Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

No subscriber to this service will have been surprised by Russia’s veto of the draft UN Security Council Resolution against Syria, even in its highly watered-down final state.  We have been warning for months about Moscow’s growing animosity towards the West and the failure of the attempted ‘reset’ in US-Russia relations.  It may not be easy for proponents of the dominant liberal-interventionist strand in Western foreign policy, but establishing a modus vivendi with Russia could be crucial both in the short term, as the Middle East continues on its seemingly inexorable course towards war, and in the longer term as the struggle for power in Asia intensifies. 

Russia is feeling vulnerable for innumerable reasons which include its irrevocable loss of superpower status; the continuing drift of the western and southern former Soviet republics away from the Russian orbit; the challenge of China in Central Asia and the Far East; jihadist extremism in the still-Russian north Caucasus; its declining population; the overwhelming ascendancy of Nato; and the nascent democratic threat to the Russian party of power, currently dominated by the unrepentant ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin and supported by the principal beneficiaries of the post-Soviet looting spree.

There is little sympathy in the West for Russia’s predicament, partly because it is hard to shake off the habitual thought processes of the Cold War (in international relations, old habits die hard) but also because of the unpleasant nature of the Putin regime.  Nevertheless, Western policymakers also fully understand Russia’s weakness and vulnerabilities.  The US’s Director of National Intelligence, James R Clapper, in his 31 January statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, noted the following about Russia: “The Kremlin since late 2008 has embraced a wide-ranging military reform and modernization program...The reform and modernization programs will yield improvements that will allow the Russian military to more rapidly defeat its smaller neighbours and remain the dominant military force in the post-Soviet space, but will not – and are not intended to – enable Moscow to conduct sustained offensive operations against Nato collectively.”  In other words, Russia is not a serious threat to the West.  However, as its vetoing of the Syria resolution showed, it can be a nuisance.

On the other hand, Russia has more shared interests with the principal Western powers than is commonly acknowledged.  The most obvious common interest is in ensuring that China’s rise is contained, and in that cause it shares America’s desire to stay close to India, the great democratic balance to China in Asia.  Beyond that, it has an interest in stabilizing Afghanistan; it is as fearful of Islamist fundamentalism as is the West; it could prove to be an important ally in mitigating any dangerous side-effects from the coming Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy in the Middle East; and, if played right, it could help prevent what at the moment seems to be an inevitable war with Iran.  It also has the potential to become a Western-style democracy.

Going a little deeper, there is the additional point that Russia provides a balance to the possibility of Turkish neo-Ottoman enthusiasm in the same way that keeping Turkey anchored in Nato can provide a balance to any resurgence of Russia’s southerly ambitions - although such classic balance-of-power thinking might be a step too far for those within the Western policymaking establishment who find ‘realism’ distasteful.

Clapper, in his Worldwide Threat Assessment presentation to the Senate complained about Putin’s “instinctive distrust of US intentions and his transactional approach towards relations” – but all that really means is that Russia needs reassuring and Putin likes to get something back in return for favours rendered.  The problem with the West’s attitude towards Russia over the past 12 months is that distrust has been reinforced (with Nato’s expansive interpretation of the UN Security Council Resolution on Libya) and there has been little ‘give’ to go with the ‘take’ (as with the continuing disagreements over missile defence).

Russia, of course, has not helped itself, particularly with its continuing espionage activities.  Clapper described Russia (along with China) as an “aggressive and successful purveyor of economic espionage against the United States”.  On the organized crime front, the Worldwide Threat Assessment notes: “The increasingly close links between Russian and Eurasian organized crime and oligarchs enhances the ability of state or state-allied actors to undermine competition in gas, oil, aluminium, and precious metals markets, potentially threatening US national and economic security”.  It noted that pervasive corruption “augmented by powerful criminal organizations” led to Russia being ranked with sub-Saharan Africa on Transparency International’s Corruptions Perception Index in 2010.  And it added that with cyber threats becoming a critical national and economic security threat, Russia was – with China – one of the state actors of particular concern.  The report noted: “Entities within these countries are responsible for extensive illicit intrusions into US computer networks and theft of US intellectual property”.

All this is true, but the answer to the question posed in the title to this briefing (Russia: friend or foe?) is that it is neither.  However, it is indispensible.  There is hardly a challenge currently faced by the Western powers that would not be improved by better relations with Russia, including enabling the US to rebalance its security focus towards Asia and helping to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions before it is too late.  It could also help mitigate the consequences of a return of the Taleban to power in Afghanistan and play a role in mitigating the developing Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy in the Middle East (in which regard Moscow believes that the West is currently acting as ‘useful idiots’, to use an image from the struggle between the West and Communism with which Moscow is very familiar).

There are downsides, of course, to improved relations with Russia that the dominant liberal-interventionist trend in Western foreign policy would find hard to swallow, but the growing threats to the long and mostly benign Western global hegemony are too great to be ignored.  Russia does not have to be a trusted ally and friend in the sense that, say, Britain is to America, but it does need to be - and can be - a closer collaborator than is now the case.  Clapper pointed to the solution, without it seems meaning to, when he referred to Putin’s “transactional approach” to US-Russia relations.  All that means is that Putin is a person with whom it is possible to do business, provided one is not too fastidious.

In our analysis, the Western powers are entering a period of extreme danger, and Russia needs to be part of the solution to the strategic challenges faced by the West in the Middle East and with China, not a part of the problem, even if there has to be some sacrifice of principle and acceptance of Putin’s “transactional approach” to relations.  Besides, there is always the hope (admittedly many times dashed) that Russia - a semi-European and Christian nation - can be civilized.  JdeC.