Stop seeing West as threat, NATO chief tells Russia

Stop seeing West as threat, NATO chief tells Russia

Vietnam defense minister meets key US senators Washington (AFP) Dec 15, 2009 - Vietnam's defense minister, making a rare visit to the United States, met Tuesday with a key US Senator who called ties between the two former war foes "very important." General Phung Quang Thanh met with Democratic Senator Jim Webb, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, and was to meet with Senator John McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee's top Republican. "It is vitally important that the United States engage with Southeast Asia at all levels," Webb, a former Marine who served in the Vietnam war and visited Hanoi in August, said after his roughly 35-minute meeting. "I have worked for many years to build a bridge between Vietnam and the United States. It is a very important relationship," Webb said through a spokeswoman. McCain is also a Vietnam war veteran who spent five and a half years as a prisoner after being shot down over Hanoi. Thanh also met with his US counterpart, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and agreed to enhance military-to-military engagement through a formalized mechanism for both countries to discuss "issues of bilateral and regional concern" at senior defense levels, a Pentagon spokeswoman said. The countries will conduct the dialogue beginning in 2010, spokeswoman Maureen Schumann said. Vietnamese media have underlined that Thanh was just the second Vietnamese defense minister to visit the United States since the two countries normalized relations in 1995, 20 years after the Vietnam War. The visit came after a long-standing dispute between China and Vietnam over ownership of the Paracels and a more southerly archipelago, the Spratleys, escalated earlier this year.

Russia should stop seeing the West as a threat, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday, as he called for a new partnership between Moscow and the transatlantic alliance. Relations between NATO and Moscow plunged to a post-Cold War low after the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, but Rasmussen has made improving ties a priority since coming to office in August.
"Let me make a very clear statement as secretary general of NATO. NATO will never attack Russia. Never," Rasmussen said in a speech to students at the country's top diplomatic university.
"And we don't think Russia will attack us either. We have stopped worrying about this and Russia should stop worrying about this as well," he told the students, who responded with applause.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created at the start of the Cold War under the principle of collective defence, whereby members would jointly respond to any attack by an aggressor, at that time feared to be the Soviet Union.
If trust can be built between Moscow and NATO "then Russia can stop worrying about a menace from the West that simply doesn't exist," Rasmussen said.
"She can put her resources into defending against the real threats this country faces -- like terrorism, extremism, proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction or drug trafficking."
His comments were warmly received by the audience. Nikita Mulovsky, 17, a diplomacy student, told AFP: "I don't believe NATO is a threat to Russia. I think we need to work together."
Rasmussen, who had met President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, said "the blueprints are already in place for a true security partnership between NATO and Russia."
He said a trusting relationship between Russia and the transatlantic alliance "has enormous potential to make Russia safer, to make the NATO allies safer and to make a real contribution to global security as well."
Rasmussen said that if his "vision" were fulfilled, by 2020 Russia and NATO would be able to link their missile systems to create a "genuine missile shield in the Euro-Atlantic area".
He strongly defended the eastward expansion of NATO, which he acknowledged was "clearly something which many in Russia see as a deliberate strategy to encircle this country."
Russia has bristled at the moves by former Soviet republics like Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO and was also fiercely opposed to the now-shelved US plan to deploy missile defence facilities in Central Europe.
The day earlier, Rasmussen had asked Russia to step up its cooperation on Afghanistan, asking Moscow to send more helicopters for the Afghan government and to help train more Afghan police and counter-narcotics officers.
Such steps would ease the burden on NATO as it struggles to put down a raging Taliban insurgency.
Russia did not immediately say whether it would agree to the NATO requests, with Medvedev simply ordering a review of Rasmussen's proposals.
"I believe that Afghanistan must be a centrepiece of our partnership in 2010," Rasmussen said in Thursday's speech.
Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, cautiously praised the secretary general's visit.
"We were not expecting any breakthroughs, nothing like this was planned. On the other hand, I think the fact of the visit itself was helpful," Rogozin told AFP after the speech.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai, who travelled to Moscow with Rasmussen, described the visit as successful.
"The mood in the meetings was definitely warmer than certainly what I have seen over the past few years," said Appathurai.
"There was a clear willingness on all sides to focus not just on what we don't like about each other, but also to focus on what we can do together."

Fears of a New Cold War in Venezuela and ColombiA

 

While the West celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall,  Hugo Chavez is stirring up a new Cold War in South America. Over the weekend, the socialist leader of Venezuela warned his citizens to prepare for war with neighboring Colombia, a close U.S. ally. This move escalates tensions that began this summer when Colombia accused Chavez of funding FARC, Colombia's left wing guerrillas. Now, there are fears that the conflict could lead to a full scale arms race in the Southern Hemisphere.

Conservative pundits say this is the latest sign that Chavez is a dangerous "bully" who could potentially destabilize the region if President Obama doesn't get tougher on Venezuela. But others say there's good reason to believe Chavez's latest threats can't be taken seriously.

• Colombia Should Be Very, Very Worried  At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey says Chavez wants to replace Colombia's president with a socialist, anti-American regime and turn Venezuela into a "world power intent on humbling the US in our hemisphere." And Morrissey says that thanks to Obama's weak response to the crises in Iran and Honduras, Chavez thinks he has found the perfect American president to bully.  "The strange response to the Honduran crisis apparently has Chavez believing that Obama is particularly malleable, although it could also be that Chavez has taken the lesson from Obama’s handling of Iran."

• America Should Defend Its Closest Ally  At The Weekly Standard, John Noonan says it's probably a bad idea to send American military power to the region, since a move could play to Chavez's anti-imperialist blustering. But Noonan does wants to see President Obama provide non-military assistance to Colombia. "President Obama will likely avoid involvement--not necessarily an unwise move considering Chavez wants to play up the U.S. as an imperial aggressor meme--but providing some token assistance in the form of a non-combat support role (like AWACs) might be enough to put Chavez in his place," he writes. "And it would further signal other U.S. allies that the White House still takes our defense alliances seriously."

