New era of discord for Russia and West

[frigidmagi]

BBC

President Vladimir Putin's threat to target missiles at Europe indicates that the hostility between Russia and the West is more than a passing phase. It has become a permanent part of world diplomacy.

Russian missiles have not been targeted on European countries for many years. Mr Putin blamed the US plan to develop an anti-missile system in eastern Europe.

Targeting missiles indicates a worsening state of relations. It is more of a political than a military move, since a non-targeted missile remains a threat in any case.

To keep matters in proportion, it is important to note that Mr Putin was not suggesting a return to the wholesale targeting of Europe by the Soviet Union. He hinted that any "new targets" would be connected to the "strategic nuclear potential of the United States...in Europe".

Uneasiness

Mr Putin clearly wants to apply pressure so that the US proposal, which needs the approval of the Polish and Czech governments, is not implemented.

He disregarded US assurances that the system was too small to affect Russian defences and was aimed at countering potential future threats from Iran. Other parts of the system are based in Alaska and California and are designed to prevent potential attacks from North Korea.


It is an era of self-interest, with both sides following and promoting their own agendas, which may or may not coincide or clash

And he appeared to contradict what he himself said in January 2006, when he announced that Russia had a new ballistic missile. "These missiles don't represent a response to a missile defence system," he said at the time.

So his threats have to be put in a wider context.

Update 5 June: President Bush, on a visit to the Czech Republic, made it clear that he would not give up the plan but he went out of his way to try to explain it. "The Cold War is over...Russia is not our enemy" he said, laying out what he would tell Mr Putin: "My message will be: Vladimir -- I call him Vladimir -- that you shouldn't fear a missile defence system. As a matter of fact why don't you cooperate with us on a missile defence system? Why don't you participate with the United States? Please send your generals over to see how such a system would work. Send your scientists. Let us have the ability to discuss this issue in an open forum where we'll be completely transparent."

Later, he commented about Russia: "Reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development."

New era

"A new Cold War" and similar descriptions do not catch the reality of this new and antagonistic relationship. It is possibly a long-term one, based less on the ideology of the Cold War confrontation and more on a big power uneasiness that each side might just have to live with.

It is an era of self-interest, with both sides following and promoting their own agendas, which may or may not coincide or clash.

Indeed, analysts are beginning to discount the current leadership on both sides as incapable of much change and to look ahead to see what might develop after President Putin stands down next spring and President George W Bush at the start of 2009.

G8 and Maine

The G8 meeting this week, and the probably more important bilateral meeting at the Bush family encampment at Kennebunkport in Maine in early July, might not make much difference.

The Maine invitation is at least a gesture by Mr Bush. He has not invited any other foreign leader there. But the fact that he has chosen (with a hint from his father maybe?) the family's inner sanctum shows how bad things have become.

Protest in Prague, 17 March 2007
The US missile plan has brought protests in the Czech Republic

"I very much doubt if the meeting in Maine will produce much," said Margot Light, a Russia watcher at the London School of Economics.

"I don't see a meeting of minds, though Mr Putin likes the idea of Russia being courted and is pleased to go. He argues that Russia is a great power and has to be taken into account.

"However, Bush will not change his mind about anti-missile deployment in eastern Europe and nothing short of that will persuade Putin to relent.

"Putin likened it to scratching your left ear with your right hand. It re-invokes the psychosis of encirclement felt by the Soviet Union after the war. Russia is incensed that its words and interests are being disregarded. That said, it is milking the issue for all it is worth."

The Putin approach

The current problems are partly to do with the legacy of the Yeltsin years, which Mr Putin felt he had to erase by taking a firm, nationalistic line. This of course coincided with the neo-conservative line being taken by the Bush administration.


Russia should keep in mind the adage that 'two wrongs don't make a right' when formulating its responses to the US anti-missile plan
Wade Boese,
Arms Control Association

Washington has gone ahead perhaps too confidently with its plans, assuming that the Russians are now on board.

The key example here is the US withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, announced in 2001. This has led directly to the US proposals for the deployment of the missile defence system in the UK, the Czech Republic and Poland.

The Russians, however, are not on board.

And their dissatisfaction goes beyond missile defence. They are threatening not to fulfil their commitments under the conventional forces treaty (CFE) in Europe and the intermediate range nuclear weapons treaty (INF) with the US.

However, according to the independent pressure group, the Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington, this could be the ground on which the two could come closer together.

The Americans, it suggests, should put the European anti-missile system on hold and engage with Moscow "to reassess and re-energise efforts to help transform their strategic relations from competition to cooperation, in part, by adopting a more ambitious arms control agenda".

The more I read about this the more I become convince Putin is just milking this to stir up support and try to expand Russia's sphere more then anything else.

[Stormbringer]

The more I read about this the more I become convince Putin is just milking this to stir up support and try to expand Russia's sphere more then anything else.

I don't know if you've followed some of the SD.net discussions in which Stas and Stuart have discussed this. But basically it boils down to the strategic position of Russia degrading badly if it's ICBMs are rendered irrelevant or obsolete. They can't afford to replace their nuclear stick with bombers or new subs and so they're fighting hard to derail ABM.

[frigidmagi]

I try to avoid SDN.

Anyways interesting update.

BBC

President George W Bush has described as "interesting" a proposal by Russia's president for resolving the row over the planned US missile defence shield.

Vladimir Putin said their two countries could use a radar system in Azerbaijan to develop a shield covering all of Europe, during talks at the G8 summit.

Mr Putin said the base could detect incoming missiles from so-called rogue states aimed at Europe or the US.

Russia has been critical of US plans to extend the shield into central Europe.

Mr Putin has repeatedly scoffed at US claims the defence shield is targeting rogue states, and has said Moscow may in response aim its missiles at Europe.

'Common work'

But after the meeting on the fringes of the summit in Germany, the Russian leader said the threat to re-target Russian missiles could be withdrawn if Washington agreed to use the former Soviet radar base at Qabala in Azerbaijan.


This will make it possible for us not to change our stance on the targeting of our missiles
Vladimir Putin

"This will make it possible for us not to change our stance on the targeting of our missiles," Mr Putin said. "On the contrary, this will create the necessary grounds for common work."

"This work should be multi-faceted with the engagement of the states concerned in Europe."

Mr Putin added that if Washington and Moscow co-operated transparently on missile defence, "then we will have no problems".

Mr Bush said his Russian counterpart had presented some interesting suggestions and that they would discuss the issue further during two days of talks beginning on 1 July in Kennebunkport, Maine.

"We both agreed to have a strategic dialogue," he said.

"This is a serious issue."

Mr Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the Russian proposal was a "positive development".

He said it showed President Putin acknowledged the potential threat from rogue states and that officials from Russia and the US would sit down in the future to discuss the development of the shield.

"Let's let our experts have a look at it," Mr Hadley told reporters.

I read in the paper today Putin was yammering about putting it in Turkey, Iraq, basically anywhere but Eastern Europe. I would have to say this is most certainly more about maintaining the illusion of Russia's imperial sphere then anything else.

[Stormbringer]

I try to avoid SDN.

I thought so but they're fairly worthwhile discussions to have read, since it's probably the closest thing most of us are likely to get to the inside perspective.

I read in the paper today Putin was yammering about putting it in Turkey, Iraq, basically anywhere but Eastern Europe. I would have to say this is most certainly more about maintaining the illusion of Russia's imperial sphere then anything else.

There's certainly an element of preserving Russian influence over the former Warsaw Pact. But at the same time, I think Putin is well informed enough to realize that the US is unlikely to put such an important piece of US defense capability in a region so unstable and hostile.