Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-153)
PROFESSOR MARTIN
MCCAULEY,
DR ROY
ALLISON AND
DR ALEX
PRAVDA
17 MARCH 2009
Q140 Linda Gilroy: And do not work
to any international standards.
Dr Allison: No, and indeed, you
even have Shanghai Cooperation Organisation election monitors
nowadays. So you have this kind of competitive monitoring process
under way which ultimately does not tell you very much about what
is happening on the ground.
Dr Pravda: One important reason
for making the OSCE the forum of basis is precisely because Russia,
as my colleagues have pointed out, has been extremely critical
and wary of the normative mission of OSCE and they, on the other
hand, want an all-European security conference. The thing is to
match the two together. The second thing about the normative aspects
of the problem is not to take the kind of cultural, full frontal
approach of pointing out, quite rightly, that democracy in Russia
has regressed rather than developed, but to take the more rule-based
approach and to see if we can agree on a set of regulations which
they would want to observe for reasons of effectiveness, which
is becoming ever more important in the economic recession, and
working our way through what might be called, and is often called
in international analysis, a community of practice rather than
a community of values. One gets to it, I think, with Russia through
the practice to the values rather than, as it were, insisting
first and foremost on building a community of values and then
working through to other sets of relationships.
Q141 Mr Borrow: I want to come back
to the comments that Professor McCauley made, which was the concept
of a Red-Green government in Germany pushing NATO membership for
Russia. I would be all in favour of Russia becoming a member of
NATO but that would mean Russia would have to comply with the
terms and conditions involved in NATO membership. From what has
been said since that comment by Professor McCauley, I certainly
get the impression that there is little likelihood of the position
of a Red-Green government in Germany, pushing Russian membership
of NATO, actually getting anywhere because it would imply fairly
quickly that Russia would need to have significant internal changes
to its government and its structures, which is not perhaps tactically
the best way to go about things.
Professor McCauley: I would expect
a Red-Green coalition in Germany to push Russia's membership of
NATO because a Red-Green coalition would like to see the Americans
out of European security. Anti-Americanism gains votes in German
elections and Gerhard Schroeder proved that. Therefore, I would
expect them to go quite left and the policy to be very pacifist
and quite anti-American and pro-Russian and, for instance, Steinmeier,
who may become Chancellor, only addresses his comments to Medvedev
and regards him as a key decision maker and then ignores Putin.
That, of course, is technical but the Germans would argue that
case, which means that inside NATO, NATO will be to a large extent
paralysed. The new members of NATO, the Eastern European members
of NATO, would fight tooth and nail to keep Russian out of NATO
because they would see it as signing their security death warrant.
Therefore the old and new, France and Italy, may in fact have
some sympathy for the German point of view but, as you say, you
are going to be in a situation where neither side can win and
Russia would not become a member of NATO because, if that happened,
it would basically be the end of NATO, from many points of view.
In order for a member to join NATO you have to have unanimity,
and the United States would block it.
Q142 Mr Jenkin: Briefly, coming back
to this question of the Moscow sphere and the Brussels sphere,
did Brussels rather accelerate the credibility of that concept
by forcing the recognition of Kosovo?
Professor McCauley: How can it
force the recognition of Kosovo? The Russians will never recognise
Kosovo with their present regime. It is possible in years' time
when we have a totally different set of decision-makers.
Q143 Mr Jenkin: Did it not rather
encourage the Russians to say, "If you Europeans think you
can recognise what you want in the European sphere, we will recognise
what we think in our sphere"?
Professor McCauley: But if they
recognise Kosovo, they sign Kosovo away, and then you go back
to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and they have other interests.
We have not come to the risk of a conflict, say, in Crimea, over
Sevastopol. They would then want Crimea; they would like to recognise
Crimea as a sovereign state. There is no quid pro quo here.
I do not see one.
Q144 Chairman: Dr Pravda, you reacted.
