Russia - U.S. New Cold War ?

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Russia's aggressive moves
spark fears of a new Cold War</font size></center>

By Dave Montgomery | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Monday, September 17, 2007

WASHINGTON — Lumbering Soviet-era bombers flying far outside Russian airspace. Harsh recriminations of U.S. expansionism. The most vigorous military modernization since the fall of communism more than 15 years ago.

With his country awash in oil-generated prosperity, President Vladimir Putin is flexing Russia’s muscles in a series of unsettling reminders of the Cold War that raise the question: Just what is the former KGB spy and — by extension, Russia — up to?

While U.S. officials and Russian experts generally don’t envision a new Cold War, many believe that Putin’s recent moves are designed to assert Russia’s new vitality, create further distance from the West and re-energize the Kremlin’s influence over the vast landscape that it controlled during the Soviet era.

Now approaching his eighth and final year as Russian president, Putin, 54, has seized on every opportunity to project a tough, virile image for himself and his once-chaotic nation, including a much-publicized, shirtless stroll through a Siberian stream that revealed his muscled physique.

The overall objective, said Eugene Rumer, a Russian expert at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C, is to "show the flag" and tell the world: "We’re big boys … we are a force in the international arena and we’ll position ourselves on our own terms."

Still, to those around during "duck-and-cover" exercises, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding rants at the United Nations, some of Putin’s actions have disturbing parallels to the Cold War, which officially ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991:

_ Aerial saber-rattling: Since mid-August, Tu-95 Strategic bombers, nicknamed the "Bear," have been flying long-range missions close to NATO airspace, prompting British and Norwegian fighters to scramble into the skies to intercept and escort them away. Two Tu-95s also flew far into the Pacific, approaching U.S. airspace in Guam.

Putin ordered the patrols on Aug. 17, resuming permanent airborne security of Russia for the first time in 15 years.

_ Another arms race? Putin has approved a seven-year, $200 billion rearmament plan to revamp and modernize the military after years of decline following the collapse of the Soviet empire, including next-generation aircraft, new intercontinental missiles and a submarine base in the Pacific.

The arsenal also includes what Russia describes as the world’s most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered explosive, reputedly four times as powerful as a U.S. bomb nicknamed "the mother of all bombs." Russians call theirs "the dad of all bombs."’

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has cited the "uncertain paths" of Russia and China, as well as the two countries’ "sophisticated military modernization programs," in urging Congress to adopt President Bush’s $463.1 billion defense budget.

_ Tough talk. Pulling back from the pro-Washington embrace adopted by Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor, Putin harshly criticized the United States this year for overstepping its borders "in every way" and said that the expansion of NATO reduces "the level of mutual trust."

Denouncing U.S. intentions to base missile-defense sites in Eastern Europe, Putin has signaled Russia’s intent to increase spying abroad and to pull out of a conventional forces treaty in Europe. The Kremlin also has threatened to deploy missiles closer to Europe unless Washington abandons the missile-defense sites.

Putin sprang another surprise this week by naming Viktor Zubkov, an obscure financial regulator, as prime minister following a shakeup of the government. The selection fueled speculation that Putin, who is barred from a third consecutive term, will run for the presidency again in 2012 after four years of a caretaker president.

The Tu-95s that Putin has permanently assigned to patrol against unspecified threats against Russia are themselves lingering reminders of the Cold War.

Propelled by four-turboprop engines on swept-back wings, the Bears first entered service in 1952 and are comparable in size, shape and tenure to America’s venerable B-52, which also dates to the mid-'50s. A Russian hydrogen bomb that produced the largest manmade explosion in history was dropped from a Tu-95.

The bombers Putin dispatched are armed with missiles but not nuclear weapons, according to Russian officials. The latest Tu-95s have been upgraded with electronic intelligence and have a range of more than 8,000 miles — more than enough to reach the United States — but military analysts generally view them as an insignificant threat to this country.

"It would not have the capability to penetrate any airspace that we would not want it to penetrate," said retired four-star Gen. John T. "Jack" Chain, who commanded the Strategic Air Command from 1986 until 1991. "When it was born, it had awesome capability, but the world has changed since then."

Bush administration officials have taken a low-key approach to the flights, saying Russia has a right to conduct the patrols in international airspace and downplaying comparisons to the Cold War. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a statement to McClatchy Newspapers that the long-range missions serve "to remind us that the international security environment is complex, dynamic and uncertain."

Putin is able to finance his country’s military modernization through the oil wealth that has boosted the Russian economy by an average of 26 percent each year since 1999, reversing years of economic decline following the collapse of the Soviet state. Russia is spending about $32 billion on its military, but the expenditure is less than 3 percent of its gross domestic product and is only a fraction of the more than $400 billion spent by the United States.

Most military analysts say that the Russian military, while improving, hasn’t recovered fully from the post-Soviet decline and is still inferior to the U.S. military.

Lockheed Martin’s F-22 is superior to anything in the Russian fighter fleet and just over half of Russia's 200 bombers are "in useable condition," said Richard Aboulafia, an aircraft analyst with the Teal Group of Fairfax, Va.

But he adds: "They’ve got just enough of a strategic force to make a nuisance of themselves."

2007 McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/19744.html

 

[Obadiah Plainman]

Finally, isn't this what we've been saying for a few months now? Putin has used the choas of the past 7 years to flex while Americans weren't paying attention (outside of is Brother in Arms) . Even though the article suggest that Russia isn't close to thier cold war military strength, its good at least someone is discussing his attempts at bravado.

 

[QueEx]

The Russia Problem

The Russia Problem​

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Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
By Peter Zeihan
October 16, 2007

For the past several days, high-level Russian and American policymakers, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Russian President Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, Sergei Ivanov, have been meeting in Moscow to discuss the grand scope of U.S.-Russian relations. These talks would be of critical importance to both countries under any circumstances, as they center on the network of treaties that have governed Europe since the closing days of the Cold War.

Against the backdrop of the Iraq war, however, they have taken on far greater significance. Both Russia and the United States are attempting to rewire the security paradigms of key regions, with Washington taking aim at the Middle East and Russia more concerned about its former imperial territory. The two countries' visions are mutually incompatible, and American preoccupation with Iraq is allowing Moscow to overturn the geopolitics of its backyard.

The Iraqi Preoccupation

After years of organizational chaos, the United States has simplified its plan for Iraq: Prevent Iran from becoming a regional hegemon. Once-lofty thoughts of forging a democracy in general or supporting a particular government were abandoned in Washington well before the congressional testimony of Gen. David Petraeus. Reconstruction is on the back burner and even oil is now an afterthought at best. The entirety of American policy has been stripped down to a single thought: Iran.

