Russia
And China Create
Their Own Orbit
By M K Bhadrakumar
11 November, 2006
Asia
Times Online
While
interacting with a select gathering of "Russia hands" from
Western academia, media and think tanks recently, President Vladimir
Putin ventured onto the topic of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) in terms, as he put it, that would be a "revelation ... something
probably I have never said to anyone before".
Putin, known for his reticence
and choice of words, revealed that the Kremlin did not "plan"
for the SCO's present standing, but had only set its sights on the organization's
potential to resolve the "utilitarian question of settling borders"
between China and its post-Soviet neighbors. SCO includes China, Russia,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
He continued, "After
all, to be honest, I know that somewhere within the depths of various
governments and intelligence services there are people thinking that
Russians and Chinese are up to something here, that they have got some
kind of secret mechanism and are planning something."
Putin summed up explaining
SCO's raison d'etre. "It's simply that after the collapse of the
bipolar world, there was a real need for the emergence of centers of
influence and power. This is simply an objective reality."
Curiously, Putin was speaking
just ahead of the sensational "revelation" in Moscow last
week that the first-ever joint military exercise of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO - Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
and Tajikistan) and the SCO would be held next year.
Code-named Peace Mission
Rubezh, the CSTO-SCO exercise will be staged in Chebarkul in Russia's
Volga-Urals area. Significantly, the heads of state of the participating
countries - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Belarus and Armenia - are expected to witness the exercise. Russian
commentators have speculated that the attendance of SCO observer countries
(Iran, Pakistan and India) cannot be ruled out.
In essence, this becomes
a military exercise involving Russia and its select band of close Commonwealth
of Independent States allies plus China. Equally, this will also be
the SCO's first full-scale exercise involving all its member countries.
China is expected to display, for the first time abroad, its latest
battle tank, as well as its latest FC-1 multi-role fighters powered
by Russian AL-31FN/FNM1 engines. Both China and Russia are expected
to participate at battalion strength.
The exercises are ostensibly
aimed at countering "terrorist and extremist networks in this world
of ours" (to quote a Russian commentator) and are not targeted
at any country - "definitely not NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]
or the United States or any other bona fide entity".
But speculation is bound
to arise as during the exercises the chiefs of staff of the participating
countries will gather in Urumchi, the capital of China's Xinjiang Autonomous
Region.
Without doubt, there is much
political symbolism in the forthcoming event. The announcement in Moscow
on November 3 was itself just about 25 days ahead of the NATO summit
scheduled to take place in the Latvian capital of Riga, which of course
will be the first time that the trans-Atlantic Alliance holds its annual
summit meeting on the territory of a former Soviet republic. The Riga
summit is expected to be a landmark event that may well end up formalizing
NATO's transformation in the post-Cold War era into a security organization
with global reach - something that Washington has been assiduously seeking.
Furthermore, the summit may
take up the next round of NATO expansion plans in the Eurasian region.
To be sure, Russia is greatly perturbed about NATO's intentions. On
the one hand, Moscow is far from convinced that NATO's continued profession
of good intentions toward Russia and its interest in developing cooperative
sinews with Russia is to be taken at face value. On the other hand,
Moscow is taking note that a possibility still exists, remote though,
that through such steady enlargement, NATO may become unwieldy to a
point that it may well end up as a hot air balloon.
Certainly, Moscow continues
to cherish a vague hope that the manifest reluctance of the countries
of "Old Europe" to fit into the US straitjacket of global
security may yet come in the way of defining NATO's role as an aggressive
bloc. The great hope has always been that somehow NATO may meander into
a conceptual impasse as it steps out of its traditional European periphery.
Meanwhile, not a trace remains,
even by way of a residue, of the categorical assurance held out by the
Ronald Reagan administration to Mikhail Gorbachev in the dying days
of the Cold War that NATO wouldn't advance eastward from its existing
European borders ("not an inch", as then-secretary of state
James Baker would have said). All that Moscow had to do was convince
East Germany's Erich Honecker about the unification of the two Germanys
- which Gorbachev duly did, and thereafter proceeded to disband the
Warsaw Pact unilaterally.