• A Dictator In President's Clothing  At The Wall Street Journal, Mary O'Grady says Chavez's most recent aggression is simply more proof that he is a dictator posing as a legitimate president in order to more easily take over democratic institutions. According to O'Grady, this was a lesson learned out of the playbook of the Chilean left. "Fidel Castro learned a lot from Chilean President Salvador Allende's failed power grab in 1973. And he used the lessons of that bitter defeat to coach Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to dictatorship under the guise of democracy more than 25 years later."
  

• Racing to Stop an Arms Race  At Foreign Policy, Jordana Timerman says arms spending is on the rise across the region. "The Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago, and the Cold War itself ended soon after, but if you're feeling nostalgic, tune into the Cold War of the Andes: somewhat more farcical and definitely less likely to end in nuclear annihilation, but riveting nonetheless." Timerman says the U.S. should help build alliances in the region that would prevent such an arms race. "With Venezuelan troops lining up on the Colombian border, Peruvian officials' urging fellow South American countries to reduce military spending arms purchasing, in addition to creating a regional security force, is making a lot more sense."

Chavez Can't Be Taken Seriously  Steven Taylor of the PoliBlog calls the president's bluff. "The bottom line is that a) there is nothing for Chávez to gain from a war with Colombia and, b) Venezuela would likely lose such a confrontation. As such, it is difficult to take the saber-rattling seriously."

The new Cold War: the War on Terror

An Afghan mobile vender pushes his cart through war damaged buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan, last week. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)

Some policies die hard. In "America's Cold War: the Politics of Insecurity," published by Harvard University Press in October, authors Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall argue that American policy formed during the Cold War was dominated by alarmism, political grandstanding and militarism. We asked Craig, a professor of international politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, to weigh in on how this U.S. political tradition informs American policy today. Logevall is a professor of history at Cornell University.

GUEST BLOGGER: Campbell Craig
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States embarked upon a stunning campaign of military spending and war. Vast new bureaucracies were created almost overnight, not least the Department of Homeland Security, employer now of some 200,000 people.
Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the deaths of thousands of American and allied soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans (mostly civilians), and have cost American taxpayers a trillion dollars and counting.
And all of this took place in a remarkable political climate, almost one-party in its nature, as Democrats in Washington competed with one another to acquiesce to the Bush administration's demands and thereby demonstrate their toughness on terrorism.
Many critics of this disaster, and many of those who still defend it, suggest that the "Global War on Terror" represented a new form of foreign policy, one shaped decisively by the absence of great-power rivals to the United States and the murky, sub-national nature of the terrorist enemy.
However, while it is undeniably true that the Bush administration broke new ground in the fields of profligacy and incompetence, much of what went on between 2001 and 2008 actually partook of long-standing political traditions formed over the past sixty years.
The United States had entered the Cold War out of the entirely reasonable fear that the Soviet Union, though devastated by its war against Nazi Germany, might eventually expand into key industrial regions in Western Europe and East Asia unless contained by American force. In initiating its containment strategy, however, U.S. architects of the Cold War opened the door to an array of interest groups, industries, and cynical politicians with a vested interest in maximizing the confrontation with the USSR, and eventually with communists everywhere -- perpetuating the politics of insecurity.
Because the United States had long been protected from would-be predators by the two oceans -- a condition the historian C. Vann Woodward termed "free security" -- American politicians were used to being able to play politics with foreign policy, and this tendency did not disappear after 1945.
Though the USSR was effectively contained by 1950, with Western Europe and Japan firmly on Washington's side, and though the Soviets were deterred from attacking the U.S. directly by the spectre of assured nuclear destruction, numerous institutions, together with politicians who saw Cold War alarmism as a sure ticket to electoral victory, had no interest in accepting these realities.
For decades, American policymakers contrived reasons to build new weapons systems, warn of clear and present dangers, and wage war upon nations that posed no threat to American survival. Indeed, the notion that the United States had done all it could to be safe in a dangerous world became itself the greatest threat to the alarmists who prevailed over official Washington. In George F. Kennan's apt phrase, these leaders had become addicted to the Cold War.
In terms of domestic, if not international, politics, the Global War on Terror represents a continuation of America's Cold War more than a break with it. And, as always, the expansion of U.S. militarism can only be stemmed by democratic resistance.
President Eisenhower's demand, in his farewell address of 1961, that an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" must stand guard against the "disastrous rise" of a military-industrial complex, remains as true now as it was then.

Russia sees moon plot in Nasa plan

 

The moon could supply our future energy needs

Mankind's second race for the moon took on a distinctly Cold War feel yesterday when the Russian space agency accused its old rival Nasa of rejecting a proposal for joint lunar exploration.
The claim comes amid suspicion in Moscow that the United States is seeking to deny Russia access to an isotope in abundance under the moon's surface that many believe could replace fossil fuels and even end the threat of global warming.

 