That thought is now broadly held throughout not only the Bush administration but also the American intelligence and defense communities. It is not an unreasonable position. An American exodus from Iraq would allow Iran to leverage its allies in Iraq's Shiite South to eventually gain control of most of Iraq. Iran's influence also extends to significant Shiite communities on the Persian Gulf's western oil-rich shore. Without U.S. forces blocking the Iranians, the military incompetence of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar could be perceived by the Iranians as an invitation to conquer that shore. That would land roughly 20 million barrels per day of global oil output -- about one-quarter of the global total -- under Tehran's control. Rhetoric aside, an outcome such as this would push any U.S. president into a broad regional war to prevent a hostile power from shutting off the global economic pulse.

So the United States, for better or worse, is in Iraq for the long haul. This requires some strategy for dealing with the other power with the most influence in the country, Iran. This, in turn, leaves the United States with two options: It can simply attempt to run Iraq as a protectorate forever, a singularly unappealing option, or it can attempt to strike a deal with Iran on the issue of Iraq -- and find some way to share influence.

Since the release of the Petraeus report in September, seeking terms with Iran has become the Bush administration's unofficial goal, but the White House does not want substantive negotiations until the stage is appropriately set. This requires that Washington build a diplomatic cordon around Iran -- intensifying Tehran's sense of isolation -- and steadily ratchet up the financial pressure. Increasing bellicose rhetoric from European capitals and the lengthening list of major banks that are refusing to deal with Iran are the nuts and bolts of this strategy.

Not surprisingly, Iran views all this from a starkly different angle. Persia has historically been faced with a threat of invasion from its western border -- with the most recent threat manifesting in a devastating 1980-1988 war that resulted in a million deaths. The primary goal of Persia's foreign policy stretching back a millennium has been far simpler than anything the United States has cooked up: Destroy Mesopotamia. In 2003, the United States was courteous enough to handle that for Iran.

Now, Iran's goals have expanded and it seeks to leverage the destruction of its only meaningful regional foe to become a regional hegemon. This requires leveraging its Iraqi assets to bleed the Americans to the point that they leave. But Iran is not immune to pressure. Tehran realizes that it might have overplayed its hand internationally, and it certainly recognizes that U.S. efforts to put it in a noose are bearing some fruit. What Iran needs is its own sponsor -- and that brings to the Middle East a power that has not been present there for quite some time: Russia.

Option One: Parity

The Russian geography is problematic. It lacks oceans to give Russia strategic distance from its foes and it boasts no geographic barriers separating it from Europe, the Middle East or East Asia. Russian history is a chronicle of Russia's steps to establish buffers -- and of those buffers being overwhelmed. The end of the Cold War marked the transition from Russia's largest-ever buffer to its smallest in centuries. Put simply, Russia is terrified of being overwhelmed -- militarily, economically, politically and culturally -- and its policies are geared toward re-establishing as large a buffer as possible.

As such, Russia needs to do one of two things. The first is to re-establish parity. As long as the United States thinks of Russia as an inferior power, American power will continue to erode Russian security. Maintain parity and that erosion will at least be reduced. Putin does not see this parity coming from a conflict, however. While Russia is far stronger now -- and still rising -- than it was following the 1998 ruble crash, Putin knows full well that the Soviet Union fell in part to an arms race. Attaining parity via the resources of a much weaker Russia simply is not an option.

So parity would need to come via the pen, not the sword. A series of three treaties ended the Cold War and created a status of legal parity between the United States and Russia. The first, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), restricts how much conventional defense equipment each state in NATO and the former Warsaw Pact, and their successors, can deploy. The second, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), places a ceiling on the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that the United States and Russia can possess. The third, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), eliminates entirely land-based short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles, as well as all ground-launched cruise missiles from NATO and Russian arsenals.

The constellation of forces these treaties allow do not provide what Russia now perceives its security needs to be. The CFE was all fine and dandy in the world in which it was first negotiated, but since then every Warsaw Pact state -- once on the Russian side of the balance sheet -- has joined NATO. The "parity" that was hardwired into the European system in 1990 is now lopsided against the Russians.

START I is by far the Russians' favorite treaty, since it clearly treats the Americans and Russians as bona fide equals. But in the Russian mind, it has a fateful flaw: It expires in 2009, and there is about zero support in the United States for renewing it. The thinking in Washington is that treaties were a conflict management tool of the 20th century, and as American power -- constrained by Iraq as it is -- continues to expand globally, there is no reason to enter into a treaty that limits American options. This philosophical change is reflected on both sides of the American political aisle: Neither the Bush nor Clinton administrations have negotiated a new full disarmament treaty.

Finally, the INF is the worst of all worlds for Russia. Intermediate-range missiles are far cheaper than intercontinental ones. If it does come down to an arms race, Russia will be forced to turn to such systems if it is not to be left far behind an American buildup.

Russia needs all three treaties to be revamped. It wants the CFE altered to reflect an expanded NATO. It wants START I extended (and preferably deepened) to limit long-term American options. It wants the INF explicitly linked to the other two treaties so that Russian options can expand in a pinch -- or simply discarded in favor of a more robust START I.

The problem with the first option is that it assumes the Americans are somewhat sympathetic to Russian concerns. They are not.

Recall that the dominant concern in the post-Cold War Kremlin is that the United States will nibble along the Russian periphery until Moscow itself falls. The fear is as deeply held as it is accurate. Only three states have ever threatened the United States: The first, the United Kingdom, was lashed into U.S. global defense policy; the second, Mexico, was conquered outright; and the third was defeated in the Cold War. The addition of the Warsaw Pact and the Baltic states to NATO, the basing of operations in Central Asia and, most important, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine have made it clear to Moscow that the United States plays for keeps.

The Americans see it as in their best interest to slowly grind Russia into dust. Those among our readers who can identify with "duck and cover" can probably relate to the logic of that stance. So, for option one to work, Russia needs to have leverage elsewhere. That elsewhere is in Iran.

Via the U.N. Security Council, Russian cooperation can ensure Iran's diplomatic isolation. Russia's past cooperation on Iran's Bushehr nuclear power facility holds the possibility of a Kremlin condemnation of Iran's nuclear ambitions. A denial of Russian weapons transfers to Iran would hugely empower ongoing U.S. efforts to militarily curtail Iranian ambitions. Put simply, Russia has the ability to throw Iran under the American bus -- but it will not do it for free. In exchange, it wants those treaties amended in its favor, and it wants American deference on security questions in the former Soviet Union.

The Moscow talks of the past week were about addressing all of Russian concerns about the European security structure, both within and beyond the context of the treaties, with the offer of cooperation on Iran as the trade-off. After days of talks, the Americans refused to budge on any meaningful point.