Having said that, there is
great uneasiness in Moscow about the specter of Russia having to share
borders with NATO member countries. With the NATO countries' refusal
to ratify the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, the ground reality
is that Russia is at a serious disadvantage with regard to the strength
of its conventional forces, and with each passing day it widens. Russia
is eager for ratification of the treaty to extend its applicability
to the territories of the Baltic states, which are not covered by the
existing treaty's ceilings on force deployments.
Russian deputy Prime Minister
and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has repeatedly voiced Russian concerns.
"During the first wave of NATO expansion [in the mid-1990s], we
[Boris Yeltsin's Russia] were given solemn assurances that there would
be no NATO military infrastructure in the new members' territory. We
were simply duped," Ivanov said on November 1 while on a visit
to Norway, a key NATO power.
He asked: "We don't
see why NATO's military infrastructure is getting closer to our borders.
Do we pose a threat to anyone?" Ivanov reiterated that nonetheless,
Russia would take at face value the potentials of developing a cooperative
relationship within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council. But a
spate of Russian statements in recent months indicates that the two
sides' interests are diverging to a point of extensive disagreements.
As Fedor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, wrote
recently, "After a decade and a half of pretensions, Russian politicians
are once again reaching for their pistols when they hear the word 'NATO'."
The former head of Russian
intelligence, General Leonid Ivashov, told Radio Russia recently that
the US and NATO "helped to mastermind the provocative measure"
involving a recent Russian-Georgian spy scandal since they needed a
"new platform in the North Caucasus, which is an extremely important
strategic corridor for them". He said the intention was to create
an "arc of insecurity" around Russia, by involving the Baltic
States, Poland, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia.
Ivanov also alleged that
some NATO countries were supplying arms to Georgia. Moscow has no doubt
taken note that it was right in the middle of Russia's spy scandal with
Georgia that the US Congress took the decision to provide financial
assistance to Tbilisi for upgrading Georgia's military capability to
a level that speeded up its NATO accession.
Watchful eye on NATO
NATO's enlargement is increasingly
becoming a matter of shared concern for Russia and China. In a commentary
in mid-June, the People's Daily noted that "with its tentacles
stretching further and further ... NATO's forces are exceeding the 'defensive
mode' and are going hand-in-hand with the US global strategy ... NATO's
great ambition draws concern."
In another commentary in
September, the People's Daily was more specific. It noted, "The
emergence of NATO troops in Afghanistan and the rapid expansion in the
scope of its moves have shown a new trend in the process of its hastening
shift toward globalization, and this has drawn extensive concern of
people worldwide."
The commentary added, "NATO
has intensified its interference in the affairs of major 'hot-spot'
regions in recent years ... The frequent appearance of NATO troops in
the 'hot-spot' areas is closely related to its strategic functions ...
Equipping itself with such a raid deployment force, NATO will naturally
step up its efforts to expand its domain and the scope of its moves
... It is the US that provides the biggest driving force behind NATO's
worldwide overreach."
Most significantly, the commentary
took note of NATO's imminent appearance in the Asia-Pacific region.
It said NATO "plans to propose at the [Riga] summit in November
a plan for global partnership, which is aimed at enhancing its cooperation
with Japan, Australia and New Zealand, while seeking an expansion of
the parameters of its cooperation with such 'democratic nations' as
Brazil, India, South Africa and the Republic of Korea".
Without doubt, both Moscow
and Beijing will be keenly watching the US's ambitious plans to deploy
a network of anti-missile systems across the world, ostensibly to safeguard
against threats from "rogue states" such as Iran and North
Korea, but which Moscow and Beijing see as a direct challenge to their
security. As Russian Defense Minister Ivanov said, "The announced
purpose is the interception of Iranian inter-continental ballistic missiles,
which do not exist and will not exist in the near future. I think everyone
understands against whom they [anti-ballistic missile defense systems]
can be used."