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A new era of international co-operation in space supposedly dawned after the United States, Russia and other powers declared their intention to send humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.
But while Nasa has lobbied for support from Britain and the European Space Agency, Russia claims its offers have been rebuffed.
Yesterday Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, said: "We are ready to co-operate but for some reason the United States has announced that it will carry out the programme itself. Strange as it is, the United States is short of experts to implement the programme."
Nasa announced in December that it was planning to build an international base camp on one of the Moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024. Russia's space rocket manufacturer Energia revealed an even more ambitious programme last August, saying it would build a permanent Moon base by 2015.
While the Americans have either been coy or dismissive on the subject, Russia openly says the main purpose of its lunar programme is the industrial extraction of helium-3.
Dismissed by critics as a 21st-century equivalent of the medieval alchemist's fruitless quest to turn lead into gold, some scientists say helium-3 could be the answer to the world's energy woes.
A non-radioactive isotope of helium, helium-3 is a proven and potent fuel for nuclear fusion - so potent that just six metric tons would supply Britain with enough energy for a year.
As helium-3 is non-polluting and is so effective in such tiny quantities, many countries are taking it very seriously. Germany, India and China, which will launch a lunar probe to research extraction techniques in September, are all studying ways to mine the isotope.
"Whoever conquers the moon first will be the first to benefit," said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar programme.
Energia says it will start "industrial scale delivery" of helium-3, transported by cargo space ships via the International Space Station, no later than 2020. Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant directly controlled by the Kremlin, is said to be strongly supportive of the project.
The United States has appeared much more cautious, not least because scientists are yet to discover the secrets of large scale nuclear fusion. Commercial fusion reactors look unlikely to come on line before the second half of this century.
But many officials in Moscow's space programme believe Washington's lunar agenda is driven by a desire to monopolise helium-3 mining. They allege that President Bush has moved helium-3 experts into key positions on Nasa's advisory council.
The plot, says Erik Galimov, an academic with the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out."

Russian Tobacco Makers Relaunch Iconic Soviet Cigarette Brands

The Russian tobacco market has been showing a curious trend recently. The cheapest and premium class cigarette brands currently enjoy the biggest demand in Russia. Many tobacco companies focus their efforts on the inexpensive segment and resume the production of Soviet brands, BFM.ru business portal said.




“According to our estimates, the reduction of the Russian tobacco market during the first half year made up 3-4 percent,” Kingsley Wheaton, the managing director of British American Tobacco Russia (BAT Russia) said. The sales of cheap cigarettes are growing, but they are growing in the premium segment of the market too, he said.

Another participant of the Russian tobacco market – Philip Morris – also reported a growth in the sales of its low price segment cigarettes (Bond Street). The sales gained 35 percent during the second quarter of the year – Optima cigarettes went 23 percent up. More expensive brands of the company demonstrated negative dynamics in their sales. Marlboro dropped by 19 percent with Parliament losing 4.3 percent.

BAT Russia took account of the changing demand and launched two new brands – Capri slim cigarettes (prices at $0.8 per pack) and The Golden Fleece (Zolotoye Runo), - a legendary Soviet brand which the company relaunched in April (priced up to $0.48 per pack).

The cigarette brands with the Soviet past from another company, Nevo-Tabak, also managed to improve their sales. The sales of such brands as Arktika, Troika and Leningad improved considerably during the recent six months.

“BAT Russia is not a pioneer when it comes to the launch of iconic Soviet cigarettes. This has been happening on the market of alcohol beverages too. One may recollect the fight of the Moscow Distillery Cristall for such well-known Soviet brands as Pshenichnaya and Stolichnaya. Dairy companies design Soviet-style packaging to win customers’ attention to their products. They hope that the Soviet style packaging will make many recollect their past and buy the product that they know, not something new that they never tried before,” Sergey Tishenko, a senior expert with Business System Development Auditing Company says

Context History of START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) and START II

The Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I) between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and the United States (U.S.) was signed in Moscow on July 31, 1991 at a summit meeting between Soviet and U.S. presidents, Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush, and entered into force on December 5, 1994. It was the first agreement of this kind between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. The purpose of the Treaty was to ensure parity between the two sides’ strategic nuclear forces at levels 30% down on initially deployed forces.



The Treaty established equal ceilings on warhead and delivery vehicle numbers and ceilings on the throw-weight of ballistic missiles. Under the Treaty, neither side could have more than:

- 1,600 nuclear warhead delivery vehicles /deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ballistic missiles (BMs), submarines and heavy bombers/;

- 6,000 warheads, with 4,900 deployed on submarine-based ICMBs and BMs, 1,540 deployed on 154 heavy ICBMs in the U.S.S.R. (the U.S. had no heavy ICBMs), and 110 deployed on mobile ICBMs.



The Treaty left out sea-launched cruise missiles with a range of over 600 km. But a pledge was made not to deploy more than 880 SLCMs.



The collapse of the U.S.S.R. made START I outdated. On May 23, 1992, in Lisbon, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the U.S. signed the so-called Lisbon Protocol to START I, which came into effect on December 5, 1994. The Protocol records the inclusion of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in the START Treaty and at the same time requests that they join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. START I is valid for 15 years (until December 5, 2009). Given the parties’ agreement, its term can be extended for another 5 years when the 15 years are up.



On December 6, 2001, official representatives of Russia and the U.S. reported that their countries had fulfilled their START I obligations.



The Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II) between Russia and the U.S. was signed by the Russian and U.S. presidents on January 3, 1993 in Moscow, but never went into effect.



The Treaty bans using ballistic missiles with independently targetable warheads.



On September 26, 1997, in New York, the Russian Foreign Minister and the U.S. Secretary of State signed a Protocol to START II, providing for a postponement of the Treaty for 5 years, from December 31, 2001 to December 31, 2007. The delay was due to the fact that the first stage of the Treaty was to be completed within seven years of START I coming into force (it became effective on December 5, 1994), that is to say by December 31, 2001. This meant that should START II be ratified, for example, in 1997-1998, its implementation period would be cut back considerably – by 3 to 4 years.



The Russian side ratified the Treaty together with the Protocol on April 14, 2000 on the condition that the ABM Treaty be preserved. The U.S. ratified the Treaty in January 1996, but the Treaty in the same package with the September 26, 1997 Protocol was never submitted for ratification and therefore was considered non-ratified.



When the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty on June 13, 2002, Russia announced it was stopping observance of its commitments under START II Treaty. On June 14, 2002, the Foreign Ministry of Russia issued a statement saying that following the U.S. abandonment of the ABM Treaty, “the Russian Federation sees no grounds for giving force to START II and no longer considers itself bound by the undertaking, stipulated by international law, to refrain from steps which could strip the Treaty of aim and objective.”