Option Two: Imposition

Russia has no horse in the Iraq war. Moscow had feared that its inability to leverage France and Germany to block the war in the first place would allow the United States to springboard to other geopolitical victories. Instead, the Russians are quite pleased to see the American nose bloodied. They also are happy to see Iran engrossed in events to its west. When Iran and Russia strengthen -- as both are currently -- they inevitably begin to clash as their growing spheres of influence overlap in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In many ways, Russia is now enjoying the best of all worlds: Its Cold War archrival is deeply occupied in a conflict with one of Moscow's own regional competitors.

In the long run, however, the Russians have little doubt that the Americans will eventually prevail. Iran lacks the ability to project meaningful power beyond the Persian Gulf, while the Russians know from personal experience how good the Americans are at using political, economic, military and alliance policy to grind down opponents. The only question in the Russian mind pertains to time frame.

If the United States is not willing to rejigger the European-Russian security framework, then Moscow intends to take advantage of a distracted United States to impose a new reality upon NATO. The United States has dedicated all of its military ground strength to Iraq, leaving no wiggle room should a crisis erupt anywhere else in the world. Should Russia create a crisis, there is nothing the United States can do to stop it.

So crisis-making is about to become Russia's newest growth industry. The Kremlin has a very long list of possibilities, which includes:

• Destabilizing the government of Ukraine: The Sept. 30 elections threaten to result in the re-creation of the Orange Revolution that so terrifies Moscow. With the United States largely out of the picture, the Russians will spare no effort to ensure that Ukraine remains as dysfunctional as possible.

• Azerbaijan is emerging as a critical energy transit state for Central Asian petroleum, as well as an energy producer in its own right. But those exports are wholly dependent upon Moscow's willingness not to cause problems for Baku.

• The extremely anti-Russian policies of the former Soviet state of Georgia continue to be a thorn in Russia's side. Russia has the ability to force a territorial breakup or to outright overturn the Georgian government using anything from a hit squad to an armored division.

• EU states obviously have mixed feelings about Russia's newfound aggression and confidence, but the three Baltic states in league with Poland have successfully hijacked EU foreign policy with regard to Russia, effectively turning a broadly cooperative relationship hostile. A small military crisis with the Balts would not only do much to consolidate popular support for the Kremlin but also would demonstrate U.S. impotence in riding to the aid of American allies.

Such actions not only would push Russian influence back to the former borders of the Soviet Union but also could overturn the belief within the U.S. alliance structure that the Americans are reliable -- that they will rush to their allies' aid at any time and any place. That belief ultimately was the heart of the U.S. containment strategy during the Cold War. Damage that belief and the global security picture changes dramatically. Barring a Russian-American deal on treaties, inflicting that damage is once again a full-fledged goal of the Kremlin. The only question is whether the American preoccupation in Iraq will last long enough for the Russians to do what they think they need to do.

Luckily for the Russians, they can impact the time frame of American preoccupation with Iraq. Just as the Russians have the ability to throw the Iranians under the bus, they also have the ability to empower the Iranians to stand firm.

On Oct. 16, Putin became the first Russian leader since Leonid Brezhnev to visit Iran, and in negotiations with the Iranian leadership he laid out just how his country could help. Formally, the summit was a meeting of the five leaders of the Caspian Sea states, but in reality the meeting was a Russian-Iranian effort to demonstrate to the Americans that Iran does not stand alone.

A good part of the summit involved clearly identifying differences with American policy. The right of states to nuclear energy was affirmed, the existence of energy infrastructure that undermines U.S. geopolitical goals was supported and a joint statement pledged the five states to refuse to allow "third parties" from using their territory to attack "the Caspian Five." The last is a clear bullying of Azerbaijan to maintain distance from American security plans.

But the real meat is in bilateral talks between Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the two sides are sussing out how Russia's ample military experience can be applied to Iran's U.S. problem. Some of the many, many possibilities include:

• Kilo-class submarines: The Iranians already have two and the acoustics in the Persian Gulf are notoriously bad for tracking submarines. Any U.S. military effort against Iran would necessitate carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf.

• Russia fields the Bal-E, a ground-launched Russian version of the Harpoon anti-ship missile. Such batteries could threaten any U.S. surface ship in the Gulf. A cheaper option could simply involve the installation of Russian coastal artillery systems.

• Russia and India have developed the BrahMos anti-ship cruise missile, which has the uniquely deadly feature of being able to be launched from land, ship, submarine or air. While primarily designed to target surface vessels, it also can act as a more traditional -- and versatile -- cruise missile and target land targets.

• Flanker fighters are a Russian design (Su-27/Su-30) that compares very favorably to frontline U.S. fighter jets. Much to the U.S. Defense Department's chagrin, Indian pilots in Flankers have knocked down some U.S. pilots in training scenarios.

• The S-300 anti-aircraft system is still among the best in the world, and despite eviscerated budgets, the Russians have managed to operationalize several upgrades since the end of the Cold War. It boasts both a far longer range and far more accuracy than the Tor-M1 and Pantsyr systems on which Iran currently depends.

Such options only scratch the surface of what the Russians have on order, and the above only discusses items of use in a direct Iranian-U.S. military conflict. Russia also could provide Iran with an endless supply of less flashy equipment to contribute to intensifying Iranian efforts to destabilize Iraq itself.

For now, the specifics of Russian transfers to Iran are tightly held, but they will not be for long. Russia has as much of an interest in getting free advertising for its weapons systems as Iran has in demonstrating just how high a price it will charge the United States for any attack.

But there is one additional reason this will not be a stealth relationship.

The Kremlin wants Washington to be fully aware of every detail of how Russian sales are making the U.S. Army's job harder, so that the Americans have all the information they need to make appropriate decisions as regards Russia's role. Moscow is not doing this because it is vindictive; this is simply how the Russians do business, and they are open to a new deal.

Russia has neither love for the Iranians nor a preference as to whether Moscow reforges its empire or has that empire handed back. So should the United States change its mind and seek an accommodation, Putin stands perfect ready to betray the Iranians' confidence.

For a price.


stratfor.com

 

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Re: The Russia Problem


See Related Thread:

Endgame: American Options in Iraq
http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=191755


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Re: The Russia Problem

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The Real World Order</font size></center>



Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
Geopolitical Weekly
By George Friedman
August 18, 2008

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn’t be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end.

Those with the dream are always disappointed. The victorious coalition breaks apart. The defeated refuse to play the role assigned to them. New powers emerge that were not part of the coalition. Anyone may have ideals and visions. The reality of the world order is that there are profound divergences of interest in a world where distrust is a natural and reasonable response to reality. In the end, ideals and visions vanish in a new round of geopolitical conflict.

The post-Cold War world, the New World Order, ended with authority on Aug. 8, 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war. Certainly, this war was not in itself of major significance, and a very good case can be made that the New World Order actually started coming apart on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was on Aug. 8 that a nation-state, Russia, attacked another nation-state, Georgia, out of fear of the intentions of a third nation-state, the United States. This causes us to begin thinking about the Real World Order.