Ivanov could have been echoing
China's concerns, too, when he criticized that the US deployment constituted
a "destabilizing element and an attempt to shift the strategic
balance".
The point is, by December
a new threshold is fast approaching for both Russia and China. The US
has scheduled full-scale tests of its interceptor missiles in that month,
and if they prove successful, that leads to the deployment of ground
and space-based elements of the missile defense program in full.
Russia is planning an "asymmetric
response" to the deployment of an American missile defense system
in the NATO countries bordering Russia. On the one hand Russia is developing
its Topol-M (SS-27) and Bulava missile systems with a uniquely short
boost phase, which helps the missiles avoid interception when their
engines are firing.
For example, whereas the
boost phase at present lasts five minutes (which is sufficient time
for a missile launch to be spotted from space), the new systems aim
at cutting down the burning time to 130 seconds, which provides hardly
any lead time for kinetic interceptors to hit the missile. Besides,
Russia is resorting to such other "asymmetric responses" like
coating missile surfaces with reflecting materials or generating radio
noise to confuse the interceptors or deploying interceptor killers near
the Russian border.
But China faces a far more
daunting challenge. The US missile system threatens to simply wipe out
the Chinese strategic capability. China will be virtually left with
no alternative but to build up its nuclear forces by massive deployments
of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles.
That is to say, both Moscow
and Beijing realize by now that the US is provoking a potential full-scale
nuclear arms race. In a statement on October 3, the Russian Foreign
Ministry underlined the gravity of the situation. It warned, "We
regard negatively the US plans to deploy an anti-missile defense system
in Europe, and we believe that with the possible deployment of the European
NATO missile defense system, it would have a negative impact on strategic
stability, regional security and inter-governmental relations."
Last week, Russian Air Force
commander-in-chief General Vladimir Mikhailov further warned that the
potential of external threats to Russia was increasing in the nature
of the improvement and acquisition of more strategic and tactical cruise
missiles by NATO countries. "Not only are NATO countries buying
large quantities of missiles, such as the Storm Shadow, KEPD-350, JASSM
and SLAM-ER, for their air forces, but they are also energetically promoting
their export, including to Russia's next-door neighbors," he said.
Again, in the medium term,
the majority of NATO aircraft will be in the category that are difficult
to detect by air defense systems. NATO countries may also acquire hyper-sound
air-to-surface missiles. Mikhailov revealed that during the war in the
former Yugoslavia and Iraq, the combat use of the range of NATO's new
arsenals of high-precision, difficult-to-detect armaments was tried
out. "An analysis of exercises in the West shows that plans for
such strikes [as in Yugoslavia and Iraq] are being actively developed.
And the amount of air attack forces and the means available to NATO
makes us believe that the purpose of their use under certain circumstances
may be strategic disarmament of the enemy or the destruction of the
enemy's command system," he said.
Putin himself drew attention
to the growing threat perception last week in a major speech at the
Russian military intelligence headquarters in Moscow. Putin said the
potential for conflict was on the increase and Russian military intelligence
must remain vigilant. Without naming the US, he singled out "stagnation
in disarmament", "threat of the emergence of destabilizing
weapons such as low-charge nuclear weapons and strategic missiles equipped
with non-nuclear warheads", placement of nuclear weapons in space,
and development of offensive weapons systems as the contentious issues.
"The international community
finds itself in a situation in which factors of force are dominating
in international relations, a situation where relations are being undermined
by unilateral actions ... and by attempts by some countries to unceremoniously
impose their positions without taking into account at all the legitimate
interests of other partners," Putin said.
Keeping pace with the incipient
trends in this direction, however, starting in 2005, the Kremlin has
begun initiating steps aimed at building up the CSTO alliance - which
embraces Russia's most reliable allies - on the international arena.
Thus, CSTO has gained observer status in the United Nations and it has
been "recognized" by the SCO.
At a meeting of the CSTO
collective security council in Moscow in June last year it was decided
to create a military component to the organization. A plan to develop
an integrated air defense system for the member countries was also discussed.