At a May 24, 2002 summit in Moscow, the presidents of Russia and the United States concluded an additional Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) to limit the number of operational nuclear warheads to 1,700-2,200 for each party. These ceilings are to be reached by December 2012, with the sides still retaining the right to decide the make-up and structure of strategic offensive weapons.



In 2005, Russia proposed that a new agreement is concluded with the U.S. to replace the START Treaty.

Russia, US agree nuclear arms cuts in Obama visit

Germany sees 'new spirit' in Russia-US ties
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday welcomed a joint determination by Russian and US leaders to reduce their countries' strategic nuclear weapons and said he saw a "new spirit". "I welcome today's Moscow declaration," Steinmeier said in a statement issued by his ministry. "It is the sign of a new spirit in Russian-US relations: the armament scenarios are part of the past. Today there is a joint will to make progress in the disarmament field." During talks in Moscow presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama earlier Monday announced agreements on Afghanistan and cutting their nuclear arsenals as they sought a new era in battered relations. Their agreement shows that "the two nuclear powers take their disarmament obligations under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty seriously", said Steinmeier. "This is an important signal for the conference that is to look into the treaty next year," he added. Steinmeier said this new "positive momentum" should be used to reach new disarmament targets. "We need substantial progress in disarmament policies," he said. The declaration signed by the two presidents pledges to reach a new nuclear arms reduction pact to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Obama said it provides for cuts of "up to a third" from current limitations. START is due to expire on December 5 but the declaration gave no target date for a renewal, instructing negotiators to complete the work as quickly as possible. The declaration called for a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads in Russian and US strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years and the number of ballistic missile carriers to between
The Russian and US leaders Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on Monday announced agreements on Afghanistan and cutting their nuclear arsenals as they sought a new era in battered relations.
The ex-Cold War foes issued a declaration on replacing a key disarmament treaty -- including figures for major cuts in nuclear warheads -- and clinched a breakthrough deal for US military transit for Afghanistan across Russia.

But as Obama made his first visit to Moscow as president, they still remained divided over US plans to install a missile defence shield in eastern Europe and Moscow's policy towards the pro-Western ex-Soviet state Georgia.

"The president and I agreed that the relationship between Russia and the United States (has suffered) from a sense of drift," Obama said at joint news conference in the Kremlin with Medvedev.

"We resolved to reset US-Russian relations. Today after less than six months of collaboration (since coming to office) we have done exactly that," he added.

The declaration signed by the presidents pledges to reach a new nuclear arms reduction pact to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Obama said it provides for cuts of "up to a third" from current limitations.

It "commits both parties to a legally binding treaty that will reduce nuclear weapons," the White House said in a statement.

START is due to expire on December 5 but the declaration gave no target date for a renewal, instructing negotiators to complete the work as quickly as possible.

The declaration called for a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads in Russian and US strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years and the number of ballistic missile carriers to between 500-1,100.

The cuts go beyond those levels set in the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) which calls for both countries to reduce the number of deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 on either side by 2012.

"The declared reduction is a real agreement and it suits everyone," said Alexei Malashenko, analyst with the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.

"The Americans have decided to accept Russia as it is. Obama does not have the complexes from the Cold War and does not consider Russia to be an enemy of the United States."

Obama also proposed that the United States host a global nuclear security summit next year and suggested to Medvedev that Russia host a subsequent one in order to draft a new, "reinvigorated" non-proliferation treaty.

The Afghanistan agreement means Russia has authorised the use of its airspace for the transit of US troops and arms, a major boost for Obama's bid to step up the fight against the Taliban.

The deal permits up to 4,500 military flights per year, or about 12 per day, which can be loaded with troops, firearms, ammunition, military vehicles and spare parts, a senior US official said.

The official said military flights would not be charged air navigation fees and that they would not stop on Russian territory.

Previously Russia had only allowed the United States to ship non-lethal military supplies across its territory by train.

The two sides also signed an agreement to resume bilateral military cooperation suspended last August over Moscow's war in Georgia, an event which sent ties plummeting to a post Cold War low.

But amid the smiles and expressions of goodwill, the US plan to install missile defence facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland -- which Russia says threatens its security -- remained a major sticking point.

"The discussions on missile defence are proceeding with great difficulty because the approaches are very different," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, according to ITAR-TASS news agency.

Obama expressed hope however that "over time we will have seen that the US and Russian positions can be reconciled" and announced that both sides would step up their joint analysis of missile threats.

He also bluntly repeated the US dissatisfaction with Russia's recognition of two breakaway Russian regions as independent, Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity "must be respected".

"There are areas where we still disagree...we had a frank discussion on Georgia".

Obama was on Tuesday morning due to meet with Russia's powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a man who he described in the run-up to the summit as having "one foot" in the past of the Cold War.

He did not repeat that comment in the news conference, acknowledging that Putin was one of the "influential" figures he was going to meet and noting that Russia's ruling tandem were "working very effectively together".

Obama asks Putin to give up Cold War, looks at a Korean Missile Crisis

This week, on the eve of his first trip to Russia, President Barak Obama criticized the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for having a foot left in the Cold War. During his speech Obama, cited that the new President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, is more adapt to moving forward from this past.


With the discussion of the START I treaty at the head of the summit’s agenda, Obama is not treading lightly in regards to this former enemy. However, with the prospects of a reduction in nuclear arms and at least a discussion on SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), both sides are looking for heavy concessions.


Obama wants to dramatically cut our nuclear arsenal, while the Russians would like for the U.S. to abandon its SDI program. This may pose a problem on a few different fronts.


As of 06:37 on 4 July, it is reported that North Korea has launched up to 7 missiles off their eastern coast. This will further defy the UN resolution following the May underground test of a nuclear weapon. North Korea is and has been pursuing a myopic foreign policy that is making the world scratch their heads.