The global system is suffering from two imbalances. First, one nation-state, the United States, remains overwhelmingly powerful, and no combination of powers are in a position to control its behavior. We are aware of all the economic problems besetting the United States, but the reality is that the American economy is larger than the next three economies combined (Japan, Germany and China). The U.S. military controls all the world’s oceans and effectively dominates space. Because of these factors, the United States remains politically powerful — not liked and perhaps not admired, but enormously powerful.

The second imbalance is within the United States itself. Its ground forces and the bulk of its logistical capability are committed to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States also is threatening on occasion to go to war with Iran, which would tie down most of its air power, and it is facing a destabilizing Pakistan. Therefore, there is this paradox: The United States is so powerful that, in the long run, it has created an imbalance in the global system. In the short run, however, it is so off balance that it has few, if any, military resources to deal with challenges elsewhere. That means that the United States remains the dominant power in the long run but it cannot exercise that power in the short run. This creates a window of opportunity for other countries to act.

The outcome of the Iraq war can be seen emerging. The United States has succeeded in creating the foundations for a political settlement among the main Iraqi factions that will create a relatively stable government. In that sense, U.S. policy has succeeded. But the problem the United States has is the length of time it took to achieve this success. Had it occurred in 2003, the United States would not suffer its current imbalance. But this is 2008, more than five years after the invasion. The United States never expected a war of this duration, nor did it plan for it. In order to fight the war, it had to inject a major portion of its ground fighting capability into it. The length of the war was the problem. U.S. ground forces are either in Iraq, recovering from a tour or preparing for a deployment. What strategic reserves are available are tasked into Afghanistan. Little is left over.

As Iraq pulled in the bulk of available forces, the United States did not shift its foreign policy elsewhere. For example, it remained committed to the expansion of democracy in the former Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, to include Ukraine and Georgia. From the fall of the former Soviet Union, the United States saw itself as having a dominant role in reshaping post-Soviet social and political orders, including influencing the emergence of democratic institutions and free markets. The United States saw this almost in the same light as it saw the democratization of Germany and Japan after World War II. Having defeated the Soviet Union, it now fell to the United States to reshape the societies of the successor states.

Through the 1990s, the successor states, particularly Russia, were inert. Undergoing painful internal upheaval — which foreigners saw as reform but which many Russians viewed as a foreign-inspired national catastrophe — Russia could not resist American and European involvement in regional and internal affairs. From the American point of view, the reshaping of the region — from the Kosovo war to the expansion of NATO to the deployment of U.S. Air Force bases to Central Asia — was simply a logical expansion of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a benign attempt to stabilize the region, enhance its prosperity and security and integrate it into the global system.

As Russia regained its balance from the chaos of the 1990s, it began to see the American and European presence in a less benign light. It was not clear to the Russians that the United States was trying to stabilize the region. Rather, it appeared to the Russians that the United States was trying to take advantage of Russian weakness to impose a new politico-military reality in which Russia was to be surrounded with nations controlled by the United States and its military system, NATO. In spite of the promise made by Bill Clinton that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union, the three Baltic states were admitted. The promise was not addressed. NATO was expanded because it could and Russia could do nothing about it.

From the Russian point of view, the strategic break point was Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution came to Ukraine, the American and European impression was that this was a spontaneous democratic rising. The Russian perception was that it was a well-financed CIA operation to foment an anti-Russian and pro-American uprising in Ukraine. When the United States quickly began discussing the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, the Russians came to the conclusion that the United States intended to surround and crush the Russian Federation. In their view, if NATO expanded into Ukraine, the Western military alliance would place Russia in a strategically untenable position. Russia would be indefensible. The American response was that it had no intention of threatening Russia. The Russian question was returned: Then why are you trying to take control of Ukraine? What other purpose would you have? The United States dismissed these Russian concerns as absurd. The Russians, not regarding them as absurd at all, began planning on the assumption of a hostile United States.

If the United States had intended to break the Russian Federation once and for all, the time for that was in the 1990s, before Yeltsin was replaced by Putin and before 9/11. There was, however, no clear policy on this, because the United States felt it had all the time in the world. Superficially this was true, but only superficially. First, the United States did not understand that the Yeltsin years were a temporary aberration and that a new government intending to stabilize Russia was inevitable. If not Putin, it would have been someone else. Second, the United States did not appreciate that it did not control the international agenda. Sept. 11, 2001, took away American options in the former Soviet Union. No only did it need Russian help in Afghanistan, but it was going to spend the next decade tied up in the Middle East. The United States had lost its room for maneuver and therefore had run out of time.

And now we come to the key point. In spite of diminishing military options outside of the Middle East, the United States did not modify its policy in the former Soviet Union. It continued to aggressively attempt to influence countries in the region, and it became particularly committed to integrating Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, in spite of the fact that both were of overwhelming strategic interest to the Russians. Ukraine dominated Russia’s southwestern flank, without any natural boundaries protecting them. Georgia was seen as a constant irritant in Chechnya as well as a barrier to Russian interests in the Caucasus.

Moving rapidly to consolidate U.S. control over these and other countries in the former Soviet Union made strategic sense. Russia was weak, divided and poorly governed. It could make no response. Continuing this policy in the 2000s, when the Russians were getting stronger, more united and better governed and while U.S. forces were no longer available, made much less sense. The United States continued to irritate the Russians without having, in the short run, the forces needed to act decisively.

The American calculation was that the Russian government would not confront American interests in the region. The Russian calculation was that it could not wait to confront these interests because the United States was concluding the Iraq war and would return to its pre-eminent position in a few short years. Therefore, it made no sense for Russia to wait and it made every sense for Russia to act as quickly as possible.

The Russians were partly influenced in their timing by the success of the American surge in Iraq. If the United States continued its policy and had force to back it up, the Russians would lose their window of opportunity. Moreover, the Russians had an additional lever for use on the Americans: Iran.

The United States had been playing a complex game with Iran for years, threatening to attack while trying to negotiate. The Americans needed the Russians. Sanctions against Iran would have no meaning if the Russians did not participate, and the United States did not want Russia selling advance air defense systems to Iran. (Such systems, which American analysts had warned were quite capable, were not present in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, when the Israelis struck a nuclear facility there.) As the United States re-evaluates the Russian military, it does not want to be surprised by Russian technology. Therefore, the more aggressive the United States becomes toward Russia, the greater the difficulties it will have in Iran. This further encouraged the Russians to act sooner rather than later.

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene. The Russian message was directed against Ukraine most of all, but the Baltics, Central Asia and Belarus are all listening. The Russians will not act precipitously. They expect all of these countries to adjust their foreign policies away from the United States and toward Russia. They are looking to see if the lesson is absorbed. At first, there will be mighty speeches and resistance. But the reality on the ground is the reality on the ground.

