Russia ‘stakes it all’ in face-off with US



Brödtext: Russia ‘stakes it all’ in face-off with US
Russia would like to lower the temperature but is also unswervingly determined to attenuate a US power that it regards as abusive and anti-Russian

RUSSIA has turned a corner in its standoff with the West over Georgia and is now firmly determined that the crisis bring about a deep rethink of a global system dominated by the United States, analysts say.


Though it knew the stakes in repelling a More..n attack by a key US ally on a pro-Russian separatist enclave were high, the Kremlin was genuinely shocked by the instant outpouring of Western support for the Tbilisi government. Moscow saw that response as one-sided and scripted by Washington, which in turn galvanized its decision immediately to grant recognition to two breakaway Georgian provinces, certain that trying to explain itself was a non-starter.


Now, say experts, Russia would like to lower the temperature but is also unswervingly determined to attenuate a US power that it regards as abusive and anti-Russian, whether it wins any outside support for its cause or not. “It appears that Moscow has decided to stake it all and assume the role of gravedigger for what is in many ways a perverse system of international relations,” according to Fyodor Lukyanov, an independent Russian analyst.


In an analysis published on the liberal news website Gazeta. ru, Lukyanov said Russia had begun an “extremely risky game” in granting formal recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and outlined several explanations why it did so. Chief among them, he said, was the fact that the Russian leadership, like the majority of Russian society, was “openly shocked at the large-scale and united support” that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili got from the West.


“Moscow truly does not understand how Europe and the US could amicably stand side by side” with a leader Moscow says is guilty of war crimes, and who has “trampled on everything the ‘civilised world’ stands for,” Lukyanov wrote. “In the West’s stance, Russia sees not just double standards but undisguised cynicism beyond the bounds of normal political practice,” he added.


The West says its quick backing for Georgia was motivated by alarm at the deep penetration by Russian forces into uncontested Georgian territory and fears of ethnic cleansing in the conflict zone. Analysts say the US and European drive to make Kosovo independent from Serbia despite having approved UN resolution 1244 calling for preservation of Serbia’s “territorial integrity” has also deeply influenced Kremlin policy.


That was underlined again by Russia’s powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who made clear that Moscow regarded the Kosovo case as proof of US duplicity in world affairs and of Europe’s subservience to Washington. “The White House gave the order and everyone carried it out,” Putin said in an interview with German television over the weekend.


“If European countries continue to make their policy in this way, then we may as well talk to Washington about European affairs,” Putin said. So far, Russia’s efforts to win any hearts and minds beyond its own borders have fallen flat despite a more intensive public relations campaign than experts on the country recall ever having witnessed.


After failing to rally anyone in the West to its cause, Russia turned last week to the East, notably to China, and there too was unable to win anything other than a tepid, non-specific expression of support. “Russia is alone, angry and absolutely unbending,” was how Maria Lipman, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank, summed up Moscow’s present position in the crisis.


She and other experts caution however that the international crisis unfolding from the conflict in Georgia is still only in its infancy and say it is too soon to know how the world’s nation states will behave as it evolves.
“There is clearly a need to sit down and very seriously rethink a number of the most important issues like: What is Russia? How should we develop relations with Russia? How is the world governed?

“I would say we are in for a very, very difficult, confrontational and dangerous time,” Lipman said. Analysts say the Russian argument for a reassessment of the global system is predicated on the notion that the United States, though stronger and richer than any other state, has no innate right to call the shots for the world.


And the basic ideological conflict that separated East from West during the Cold War no longer exists, Russia maintains, negating the automatic US claim to the moral high ground in defence of human rights and free markets. The United States rejects Russia’s thesis that it acts in the world only to attain its own goals, but in the current crisis both are operating not just with politics in mind but from a sense of moral righteousness, experts say. “Countries have already made their choice between Russia and America,” said Yevgeny Volk, a political analyst with the conservative US-based Heritage Foundation think tank. “But now there is a very narrow window of opportunity to change their orientation. This is very unlike during the Soviet era, when a lot of countries could proclaim themselves ‘socialist’. “This is about American leadership,” Volk said.


Lipman agreed, saying that in the absence of any effective higher authority it was the perception of being in the right - along with economic interest - that would determine the behaviour of other states as the crisis unfolds. “It’s obvious there is no arbiter. In these circumstances it is moral righteousness that counts,” she said. Analysts say that both Russia and the West are uncertain how to move ahead in a way that allows each to stick to their principles while averting any escalation of already-soaring international tensions. They warn however that despite its own nervousness about the future course of events, Russia has no intention of turning back from what both its leadership and its population now identify as a worthy strategic course.


Moscow’s decision formally to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent, over the vocal objections of the United States and Europe, shows it has consciously taken its game beyond a point of no return, they say. “This does not testify to self-confidence, but to being prepared to take a huge risk,” Lukyanov said.
afp

By Christopher Boian
Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default. ... 00891story_1-9-2008_pg4_8

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Russia-Cuba ties worry U.S.





Brödtext: Russia-Cuba ties worry U.S.

Mature
Amid tensions over Georgia, Moscow has been signaling that it wants to restore its relationship with Havana that included military and intelligence cooperation.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 1, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Amid rising tensions over Georgia, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that Russia is moving to rebuild one of the most dangerous features of the ol More..d Soviet Union's security structure -- its alliance with Cuba.