While the United States still believes in diplomacy in regards to North Korea, many wonder what a possible ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) launch towards Hawaii, set for the July 4th Holiday, will do for relations surrounding the area.


According to analysts at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a think tank that analyzes nuclear issues, there is a belief that such a launch, coupled with a pursed nuclear agenda, could send the region into to a ripple effect of chaos.


It is thought that Japan, who has not had a standing army since WWII, may feel the need for a military buildup to offer itself a significant defense against North Korea. If this were to occur, China, who is already torn between a natural ally in Korea and desired ally in the United States, believes this could lead to nuclear proliferation within the region, in essence creating another Cold War. If such were to happen, China would most likely react accordingly. With essential ties to the North, if Japan were to rearm and pursue nuclear weapons for defense, China would be in a position to have to choose between a lesser of two evils.


As Obama discusses nuclear arms reductions with Moscow, they are in a wait and see mode. Their nuclear supply is believed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 units, which far outnumbers any other nation, including the U.S.


It is doubted that a missile launch from Korea would even come anywhere close to Hawaii. In any event, the U.S. has deployed countermeasure to intercept any threat.

Business Shanghai group backs Russian proposal on common currency

- The leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries backed on Tuesday Russia's proposal on using national currencies in mutual settlements and introducing a common currency for the group.

The common currency would be similar to the European currency unit, in use in the EC until the introduction of the euro in 1999.

The SCO, which comprises Russia, China and four ex-Soviet Central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - held a summit in the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg on Tuesday.

The summit's participants said that the current structure of the world currency system, dominated by the U.S. dollar as the major global reserve currency, was far from ideal and that the appearance of new reserve currencies was inevitable.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the summit that the Shanghai group member states should increase the share of national currencies in mutual settlements to reduce dependence on the dollar and improve the health of the global financial system.

"The current set of reserve currencies and the main reserve currency - the U.S. dollar - have failed to function as they should," Medvedev told the summit, adding that the Russian ruble could hopefully become a reserve currency in the foreseeable future.

US cybersecurity

President Barack Obama announced on Friday the creation of a new “cyber czar” position. The Cybersecurity Coordinator, who is yet to be named, would oversee billions of dollars in funding for developing and coordinating defense of the computer networks that operate the global financial system and domestic transportation and commerce, according to the administration. The position, which Obama said would report directly to him, results from a 60-day “cyberspace policy review” Obama ordered.

Obama's announcement was overshadowed by the US military's imminent creation of a new military “Cyber Command,” detailed in a New York Times article published Friday. Obama has not even been presented with the military's plan, nor did he mention it directly in his press conference. However, administration sources have said he will sign a classified order or set of directives later this month authorizing the creation of the Cyber Command.

Media accounts indicate that the formation of the parallel domestic and military cyber security agencies was the source of a bitter “turf battle” between and within competing national security and federal domestic agencies.

As a compromise, Obama's domestic Cybersecurity Coordinator would report to both the National Economic Council (NEC), a White House economic advisory group, and the National Security Council, the top-level presidential advisory group that coordinates foreign and military policy, thus ensuring “a balance between homeland security and economic concerns,” the Washington Post reports. Obama's top economic advisor, Lawrence H. Summers, fought for a dominant role for the NEC so that “efforts to protect private networks do not unduly threaten economic growth.”

In his Friday press conference, Obama sought to present the Cybersecurity Coordinator position in the most innocuous terms, referring to the “spyware and malware and spoofing and phishing and botnets.” and “cyber thieves” that anyone with access to the Internet confronts. Obama emphasized that the measure would not include “monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic. We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans,” he said. “Indeed, I remain firmly committed to net neutrality so we can keep the Internet as it should be—open and free.”

But the creation of high-level police agency tasked with overseeing the Internet raises troubling questions. As the New York Times notes, it “appears to be part of a significant expansion of the role of the national security apparatus” in the White House.

Meanwhile, legislation working its way through Congress, the so-called Cybersecurity Act of 2009, would grant the US government unprecedented control over the Internet. The bill gives the president unrestricted power to halt Internet traffic, ordering the shutdown of both government and privately owned and operated networks deemed related to “critical infrastructure information systems,” merely by declaring a “cybersecurity emergency.”

In his remarks, Obama pointed to the threat of cyber terrorism, noting that US “defense and military networks are under constant attack. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have spoken of their desire to unleash a cyber attack on our country.” He invoked the recent terror attacks on Mumbai, India, where “terrorists...relied not only on guns and grenades but also on GPS and phones using voice-over-the-Internet.” Obama also alluded to the possibility of cyberwarfare with a major foe, mentioning Russia by name. “Last year we had a glimpse of the future face of war,” Obama said. “As Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, cyber attacks crippled Georgian government websites.”

However, these sorts of threats would most likely not fall under the purview of the Cybersecurity Coordinator, at least based on Obama’s explanation of the position. The implication is that these “threats” would be handled by the military-intelligence Cyber Command.

Reports indicate that there is an acrimonious struggle within the national security apparatus over who should oversee the new command. Currently, the National Security Agency (NSA) controls most of the functions that would be associated with cyberwarfare. Created by Democratic President Harry S. Truman in 1952 at the height of the Cold War, the NSA is a spy agency tasked with breaking the codes and signals of foreign entities and encrypting sensitive US government communications. It is overseen by a military figure—either a lieutenant general or vice admiral—and the NSA reports to the Department of Defense.

In March, Rod Beckstrom, the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber-security head (Director, National Cybersecurity Center) resigned in protest over the NSA appearing to win out in the struggle over who should “defend” domestic computer networks. In his resignation letter, which was leaked to the press, Beckstrom implied that the Office of Management and Budget had conspired with the NSA to starve his own agency of funding, and raised the threat posed by the NSA overseeing domestic computer-spying operations. “The threat to our democratic processes are significant if all top government network security and monitoring are handled by any one organization (either directly or indirectly),” Beckstrom wrote. “During my term as director we have been unwilling to subjugate the NSCS underneath the NSA.”