We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don’t, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn’t absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can’t do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the Unit ed States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).

One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.

www.stratfor.com

 

[QueEx]

Re: The Russia Problem

<font size="5"><center>
Militant Possibilities on the New-Old Front</font size></center>

Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
Terrorism Weekly
September 17, 2008


By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Over the past several months we have written quite a bit about the Russian resurgence. This discussion predates Russia’s military action in Georgia. Indeed, we have discussed the revival of Russian power since at least 2005, the implications of the FSB’s return since April and the potential return of the Cold War since March.

After the Aug. 7 confrontation between Georgia and Russia and the Sept. 10 deployment of Russian strategic bombers in Venezuela, there is little doubt that Russia is reasserting itself and that we are entering a period of heightened geopolitical tension between Russia and the United States. This period of tension is, as forecast, beginning to resemble the Cold War — though as we have noted in previous analyses, the new version will be distinctly different.

It is very important to remember that while the hallmark of the Cold War was espionage, the efforts of the intelligence agencies engaged in the Cold War were far broader. Intelligence agencies like the CIA and KGB also took part in vast propaganda campaigns, sponsored coups and widely used proxies to cause problems for their opponent. Sometimes the proxies were used directly against the opponent, as with Soviet support for the North Koreans and North Vietnamese against the United States, or U.S. support of Islamist rebels in Afghanistan. In other cases, the proxies were used indirectly to cause problems for the opposing country and its allies in a broader attempt to expand or defend one side’s geographic and ideological sphere of influence. Because of this, we saw the KGB supporting Marxist insurgents from Mexico to Manila and the United States supporting anti-communist militants in places such as Nicaragua and Angola.

This history means it is highly likely that as the present period of U.S.-Russian tensions progresses, the conflict will manifest itself not only through increased espionage activity, but also in the increased use of militant proxies.

We’ve seen a steady uptick in covert intelligence activity since former KGB officer Vladimir Putin took the helm in Russia and turned Moscow’s focus back to Cold War tactics. Over the past few years we’ve witnessed, among other things, the poisoning of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and of former KGB officer and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.

With a former KGB man in charge, it is no surprise that the Russians would fall back into old habits, including the use of militant proxies. In fact, the former KGB officers who carried out the technical side of setting up relationships, establishing arms trading, etc. with these militant proxies during the Cold War now occupy critical positions in the Kremlin. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin — who has been very active in his diplomatic trips recently — used to be the KGB’s primary covert arms conduit to Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Because of these factors, much can be learned about what types of activities the Russians might engage in by reviewing Soviet activities during the Cold War.


<font size="4">Soviet Use of Militant Proxies</font size>
During the Cold War, the Soviets, like the Americans, were very busy trying to export their ideology to the rest of the world. A basic tenet of Marxist thought is that class transcends national boundaries and that the proletariat everywhere needs to be freed from the tyranny of the capitalist class. Marxist thought also holds that politics and economics are evolutionary, and that the natural evolution of societies leads to the replacement of exploitative capitalist systems with superior communist systems. Essentially, this view sees capitalism as inherently flawed and destined to destroy itself, only to be replaced by a more just and fair society. This evolutionary process can, however, be helped along by revolutionary action. Such a belief system meant that communists in places like the Soviet Union were ideologically motivated to support communist movements in other parts of the world out of communist solidarity.

This expansionist concept was captured by the anthem of the communist and socialist world, “L’Internationale.” It was widely put into action through institutions such as the Communist International, or Comintern, which was founded in 1919 and committed to using “all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State.”

From a nonphilosophical perspective, there also was much to be gained geopolitically in practical terms during the Cold War by expanding the Soviet sphere of influence and working to diminish that of the United States. Indeed, a number of geopolitical imperatives drove the conflict between Russia and the United States, and these imperatives transcended ideology. Ideology was merely an accelerant feeding the flames of a conflict spawned by geopolitics. Many key leaders on both sides of the Cold War were driven more by realpolitik than by ideology.

Operating in this atmosphere, the KGB was very busy. Inside the United States, they sought to recruit agents to provide intelligence and act as agents of influence. They also sought to encourage or fund many domestic U.S. groups that could cause problems for Washington. These groups ranged from Marxist Puerto Rican separatist groups, such as the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional and Los Macheteros, to anti-Vietnam War groups, which were responsible for much civil unrest and later spawned militant factions like the Weathermen. Files released after the fall of the Soviet Union showed that most U.S. scholars underestimated the breadth and depth of KGB efforts inside the United States.

But the extent of Soviet efforts should not have been a surprise. The KGB had a distinct advantage in this realm over the United States because of the long and very active history of Soviet intelligence agencies such as the Cheka. At a time when the U.S. government was shutting down espionage efforts because “gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail,” the Soviets’ NKVD was involved in all forms of skullduggery.

Outside the United States, the KGB was also quite busy working against U.S. interests. In addition to supporting Marxist insurgencies and sponsoring coups, the Soviets directly intervened in places like Afghanistan and Hungary to sustain communist allies who had come to power. The KGB and its very active allies, like the East German Stasi, the Cuban DGI and the Bulgarian Committee for State Security, were also very busy creating and training terrorist groups.

In a process that somewhat resembles the recruiting process used by jihadist groups, the KGB and its sister services identified likely recruits, indoctrinated them and then sent them to training camps where they received advanced training in terrorist tradecraft, including surveillance, use of small arms, bombmaking and document forgery. Some of this training occurred on military bases in East Germany or Cuba, but Marxist groups established training camps in other places, such as South Yemen, Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Iraq, Syria and Libya, where prospective recruits were taught guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism.

In the spirit of “L’Internationale,” it was not uncommon to find Japanese Red Army members living and training at a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine camp in Lebanon, or for Irish Republican Army members to teach German Red Army Faction or Italian Red Brigade members how to make improvised explosive mixtures and improvised ordnance at camps in Libya or South Yemen. Of course, while most of these groups went through ideological indoctrination, not all of them bought into it. Some of them merely tolerated the ideology as the price for access to Soviet cash, training and weapons.

Trainers from the Soviet Union, Cuba, East Germany and other countries also would visit insurgent training camps in South and Central America, Africa and Asia in their efforts to spread the armed revolution. The Cubans were very active in Latin America and the Caribbean and fairly active in Africa. They also were part of a large international arms-trafficking circle in which Soviet money was sent to Cuba, Cuban sugar was sent to Vietnam, and arms from Vietnam were sent to Latin American Marxist groups. This arms trade was not just hypothetical: In many attacks on U.S. interests or allies in South and Central America from the 1970s to the 1990s, traces conducted on U.S.-manufactured ordnance such as LAW rockets and hand grenades conclusively tied the ordnance used in the attacks to lots that were either abandoned by the United States in Vietnam, or provided to the South Vietnamese and later captured by the North Vietnamese Army.


