From Crimea to China
We have been struck in the last week by sharply contrasting views of the Crimea crisis coming from two highly respected think tanks, one based in Australia (the Lowy Institute) and the other in Europe (Carnegie Europe). It reflects a simple but important point: the relative proximities of Russia and China.
In a commentary published on 11 March, the Lowy Institute put the view that “rather than an aggressive expansion of Russian influence”, Moscow’s attempts to formalize control of the Crimea should be seen “as part of an offensive retreat on the part of Moscow”. It added that the military intervention “has been carefully restricted to the convenient geographic boundaries of the Crimea and will likely remain so unless Kiev should order its military to challenge the new status quo.”
The commentary went on to argue that the Western powers risked much by becoming too confrontational with Russia because of the role that Russia must play in resolving the Syrian civil war, in neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and in the aftermath of the Western retreat from Afghanistan.
And, more importantly still, it argued that pushing Russia closer to China would be damaging for US interests in Asia. By contrast, the Lowy commentary argued, “a true ‘reset’ of relations between Washington and Moscow, with a partnership securing the latter’s sphere of influence along the borderlands of Europe and extending into Central Asia, would greatly complicate Beijing’s ability to focus its attention on its maritime east and south…”
The day before, on 10 March, Carnegie Europe published a commentary that saw the problem from an almost entirely opposite perspective. It warned: “[Putin] has already started unilaterally changing Europe’s borders. He has set a dangerous precedent in Crimea, and he could be tempted to go further. Poland, the Baltic states, and Sweden understand what is unfolding in Europe: the continent’s post-Cold War order and values are now vulnerable…”
These contrasting commentaries reflect a genuine difference in strategic perspectives and the unsurprising fact that Europe is more focused on potential threats from Russia than from China. But the threat from Russia can be exaggerated, and Putin’s military intervention does seem to have been carefully judged. Short of a catastrophic misjudgement by the western Ukrainians and/or the Western powers, the Russian military intervention should go no further.
Support for this assertion can be found in the way in which Putin has revitalized the Russian military for precisely this type of operation around Russia’s borders and not for a major confrontation with the West. Russia may have the world’s third-largest military budget (at $70bn), but its revamped military is geared entirely to local crises on the borders of the Russian Federation – or nuclear war. There isn’t any middle ground, and military experts say that Russia does not have the capacity for protracted combat operations.
Interestingly, the bigger threat from under-reacting to the Crimea crisis is not that Russia will see this as a green light for a further military push to the west, but that China might misinterpret it as a general sign of Western weakness and a precedent for Western inaction in the event of any Chinese adventurism in East Asia. This is the point that will be greatly exercising Japan this week as it enters talks with the US to review bilateral defence guidelines, for the first time in 17 years. JdeC.
NOTE: In the lead up to this week’s talks in Hawaii between US and Japanese military officials on bilateral defence guidelines, US officials were making it clear that the US does not want to be drawn into any conflict between Japan and China. As one US official put it this week: “There is a tendency to distil all this back to the Senkaku Islands. It’s not about any particular contingency. It’s about making the US-Japan alliance more flexible and responsive to a security environment that’s not as black and white as we were thinking about in 1997.”
Japan on the other hand, according to one Japanese official, “wants to prioritize discussions on China and clarify the respective US and Japanese roles in the event of a ‘grey zone’ incident”. A ‘grey zone’ incident could include such things as Chinese special forces disguised as fishermen landing on disputed islands.
Narushige Michishita, who was a national security adviser to the Junichiri Koizumi government from 2004-2006, said this week in the lead-up to the bilateral talks: “The United States is certainly ambivalent about this because they think it would drag them into a confrontation and possibly a conflict with China.” And he warned that if the US does not clarify its position satisfactorily, “it would undermine the credibility of the alliance and might end up encouraging China to be bolder...US policymakers will have to walk a thin line and try to strike a balance between maintaining credibility and deterrence, and preventing excessive involvement in the situation.”
It would also further encourage Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to modify Japan’s strictly pacifist constitution. In parliament recently he highlighted a scenario involving the detection of a foreign submarine in Japanese waters and its refusal to surface and identify itself despite repeated demands.
Abe is concerned about Japan’s own ability to react in such an event. He said: “A legal gap like that at a time when the security environment surrounding our country is getting tougher would render deterrence dysfunctional and put the people in grave danger.”