Memorandum from James Sherr
INTRODUCTION
1. In written evidence to the House of Commons
Foreign Affairs Committee in May 2007, I concluded my contribution
to a collective submission by stating, "we need to act in
ways that stimulate Russians to see their own choices clearly
and, in time, realise that the real threats to their security
are not altogether different from our own."[53]
We are further from that point than we were two years ago. The
Russia-Georgia conflict and the recent gas crisis between Russia
and Ukraine have not only exposed important differences between
us, but sharpened them.
2. We will only understand Russia's current
and potential role in issues important to UK defence interests
if we understand the perspective of Russia and the security and
defence priorities that exist there. Despite the improvement in
Russian military capabilities over the past 10 years—and
ambitions for further improvement—the military instrument
still plays a relatively modest role in realising these priorities
even where they are defence related. The UK and its NATO allies
are not alone in understanding the economic, social and political
dimensions of defence. Since President (now Prime Minister) Putin
came to office in 2000, the Russian leadership has shown much
flexibility in relating means to ends. Today Russia is pursuing
a number of classically nineteenth century aims—great power
status, diminution of the rights of small powers and the formation
of "regions of privileged interest"—and it is
doing so with a mixture of classical and twenty-first century
tools—intelligence and covert penetration, commerce and
joint ventures, "lobbying structures" and litigation,
energy and downstream investment and, in the former USSR, Russian
diasporas and other "civilisational" forms of soft power.
Today they believe that they are doing this with considerable
success.
3. At the same time, they are becoming apprehensive
about the internal condition of the country and their ability
to manage it. For historical and demographic reasons, internal
affairs are a primary security issue, not simply a political one.[54]
This is not the first time in Russian history that policy is made
by ingrown, opaque and relatively unaccountable circles of people
or that power and wealth lie in the same hands. Yet until the
onset of the financial crisis, Vladimir Putin probably enjoyed
a more sustained period of public support than any of his twentieth
century predecessors, Russian or Soviet.[55]
As one pillar of support—prosperity and "economic order"—erodes,
and as rivalry and corruption increase, the regime will be intent
to safeguard the other pillar—collective pride and respect
for Russia abroad.
4. Russian nationalism—and alongside
that, a feeling of obida [injury] at perceived humiliation
by the West—are foundations of policy that are at least
as potent as Soviet ideology had been, and these sentiments evoke
far deeper resonances in what remains a largely illiberal country
with a strongly traditional sense of its own identity and "distinctiveness".[56]
Security and identity are also entangled in the view expressed
by President Medvedev at the Valdai Club: Russia will no longer
"tolerate" the West's "unfair and humiliating"
policy in "traditional areas of interests" defined by
"shared, common history" and the "affinity of our
souls".[57]
5. This is the context that frames my answers
to the Committee's questions. That context does not exclude cooperation,
detract from the wisdom of pursuing it or diminish Russian incentives
to pursue it. But it should not lead us to presuppose ex cathedra
that economic pressure will moderate Russia's behaviour or
diminish its search for comparative advantage. Instead it should
prepare us for the certainty that Russia will, in Putin's words,
be guided by "the strict promotion of its national interests"
and the probability, in Lilia Shevtsova's words, that Russia will
continue to be "with the West and against it".