<font size="4">Today’s Environment</font size>
Fast-forward to 2008. Russia is no longer a Soviet republic in league with a number of other communist republics. Today, Russia is technically a constitutional democracy with a semicapitalist economic system; it is no longer a model communist society or the shining light of Marxist achievement. In spite of these ideological changes, the same geopolitical imperatives that drove the Soviet Union and the United States to the Cold War are still quite real, and they are pushing these powers toward conflict. And in this conflict, the Russians will reach for the same tools they wielded so deftly during the Cold War.

In the new conflict, Russia can be expected to reach out to some of its old radical contacts across the world. Many of these contacts, like Ahmed Jabril and Sabri al-Bana (aka Abu Nidal), are now dead, and many other radicals from the 1970s and 1980s, such as Carlos the Jackal and the core members of groups ranging from the Japanese Red Army to the Greek group November 17, have been caught and imprisoned. Additionally, most of the KGB’s old contacts who remain alive and out of prison are getting on in years. This means any current Russian efforts will not focus on convincing geriatric former militants to pick up their arms once more, but instead will focus on using them to reach younger militants cut from the same cloth — militants who likely remain under the radar of Western intelligence.

The Soviet collapse and the end of its patronage system hit Marxist insurgent and militant groups very hard. Many of these groups were forced to search for alternative forms of funding and became engaged in kidnapping, narcotics trafficking and extortion. Other groups simply folded under the strain. While many of these groups were left high and dry by the demise of the Soviet Union, and while the Russians are no longer the ideological vanguard of the international Marxist movement, many remaining Marxist groups —such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the New People’s Army (NPA) in the Philippines — would certainly welcome funding, training and weapons.

In Latin America, this undoubtedly will be coordinated with the Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, who along with Bolivia appear to be replacing Cuba as Russia’s footholds in the region. In addition to reactivating contacts with the FARC and remnants of other Marxist groups in South America, we anticipate that the Russians will also step up activities with Marxist groups in Mexico. Elsewhere in North America, they could resume their support of the radical left in the United States and with radical elements of the Quebecois separatist movement in Canada.

In Eurasia and the Middle East, the places that really strike us as sites where the Russians will try to become active again are Lebanon (as we’ve discussed elsewhere) and Turkey. During the Cold War, the KGB was very involved in Turkey and supported a number of radical left-wing groups, from the rural Kurdistan Workers’ Party to the urban Dev Sol. Turkey’s left-wing community remains very active and is ripe for Russian exploitation.

We also believe the Russians can be expected to reconnect with radical left-wing groups and individuals in places like Italy and Greece, which still maintain very active such groups. Given the U.S. involvement in counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines, the Russians could also renew contact with the NPA there.

In Russia today, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stands as a model for strong authoritarian leadership emphasizing a healthy dose of nationalism and pride in one’s own nation. As such, he could appeal to a whole variety of Bolivarian movements, like those in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Furthermore, the Russians will certainly attempt to appeal to Slavic nationalism through pan-Slavic ideology, particularly in places like Bulgaria and Serbia, where there are well-organized ultranationalist movements and even political parties.

Another consideration is that ideological change in Russia could mean Moscow will reach out to radical groups that the KGB traditionally did not deal with. While many KGB officers didn’t completely buy in to communist ideology, the Communist credo did serve as both a point of attraction and a limiting factor in terms of whom the Soviets dealt with. Since the Russian state is no longer bound by Soviet ideology — it is really all about power and profit these days — that constraint is gone. The Russians are now free to deal with a lot of people and do a lot of things they could not do in Soviet times.

For example, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is very popular in Moscow and very well-connected there, as are a number of other American white nationalists. There are also close contacts between various neo-Nazi, skinhead and nationalist groups in Europe and their Russian counterparts. These contacts could be a very easy way for the Russians to make contact with and support radical elements of the far-right in places like the United States, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Germany.

There is also a distinct possibility that through their relationship with the FARC, the Russians could gain entree to open a dialogue with some of the more radical elements of the Latin American drug trafficking organizations, including the hyperviolent Mexican cartels. Even Central American drug trafficking groups like Los Kaibiles, who began life strongly anti-communist, might be willing to accept weapons and funding from “democratic” Russians. Considering that Los Kaibiles are now quite mercenary, they also just might be willing to undertake specific attacks if their price point is met. Many Russian organized criminal groups are closely linked to the Kremlin and are a tool Putin and company are already using. These groups could be used to act as an interface with organized criminal groups elsewhere.

In this new-old front, the Russian SVR’s activities will need to be studied carefully. Militant arms caches and ordnance used in attacks will need to be carefully reviewed for potential links to Russia, and potential militant training camps will need to be watched. Doing so will require quite a bit of adjustment for the U.S. intelligence community, which has spent so much effort over the past seven years focusing on the jihadist threat.

stratfor.com

Tell Stratfor what you think

`

 

[QueEx]

Re: The Russia Problem

<font size="5"><center>
Mighty Russian Black Sea fleet making waves</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Tom Lasseter
Friday, September 19, 2008


SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — As the Kremlin seeks to reassert its sphere of influence around its borders and beyond, this home port for Russia's Black Sea fleet — marooned in the south of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union — has moved to the center of tensions between Russia and U.S. allies in the region.

Some Ukrainian politicians worry that Russia will stoke anti-Western sentiments in Sevastopol and cities around it on the Crimean peninsula to create an opportunity to annex the area, the same way Moscow did with two breakaway provinces in Georgia last month, or at least use its considerable influence here to push the central government in Kiev to drop plans to join the European Union and NATO.

Either move would heighten the rising tensions between Russia and the United States, which have returned to Cold War levels over the past year.

Georgia and Ukraine, with American backing, angered the Russian leadership with their NATO aspirations. If they were to join, Russia's Black Sea coastline would be surrounded by members of the military organization.

Sergei Zayats, the administrator of Sevastopol's largest district, said he thought the Russians would be willing to resort to force to keep their ships docked in Crimea, where their fleet has operated since the 1780s. "The events in Georgia show that this may happen at any time," said Zayats, who was appointed by Kiev.

Russia has said it has no plans along those lines.

"This is a myth brought to you from other countries that Crimea will be next," Vsevolod Loskutov, the number two man in the Russian Embassy to Ukraine, told journalists last week. "Both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have repeated many times that we highlight our respect to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine."

The tension over Crimea is complicated by the intertwined histories of Ukraine and Russia.

The region belonged to Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev handed it over to Ukraine. At the time, the difference was largely semantic, but when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many in Crimea would have rather not become part of an independent Ukraine.

