<tit>
CLOUDS ON THE BORDER AGAIN?
<aut>Yuri Kotenok
<src>Schit i Mech, No 2, January 14 - 20, 2006, p. 3
<sum>A roundtable conference on "foreign military bases near the Russian borders" took place.</sum>
<cov>A ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE ON "FOREIGN MILITARY BASES NEAR THE RUSSIAN BORDERS"
<itl>The roundtable conference on "Foreign military bases near the Russian borders" was attended by: Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Duma; Nikolai Bordyuzha, General Secretary of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization; Nikolai Leonov, member of the International Affairs Committee of the Duma; Leonid Ivashov, Vice President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems.
<par>Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Duma
Kosachev: When we discuss foreign military presence or specifically foreign military bases close to the Russian borders, I believe it is correct to ask the following question: exactly what are we apprehensive about? A direct military threat in the adjacent areas or expansion of the influence wielded by the structures like NATO or countries like the United States in the regions where Russia has its own interests to promote? That's a principal question. As I see it, deployment of foreign military bases close to the Russian borders - be they bases of foreign states or international structures - does not pose any new military threat to Russia. From this standpoint, presence or absence of military bases close to the borders or at some distance is an importantant but not a decisive factor influencing the outcome of military conflicts.
I'm convinced therefore that the military bases in question do not pose a direct threat to Russia at this point.
<par>Leonid Ivashov, Vice President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems
Ivashov: January 4, 2005. Addressing the US Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "We will deliver preemptive strikes both at the countries that pose a threat to the United States and the states that may come to pose such a threat in the future." That means absolutely any foreign country. The doctrine of preemptive strikes was adopted. Next will be the doctrine of preemptive nuclear strikes - again, at any country that may eventually come to pose a threat to the United States. The US National Strategy of Security the US Congress adopted in 2005, defines the objective of the American military-political strategy as "safe access of the United States to key regions of the world, strategic routes of communications, and global resources"...
<par>Nikolai Leonov, member of the International Affairs Committee of the Duma
Leonov: I'm under the impression that the United States is truly interested in having military bases abroad.
It's a specific mentality of the American establishment we are dealing with. In December 2001, in a thoroughly ungainly manner and situation through exchange of diplomatic notes the United States finagled a way into Central Asia and secured permission to deploy troops in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The matter then concerned the war on terrorism, the deployment was thought to last but a year or so. Well, the Americans will never leave them of their own volition, not unless they are told to get out. Do the bases in question serve the purpose of the war on terrorism? Surely not! When the Americans bring up the matter of AWACS flights from the territory of Kyrgyzstan, what does the war on terrorism have to do with it? AWACS are strategic intelligence gathering platforms. Or when the matter of having heavy bombers of the US AF land in Uzbekistan is brought up... When the Americans build underground bunkers, outfit them with sophisticated radio gear, and gather intelligence data... it does not have anything to do with terrorists. The United States has forgotten all about the previously proclaimed functions.
The Caspian hollow and Central Asia are the second most important oil-bearing region in the world. Oil resources of the Persian Gulf will be depleted sooner or later. Economists say that 4 billion barrels of oil will be produced in 2015, in the region where the bases we are discussing here are located, and oil is something the Americans will fight anyone for, anytime. Because the Western civilization does not have any future without oil from the Persian Gulf or oil from the Caspian hollow; that is why they will hold on to the Caspian region no matter what.
The United States is actually after global control over oil resources. The Americans build up their already colossal military might. What for? To secure their political influence on the global scale and to secure their own economic future, and that is openly acknowledged. The doctrine of American intelligence services states that "80% of the intelligence resources are concentrated on securing American companies' leadership in the world."
<par>Nikolai Bordyuzha, General Secretary of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization
Bordyuzha: There are several myths concerning military bases. One of them stipulates that the bases are actually objects needed for the war on trafficking, terrorism, and illegal immigration. These myths do not have anything to do with actual state of affairs or intentions.
Bases as such are but an element of military infrastructure set up by a state intent on accomplishing its objectives in the given region. The danger is rooted in the fact that precisely such an infrastructure is being formed around Russia, slowly and under various pretexts. Airfields in the Baltic States are being rebuilt, storage facilities and radars constructed, the so-called Caspian Guard formed allegedly to protect pipelines... Every one of these elements may be used in military operations. The question is if there is a country anywhere with which we suppose we may have an armed conflict in the foreseeable future? I do not think that there is such a state.