Putin listed that CSTO's priorities would include cooperation in air
defense, manufacturing of weapons, preparation of military personnel
and peacekeeping activities. (CSTO's air defense system presently comprises
20 command control units and 80 combat units.)
From Washington's point of
view, the worst-case scenario would be if an alignment were to formally
take shape between CSTO and the SCO, which could become a mission analogous
to NATO as a security organization. In the words of Ariel Cohen of the
Heritage Foundation, "The inter-operability of the Russian and
Chinese forces would constitute a great force multiplier in the event
of a major military confrontation, and the possibility of a coordinated
action is viewed by the Pentagon with great suspicion. Such inter-operable
forces do not threaten the US presence in the Far East - yet. However,
the Russian units outnumber American forces deployed in Central Asia.
Military cooperation between Russia and China, under the guise of counter-terrorism
in Central Asia, has the potential to set off alarms in the planning
rooms of NATO and the Pentagon."
This is why Washington sees
the SCO as detrimental to US geopolitical interests in Central Asia.
But the American strategy toward the SCO is highly nuanced. On the one
hand, Washington strives to gain observer status in the organization
so as to be in a position to modulate its orientations from within SCO
forums. On the other hand, taking advantage of the huge upswing in its
relations with India, Washington recently come up with a "Great
Central Asia" strategy that aims at drawing the region toward South
Asia - away from Russia and China. This is predicated on the assumption
that New Delhi and Islamabad (and Kabul) will cooperate to become engaging
partners for land-locked Central Asian countries.
Meanwhile, Washington will
continue to harbor the hope that there is scope to encourage the Central
Asian countries to play Russia against China within the SCO forum itself.
Of late, American strategic analysts have attempted to persuade Beijing
that Moscow is attempting to drag it into an anti-American bloc, which
would be harmful to China's long-term economic interests.
Washington also hopes to
use the oil price issue as a wedge between Russia and China. Some American
analysts have taken pains to explain that the geopolitical interests
of the US and China do not necessarily clash in the Central Asian region.
Conceivably, Washington's priority at the present stage will be to isolate
Russia (being the only power on earth with the thermonuclear capability
to destroy the United States within 30 minutes) and leave it to a future
date to deal with China, once the Russian "pretender" has
been sorted out.
All indications are that
Moscow and Beijing have seen through the arrogance and cultural insensitivity
underlying Washington's miscalculation on this score. The role of the
SCO as a significant geopolitical player; the shift in the terminus
of Russia's Eastern Siberian oil and gas export pipeline from the Pacific
coast to China; the expanding coordination between Russia and China
at the UN; accelerating Chinese investments in Russia; Russia's increased
readiness to transfer state-of-the-art weapon systems to China; the
two countries' growing energy cooperation - all these signal that Washington's
stratagem to "divide and rule" Central Asia has not worked.
Putin recently said, "Our
relations with China today are better than at any other point in our
history ... Our relations are not dictated by opportunism but by the
political balance in the world and global development trends, and these
trends are such, in my view, that they will make it imperative to maintain
a high level and quality of relations for a long time to come. We have
common political interests and we also have common economic interests."
The announcement regarding
the CSTO-SCO joint military exercise, therefore, signifies that the
Sino-Russian alliance is advancing to a qualitatively new level. Admittedly,
for both Russia and China, their respective relationship with the US
will remain a matter of crucial importance, But the growing Sino-Russian
alliance is no longer to be regarded as their bargaining chip or a scarecrow
vis-a-vis Washington to be flaunted selectively when the going gets
tough in their partnership with the US.
The Sino-Russian alliance
is becoming a vital component of the policies of the two great powers,
based on substantive strategic, diplomatic and economic considerations.
Russian diplomatic and economic policy that has been traditionally anchored
in the West is unmistakably turning east, though the primary direction
still remains European. It is as much a challenge to European diplomacy
as to Russian diplomacy whether Russia's Asian alliance incrementally
supplants or merely complements Russia's European alignment.
M K Bhadrakumar
served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29
years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998)
and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Copyright 2006 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
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