A Wall Street Journal report at the end of April indicated that the head of the Cyber Command would be current NSA chief, General Keith Alexander. Other accounts indicate that the Cyber Command would more likely report at first to the military's Strategic Command, which oversees the nation's nuclear arsenal, according to sources cited in the New York Times. And still other sources have said NSA personnel could be moved into a new military command structure under the control of the Pentagon.

In any case, the formation of the Cyber Command raises the threat of the military or the NSA launching operations within the US. Both are currently constitutionally-prohibited from carrying on either military or spy actions within American borders. One anonymous “senior intelligence official,” cited in the Times, called this “the domestic spying problem writ large.”

“These attacks start in other countries, but they know no borders,” he said. “So how do you fight them if you can’t act both inside and outside the United States?” The answer, implied by the very formation of the Cyber Command, is that the military and spy agencies should disregard the traditional separation of foreign war and espionage, on the one hand, and domestic policing and investigation, on the other.

According to the Defense Department, in 2008 360 million attempts were made to breach its computer networks. It also reported that the Pentagon spent $100 million in the past six months to repair damage done by hackers, most of whom work from Russia and China, it is claimed. In early April the Wall Street Journal reported that hackers had penetrated the national electricity grid and even the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighters program.

Yet despite the rhetoric about national defense, comments from administration sources and military figures make clear that motivating the creations of the military cyber defense is its offensive capabilities. “We are not comfortable discussing the question of offensive cyberoperations, but we consider cyberspace a war-fighting domain,” said Bryan Whitman, an Obama Pentagon spokesman. “We need to be able to operate within that domain just like on any battlefield, which includes protecting our freedom of movement and preserving our capability to perform in that environment.”

As they opened arms-reduction talks, the United States and Russia were urged Tuesday to set aside their recent antagonism and unite to thwart Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.


That was the underlying message of two separate reports, released Tuesday, that address Tehran's growing nuclear ambitions as well as the falling out that has occurred between Washington and the Kremlin in recent years.


Russia's war last summer with neighbour Georgia, as well as former U.S. president George W. Bush's plan to base a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe to protect the greater continent against Iranian and North Korean missile launches, have strained relations between Moscow and Washington.


A coalition of leading American and Russian scientists concluded Tuesday that the Pentagon's proposed missile shield for Europe — a plan Russia views as a hostile — would do nothing to protect against an Iranian missile attack.


"If Iran were to attack Europe with more than one or two missiles, the European missile defence system as proposed could not defend Europe," says the report by the New York-based independent think-tank, the EastWest Institute.


The report urges U.S. President Barack Obama's new administration to "conduct a serious technical review of the capabilities" of the shield proposal, which would base sensors and interceptor rockets in Poland and the Czech Republic.


The Russian and American scientists urged the Kremlin and Washington to set aside their enmity over the missile shield and other irritants and join forces to find ways of containing Iran's nuclear program.


The scientists presented their report to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones three months ago, and despite a deterioration in relations "not seen in decades," it received a positive reception providing "the basis for hope that both countries will be able to develop constructive policies of co-operation in addressing existing nuclear and missile threats."


Their report said the April 1, 2009, meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev raised hope for a new beginning when the two leaders pledged to work together to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles.


A separate report prepared for the U.S. Air Force by the RAND Corporation, also released Tuesday, called on the United States to lower the tone of its hostile rhetoric towards Iran and consider embracing Russia.


"Over the years, the United States has attempted a variety of approaches to address the Iranian challenge. To date, none has succeeded," said the RAND report.


"We suggest leveraging international pressure while unilaterally de-escalating U.S. rhetoric and policy toward Iran (essentially, reversing the traditional good cop/bad cop roles)."


Support from Russia and China "is critical because it helps deprive the Iranian leadership of the ability to deflect domestic critique by focusing discontent solely on the United States and the United Kingdom or other European Union powers."


But the RAND report was less optimistic about the prospects of engaging with Russia or China, saying the likelihood of their continued support of the U.S. "remains questionable."


The Iranian nuclear question was front and centre when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House on Monday.


Obama has reached out to Tehran's ruling clerics, but Netanyahu wanted to push the U.S. president to give Iran only a few months to respond to his overtures on the nuclear issue.


Bristling at the suggestion of one Israeli reporter that reaching out to Iran suggested a sign of weakness, Obama said he would not accept an "artificial deadline" in his dealings with Iran, but that the U.S. remained steadfastly opposed to the country getting a nuclear weapon.


On Tuesday, U.S. and Russian officials began negotiations aimed at replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in December.


But Lavrov warned that the new arms talks would not be easily separated from Russian concerns over the proposed U.S. missile shield.


"We believe that the START treaty cannot be discussed in a vacuum."

NEW COLD WAR

Edward Lucas, the Economist's man in Moscow, has a lot to answer for.

In 2008, he wrote a provocative book called “The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West” which paints a harrowing picture of the country's new assertiveness. A year on, his thesis continues to makes waves, with a review in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books (which he has called 'the greatest accolade’) What follows is a review of that review.

Lucas's thesis is, roughly, that Putin's Russia is reverting to Cold War era behaviour by cracking down on freedoms at home and becoming aggressive and expansionist abroad.

Moreover, he warns that Russia is using capitalism and the strength of its energy and minerals exports to bully its neighbours and divide-and-conquer the West in a similar way that the USSR sought to drive a wedge between Europe and the US in the 1970s.

Most importantly, Lucas is troubled by the fact that despite having rejected Communism, Russia steadfastly refuses to adopt ‘Western norms’.

Naturally, this is a rather capricious position to take, and the NYRB's Christian Caryl, a critical journalist who has reported out of Russia, seems well placed to contend some of these very controversial points. Yet he targets all the wrong aspects of Lucas's argument, taking its most objectionable assumptions for granted.