NATO AND RUSSIA
6. To the Russian military establishment—and
by now, it must be said, the overwhelming majority of the political
establishment—NATO is, almost by definition, an anti-Russian
military alliance. It is also aggressive. Claims to the contrary
are regarded as risible and insulting. These views have three
causes:
(1) The geopolitical determinism of the military
establishment which, thanks to the popularisation of the works
of Russia's traditional and neo-geopolitical theorists, has acquired
influence well beyond this narrow milieu. In the Russian understanding,
geopolitika refers not only to "struggle" between
powers, but ethnoses (civilisations). With its Darwinian
resonances, its emphasis on the "who-whom" of politics
and its "scientific" categories and idiom, geopolitics
has filled much of the intellectual vacuum created by the collapse
of Marxism-Leninism. Whereas Western security elites define threat
in terms of intention and capability, Russia's official Concept(s)
of National Security and Military Doctrine(s) define it by the
"presence" of foreign forces in areas in the vicinity
of Russian territory—whatever their ostensible purpose and
irrespective of whether the host countries have invited them or
not. Within this schema, the Russian defence perimeter
includes "former Soviet space", whether or not the countries
that inhabit this "space" agree.[58]
It is indicative of this way of thinking that at the time of the
Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts, the former Yugoslavia was described
as being "in the vicinity" of Russia's borders despite
the fact that Novorossisk, the nearest Russian city to Belgrade,
is over 1,000 miles away.
(2) The surprisingly swift disintegration
of the USSR (which most Russians believe we abetted)
and the perceived "humiliation" of the Russian Federation
at a time of ostensible partnership with the West. President
Yeltsin's initial foreign policy group and, indeed, Yeltsin himself
initially anticipated that the West would, in its own interests,
welcome Russia assuming the role of "leader of stability
and security" in the former USSR.[59]
When these assumptions fell to the ground, as they did by 1994,
so did the "romantic era" of Russian policy. If not
at that time, then with the passage of time, this partnership—and
not incidentally, the wreckage of the Soviet defence-industrial
complex—came to be seen as the fruit of a malign collusion
between actors, internal and foreign, who ruined people's lives
as well as the state. The fact that much critical Western commentary
about "Russia's retreat from democracy" coincided with
Russia's recovery—when incomes were growing and pensions
paid—has reinforced this impression, persuading Russians
that we simply prefer their country's weakness to its strength.
(3) NATO policies, well or ill-judged, that
have hardened Russian perceptions about its aims and character.
The 1999 Kosovo conflict was a turning point.[60]
Even in the eyes of Russian democrats, it removed any pretence
that NATO was a strictly defensive alliance. To the Kremlin, the
humanitarian dimension of the conflict was of no interest at all
(although Russia's media convincingly presented it as a humanitarian
catastrophe for the Serb population). To the Armed Forces, it
was clear that "[t]oday they are bombing Yugoslavia but are
aiming at Russia".[61]
The conflict was (and is) viewed as a dress rehearsal for what
NATO would subsequently do in the South Caucasus: a view that,
in the wake of the Russia-Georgia conflict they believe has been
vindicated. The second issue of moment is NATO enlargement.
NATO ENLARGEMENT
7. Russia's fundamental indictment of NATO
enlargement is tautological. Because NATO is deemed to be an anti-Russian
alliance, its expansion proves that it is aggressive in character.
For this reason, it is invariably futile to explain that the issues
addressed by NATO-Ukraine cooperation—civil-democratic control
of defence and security structures, professionalisation, transparency
in budgeting, control of dangerous technologies and weapons stocks—would
have an intrinsic importance even if Russia did not exist. Not
even handfuls of people in Russia are aware that in the Cold War
itself, NATO served additional purposes: resolving the "German
problem", overcoming national rivalries in (Western) Europe,
integrating defence and security cultures, embedding the United
States into a multilateral structure and curbing its isolationist/unilateralist
impulses. Mere handfuls of people in Russia give credence to NATO's
post-Cold War transformation. Today, virtually no one recalls
that Germany, one of the key architects of post-Cold War partnership
with Russia, was also an avid proponent of NATO's first post-Cold
War enlargement. The fact that the expansion of NATO's "zone"
has come at the invitation of others—and that Ukraine, Moldova,
Georgia and Azerbaijan have no wish to be part of Russia's "zone
of special interests"—is seen as immaterial. The fact
that NATO's model of defence reform in new member states has not
emphasised territorial defence but expeditionary capabilities
far from Europe has hardly been noticed. Anything done near Russia
is done against Russia.