In interviews on the streets of Sevastopol, college students, engineers and housewives alike said they sympathized with Russia far more than with Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's pro-Western president. Any move to join NATO, they said, almost certainly would lead to a backlash.

"The majority of people here are against NATO," said Viktor Kiselyov, a local artist. "The reason is that NATO is confronting Russia, and Russia is us."

To smooth over the differences, Ukraine has allowed the region to become a semi-autonomous republic, bound by Ukrainian law but largely self-governed.

Earlier this year, Russian state news wires carried quotes by a senior member of the lower house of parliament in Moscow suggesting that Khrushchev's decision might be revisited.

"If Ukraine's admission to NATO is accelerated, Russia could raise the question of which country the Crimea should be a part of," Alexei Ostrovsky, the head of the Duma's committee on regional political affairs, was quoted as saying in April. "The Russian Federation has legal grounds to revise agreements signed under Khrushchev."

While the Russian government denies issuing passports to residents of Crimea, a tactic used in Georgia to bolster claims that the Kremlin had to save its citizens there, the prosecutor's office in Sevastopol says that an investigation that started two months ago already has found 1,500 residents with both Russian and Ukrainian passports, in violation of Ukrainian law.

Some of those passports were from the early 1990s, when the question of statehood was unclear, but others were issued during the past few years, said Alexander Rubstov, an official in the prosecutor's office, who didn't say how many passports fell into each of those categories. Rubstov said the inquiry in the city of about 430,000 residents still had a long way to go, and the numbers could rise.

Roman Zvarych, a top official in Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party, said he thought Russia had passed out "something in the neighborhood of several tens of thousands" of passports in Crimea, a charge Moscow has denied.

"What happens if in the Crimea these people carrying dual citizenship all of a sudden start saying they want to join Russia?" Zvarych asked in an interview in his Kiev office. "We would have to clamp down to ensure our territorial sovereignty."

That, he said, would give Russia an opening to exert serious diplomatic or military pressure.

By treaty, the fleet is supposed to leave Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea by 2017, but the Russian navy has shown little sign that it's planning to do so.

During a recent news media tour organized by the Kremlin, naval officers showed off ships that dated to the early 1980s and earlier, and a massive artillery battery that last fired about half a century ago. While the equipment paled in comparison with modern Western militaries, it would be more than enough to ensure that the Ukrainians couldn't force the Russians to vacate.

Giving up Crimea would "be like a defeat in battle," said Capt. Igor Dygalo, a chief navy spokesman. Rear Adm. Andrei Baranov, the deputy commander of the fleet, said his government would honor legal obligations but added that: "History can't be crossed out."

Suggestions that Ukraine may want the fleet to leave sooner — a potentially crucial step in its NATO efforts — have been ignored. Ukrainian court orders to hand over control of more than 70 lighthouses, antennae stations and navigational sites in Crimea and nearby areas also have been brushed aside.

"To draw any line here to issue an order to leave, this is very difficult," Dygalo said. "What do you expect us to say now? That we shall leave? But this is not true."

On the second day of the Kremlin media tour in Sevastopol, two Orthodox priests led a group of reporters around a church dedicated to fallen sailors from the Russian fleet. They were careful to say that Russia and the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government should live in peace and understanding.

But by the third or fourth shot of vodka during a round of toasts at lunch, Father Igor Bebin stood up and said that during the Crimean War about 150 years ago, "the West shuddered when Russia showed them the sword and the Black Sea turned red with blood."

And now, Bebin said in a thundering voice, the sword of Russia was finally shining once again. The Russian naval officers standing beside him shouted in agreement.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/52808.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: The Russia Problem

<font size="5"><center>Russian leaders talk big,
but army and economy are weak</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Tom Lasseter
September 11, 2008


MOSCOW — Russia's military is riddled with weakness. Its equipment is outdated. Its technology is decades behind the West. And its capacity for battlefield communications and intelligence gathering is terrible.

In short, Russia has a mid- to late-20th century military in a 21st century world.

That and more was revealed during Russia's war with U.S.-backed Georgia last month, when its troops routed the small Georgian army but looked woefully short of the fighting power of nations like the United States.

And to top things off, Russia's economy has recently been slammed by the double whammy of a plummeting stock market and falling currency as the effects of the global economic crunch were compounded by worried Western investors withdrawing billions of dollars in the aftermath of the Georgian war.


<font size="3">Its A Dangerous Time</font size>

Instead of pausing, the Kremlin has charged ahead, warning and threatening the United States and its allies at every turn. Brushing aside American predictions that Moscow would isolate itself from the world by invading Georgia, the Kremlin this week announced joint training exercises with Venezuela — where President Hugo Chavez is an avowed foe of U.S. policy abroad.

News on Wednesday that two nuclear-capable Russian bombers, reportedly without nuclear weapons, had landed in Venezuela punctuated both the uncertainty and the gravity of the situation: Was this just a political jab by Moscow leaders, or is the Kremlin signaling it is willing to risk a fight despite its obvious weaknesses?

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has publicly said he has no desire for conflict. Russian generals under his government's command, meanwhile, say they might target U.S. missile defense shield sites in eastern Europe with ballistic missiles.

"It's a very dangerous time," said James Townsend Jr., who from 2003 to 2006 was the director of European and NATO policy for the secretary of defense and is now director of the international security program at the Atlantic Council of the United States, a think tank. "It's made dangerous by uncertainty, it's made dangerous by the possibility of miscalculation."

Russia observers differ on the implications of the standoff.


<font size="3">Russia's Posturing; Weaknesses Revealed in Georgia</font size>

Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired Russian major general who ran a premier military think tank from 1993 to 2001, said the maneuvers by the United States and Russia after the Georgian war have been political posturing, and the idea that Russia and the West would get into an armed confrontation is "absurd."

Some pro-Western analysts, however, say that Russian leadership is testing how far it can go in reclaiming parts of the former Soviet Union, or at least reducing Western influence in the region, at a time when the United States is perceived as being weak and Europe divided. They also say the Kremlin is in danger of overplaying its hand.

During the fighting in Georgia, Russian officers in the field frequently relied on cell phones or old radios, and they were unable to establish tactical command centers close to the front. The air force and ground forces were badly out of synch, and some soldiers complained to reporters that they hadn't eaten in a few days.

Their American counterparts would have been able to quickly establish satellite uplinks, visual feeds from unmanned aerial drones — which the Russians weren't able to use at all — and real-time communications between all branches of the military.

The Soviet-designed T-72 tanks that rolled into Georgia — there were newer tanks as well, but the T-72s seemed most prominent — are prone to breaking down and are considered several rungs below American battle tanks.

"Military equipment is very old, and at the same time it's absolutely clear that Russia has no resources to change it," said Alexander Goltz, a military analyst in Moscow. "For all of the '90s we had no money to produce new military equipment ... the whole chain of subcontractors was destroyed."