1. NATO ENLARGEMENT

Caryl writes, agreeing with Lucas: “Contrary to popular belief, NATO enlargement was driven less by a grasping, hegemonic United States than by the desire of Washington's European allies to stabilize the belt of newborn democracies to the east. There is no question that they have succeeded in this aim…NATO's requirement that candidate countries resolve border conflicts with their neighbors before they can be admitted forced would-be members to confront and air old historical grievances that could have easily poisoned the region's future”.

This is patently inaccurate. Whatever the ‘motivations’ behind Nato expansion (and there is no evidence to suggest that they were nefarious), it flatly betrayed the promise made by Clinton to Yeltsin in 1992. That is a fact. The oft-cited argument that Eastern European nations such as Poland wanted to join Nato, and the US could not stop them is empty: the US is in charge and only the US can decide who to let into its club.

Caryl brings up a very obscure and marginal example of Hungary, a country with no significant border issues with its neighbours, as a testament to Nato peace making. Yet for every Hungary and Poland, there is a Kosovo.

In fact, NATO policy in the ex-Warsaw Pact is not even relevant. That Rubicon had been crossed back under Clinton. After much empty bluster, Russia came to terms (grudgingly) with the incorporation of the Warsaw Pact into Nato and could do nothing about it. The most painful issue today, many times more sensitive for Russian public opinion (which Caryl ignores) is the question of Nato membership for countries that were integral parts not of the Warsaw Pact but of the Soviet Union itself. This is a different situation entirely, and until recently was the ultimate taboo. The US and Western powers, keen to placate Russia over betraying her by letting in Eastern Europe into Nato, drew a line at the old USSR borders. Those commitments are now null and void.

Has the spectre of Nato membership for the ex-USSR republics contributed to peace? Not if one possible explanation for Saakashvili's assault on Abkhazia that precipitated the Georgia-Russia war 5 months ago is to be believed. According to this account, Georgia used the cover of satisfying NATO membership requirements as an argument for trying to retake Abkhazia by force. Is this what Caryl meant when he wrote that Nato offers a powerful incentive to “confront and air old historical grievances” and “confront long-running historical disputes”? Are similar bloody "confrontations’ to be expected in Transdniestr, Crimea and elsewhere?

Indeed, numerous current members of NATO joined the organisation precisely at that a time when they were in the full throes of civil war and territorial dispute: Turkey and its war in Cyprus and Kurdistan ; Spain and the Basques, France and Corsica, and England and Northern Ireland. Nato has not done much to end any of these conflicts, because it is a political-military bloc for the advancement of US strategic interests; if they are served by a certain country being a member, then it is allowed in regardless of whether it has fulfilled the entry conditions. Only the EU and its (dwindling) promise of prosperity has helped push these countries together.

Caryl then writes: “Were a pro-Western government in Kiev to vote on NATO accession, political turmoil would immediately ensue. The eastern part of the country‚ dominated by Russia and with a large proportion of Russians‚ would almost certainly respond with mass protests, possibly culminating in violent opposition to the central government or demands for secession”.

Caryl talks of Ukrainian membership of Nato (supported by its pro-Western government) in positive terms and sees only “the Russian dominated East” as a source of sabotage to such an enlightened move. Yet, a recent poll by the Taylor Nelson Sofrez Ukraine agency showed opposition to Nato membership at 63%, far more than the share of “Russians” could explain. I did not have to go far to get this fact: it is on Wikipedia.

Of course, this should come as no surprise, as governments’ decisions to join Nato are often staunchly opposed by their own people; take the case of Spain in the 1970s. But Caryl is being very disingenuous here in painting a conflict between a pro-Nato governmental elite and its anti-Nato population as one between a pro-Western Ukraine and a spoiler-Russia.


2. LA GUERRE FROIDE N'A PAS EU LIEU

Caryl's analysis succumbs to a much more fundamental flaw than a misunderstanding of NATO. In order to determine whether Russia is heading for a new cold war, it helps to understand the old one, and Caryl does not. Or rather, he subscribes to the same conventional narrative as Lucas, which makes it difficult for him to challenge the latter's arguments.

For a start, Caryl holds that the old cold war "the real, bipolar, Manichaean cold war, divided the world fairly neatly into friends and foes". This is of course a gross over-simplification, if only because it leaves no room for China, or India, Roumania, Yugoslavia, Ghana and Libya, the group of 77 etc etc. And even in charting the relationship between the USSR and the US, it throws détente and Khruschev's thaw into the same pot as the militant communist internationalism of the 1920s and the Stalinism of the 40s and 50s.

But that's not even the main problem with Caryl's account. The problem lies with his reason for why the Cold War cannot return: the real reason "is that Russia, contrary to all the feverish talk about its presumed status as a revived superpower, is nothing of the kind. It is a rising regional power that enjoys the benefit of immense geographical reach and huge natural resources. Yes, it has a nuclear arsenal and a big army‚ but, as Lucas correctly notes, the former is outdated and poorly maintained, and the latter, as its less-than-stellar performance against Georgia's tiny army demonstrated, is still a long way away from a state-of-the-art modern force".

He then goes on to recount all the ways in which Russia is weak: militarily, economically, demographically, politically.

All of which raises an important question about the fundamental origins of the Cold War. If the Cold War cannot return because Russia is too weak, is not a superpower, then the first cold war started precisely because Russia was a strong power, a super-regional rival to the USSR, and not due to some "Manichean' ideological struggle suggested by Caryl in an earlier paragraph.

So which is it, Caryl? Perhaps the truth is, pace Baudrillard, that the "cold war' never happened at all.


If the Cold War were really an ideological struggle, then the change of regime from Communism should have fundamentally altered the US approach to Russia. However, this did not happen: far from disbanding, NATO continued to expand unabated and the Bush white house recently actually scrapped Soviet era arms control agreements.

