Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

If China is finding it difficult to calculate where its own best interests lie (see this week’s main briefing), reactions in Russia to the North Korean nuclear test suggests that Russia understands fully the dangers that have been unleashed.  For Russia, they are threefold.  First, there is the danger that the Western powers could use the nuclear test as a pretext for going to war.  Second, there is the threat of proliferation.  And, third, there is the likely effect this will have on Japan.

Russia was quick in its condemnation of the nuclear test, with Interfax quoting a foreign ministry spokesman as saying: “We condemn these activities of North Korea and see them, along with the earlier launches of the ballistic rocket with a satellite, as a violation of corresponding UN Security Council resolutions.”

However, quickly displaying Russia’s wider fears, within hours of the test Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was issuing a warning against Western over-reaction.  Speaking in Maputo in Mozambique, Lavrov told a news conference on 12 February: “I would like to warn against attempts to use this as a pretext to whip up war hysteria.”

Interestingly, exactly the same imagery was used by Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadiy Gatilov in Moscow, who told Interfax that while Russia was prepared “to discuss with our partners possible reaction to the event” any steps taken in the UN Security Council “should not serve as a pretext for further whipping up tension in the region”.

The threat of nuclear proliferation was raised in Russia’s Federation Council by Mikhail Margelov, who urged: “We must think about whether the international community has political and economic levers that could return North Korea to the path of non-proliferation and IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] monitoring.”  While, in the State Duma, the head of the foreign policy committee Aleksey Pushkov warned about the impact of the test on Japan.  He warned: “We could end up with Japan starting to work towards dropping its own currently non-nuclear status.”

Pushkov also said: “One often asks: where can we cooperate with the USA if we oppose each other on many issues?  This is here that we can cooperate.  This is an unconditional sphere of cooperation between Russia and the USA.”