<font size="3">Nuclear Parity</font size>

But former military officers, and officials connected with the Kremlin, emphasize that Russia is in the same league as America when it comes to nuclear missile stockpiles.

Pavel Zolotarev, a retired Russian major general and deputy director of a government-funded institute that studies the United States and Canada, reminded a reporter of nuclear realities.

"As far as general forces, the American army far surpasses the Russian army in terms of equipment," Zolotarev said. "An army is made up of different kinds of forces. If we compare the nuclear forces of these two sides, then we have parity. We can destroy each other five or six times."

Amid all the heated words, it's important to step back and see Russia for what it really is, said Robert Hunter, the U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Clinton and now a senior adviser at the RAND Corp.

"I don't believe that Russia is a great power again. ... Russia is Saudi Arabia with trees," Hunter said. "In reality, Russia is a second-rate military power and will be for some time."

Hunter said that to try to understand Russia's recent actions, it helps to keep in mind that it has felt besieged lately. Kremlin leaders have been unhappy about U.S. plans to build a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, and American backing for the NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia.

Given those tensions, Hunter said, the White House should allow the Kremlin some room to vent, as long as it doesn't go too far, and not provoke it toward bigger displays of military aggression.

"Most of it I would keep my mouth shut about," he said. "If they want to steer off to Venezuela, be my guest."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/52313.html

 

[thismybgolname]

Good drop.

However won't this just increase the amount that we spend on our military, making the war profiteers even happier?

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
Russians may land long-range bombers
in Venezuela, Cuba</font size><font size="4">

Russians reportedly have reached a provisional agreement
to land long-range bomber aircraft in Venezuela, an
arrangement that some analysts saw as a nuisance</font size></center>

In this photo released by the U.S. Navy, a Russian
Tupolev 95 Bear long rang bomber aircraft is seen
near the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on
Feb. 9, 2008, south of Japan. AP FILE PHOTO



Miami Herald
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
AND PHIL GUNSON
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
Sunday, March 15, 2009


CARACAS -- The Russian military has reached a contingency agreement to land long-range supersonic bomber aircraft in Venezuela, according to reports from Moscow on Saturday, which analysts cast as a nuisance rather than reason for alarm.

U.S. Defense and diplomatic officials told The Miami Herald they were aware of the report by the at-times unreliable InterFax agency but downplayed its significance.

''Our analysts weren't caught unaware and don't believe this is anything alarming,'' said Army Col. Bill Costello, spokesman for the Pentagon's Southern Command.

There was no immediate reaction from the Venezuelan government.

InterFax quoted a Russian Air Force chief, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, as saying that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had offered an island off the country's Caribbean coast as a support base for strategic Russian bombers.

Zhikharev also was quoted as saying that Soviet-era ally Cuba could be used to base the aircraft, too.


`A WHOLE ISLAND'

InterFax said Chávez had offered ''a whole island'' with an airfield that ''we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers'' -- an apparent reference to La Orchila, home to Antonio Diaz Naval Air Station, off the north-central coast.

La Orchila is Venezuela's version of Camp David, a presidential retreat used by Chávez for summits and at-times clandestine meetings. The president also was detained there, briefly, during his 2002 ouster.

While the report broke Saturday, La Orchila has been the focus of Russian interest for some time.

Venezuelan media reported in November that, while President Dmitry Medvedev toured Latin America, Russian military inspected the island's airstrip.

The two nations' navies were engaging in joint exercises at the time, a reflection of a Russian military push into the region in recent years -- mainly to sell military hardware. But U.S. officials said at the time that they were more concerned about Iran's activities in the region than Russia's.


HITTING `RESET BUTTON'

Analysts also noted the timing of Saturday's report: the United States and Russia are vying for influence in Latin America, even as the Obama administration has said it is seeking to hit the ''reset button'' on relations with the Kremlin.

InterFax quoted the Russian general as earlier saying that Cuba, too, has air bases with four or five runways long enough for the huge bombers that could host the long-range planes.

But Alexei Pavlov, a Kremlin official, told The Associated Press that ''the military is speaking about technical possibilities, that's all. If there will be a development of the situation, then we can comment,'' he said.

Defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.Org said Saturday he had no independent basis to confirm it but thought the base agreement was plausible.

''The Russians have resumed bomber and maritime reconnaissance patrols, and in the old days, they could get out of the plane and stretch their legs in Cuba before heading home,'' he said, downplaying any notion of alarm.

''In purely military terms,'' he said, ``the odds of the U.S. fighting either Venezuela or Russia are pretty low. A few bombers more or less would not make much difference, in any event.''

Analysts suggested Saturday's report from Moscow, even unconfirmed, illustrated what Pike called ``a continuing intent on the part of both countries to annoy the United States.''

Obama and Medvedev are scheduled to meet early next month on the sidelines of the G-20 economic summit in London, with the touchy topic of the need for a strategic missile shield likely on the agenda.

Meantime, Obama hosted Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Saturday -- the first Latin American head of state to be received by Obama at the White House. Lula da Silva, seen as a pragmatist, has helped soothe tensions between Washington and Caracas.

''What a coincidence that this news item should appear today, when Lula is meeting Obama,'' said Venezuelan defense and security analyst Rocio San Miguel.

The report comes at a time of growing cooperation between the Venezuelan and Russian militaries.

Russian fighter bombers have already trained with their Venezuelan counterparts and the Peter the Great, one of Russia's most powerful warships, led the joint naval exercises off Venezuela's coast in November.

Venezuelan reports said at the time that the Kremlin's air chief visited La Orchila with Russian experts and found the airstrip needed small modification to take the Tu-160 strategic bomber.

Specifically, it needed to be lengthened from 10,500 feet to 11,500. Its present length can in theory already accommodate the F-16s and Sukhois of the Venezuelan air force, if the strip is maintained for sophisticated aircraft.


ADAPTING THE AIRSTRIP

Former Venezuelan Defense Minister Raul Isaias Baduel confirmed in an interview Saturday that the airstrip could be adapted to meet Russian needs.

But he noted that such a deal was ''strictly prohibited under Article 13 of our Constitution,'' which forbids foreign powers from establishing military installations on Venezuelan soil.

An American military analyst who has studied Latin America for 20 years questioned whether the Cuban airstrips were maintained well enough to handle anything more sophisticated than cargo aircraft.

Absent details from the Kremlin, he said, the general may have exaggerated the arrangement or ``may have gotten ahead of this.''

''I would have to wait for more information or confirmation from Moscow,'' said the analyst, who was skeptical of the report and declined to comment with his name attached. ``It surprises me because we're pressing the reset button on Russian-U.S. relations and for the Russians to say this at this point seems out of whack.''

Carol Rosenberg reported from Miami and Phil Gunson from Caracas.


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/950627.html