8. Today this sense of aggressiveness is
reinforced by a deep sense of obman [deceit]. In February
1990 US Secretary of State James Baker gave President Gorbachev
assurances that following Germany's unification as a NATO member,
NATO would not expand east. Yet Baker's concern was to demonstrate
that the GDR was a special case and that there was no wish to
tempt other Warsaw Pact members to defect to NATO. To extrapolate
from this assurance, given at a time when the USSR, the Warsaw
Pact and their mutual security commitments were still in place,
the existence of binding undertakings in future conditions that
no participant imagined is to distort the historical record. The
September 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect
to Germany does not rule out future NATO enlargement. Four months
before, Gorbachev told President Bush that a united Germany was
"consistent with the principle that people should have the
right to choose their alliances".
9. The perception of deceit was reinforced
after the establishment of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council
as set out under the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 27 May 1997.
President Clinton's all too casual assurance that the Council
would make decisions by "consensus" led President Yeltsin
to conclude that NATO's enlargement would be compensated by a
de facto right of veto by Russia on issues that affected its interests.
Yet the text of the NATO-Russia Founding Act states the opposite:
Provisions of this Act do not provide NATO or
Russia, in any way, with a right of veto over the actions of the
other nor do they infringe upon or restrict the rights of NATO
or Russia to independent decision-making and action. They cannot
be used as a means to disadvantage the interests of other states.
The text also states that NATO and Russia will
base their relations on the following principles:
respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial
integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose
the means to ensure their own security, the inviolability
of borders and peoples' right of self-determination as enshrined
in the Helsinki Final Act and other OSCE documents.
10. But for all this, the most active phase
of hostility to NATO enlargement began with the Orange Revolution
in Ukraine in winter 2004-05. To a country schooled to believe
that "Ukraine can never stand alone"—and a political
class deeply apprehensive about the implications of Washington's
global "democracy" project—the Orange Revolution
was a Western "special operation" from start to finish.
It was instrumental in solidifying the convictions that the United
States and NATO wished to damage Russia's security, emasculate
its influence and undermine its political order. It has also had
an instrumental role in strengthening the authoritarian impulse
in Russia (inter alia, state sponsorship for paramilitary
youth organisations like Nashi that tar Putin's critics
with charges of "treason" and "Fascism").
In 2000, Putin stated that Russia "cannot live according
to the sch
ma of Western values".
If Ukraine embraces them and does so successfully, the implications
are profound. "Kyiv is the mother of Russia". Those
who believe this fear (or hope) that where Ukraine goes, Russia
can follow.
11. The new element in this matrix is the
conviction that Russia is no longer helpless. As Putin said at
Munich in February 2007, "we have a realistic sense of our
own opportunities and potential". He also had a realistic
sense that the USA and its allies had become globally overextended,
that NATO "programmes of cooperation" in Russia's "near
abroad" lacked teeth, that the weaknesses of NATO's partners
were chronic and that NATO itself was profoundly divided about
its future course. NATO hoped that the Bucharest formula—no
MAP, no timetables, but an existential commitment that "Ukraine
and Georgia will become members of NATO"—would lower
the temperature. Instead, it raised it. By then the gap between
aspirations and capability had all the appearance of bluff. In
August 2008 the bluff was called.