Dr Pravda: Yes. I want to say
that obviously, the precedent of Kosovo, although much denounced
before the Georgian conflict, was useful as a way of justifying
recognition of those two enclaves. However, I think the notion
that Russia is going to continue this kind of wars of recognition
or conflicts of recognition and extend that to Crimea is fanciful,
and I wanted to bring up Ukraine in this regard. Ukraine is qualitatively
different from anything to do with Georgia. The relationship with
Ukraine is an absolutely existential one and here, to refer back
to our previous session, I do not think, because it is so vital
to Russia, that one can think in terms of an irretrievable breakdown
of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, whether on energy
or on other matters. I think it is something which Russia has
to manage and has to make sure that it is as stable as possible
rather than excessively destabilising what is already a fragile
situation by playing with Crimean secession. To overcome the problem
of two poles, which were pointed out as a danger within a greater
European framework, one has to again work within the process of
making quite clear the terms on which we go forward in the process,
that there is going to be no distinction within a greater European
area between spheres of influence and trying to at least weaken
the natural tendencies of poles of attraction to develop in West
and East.
Q145 Chairman: I am afraid you remind
us of how very much we have to cover and how very little time
we have to cover it in. I want to get on shortly to the issue
of Afghanistan. Professor McCauley and Dr Allison, did you want
to add anything to what has just been said?
Professor McCauley: I was just
going to say about the Moscow pole of attraction attempting to
drag in former republics of the Soviet Union. Central Asia has
no intention of becoming subservient to Moscow, nor would China
in fact really favour that. Central Asia is between Russia and
China. Turkmenistan has just signed a gas deal to run a pipeline
to Xinjiang in western China, and therefore China is economically
and politically attempting to pull Central Asia towards itself.
In the long term, I would see China winning that relationship
and Russia losing out.
Q146 Chairman: It is good that we
mention China in this discussion this morning because I think
that is the first time.
Dr Allison: The important political
background is the Russian interpretation of the Orange Revolution
in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. To the extent that
those could be accepted as political faits accomplis, then
it does allow for an easier negotiation process on the wider security
framework in Europe. To the extent that there are temptations
in Moscow to try to pursue strategies, including political strategies,
with those countries or within those countries to revise those
revolutions, as some kind of roll-back, out of a perhaps heightened
and exaggerated sense of self-confidence over Russia's rising
global status, then it becomes much more difficult. If there is
that temptation and it coexists with Russia's perception of the
European Union itself as revisionist within post-Soviet territory,
through programmes such as the European Neighbourhood Policy,
which are seen as aiming to change the previous policies increasingly
towards an EU-driven normative and political framework, it means
that there is a very sensitive political climate within which
these negotiations have to take place. I think we have to make
clear that the results of elections which are at least fairly
free and well conducted have to be respected within these states,
and that is a bottom-line consideration, and in that sense hold
Russia to its word when it says it does support democratic governance.
Chairman: We must move on to the issue
of Afghanistan.
Q147 Mr Borrow: Russia has offered
NATO some assistance in terms of transport arrangements for NATO
to get equipment, et cetera, into Afghanistan, but there is a
suspicion that that is less than wholesome help, and that it may
actually be in Russia's interests, not necessarily to see NATO
defeated in Afghanistan, but to see NATO bogged down for many
years in a conflict which seems not to end.
Professor McCauley: Dmitry Rogozin,
who is the Russian representative in NATO, stated that Russia
welcomes NATO participation and fighting in Afghanistan and hopes
that NATO will stay there but fears that they may become war-weary
and withdraw. Would Russia think that a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan
was in its interests? The answer, obviously, is no. Northern Afghanistan
had a segment which held out against the Taliban before 2001 and
it is dominated by Tajiks and Uzbeks, and my instinct tells me
that if NATO decided to give up in Afghanistan, basically from
Kabul to the South—the North is totally different—then
Russia would regard northern Afghanistan as part of its security
zone and would need to protect it against the Taliban penetrating
that region, as they did before 2001, because they fear Islamic
forces, fundamentalism, penetrating Central Asia. If that happened,
they could then penetrate the Volga, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan,
and the Caucasus and so on. They are very concerned. The Central
Asian governments, especially Uzbekistan, are very exercised by
what they call the Islamic threat and they would do everything
in their power to prevent the Taliban penetrating northern Afghanistan.
I do not think they would attempt to do anything south of Kabul
but that zone would be their perimeter. They would defend that
and so on.