<par>Leonov
Leonov: The American operation against international terrorism in Afghanistan, the one the bases in Central Asia were established for in the first place, resulted in transformation of Afghanistan under the American aegis into a global center of drug production and export. Moreover, American officials would not do anything to check production of drugs in Afghanistan. It is via Central Asia that most drugs are smuggled into Russia. Washington's behavior is amazing. Where Latin America is concerned, the United States is doing everything to suppress drug production - it provides subsidies, allocate helicopters, train specialists. In other words, the Americans fighting this threat in their own backyard. Over here, on the other hand, they connive with it. Instead of the danger posed by terrorism, we encountered the danger posed by the unchecked flow of drugs. Our federal structures say that the deaths of OD's tripled and quadrupled after the withdrawal of Russian border guards from the Tajik-Afghani border... The Americans have aircraft and helicopters; they could easily pinpoint poppy fields in Afghanistan. Nothing of the sort is being done. Drugs are weapons of mass destruction born in the period of a fictitious war on international terrorism.
<par>Kosachev
Konstantin Kosachev: Should Ukraine ever become a NATO country, the Alliance will apparently be seriously tempted to deploy its bases there... If we want to promote our own interests, instead of applying military, economic, or political pressure we should concentrate on design and invention of mechanisms of cooperation with Russia that will make it worthwhile and attractive to Ukraine. I do not believe it is impossible, you know.
<tit>
CENTRAL ASIA: NOBODY WANTED TO WIN<stl>No serious geopolitical players are prepared to shoulder responsibility for the region as such
<aut>Aleksei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center
<src>Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 16, 2006, pp. 9, 12
<sum>Moscow, Beijing, and Washington are after clout with Central Asia without being in any way responsible for the region.</sum>
<cov>RUSSIA, CHINA, AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE WAR OVER CLOUT WITH CENTRAL ASIA
One hears a lot of speculations nowadays on the so-called "second big-time game over Central Asia" played by Russia, China, and the United States. In fact, this is the game put into motion back in the early 1990's, and that matter does not concern the triangle formed by Russia, China, and the United States alone. At the very least, we are dealing with a square where part of the fourth side is being played by the countries of the region.
Whoever is trying to sort out the maze or the tangle of the situation should assume as a given that the game in question is not confrontationist by nature. Yes, there is rivalry in it but there also is the undeniable desire for cooperation and reasons for this cooperation. At the very least, it will not hurt to consider trafficking everyone would like to be made history or at least see it weakened. This is a sphere where interests of different involved parties overlap - say, the interests of the Americans vainly trying to check the growth of trafficking in Afghanistan and those of Russia which is a trafficking bridge to Europe.
There is also the problem of the lack of stability ascribed to existence of religious extremism in the region. Let us not overestimate the strength of the local Islamists. Left to their own devices, they cannot orchestrate an Islamic revolution. Meanwhile, they can rock the boat - and do - and of course, they are ever ready to participate in all and any social conflict.
One also hears every now and then that the so-called caliphate in the Ferghana Valley with its population of 10 million (should it ever be established) may become an instrument in the hands of the United States that may be used against China. Still, this is rather a specter impossible at least in the next several years.
Neither is any serious competition in the military-political sphere possible. China does not even contemplate the idea. The steps the United States is taking in this sphere hardly constitute an integral strategy. Russia looks particularly impressive from this standpoint: it retained and even solidified its positions with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and even proclaimed plans last autumn to form a powerful army group in the region. Presence like that implies certain obligations.
Striving to boost its military-political presence in Central Asian countries, Russia automatically becomes responsible for their future or, to be more exact, for the future of the ruling regimes there.
At the very least, Moscow will be held responsible for Kyrgyzstan which is slated to face a lot of adventures yet and for Uzbekistan with which in November 2005, it signed a treaty on relations of allies (its Articles 3 and 4 all but permitting Russian interference in domestic conflicts in this country).
There is no saying at this point if Russia is up to the role of guarantor...
China meanwhile shirks any such responsibility, disassociating itself from all internal conflicts.
As for the Americans, they are waiting. Their activeness - and money allocated for the region - are parceled out. One gets the impression every now and then that the Americans were all too happy to withdraw from their base in Khanabad, Uzbekistan. Neither does the process of orange revolutions that seems to have been tabled until a more convenient moment excite them any more.
The consensus between Russia, China, and the United States is based on acknowledgement on their part of the assumption that not one of these countries will become the sole patron in the region, with all other rivals ousted for good.
This assumption is even tacitly acknowledged by the local regimes who find it possible - to the extent of their own aspirations - to interact with any of the three partners without fearing to jeopardize its relations with the other two. There are lots of examples of these multi-vectored orientations to illustrate the point.
On July 5, 2005, summit of the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation advised countries of the counter-terrorism coalition in Afghanistan to withdraw their bases from Central Asia. The matter concerned American military presence on the Kyrgyz airfield Manas. The Americans had already been told to vacate Khanabad by then. The new Kyrgyz administration, however, chose not to drive the allies out particularly since they had been paying Bishkek $52 million in rent and $10 million more as gratis assistance in military development. Moscow, the capital that was truly elated when the US Army was ousted from Uzbekistan, understood and did not object.