IMPLICATIONS OF
THE GEORGIA
CRISIS
12. Whilst Russia's political and military
leadership were aware that Georgia's armed forces were inadequately
trained and equipped for the purposes of territorial defence—and
at least partially aware that command arrangements for the US
Sustainment and Stability Operations Programme were inappropriate
for a conflict zone[62]—these
facts have not, in their eyes, absolved the United States and
NATO of complicity in President Mikheil Saakashvili's "reckless
and unprovoked aggression" of 7-8 August.[63]
Neither is the force of these charges diminished by evidence (and
the statements of several insiders) that Saakashvili was lured
into acting exactly as he did. At least two issues call for some
consideration:
13. The first is Ukraine. The view that
"Ukraine is next" is highly simplistic. The next theatre
of military conflict after the Georgia crisis is likely to be
Georgia. Crimea is not South Ossetia, and there is no conflict
between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians there. Nevertheless,
a number of issues should arouse concern: the heightened level
of activity by Russian special services since the Bucharest summit
and the apparent nature of this activity; the presence of the
Black Sea Fleet in Crimea (including Naval Infantry and intelligence
detachments) and increasing tensions surrounding the terms of
its deployment up to and beyond its stipulated withdrawal in 2017;[64]
the recent (and arguably ongoing) gas crisis and evidence that
Russia's objectives are as much geopolitical and commercial; the
tendency by Russian military professionals to underestimate Ukraine's
defence capability and resolve. Although the premeditated use
of force by Russia against Ukraine is highly improbable, the presence
of Russian forces, the vulnerabilities of Ukraine, the seeming
determination of Russian special services to exploit these vulnerabilities
and the combined pressures of the economic and energy crises present
a worrying risk of instability, miscalculation and the escalation
of disputes.
14. The second is issue is Russian military
capabilities. In January 2008 we warned, "the risk…is
not that Russia's Armed Forces repeat the follies of the 1990s
but that Russia's neighbours and NATO find themselves surprised".[65]
Our concerns then were twofold: the steady expansion of Russian
power projection capabilities for regional (intra-CIS) contingencies—including
a 25% per annum growth in nominal (15% in real) defence budgets
between 2002-05[66]—set
against complacencies generated in the West by the evident deficiencies
of Russian armed forces measured against Cold War templates.[67]
Are we at risk of further surprises? Much will depend on the conclusions
that the Russian leadership draws from: (1) the successes and
failures of military operations in Georgia; (2) the impact of
the financial crisis on Russia's defence plans, those of its neighbours
and those of their NATO allies and partners.
15. In Georgia, Russia conducted a 1940's-style
combined arms operation with 1970-80's technology. A number of
striking deficiencies emerged (eg the use of instructors as pilots,
at least one of whom, captured by Georgia was 52 years old).
In overall terms, the operation bore witness to "the pervasiveness
of corruption, the impact of demographic trends on manning and
very uneven recovery of the health and fitness of the general
population".[68]
On the other hand, the Russian counter-offensive dramatically
succeeded. It put to flight a well provisioned force armed with
more modern (if lighter) weaponry, but improperly trained and
commanded for the war it was fighting. If NATO's commitment to
rebuild Georgia's armed forces is honoured, will it take account
of these lessons, and if so, will Russia conclude that it should
not risk future adventures of this kind?
16. The financial crisis will surely put
President Medvedev under pressure to reconsider his pledge to
raise defence procurement expenditure by an order of magnitude.
Moreover, the leadership has surely noted the renewed emphasis
that NATO is placing on Article 5 contingencies. Nevertheless,
the financial crisis calls into question NATO's willingness to
match resources to these concerns, not to say commitments made
at the NATO-Ukraine Defence Ministers meeting in Tallinn last
November and the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels last
December. If the impact of the financial crisis on Russia is deep,
the impact on neighbours is dire. Ukraine is reducing its defence
budget from 2.5% of GDP to 0.85%.
17. When these uncertainties are added to
Moscow's conclusion that the war deepened the West's loss of confidence,
we would be wise to reserve judgement about what Russia will or
will not do in its "near abroad". When Russia's capacity
for special purpose operations is taken into account (including
cyber attacks, which were launched against Georgia fifteen days
before the start of military operations), our prudence should
be reinforced.
OTHER ISSUES
The NATO-Russia Council
18. The principal difference between the
NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, which became moribund from
the start of the Kosovo conflict, and the NRC (which superseded
the PJC in 2002) is that the latter envisaged involving Russia
in a range of discussions from the outset, rather than after an
Alliance consensus had been reached. During the brief post-9/11 partnership
(which operated to general satisfaction until the onset of the
Iraq war), this expectation was largely met. Cooperation was initiated
not only on global terrorism and the war in Afghanistan but a
range of other issues, including missile defence. Russia expressed
no grievances about the NRC during this period.