Q148 Chairman: I think you answered
a different question from the one that David Borrow asked. I think
David said that there was a suggestion that Russia did not want
to see NATO withdraw, which was really what you were talking about
there, but NATO bogged down. Do you think that is what they would
be quite interested in seeing?
Professor McCauley: Yes, the danger
of being bogged down is, if you look at it from the British point
of view, you are fighting a war, you are fighting an anti-insurgency
war, you are fighting rebels, you are fighting a new type of war.
You develop high-tech weapons, drones and so on; military technology
is developed as you fight these wars and Russia has not fought
these wars. Russia has not fought a modern war since 1945, and
the technological gap between the American forces' capability
and the Russians is widening all the time. They might say it is
a good thing for NATO to be bogged down but, from the military
technical point of view, the Americans are developing all the
time. China is also very concerned about that. China does not
want to see the Taliban or Al Qaeda win in Afghanistan and in
fact, if there is a threat of the Taliban coming to the door,
they might come together with the Russians on that matter.
Dr Allison: I think there is a
quite strong tendency among Russian military officers to look
at this in terms of schadenfreude, particularly given their
woeful performance in the first Chechnya campaign and arguably
in the second. So there is that personal sense of the humiliation
they went through, which feeds into their assessment of NATO now.
But I think, more importantly, there is a concern among Russian
strategic thinkers about this as a test of NATO's globalist mission.
Afghanistan is the first fighting war in which NATO has really
put to the test its far expanded out-of-area mission objectives,
and to be seen to be successful in this in some sense, would then
encourage a direction of development of NATO which Russia sees
very much as against its interests. So something short of success
but which would still contain and manage the Taliban for a good
period of time might be seen as the preferred outcome from that
Russian perspective. However, I think there is a rising concern
that NATO simply cannot manage the scale of resistance by Taliban
and other forces within Afghanistan, that the broader destabilisation
of Central Asia is once again in prospect. Russia is looking at
developments in Pakistan now with alarm. There is not much discussion
of this but they are certainly concerned about Pakistan acting
as a hinterland, which would mean that the kind of threat that
they saw from the Taliban at the end of the 1990s would actually
be in the future on a much larger scale, much more serious potentially
for Central Asia. There are some Russian officers who simply say
now that NATO is losing in Afghanistan and should withdraw. Boris
Gromov, the last Russian commander in Afghanistan in the Soviet
period, explicitly said this recently. Russia is also exploring
the possibility of developing a more substantive, direct security
relationship with the Karzai government, which should be monitored,
as well as of developing co-operation through the Russia-dominated
Collective Security Treaty Organisation, initially on counter-narcotics
efforts but possibly there will be a range of other areas of possible
collaboration. That is not at the moment co-ordinated with NATO
in any way. I think now we should find ways to ensure that whatever
efforts are being made to a common goal are not being done wholly
independently of one another and cutting across each other.
Dr Pravda: Can I just agree with
that. There is obviously a degree of satisfaction in seeing NATO
faring with great difficulty in Afghanistan. On the other hand,
the greater problem for Russia is instability and insecurity in
the South. Were NATO to either fail or to withdraw, that would
mean that Russia would have to engage to some extent in securing
that area, either through political and economic agreements or
through—reluctantly probably—engaging military resources.
I think we ought to capitalise on this greater danger for Russia
in having yet another theatre of instability to deal with when
it does not have the resources to cope with the instabilities
and potential instabilities in Central Asia at the moment, and
to build some sort of terms of engagement to co-operate in various
ways on maintaining that as a relatively secure region for the
foreseeable future.
Q149 Mr Jenkin: So if the Western
powers invited Russia to be part of some international conference
to bring about a settlement in Afghanistan, Russia would be likely
to be a constructive player in that, in helping NATO to disengage?
Professor McCauley: I do not think
the Russians are going to take over the fighting if NATO says
this is a wonderful way of getting out of—
Q150 Mr Jenkin: No, I am not suggesting
that.
Dr Pravda: I think the answer
to the question is yes. I think Russia would try to play a constructive
role in that. I think there might be, as there has been on similar
occasions, some dubious contacts made and concerns voiced about
what games Russia is up to on the periphery but I think, generally
speaking, if it were a genuine attempt to involve Russia in some
sort of framework of stabilising and managing Afghanistan, it
would probably prove to be a constructive partner for its own
interests.
