek who got the majority of the "say" as well as the benefits.
It is not surprising that many Tajiks did not find the settlement agreeable. Retreating to the remote, mountain ringed and almost totally isolated Rasht valley, the die hards rested and regained strength. They also gained both recruits from and combat experience in Afghanistan. For years, until May 2009, the valley was a no-go area for the central government and its army. During the years of immunity, the resting, regrouping insurgents also discovered a very prolific cash cow--establishing drug transportation routes. While the dollar amount accruing to this ever more lucrative activity cannot be estimated with any pretense of precision, there is no doubt but much, perhaps most of the morphine base flowing from Afghanistan to customers in Russia and beyond came through the friendly Rastht valley.
The Dushanbe government was under Kremlin pressure to "do something" about the embarrassing flow of drugs. To this end as well as with the expectation of speedily ending the pesky rebels, the army moved a regimental equivalent (say, 2000 men) into the valley in May 2009. It may be that the Tajik government anticipated goodies from the US and its NATO partners for playing an indirect roll in reducing the narco-trafficking from Afghanistan.
In the event, the insurgents did not pack it when the army showed its flag a year and half ago. What happened instead was a slow motion but still bloody exchange of raids and counter-raids, ambushes, snipers, vehicle bombings, and the usual accompaniment of atrocities, extra-judicial killings, and general human rights abuses. But, being remote and in part protected by the media blackout capabilities of both Russia and China, the nasty little war went unnoticed.
Then, in a dramatic change, the government opted for its own version of a war winning "surge." The surge resulted in a very dramatic culmination: On 19 September a platoon plus sized column of Tajik troops was ambushed in Komarob Gorge by forces headed by a veteran of the earlier civil war, Alovuddin Davlatov. When the bang-bang stopped, twenty-eight Tajik troopers were dead. At least twenty-five more were wounded. The insurgents took no known losses.
The government has made retaliatory raids. Small success has crowned the efforts. Effective escalation is not a viable option--unless it was underwritten by an outside power. And, this is unlikely as the only candidates, Russia and Uzbekistan, are preoccupied with internal problems such that neither would seek further complications either domestic or international.
The capacities of the Tajikistan government are limited by several very powerful constraints. The first is economic. Tajikistan is far and away the most impoverished of the states carved from the corpse of the Soviet Union. It is not a gross exaggeration to say that hunger is already stalking the land.
A second potent limitation on the government's ability to act decisively is the widespread nature of anti-government sentiment. The impoverished majority blame their situation on the government, its corruption, its inefficiency, its arrogant remoteness, and its minority nature. This combination propelled the overthrow of a seemingly well-entrenched regime in Kyrgyzstan. President Rahmon is not eager to share the same fate.
Yet another limitation arises from the low average age of the population. The median age of men in the place is under twenty-two. As history and contemporary events show clearly, it is young men who are most amenable to the appeals of true belief such as that offered by political Islam. Men of this age cohort are also afflicted with the adolescent belief in immortality and invulnerability so are perfect candidates for the excitement, challenge, and specious sense of meaning provided by war.
The US has a presence in Tajikistan which is linked to the overall infrastructure supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. So the current administration has some reason to worry about the direction of affairs in the country. So far our response to the growing problem in Tajikistan is an offer to establish an anti-terrorist training center. Beyond that there is probably a hope that no matter which way the governmental chips might fall whoever is in charge will still need the revenue provided by our base rights lease so we can afford a "what! Me, worry?" approach. (This level of non-response response is also predicated upon the Kremlin's automatic opposition to any American move which might undercut the presumed Russian preeminence in Tajikistan.)
Russia has much more to fret about, but given the failure of the Kremlin and its handpicked agents to "clarify and put to order" the Muslim insurgency in the Northern Caucasus, it has little to offer. Further, the relations between the Kremlin and Tajikistan are, to put it in polite terms, "strained."
Then there is China, China has been having more than a few problems with its homegrown advocates of violent political Islam coupled with nationalism. They have no reason to ignore a bunch of like minded Muslims next door in Tajikistan. That, after all, is one of the, more accurately, the reason behind Beijing creating the SCO. (Russia played a game of "me-too" in a defensive move protecting its privileged position in the Central Asian Republics and isn't thrilled about the SCO's existence.)
Beyond the SCO flexing its semi-mythical muscle, there is nothing real the Trolls of Beijing can do--except send money. To date the Trolls have seen no need to do this perhaps as they see Rahmon's regime as a poor investment.