19. The deterioration of the relationship
since then, and especially since the coloured revolutions in Georgia
and Ukraine, has produced a more formalised atmosphere in the
Council and limited its role. Russia has periodically voiced two
criticisms: the NRC has reverted, de facto, to the PJC pattern,
whereby Russia is presented with an Alliance consensus instead
of being allowed to shape it; NATO is not prepared to discuss
serious issues. After meetings of the Council were suspended by
the Georgia war in 2008, Russia has also levelled a specific charge:
that NATO rebuffed Russia's offer to convene the Council on 8 August
after hostilities in Georgia began.
20. The first criticism has some merit insofar
as the ethos of consensus and collegiality ("habits of cooperation")
remains embedded in NATO, and Allied representatives are reticent
about airing differences that threaten Alliance cohesion in formal
NATO-Russia discussions (which is not to say that they do not
emerge in bilateral discussions with Russia). Second, NATO has
tried to focus the Council's work on practical cooperation (eg
terrorism, maritime security and, so it thought until recently,
missile defence). This means that areas of agreement receive more
attention than areas of disagreement, which when they are discussed
(as in the case of CFE), tend to reiterate differences rather
than narrow them. At a time of deteriorating relations, areas
of disagreement obviously merit more attention. The formalistic,
methodical and programmatic approach of the NATO bureaucracy—defining
objectives and monitoring their fulfilment—does not help.
It imparts an artificially technical character to intrinsically
political questions. The tendency to assess NATO-Russia cooperation
in terms of the number of "activities" planned and implemented
has added a layer of virtual reality to the relationship, persuading
some until recently that relations were considerably better than
they actually were. As a case in point, the trust developed between
technical experts in the joint working group on missile defence
left NATO poorly prepared for the Russian leadership's vehement
response to the US deployment decision.
21. Within recent months, before its formal
suspension in September 2008, Russian representatives have adopted
a more theatrical and polemical approach towards the Council,
and this has not persuaded most Allies of Russia's seriousness.
The timing of Russia's recent request to convene the NRC—only
after conflict with Georgia began—was seen in this light.
Yet it is to the credit of neither party that, during the months
after Bucharest when a crisis in Georgia was developing under
their noses, the Council was not convened to discuss what was
taking place.
US Ballistic Missile Defence
22. Despite years of joint modelling and
exercises on missile defence under the NRC, several full briefings
to Russia's military leadership, knowledge of the physics and
geography of the deployment by Russian specialists and invitations
to inspect the system's central command facilities in the United
States, Moscow has plainly decided to treat any US and NATO explanation
as null and void.[69]
There are probably three reasons for this stance:
— The view of the Russian Armed Forces—which
is not only predisposed to "worst case" thinking, but
which, by comparison to NATO militaries, attaches enormous weight
to strategic and operational deception—that the current
systems, whatever their limitations, are precursors of deployments
that will pose a direct threat to Russia's offensive capabilities—and
that these systems were chosen for this very purpose;
— Possible dividends in Europe, particularly
in Central Europe, if the USA rescinds its decision. Poland and
the Czech Republic have invested considerable political capital
in supporting the United States. A reconsideration will not only
expose governments to internal criticism but reinforce other anxieties,
post-Georgia, about the steadfastness of allies and the reliability
of NATO's security guarantees;
— Rehabilitation of the Soviet era belief
that if you pound the table long enough, it will give way.
Whether the Obama administration can square
this circle—by deferring deployment rather than cancelling
it—remains to be seen.