Q151 Mr Crausby: Can you say something
about the effect of the economic crisis? Is Russia more likely
to be aggressive to its neighbours as a result of the difficulties
that it is having in the economic crisis? It is probably the question
that was asked earlier: is a poor Russia more dangerous than a
prosperous Russia?
Professor McCauley: It depends.
It is in the hands, I would say, of Vladimir Putin. The economic
situation is deteriorating by the day. The Central Bank still
has considerable reserves, which will run out possibly in six
months' time or even before that. Before that happens, in order
for Vladimir Putin and the elite that forms the group which rules
Russia to stay in power, will they in fact then consider a short,
successful war to unify the nation and, if you like, militarise
the state and eliminate any opposition by saying it is anti-Russian
and anti-patriotic and so on? There is one place which is an obvious
candidate and that is Crimea, because Sevastopol is the Russian
military base they have to leave by a certain date. In Crimea,
the majority of the population is ethnic Russian and therefore
there would be a lot of support for Crimea becoming part of Russia.
That is one scenario. Then the question is, would the military
actually follow Putin in that? Would they in fact obey him? That
is impossible to say because the military reform, which has been
put on hold, which may result in 200,000-350,000 officers and
warrant officers being sacked, in a situation where the economic
situation is deteriorating, that has been put on hold. I have
been told that middle level FSB officers are also rather unhappy.
Therefore you have a scenario where, would Putin risk a military
action and would the military follow him? There were to be reductions
within the Ministry of Internal Affairs but they have been put
on hold because they expect social unrest in the summer. If you
look at the social unrest which has occurred, in Moscow they are
bringing in troops and police from outside, and in Siberia they
are bringing in troops and police from outside Siberia, because
Siberian police and military would not shoot at Siberians, their
own people. So you have a situation which could be quite volatile.
It is possible you may have a war scenario and I do not know what
the probability of that is but it is one. The other is that the
situation will deteriorate to the point where there is some kind
of coup, where Putin is removed, and then the obvious person to
play a leading role would be a military general. All we are doing
at present is guessing. There is no hard evidence one way or the
other but there are these two scenarios. The third scenario is
that you get back to 1991, that the elites cannot agree and the
state disintegrates.
Q152 Chairman: Those three are all
profoundly serious, and all within the next six months, you are
suggesting.
Professor McCauley: Yes. The military
industry is in a very bad state because they do not have any market
for their products. China has basically stopped buying Russian
military hardware because it is not good enough. They are relying
now on Israel; they get most of their military material from Israel.[3]
They have signed lots of agreements but the technology is not
very good. They have a very good agreement with Israel and they
are exporting to India and so on but, apart from that, the military
industries face tremendous problems. Russia has one-industry towns,
over 100 one-industry towns. If the one industry fails, then there
is no employment. The whole town has a problem. You can add all
these things together and you can see that within the next six
months all this could come together and cause an unprecedented
challenge, shall I say, to the Putin regime.
Dr Pravda: Could I just say that
obviously, the economic crisis has intensified the debate within
the elite about how best to respond in terms of adapting the regime.
There are people who wish to tighten controls, mainly in terms
of administrative controls. However, I do think it is alarmist
to talk in terms of the real chance of some sort of short, sharp
war to mobilise the population and increase the popularity of
a regime which cannot deliver economic performance.
Q153 Chairman: Although Professor
McCauley is not the only person talking in such terms.
Dr Pravda: I am sure he is not
but I do wish to state my opinion that I think it is alarmist
and unrealistic; a short, sharp war, particularly over Crimea,
would not be one greeted by the Russian population with great
enthusiasm. All the poll evidence shows that there is a great
deal of division of opinion on that and very small support for
any use of force to deal with Ukraine relations. There is much
more support for dealing with it through economic and political
means. The more serious problem is that yes, there are people
within the military who are dissatisfied with how they are faring.
