Russia senses an opportunity
Russia is in the process of preparing a new issue of its “Foreign Policy Concept”, which is expected to be ready before the end of the year. Earlier in September, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov gave an interview to the Russian International Affairs journal in which he outlined the challenges he saw for Russian diplomacy in the 21st century. Although there was nothing particularly startling in Lavrov’s interview, it was noteworthy how much emphasis he continues to put on what Russia sees as the crimes of Western interventionism – which, in turn, he blames for “the negative displays in today’s international relations”.
For Russia, the new world order “must be polycentric” and it must be based on the concept of sovereign equality at the United Nations tempered by the right of the major powers to use their vetoes. Lavrov notes that the League of Nations collapsed because it ignored the interests of the largest states, and the veto right within the UN Charter was introduced to overcome this defect.
For Lavrov, much more damaging than the exercise of the veto – as by China and Russia over intervention in Syria – has been the West’s tendency to act militarily without or beyond UN authority. He cites the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the acquiring of UN authority on Iraq under false pretences, and the expansion of the no-fly zone authority for Libya to justify regime change.
Now, on Syria, he warns against threats by the West “to look for the settlement of the crisis in Syria beyond the framework of the UN Security Council” and he warns that “such steps could have the most destructive and dangerous consequences for both Syria and the Middle East as a whole - and finally the entire modern world’s law and order”. According to Lavrov, “humanitarian intervention is a term contradicting the UN Charter”.
It might just be that events are moving Russia’s way. On the one hand there is the increased international influence of the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) nations and the consequent decline in Western hegemony. But there are also increasing signs of Western exhaustion with interventionism, not least because of its uncertain results. Even Libya, initially deemed a success, is looking less obviously a model intervention. And, as we argued last week, the signs are that the US is prepared to go to considerable lengths to avoid a war with Iran.
It is just possible that, on the question of Western interventionism, the tide is beginning to turn in Russia’s direction. However, Russia’s great strategic weaknesses remain, namely its under-developed political system, its poor economic outlook, its demographic challenges, an unsettled periphery, and the challenge of China.
Of these, it is the challenge of China that most exercises the Kremlin, and until now it has tried to solve the problem by developing the closest possible ties with Beijing. However, it was intriguing to note Japan’s assessment of Russia-China relations in the East Asian Strategic Review 2012 published in late March by the defence ministry’s think tank, the National Institute for Defence Studies (Nids). The report noted that “a turnaround is being observed in Russia’s policy vis-a-vis East Asia as a result of the rise in China”. It recommended the encouragement of this trend by the Western powers and and understanding that the modernization of the Russian economy is “in the common interest of all”.
Now, with China and Japan experiencing the sharpest deterioration in their relations for years, it is noticeable that Russia and Japan appear to be working hard at improving their ties. On 25 September, Russia and Japan agreed to hold vice-ministerial level talks in Tokyo in mid-October with a view to advancing negotiations on the disputed Southern Kurile Islands (seized by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II). The idea is that a text on the dispute can be agreed for signing during Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s visit to Russia in December. This will be the first official visit to Russia by a Japanese prime minister in nearly a decade. The two countries are also to hold a meeting of the Japan-Russia Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Issues in Tokyo in late November.
The situation is not entirely analogous in that Japan is in possession of the Senkakus while Russia is in possession of the Kuriles, but in an interesting contrast between Russia’s and China’s approach to their territorial disputes with Japan, while Beijing has purposely sought to stoke up popular antagonism towards Japan, Putin told Noda during a meeting in Mexico in June that he was in favour of reactivating talks on the Kurile dispute “in a quiet atmosphere”.
And while China refused to attend an international disaster relief meeting which opened in Tokyo on 25 September, attended by 23 countries, on 26 September Russia and Japan were able to ignore their territorial dispute and hold a joint naval marines’ exercise off Vladivostok. From the Japanese side, the destroyer Ariake and the frigate Oyeda are participating, having both called at the main base of Russia’s Pacific Fleet on 23 September.
We have long forecast a closer Japan-Russia relationship, but Russia’s desire for close relations with China coupled with the territorial dispute have so far hampered this logical development. Japan, however, has never given up hope, and it looks as if its persistence will at last be repaid. JdeC.
NOTE: The visit by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan on 20 September has confirmed Russia’s intensifying interest in the region ahead of the Western pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. Also confirmed is the split with Uzbekistan, which has left the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and is looking to strengthen relations with the United States.
Two key agreements were signed during Putin’s visit to Kyrgyzstan. The first was for extending the term of Russia’s 201st division military base and the second was for the developing of a major hydroelectric project. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev confirmed that the US air base at Manas would close in 2014. Russia has an air base at Kant, a torpedo-testing centre at Issyk-Kul, a naval communications centre, and a seismic centre operated by Russia’s Strategic Missile Troops. In 2017, a new Russian-Kyrgyz military base will open in Osh.
The Kyrgyz hydroelectric scheme sits alongside the construction by Russia of the Rogunsk hydroelectric station in Tajikistan, and it prompted the heavyweight Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta to comment on 24 September: “The prospect of successful construction of a hydroelectric station cascade may bring Russia to the energy export market even beyond the limits of Central Asia – through Pakistan and Afghanistan to India...Moscow would be able to principally change the energy map of the region...Thus Russia’s policy in Central Asia is gradually evolving. The intertwining of economic decisions and military agreements...clearly reflects the Russian Federation’s stepped up activity in Central Asia. The configuration of Moscow-Bishkek-Dushanbe [Russia-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan] is taking on a clear form.”
But these moves have stirred up anti-Russia passions in Uzbekistan, where there has been talk of a Russian conspiracy to control the waters of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are upstream of Uzbekistan) and to use this control to punish Uzbekistan for leaving the CSTO. Uzbekistan’s President Islom Karimov has even raised the spectre of water wars.
It is not an entirely fanciful notion. In 2010, Kyrgyzstan diverted the flow of the Talas River, which is a source of irrigation of Kazakhstan’s agricultural sector, after Kazakhstan had closed the border between two countries following unrest in Kyrgyzstan. It worked, as after a few hours Kazakhstan relented and re-opened the border.