The CFE Treaty
23. Then President Putin's decree of 14 July
2007 suspending Russia's compliance with the 1990 Treaty
on Conventional Forces in Europe had three motivations. In ascending
order of importance:
— To signal the end of Russia's patience
after years of rejecting any linkage between its 1999 OSCE
(Istanbul) commitments to withdraw forces from Georgia and Moldova
and the coming into force of the Adapted CFE treaty;
— To widen divisions in NATO: by stigmatising
the new members who insisted on upholding the linkage with Istanbul,
by claiming that US bases in Bulgaria and Romania constituted
a breach of the treaty and by substantiating its view that US
missile defence deployments posed a threat to the entire international
arms control regime;
— To bring an end to intrusive inspections
on Russian territory, which the Armed Forces viewed as a monument
to Russia's post-Cold War "humiliation" and, in practical
terms, as a constraint on its modernisation of forces in "flank"
zones.
24. Russia's de facto withdrawal
from CFE has deprived NATO of an important window into the character
and purposes of Russian military activity in the Baltic and Black
Sea regions. Whilst "national technical means" can compensate
somewhat, intrusive inspections are a better (and more public)
indicator of the capability, character and intention of forces
(including MOD and non-MOD special purpose forces) deployed in
these critical areas, and in some circumstances, they can be an
added inhibition and constraint. Such inspections might have expanded
awareness of Russia's military preparations in the north Caucasus
at the time of Exercise Caucasus Frontier and left the Alliance
better prepared than it was for the events that took place in
August 2008. It is perhaps no coincidence that the demise of CFE
coincides with the collapse of NATO's confidence that Russia will
not employ military force against other states.[70]
Energy Security
25. Although the Committee has not asked
me to express a view about energy security, there are four reasons
for drawing the issue to its attention:
— The NATO Council's November 2006 mandate
to "consult on the most immediate risks in the field of energy
security, in order to define those areas where NATO may add value
to safeguard the security interests of the Allies";[71]
— President Putin's October 2006 declaration
that Russia's Baltic Fleet would play the leading role in the
construction, protection and environmental security of the future
Nord Stream pipeline;72
— The implications of Russia's claim to
arctic seabed resources in legally contested waters and concerns
about jurisdiction over seabed resources in the Barents Sea.
— The risk, discussed above in connection
with Ukraine, that hardship caused by supply cut-offs and price
increases can lead to armed conflict between Russia and its neighbours.
CONCLUSION
26. The deterioration of the political and
defence relationship between NATO and Russia bears witness to
the uncomfortable truth that we are rarely seen by others as we
see ourselves. NATO enlargement, military intervention in Kosovo
(and subsequent recognition of its independence), the Iraq war
(perceived by many in Russia as a NATO operation), the establishment
of military bases and facilities in former Warsaw Pact countries
and support for Mikheil Saakashvili vindicate, in Russian eyes,
four conclusions that have been germinating since the mid-1990s:
the "unipolar model" is "unacceptable", "Russia
has earned a right to be self-interested", it will "no
longer tolerate" the West's presence in its "traditional
areas of interest", and it will protect "the rights
of Russian citizens wherever they live" .
27. But whilst these points belong in the
discussion, we will forfeit all perspective if we allow them to
conclude it. Russia's prism on the world has been sharpened by
Western shortcomings and culpabilities. But it has been honed
by its refusal to accept that primacy in the former USSR and an
"equal" (veto-wielding) role in Europe can only have
legitimacy on the basis of consent. Contrary to Western hopes,
Russia's post-2000 recovery has stimulated a search for primacy
by other means: some novel, some traditional, many damaging. Western
missteps in themselves are not responsible for this mindset or
the problems it has generated. The most disturbing features of
this mindset—a Darwinian view of the world, a conspiratorial
view of politics, distrust of outsiders and the belief that every
disagreeable thing they do is really aimed at Russia—are
not only damaging to others, but to Russia. The West will neither
improve matters by preaching and self-righteousness, nor will
it do so by abandoning its convictions and its friends.