There are budgetary cuts coming. Everyone is aware inflation plus
budgetary cuts effectively take out the real increase in military
spending, the effects of that increase, but that is something
that is felt across the board. The serious discussion is between
increasing the vertical hold of Moscow over the regions and using
administrative means to increase performance and delivery in times
of difficulties and, on the other hand, an argument put by many
people in the economic side of the administration, and some liberals
in business circles, to ease controls to try and absorb some of
the dissatisfaction, the disappointed expectations, of the Russian
population with the impact of the economic crisis. There is disappointment
and surprise, I think, among some members of the elite about the
extent to which the economic crisis has sucked them in, that they
were not immune from that crisis through lack of development of
financial institutions, by which they initially thought they might
be usefully insulated. The major thrust of debate, I think, and
what we should expect to happen is, on the one hand, greater nervousness
about social unrest, tackled in terms of administrative tightening;
on the other hand, a greater wish to get all the help they can
in terms of either economic advice or help or an engagement in
re-fashioning global economic structures, hence the proposal put
recently of their own points, on which we should get together
and reform both institutions which already exist and create new
ones. So I think the overall effect of the economic crisis on
Russia's external outlook is to be more engaged rather than less
and, to answer the precise question, to deal with their neighbours
on more strictly commercial terms, and to actually make sure that
foreign policy is cost-effective, and often cost-effective in
economic terms.
Dr Allison: One effect of the
economic downturn in Russia could be much more severe economic
circumstances in particular localities and regions which are in
themselves potentially volatile, such as the North Caucasus. As
this becomes possible, it would then, in terms of Russian official
thinking, be proper justification for a more rigorous security
regime within those areas, perhaps to introduce measures for control
which go much further than those currently existing. This in turn,
of course, would make it easier for the authorities to represent
their policy, including external policy, in a light favourable
to them and, to the extent that there is a sense of crisis which
is securitised, it then raises Prime Minister Putin's profile
because he is seen as the man who can best respond to security
crises whereas there is considerable scepticism, I feel, growing
about his ability to respond to economic and financial crises.
I do not think there is any reasonable likelihood of frictions
in Crimea deliberately being exploited to the point of a short,
sharp war. First, I do not believe that such a war could be carried
out in this kind of blitzkrieg fashion, despite the presence
of Russian forces in Sevastopol associated with the Black Sea
Fleet. And secondly, because if the objective is to bring Crimea
under some greater Russian influence, that can be done more easily
through various forms of leverage on Ukraine directly: through
relationships with politicians in Kiev, through leveraging energy
relations, as we have seen, and through taking advantage of Ukraine's
greater susceptibility to this financial crisis. However, I think
there is a significant chance that hostilities could recommence
in the South Caucasus, around South Ossetia, this spring. This
could be catalysed by events on the ground which, if they involved
Russian troops, would then provide the causus belli for
some further military action. I do not think that is the most
likely scenario but certainly I think there is a great deal of
frustration in Moscow that President Saakashvili remains politically
in power, even though there is little serious thinking about who
could replace Saakashvili, who would be more tractable from the
Russian perspective. So I think the role of the EU monitors down
in the South Caucasus is particularly important because of the
uncertain security situation around South Ossetia. Russian troops
are positioned now very close to Tbilisi and this in itself means
that political temptations could arise. I do not think such a
clash is probable but, if it did occur, it would no doubt boost
Putin's position within the power arrangements that exist in Russia.
At the same time, I think that the notion of a military coup in
Russia is fairly far-fetched because the relationships between
the political and military authorities are now significantly different
to those that existed when this possibility arose in the early
1990s and I would say possibly also in the mid-1990s. However,
reshuffling within elites is something that is perfectly possible.
In fact, as the economic crisis builds up, there will be more
intra-elite factional struggles which would involve those in senior
positions in the security services and with backgrounds in the
security services, but I think the military would be a background
influence in that kind of factional in-fighting.
Professor McCauley: I did not
want to give the impression that the military of their own accord
would intervene. The military will, of course, intervene with
the sanction of some members of the ruling elite, and that group
might then take over.
Chairman: This has been a very interesting
morning indeed, and I am particularly grateful to all the witnesses
today for not having given us lots of diplomatic-speak but telling
us the story exactly as you see it. I apologise to members of
the Committee for having cut some of them short and to our witnesses
for having cut some of the short but time constraints forced me
to do that. Thank you very much indeed. Most helpful.
3 Note by witness: Factually incorrect. Back
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