Needless to say, there is discord every now and then. It is common knowledge for example that China aspires for domination in the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation. Russia cannot help recognizing it or the validity of these claims. It is extremely difficult for it to find its rightful niche in the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation or accept the role of China's underling. When in October 2005, Beijing offered $900 million for loans to solvent members of the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation (Central Asian countries, that is), Russia could not applaud this magnanimous gesture. It rightfully viewed it as an increase of China's informal status of leader. Moscow voted against the Chinese idea of a regime of free trade in Central Asia knowing all too well that it would knock down the last barriers to the expansion of cheap Chinese goods into the vast Central Asian market.
The Chinese expansion that has not even begun yet will continue as long as the volcano of the Chinese economic reforms keeps erupting. Everyone will feel a complex of inferiority across the border from so an exceptional neighbor - exceptional in size and ethnic mass. Russia certainly feels it, with its population in the Urals and Far East being under 30 million. Kazakhstan in its turn is irked by the fact that the Chinese diaspora in it is already estimated at 100,000 men, and - furthermore - by the fact that the Chinese eagerly marry Kazakh girls. Some local ethnologists call it a beginning of "orientalization"...
As things stand, rivalry in the region is mostly reduced to competition for control over energy resources and pipelines. Kazakhstan, the country with the 13th largest (or the 11th already) reserves of oil, is in the center of all intrigues. Approximately 60 million tons of oil is produced there nowadays, and plans are charted to produce 100 million tons by 2010-2012, and 150 million tons by 2015. Sure, the Persian Gulf has more oil than that. But first, work on new oil wells is currently on everyone's agenda. Second, it is precisely the Kazakh oil that may make the Baku-Tbilisi-Dzheikhan pipeline worthwhile (these days, it is a project more political than economic). And third, China is extremely interested in the Kazakh oil because its own oil stocks at this rate may be depleted in 13 years.
Moreover, China's activeness in Kazakhstan is gaining momentum with each passing day. The Chinese National Oil Corporation has invested nearly $10 billion in Kazakhstan since 1997.
Russia's positions in Kazakhstan are fairly solid too. The Kazakh oil is being exported via Russia and particularly by the pipeline of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium where Russia plays the instrumental role.
As for the United States, promotion of its interests makes it worried by Chinese expansion rather than by Russia's traditionally stable positions in Kazakhstan. The impression is that the Americans are biding time, waiting to say their say when the moment is ripe.
World powers' interest in Kazakh oil offers it considerable room for economic and, more importantly, political maneuvering and choice of partners for negotiations over cooperation.
To a certain extent, similar conduct is affected by Turkmenistan, a country with 2% of the world known reserves of natural gas. Meanwhile, its capacities in this sphere are severely restricted since Beijing's and Washington's interest in the Turkmen gas is affected by a whole number of reason technological difficulties of transportation being not the least of them. For the time being, Moscow is Ashkhabad's major partner abroad.
It was already mentioned in this article that a square with Central Asian countries themselves playing the part of one side is the most suitable geopolitical figure for the region. On the other hand, this particular side takes the form of a dotted line as it is composed of several "national cuts".
Purely Central Asian cooperation is practically nonexistent. Only mixed international organizations (Shanghai Organization of Cooperation, Eurasian Economic Cooperation, CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization) are viable and only because every one of them includes a foreign country serving as a magnet or center of attraction. It follows that integration of Central Asia is only possible when pressure in this direction is applied from within.
In the foreseeable future at least, nobody will be able to claim the whole region for its own. There will be competition and there will be cooperation. Provisional mini-coalitions will take shape and fall apart, the system of counterbalances seeing to it. Russia may count on a worthy place in this framework. Its clout with the region is stable because - at the very least - both China and the United States are interested in having it stable. Moscow only has to decide to what extent its relations with Central Asian partners should be based on market principles and to what on a friendly basis.
The last point: new players are coming into the Central Asian region. Europe is one. It is only proclaiming its intentions with regard to the region but that it is prepared to start promoting it is beyond doubt. There is also Tokyo that suggested interaction by the formula Japan + Central Asia back in 2003. Last but not the least, there is the Moslem world whose intervention may send a lot of plans down the drain...
<tit>
THE FLICKERING CONFLICT<aut>Tomofei Borisov
<src>Rossiiskaya Gazeta (Moscow), January 16, 2006, pp. 1, 2
<sum>The yalta beacon, which Ukraine recently seized, is part of the navigation security system. This means that Russian warships cannot navigate at sea without this beacon.</sum>
<cov>WHO WILL USE THE YALTA BEACON?