28. The seriousness and complexity of the
difficulty are such as to render Cold War approaches ("containment")
counterproductive—worse still, provocative—and post-Cold
War approaches ("engagement") feeble. We need instead
to invest in the tools that will secure in place of containment,
restraint and in place of engagement, influence. Many of them
will fall outside the ambit of defence policy. Yet within the
broad confines of defence, several requirements should frame discussion:
— The need for an integrated, ongoing assessment
of the interest and capabilities that Russia might have to challenge
UK/NATO interests, as well as an assessment of the tools required
to discourage or respond to such challenges. Expertise about Russia
needs to be enhanced and expanded across relevant government departments
(which today must include financial authorities, customs and police).
— The grotesquely overdue need to eliminate
the barriers that still inhibit NATO and the EU from working together
to realise joint security tasks;
— A fresh examination of where and how
NATO and Russia might cooperate in our mutual interest—but
not on the basis of deals damaging to third parties. To this end,
we should be prepared to depart from our established routines
and consider new approaches, so long as we are exacting and scrupulous
in teasing out the substance. Even where there are common interests
(eg, Iran's nuclear programme), we should expect Russia to fit
them into its own scheme of priorities (eg, friendship with Iran),
and even where cooperation is successful, we should not confuse
it with good will.
Ditto principles:
— Improvement in our relations with Russia
will be illusory and short-lived if it comes at the expense of
other core interests in East-Central Europe and the Black Sea/Caspian
regions;
— Toughness without strength is imprudent.
Demands that cannot be enforced ("Russia must withdraw its
troops from South Ossetia!") arouse as much contempt as meekness.
Russia respects (pace Lenin) the "unity of words,
organisation and action".
— NATO must rebuild its influence in the
region, not by discussing enlargement but by addressing the vulnerabilities
of partners and strengthening their capabilities and self-confidence.
The correct response to Putin's question, "what is the West?"
is to show that, whatever it is, it is not leaving. The approach
taken at the Tallinn and Brussels meetings of NATO is the right
one, but it needs to be backed by action.
— The costs of closing NATO's door will
be as dear as the costs of premature enlargement. NATO must remain
an alliance based upon capacity, shared interests and common values.
If it forfeits that principle, it forfeits influence over countries
that are intemperate as well as apprehensive. If we thereby persuade
Russia that bullying works and that "zones of interest"
can be formed against the interests of the countries that reside
in them, then we should not be surprised by what Russia does.
By abandoning its principles, NATO also puts at risk its own inner
cohesion and possibly its survival. To assume that the closing
of NATO's door will not affect "stability and security"
in Europe would be very far-fetched indeed.
23 February 2009
53 Conflict Studies Research Centre, Advanced Research
and Assessment Group, UK Defence Academy, "Material Offered
in Evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee",
May 2007, pg 6. Although this was a collective submission, the
quotation is drawn from the summary, which I had prepared. Back
54
Lenin's axiom, that "there is no greater nonsense than the
separation between foreign and internal policy" has been
shared by every one of his successors. Back
55
Until recently, Putin's approval rating has been 70% or higher.
Whilst opinion polling is well developed in today's Russia, the
measures of public support in the Soviet period were of necessity
more circumstantial, anecdotal and subjective. Back
56
According to a poll by VTsIOM [All-Russian Centre for the Study
of Public Opinion] published on 16 March 2007, a plurality
of respondents (45%) took the view that Russia was a "distinctive
Eurasian civilisation". Back
57
President Medvedev's lunch with the Valdai Club on 12 September
2008 at which I was present. Back
58
Deputy Foreign Minister Fedor Shelov-Kovedyayev, Strategy and
Tactics of Russian Foreign Policy in the New Abroad [Strategiya
i taktika vneshney politiki Rossii v novom zarubezh'ye], September
1992. Back
59
As a CSRC colleague and I wrote in April 1999, "[t]he most
serious consequence of the Kosovo crisis is likely to be the legitimisation
of anti-Western perspectives which Russia's moderates have thus
far kept under control…. In the worst, but far from implausible
case that an anti-Western leadership comes to power [after Yeltsin],
four axes of breakout would arouse interest: (1) 'reviving Russia'
by a 'strong', regulated economic policy and by a stronger and
larger 'Slavic core' (to Ukraine's possible peril); (2) a serious
long-term commitment to revive Russia's military power; (3) the
Balkans, where 'intelligence struggle' will be enlisted to undermine
Western allies and clients; (4) a search for 'strategic partnerships'
with India, China and possibly Arab countries and Iran".
