Courcy's Special Alerts

The main briefing in our 16 November Courcy’s Intelligence Brief looked at the poor state of US-Russia relations and in particular at Russian complaints about US policies over Libya, Syria, and Iran and – most importantly – over missile defence.  We reported that there is a prevailing view in Western diplomatic circles that Russian complaints amount to little more than bluster and can largely be ignored.

Our central point was that it might be unwise to rely too heavily on this assumption given the growing intensity of Russian complaints and the increasing evidence of Russian paranoia about Western actions and motives.

Comments earlier today (17 November) by Russia’s Chief of General Staff General Nikolay Makarov have provided further dramatic evidence of the degree of Russia’s growing paranoia.

In a speech to the Russian Public Chamber (created in 2005 to analyze draft legislation and to monitor the activities of the parliament, government, and other government bodies) Makarov lamented that “practically all the countries of the former Warsaw Pact have become Nato members; the Baltic states that were part of the former Soviet Union have also joined the North Atlantic Alliance”.  And he issued the following warning:

 “The possibility of local armed conflicts along practically the whole of the perimeter of the border has increased dramatically.  Under certain circumstances I do not rule out the possibility that local and regional conflicts may develop into a large-scale war, including with the use of nuclear weapons.”

We concluded our 16 November briefing by saying that the prospect for US-Russia relations in 2012 was one of “decreasing cooperation and increasing diplomatic confrontation”.  We added that “no one is suggesting more than this at this stage” - but every new revelation of Russia’s growing paranoia increases our concerns about its future actions.

END