If the Cold War were really caused by Russia's superpower status, in the sense that it presented a military threat to the US, then why did successive US leaders see it fit to exaggerate the Soviet military might throughout the post war years? (See: the Missile Gap and Bomber Gap controversies). The fact is that the USSR was never a match for the US and Western Europe militarily or economically, lacked the capacity to project decisive force beyond its hemisphere and throughout the 20th century remained an overwhelmingly regional power rather than a global superpower. In this sense, while Russia has become much weaker since the fall of the USSR, it had always been very weak.

So, if Russia was neither an ideological nor a military threat, what the hell was going on in the 60 years since world war II?

It's time to return to William Appleman Williams. In the 1950s and 60s, he led the revisionist school of Cold War scholarship in arguing primarily that the cold war was had very little to do with the USSR and a lot to do with the US's "open door policy' of forcibly opening up foreign markets to American capitalism.

This can explain the relentless drive into Eastern Europe and within Russia even after the "official' end of the "cold war' in Malta in 1989. The US would not be done until Eastern European and Russian state enterprises were dismantled and saturated with American business interests through the mechanism of the "free market'. However, because at that time the free market was dominated by the US, it created an idea condition to fulfill the open door prophesy. During the 1990s, and even before, US policymakers routinely conflated "free market capitalism' with "democracy' and, in cases of conflicts between the two, routinely defaulted to the former over the latter.

All through the 1990s, Russia, under American tutelage and with a bit of help from the IMF, was encouraged towards the triumph of the free market over democracy. Kotz and Weir, Boris Kagarlitsky and Stephen F Cohen have comprehensively detailed the slow death of political pluralism, democracy and free speech during the Yeltsin years. Political parties that had huge popular support but rejected the market integration (the Communist Party, CPRF) paid a huge price: Yeltsin, aided by cash from oligarchs in exchange for vastly deflated natural resource concessions (Loans for Shares Scandal) was abetted by the US in rigging the 1996 presidential election.

So after a decade of reinforced learning, Russia has finally, under Putin, learned the precedence of the free market over political democracy. And what does it get for its troubles? People like Lucas from the Economist, a magazine that has been consistently cheerleading its anti-democratic marketisation during the 1990s, now condemns it for playing the West's game, the same game it has been taught during the last decade and a half. There's just no winning, is there?

That is what's so weird about the central tenant underlying Lucas's book:

“If you believe that capitalism is a system in which money matters more than freedom, you are doomed when people who don't believe in freedom attack using money.

If that sounds like a bizarre position for an Economist journalist to take, it is; yet the NYRB's Caryl rather charitably calls it only “something of an intellectual leap”.

Funnily enough, after being shown and told since 1991 that capitalism is the only game in town; after learning the hard way the techniques that the US utilized in wedding big business to national power politics to bully countries like Russia to do its bidding; after having beated out of its system any notion of justice and freedom at odds with "the market'; after mastering the same techniques and philosophy with an amorality and ruthlessness undreamed of in the hypocritical and politically correct west, and after beating the West at its own game by having Gazprom stock snapped up by eager shareholders at the London stock exchange and gaudy Russian villas infest Courchevel, Russia is now told: stop!!! Where are your morals? Where are your values?

In light of recent history, these complaints, which were legitimate when voiced by dissidents in the early 1990s resisting the Yeltin-US marketi "reforms, can be nothing more than the laments of a sore-loser when voiced by The Economist and its apologists at the NYRB.

But even in remembering, all of a sudden, about the centrality of liberal values, morality and the rule of law (where were you in 1991-2000, Lucas and Caryl?), Lucas has still failed to repent and eschew the authoritarian approach that characterized the West's market evangelism at the expense of democracy. Only now, it's liberal evangelism at the expense of democracy.

The sentiment underpins Lucas's very philosophy, which, like Fareed Zakaria's theory of ‘illiberal democracy’, elavates liberalism, a particular political-economic conception, over democracy, majority rule. While democracy is a process, liberalism is but one of several particular outcomes of that process. Lucas only seems to support democracy when its outcome is ‘in accordance with Western values’ (ie. to his personal liking).


When I met the gracious and self-deprecating Lucas at the book's launch in Washington, what surprised me most about him was his deep affection for Russia; in that light, I realised that he harbours none of the anti-Russian racism of a Richard Pipes.

Lucas's ire is directed at the Russian regime, not its people. And because of this, he must put aside his fanatical liberal proselytizing and trust in them to choose their own way.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Cold War, Criticism and Self Criticism, Dissent, Russia-US Relations, USSR, Vladimir Putin, democracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “A New Cold War: But Was There Ever An Old One?”
Brett Says:

February 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Frankly, I think Williams’ theory is bullshit. If this were all about opening markets to American capitalism, then why was anti-communist sentiment strong among the British leadership (particularly Churchill) even before World War 2? That's not to say that Lucas's theory is entirely true, but the ideological battles mattered, particularly with regards to the political process in the United States. Plus, the whole factor of bad information, bad interpretation, and so forth.

Simon Says:

February 3rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I enjoy your blog, in many ways because it takes a more independent stance than the prevailing Western narrative of Russia but I must say that I think that you are of base here.
There is plenty to dispute a Williamsite/Charles Beard interpretation on the origins of the Cold War.
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/12/media_lens_vs_h.html
Truman and the Cold War Revisionists is well worth a read too.

In terms of democracy vs. liberalism. It is true that democracy is not seen as an outcome but I am not sure that I agree that it should be. Indeed many horrible regimes have been elected. Why you allege that some critics have been inconsistent about applying liberal values to Russia, this is not an argument for abandoning those values and taking up a Marxist view of IR theory, but rather from being consistent in applying those liberal values. Indeed McFaul in Power and Purpose makes it clear that many Western statesmen had qualms about Yeltsin and saw Gorbachev as preferable in many ways but simply took the ‘realist’ position that Yeltsin- with all of his many flaws- was better than the Communist alternative.