"Russian and Ukrainian Perceptions of Events in Yugoslavia",
Conflict Studies Research Centre, RMA Sandhurst, 25 April
1999. Back
60
Red Star [Krasnaya Zvezda], April 1999. Along similar
lines, Lieutenant General Leonid Ivashov, then Head of the MOD's
International Cooperation Directorate, told the Russian channel
NTV, "[i]f the world community swallows this large-scale
aggression, this barbarity, then it is today difficult to say
who will be next, but there will be a state that is going to be
next in line without fail". Back
61
This was a small command (subordinate to a lieutenant colonel),
providing training for unit level (as opposed to combined arms)
"crisis response operations" in multi-national peace-keeping
operations rather than territorial defence. As I have written
elsewhere, "Georgia's vulnerability and importance, its mercurial
leadership, the presence of US forces and the precariousness of
the post-Bucharest security environment called for high level
coordination and direction. There was none". Back
62
At the Valdai Club lunch on 12 September, President Medvedev
claimed that Saakashvilli acted on instructions from abroad. Back
63
Tensions considerably heightened by the employment of Sevastopol-based
surface units in the Georgia conflict. Back
64
James Sherr, Russia and the West: A Reassessment,
The Shrivenham Papers No 6, p. 27 (Defence Academy
of the United Kingdom, January 2008). Back
65
To which one must also add the budgets of military forces outside
the subordination of the Ministry of Defence, which perform a
number of highly critical roles. In 2003 Putin trebled the
budget of the Federal Security Service. Whereas the defence (MOD)
budget is officially 2.8% of the whole (higher than NATO's 1.8%
average, but only 13% of the US budget in absolute terms), independent
Russian experts estimate the burden at 10-30% of GDP, depending
on whether or not non-MOD structures are included. Jan Leijonhielm,
Jan T Knopf, Robert L Larsson, Ingmar Oldberg, Wilhelm Unge, Carolina
Vendil Pallin, Russian Military Capability in a 10-Year Perspective:
Problems and Trends in 2005, p 7, 11 (Stockholm: Swedish
Defence Research Agency (FOI), Division for Defence Analysis,
FOI Memo 1396, June 2005). Back
66
Indicative of this complacency is the critical and highly effective
role in the Georgia crisis played by Russia's Black Sea Fleet,
whose capabilities were poorly regarded in the West. Back
67
James Sherr, op cit., p. 27. Back
68
When Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Anatoliy
Nogovitsyn was asked at the Valdai Club on 13 September to
explain how missiles cited in Poland and the Czech Republic could
possibly intercept Soviet ICBMs on their distant trajectory, he
replied that "it is obvious to any thinking person that the
only purpose of these weapons is to undermine the Russian strategic
deterrent and the international arms control regime". Back
69
It is possibly no exaggeration to say that this collapse of confidence
marks the end of an era launched by Mikhail Gorbachev with the
declaration (in the June 1987 Warsaw Pact military doctrine)
that "military force in present conditions can no longer
be used to resolve political problems". Back
70
Riga Summit Declaration, 29 November 2006, paragraph 45. Back
71
"We are going to involve and use the opportunities afforded
by the navy to resolve, environmental, economic and technical
problems. Nobody has better means to control and check the bottom
[of the Baltic Sea]…. All of this incorporates a few new
yet absolutely crucial directions for the navy's activities."
[emphasis added] Cited in Robert L Larsson, Nord Stream, Sweden
and Baltic Sea Security (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research
Agency (FOI), March 2007. Back
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