Does the Russian Black Sea Fleet need the tower on the hill, which consumes a low amount of energy every night?
There are radio beacons and satellite positioning… Anyway, do captains care who switches on the beacon every evening - Russia or Ukraine?
It turns out that it's not as simple. Naval specialists said that the control over the beacon is a very important thing for the Navy. This is an opportunity to operate in the sea at night. The beacon is part of the navigational security system. This means that Russian warships cannot navigate at sea without this beacon.
The Yalta beacon is part of the joint hydrographic system. If the beacon does not work, warships have problems with positioning.
If Ukraine takes over and switches off the remaining beacons, it will be very difficult for Russian warships to put out to sea. It turns out that the Russian Black Sea fleet will not be able to operate at night. (…)
Ukraine states that the Russian military did not sign agreements with the Yalta port, the Transportation Ministry and the Ukrainian property foundation. This is why the beacon belongs to Ukraine. Ukraine stated that it plans to repair the beacon and equip it with the most up-to-date hardware, which will ensure security in this region. The Russian military do not believe these statements. They note that the beacon is a sophisticated technical system, which can only be controlled by skilled specialists who currently do not have access to the hardware. Ukraine does not have such specialists and money, which is why the beacon has been working automatically for several days. The Russian military state that if the situation does not improve the beacon will soon cease to function. (…)
<par>Direct speech
<itl>Igor Dygalo, aide to the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy:
The official agreement on the partition of the Black Sea fleet includes Supplement No. 2, which mentions the Yalta beacon under the Ya-13 code. The Yalta beacon has the status of a military object of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Russia pays rent for the beacon.
The beacon can work automatically for some time. However, the expensive system requires regular maintenance. As far as Russia's debt for electricity is concerned, this is not a sufficient reason to seize the object. This is an unfriendly act.
<tit>RUSSIA IS GOING TO END MILITARY TECHNOLOGICAL COOPERATION WITH IRAN
Russia ends military cooperation with Iran. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that the contract for supplies of Tor-M1 air defense systems to Iran would be fulfilled but export of S-300 systems was not planned. Purchase of Tors without S-300 is pointless.
Ivanov said, "Contracts regarding these systems (Tor-M1) is not connected and cannot be connected with the problem of the "nuclear dossier" of Tehran." According to the minister, the contract signed in December of 2005, with Iran for supply of Tor-M1 close-range air defense systems will be fulfilled. He adds that the contract complies with "all norms of international law, as well as laws of Russia and Iran." Ivanov stresses, Tor-M1 is a defensive weapon that "cannot attack ground targets by definition." Along with this, Ivanov denies the information that Russia and Iran are negotiating on supplies of S-300 air defense missile systems to this country.
The statements of Sergei Ivanov released on January 13, can be considered as an intention of Russia to end military technological cooperation with Iran.
Experts believe that it is not logical to buy Tor-M1 without S-300.
Alexander Khramchikhin, expert of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, comments, "The air defense systems Tor-M1 cannot defend the territory of Iran. The air defense systems S-300 are more suitable for this purpose. Along with this, S-300 needs to be defended and Tor-M1 can cope with this task. Only together Tor-M1 and S-300 can fulfill the tasks of defending Iran on a due level."
According to experts, despite the statements of Ivanov, negotiations on S-300 systems did take place. The statement of the Russian minister can be considered as giving up the plans of military technological cooperation with Iran by Russia. Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, says, "The Russian delegation interrupted negotiations on S-300 and left Iran. Henceforth Iran may turns away and annul the agreements on Tor-M1 signed in December of 2005. Prospects for the military technological cooperation are the saddest." Khramchikhin agrees, "It is quite possible that Tor systems will not the supplied either."
Decision on reduction of the volume of military technological cooperation with Iran is caused primarily by political apprehensions. Iran keeps working on the nuclear program contrary to the interests of the US and European Union countries. Pukhov presumes, "Most likely, the pressure on the part of the US has played its role and Russia has had to change its stance. The very eccentric personality of the President of Iran has influenced this decision as well." Khramchikhin adds, "Everything is moving towards sanctions against Iran. Iran is also not very important for the sector of military technological cooperation of Russia."
Vladimir Orlov, Director of the Center of Political Research in Russia, presumes, "Russia will be reserved about new contracts with Iran. Iran did not take the proposal to relocate the programs of uranium enrichment to the territory of Russia seriously. Relations of the two countries obviously cooled down a little."
Opinions of Western experts are more reserved. Paul Ingram, leading expert of the British-American Security Council (BASIC), states, "Despite the strong pressure on the part of the US I doubt that Russia will support the embargo on armament supplies to Iran. I am convinced that Russia is ready to continue military cooperation with Iran and does not see any legal reasons for its termination."
<ref>gazeta.ru, January 13, 2006
RVR