Winter's winds are starting to blow from the mountains surrounding the Rasht valley. The government, having been soundly bested in its attempt to wind up the insurgency before the snow calls a time out, there is not much chance that anything spectacular will happen in the next few months. Yet, as is the case in most "time-outs" in insurgent guerrilla war, the advantage goes automatically to the insurgents. They have the greater opportunity to operate, recruit, gain resources. The government will have the time to be weakened further by the slow but sure erosion of legitimacy and support which comes with pervasive poverty and loss of confidence in the future.
Don't despair, bucko, we will be hearing and seeing a lot more from the fun little war in a very faraway place by the time the next equinox rolls around.
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Friday, July 9, 2010
Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" Award IV
Once upon a time the Republican Party was noted for containing within its ranks of presidential contenders individuals who were well rooted in the realities of international politics. Even if the potential candidate himself was not intimate with the ins and outs of foreign and defense policy, he was typically well connected with those who were. And, more importantly, was willing and able to both listen and learn.
Those days are gone. Long gone.
The Republican primacy in foreign affairs died with the emergence of George W. Bush, an amateur at best in the international affairs arena. This amateur, it was hoped, would be redeemed from the worst effects of his ignorance by the presence of presumably adult supervisors such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell. As events proved, not only was George W. immune to any wise counsel which any of these men might have given, but, worse, most of the presumed adults proved to be every bit as adolescent in their approach to the world as the president.
Now, unfortunately, it appears that the Republicans have gone downhill from even the abysmal level of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years. There are no foreign policy mavens (to put it as politely as possible) among the crowd of names mentioned as possible contenders for the Republican nomination in 2012. Not a single one of the "names," not Haley Barbour, not Mitch Daniels, not Tim Pawlenty and certainly not Sarah Palin has a meaningful word one to say on matters of foreign and defense policy.
As a result of this intellectual deficit which rivals that of the US budget, it is not shocking that one time governor Mitt Romney has made an effort to portray himself as a deep thinker on defense and foreign affairs. It is this attempt which earns him a very well deserved Bugs Bunny Memorial "What a Maroon!" Award for this week.
Oh, how the editors of the WaPo must have chortled with glee when they provided the rope, er, no, the space so that Mr Romney might hang himself. On Tuesday this week the former chief executive of Massachusetts opined that the new START with Russia was President Obama's "worst foreign policy mistake."
Wowie! Zowie! That's a mouthful. The "worst" mistake? Really, now, Mr Romney, and just what do you consider the president's policy regarding the Iranian nuclear weapons project to have been? A success? A mild mistake?
Or, Mr Romney, how do you rate Mr Obama's treatment of Israel? A glittering example of creative diplomacy leading inevitably to Mideast peace? A comedy of errors? A travesty?
Then there is the small matter of Mr Obama not having either a coherent foreign policy or even the awareness that he is lacking one. Tell us, Mr Romney, from your perch high atop the foreign policy pinnacle, how do you estimate this? An oversight? A fine example of flexibility, a sort of diplomatic equivalent of evolution in action?
With blunders of the highest magnitude such as these, why pick on the one aspect of Mr Obama's Crusade For A Better, Gentler World, which is not, repeat, not a glaring error? While ReSTART is not perfect, it is a step in the correct direction--the direction of basing nuclear deterrence on a finite rather than a mutually assured destruction basis.
While it is to be expected that John Kerry disagrees most vehemently with the Romney assessment of ReSTART, it is almost a surprise that Senator Lugar does the same in words which rival--or perhaps surpass--those of Senator Kerry in vitriol. Both senators were right in their criticism of Romney--and the tone in which the criticism was delivered.
The Romney Objections to ReSTART are based on misapprehensions, misinterpretations, factual perversion, and, perhaps unintentional, mendacity. The new agreement with the Russians does not leave the US at a disadvantage. It does not place the US in a position of strategic inferiority to the Kremlin. It does not place our European allies at greater risk. And, most importantly, it does not give the Kremlin a veto power over any and all efforts we might make in the area of ballistic missile defense.
It is both appalling and a tad pathetic that a man who is generally considered to be a leading contender for the Republican nomination in two years delivered himself of such a sophomoric treatise as Mr Romney did. Considering the full panoply of foreign policy missteps, mistakes, errors, and blunders committed by the Clueless One In The Oval, there is no need to invent a blunder.
If Mr Romney does genuinely think that ReSTART is the "greatest foreign policy mistake" of the Obama administration to date, he is so out-to-lunch, so divorced from the real world, that he disqualifies himself from running for president. However, this view and its expression does earn Mitt Romney the What A Maroon! Award and that is consolation enough.
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