Moscow has been signaling that it wants to restore a long relationship with Havana that included not only economic ties, but also military and intelligence cooperation. The relationship brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when Russia secretly installed nuclear missiles on the island.


U.S. officials believe that Russian statements are partly bluster, intended to dissuade the United States and its allies from moving the NATO alliance and military equipment, including missile defense sites, closer to the Russian border. And some experts question how interested Cuba is in rebuilding close ties with Russia.


But at a time when Russia has intervened forcefully in Georgia and is extending the global reach of its rebuilt military, some senior officials fear it may not be only bluster.


Russia "has strategic ties to Cuba again, or at least, that's where they're going," a senior U.S. official said recently, speaking, like others, on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive implications of the assessments.



The officials said they doubted the Russians would risk stationing nuclear bombers on Cuba. But some believe that Moscow might seek to restore its once-energetic intelligence cooperation with Havana, and to resume limited military cooperation, possibly including refueling stops for aircraft and warships.


In the current environment, such contacts would make U.S. officials uneasy, serving as a reminder of a military relationship between Havana and Moscow that stretched from the Cuban Revolution in 1959 until a weakened, post-Soviet Russia finally closed a massive electronic intelligence complex in Lourdes near Havana in 2001.


One senior military officer said a return of Russian ships or planes could force additional U.S. deployments in the region. But the Bush administration and Pentagon declined to comment publicly on the implications.


"It is very Cold War retro," said a government official. "The topic couldbe reminiscentof the Cuban missile crisis, and that is a chapter that people don't want to revisit.
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The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed a report in the newspaper Izvestia in July that quoted an unidentified Russian official as saying the government intended to begin basing Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack and Tupolev Tu-95 Bear nuclear bombers in Cuba.


However, the report was taken seriously enough in Washington that Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the new Air Force chief of staff, said during his Senate confirmation hearing at the time that sending the bombers would cross a "red line in the sand.
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Last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained about Russia's increasing reliance on its military to remind the world of its power. She criticized Russia's military advance into Georgia, a former Soviet republic, and its increasingly frequent patrols by long-range nuclear bombers in U.S.- and NATO-patrolled ocean lanes near northern Europe, Alaska and elsewhere.


As it rebuilds forces that withered during the impoverished 1990s, Russia also has been looking for new air and naval bases far from home. It is negotiating with Syria to resume use of naval bases in Tartus and Latakia, Russian officials have said. There has also been talk in Moscow of approaching Vietnam about using Cam Ranh Bay.


Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in late July sent one of his closest aides, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and a large delegation to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro. The meeting was primarily about economic cooperation, including possible oil exploration off Cuba. But Russian officials made it clear that they were exploring resumption of other aspects of the relationship as well.


Nikolai Patrushev, who is secretary of the Russian Security Council and former director of the FSB, the domestic successor agency to the KGB, met with the Cuban defense and interior ministers on the trip. Afterward, the council issued a statement saying that the two countries planned "consistent work to restore traditional relations in all areas of cooperation.
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Afterward, Putin said, "We need to reestablish positions in Cuba and in other countries.
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Some Russian analysts remain skeptical of the Kremlin's intentions, seeing the whispers of renewed military activity in Cuba as a tactic meant to rattle the United States.


Russian officials "understand that the restoration of even an intelligence-gathering base in Lourdes would be a declaration of a new Cold War on the part of Russia," said Alexander Golts, defense analyst with the online publication Yezhednevny Zhurnal. "The Kremlin will never do it, because they cannot afford it.
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Despite talk of a return to the Cold War, Golts noted, Russia spends 2.7% of its gross domestic product on defense -- unlike the Soviet Union, which at the height of the Cold War spent 40%.


Although several Bush administration officials who have been hawkish on Russia say they find the Cuba ties worrisome, other U.S. officials say the threat should not be overstated.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwor ... la-fg-usrussia1-2008sep01,0,7129894.story

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Israel concerned over possible Russia-Syria arms deal



Brödtext: Israel concerned over possible Russia-Syria arms deal
Mature
JERUSALEM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Israeli President Shimon Peres on Thursday expressed his concern over the possibility that Russia might deploy missiles in Syria, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni cautioned such a move would destabilize the Middle East.


Such a move by Russia would jeopardize peace not only in the Middle East, but in the whole world, Israeli broadcaster Army Radio quoted Peres More.. as saying on his 85th birthday.


The political veteran made the remarks when commenting on Israeli media reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who arrived in Russia on Wednesday on a two-day visit, offered to allow Moscow to deploy Russian surface-to-surface Iskander missiles in its territory.


"Weapons of mass destruction are less dangerous without a means for launching them, but once a launching system is developed, the situation will be terrible," Peres was quoted as saying, pointing to the northern neighbor which Israel lists as an enemy state.


Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post reported Assad's offer was publicized on Wednesday, the same day when the United States signed an agreement with Poland to place part of a missile defense system on the Polish soil, a move that Russia insists would endanger its security.


Also in response to this possible scenario, Livni said Russia should not agree to Syria's request for missile deployment, stressing that this could destabilize the Middle East.


"It is a mutual interest of Russia, of Israel and of the pragmatic leaders and states in the region not to send long-range missiles to Syria," local daily Ha'aretz quoted her as saying, while citing Syria's links with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah as justification.


On Wednesday night, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to affirm the ties between the two countries. Olmert's office said the two leaders talked about regional and bilateral issues and looked to advance bilateral relations.


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/22/content_9599665.htm