#8
Wall Street Journal Europe
December 7, 2001
Back to Bad Old Soviet Habits
By Vladimir Socor.
Mr. Socor is a senior analyst for the Jamestown Foundation, publishers of the
daily Monitor.
Three ongoing initiatives in Moscow indicate an intent to exploit Russia's antiterrorism cooperation with the West, for goals that have nothing to do with antiterrorism. These initiatives embrace what official Moscow still terms -- and eyes -- as the "post-Soviet space" in Eurasia.
In the Baltic states, Russian diplomacy has launched a Cold War-style propaganda offensive, misrepresenting to the world the situation of Russian minorities there, in stark contradiction to the assessments made by international organizations and Western democracies. The goal is to thwart the Balts' aspirations to join NATO; or at least, by making this ugly scene, to raise immeasurably the political price of eventual Russian acquiescence in NATO's enlargement. Before Sept. 11, Moscow could not have hoped to extract such a price -- namely, a voice and vote on NATO decisions.
In Afghanistan, Moscow hopes to carve out a zone of its influence in the north of the country by playing tribal politics. With that goal in mind, it has blindsided the U.S.-led coalition -- the actual winner in that war -- by installing Russia's local proteges in Kabul, along with a limited contingent of its own advisers. While the agreement, just reached in Petersberg, on an Afghan transitional authority offers some hope for peace, Moscow's Kabul allies have managed for now to grab the "power ministries" of defense and internal affairs in that authority.
It is in Georgia, however, where Russia's international conduct is being immediately tested. The Kremlin senses an opportunity to bring Georgia to heel through threats of an "antiterrorist operation" -- one presented as emulating American operations against real havens of international terrorism. Some Russian officials are trying to make a case for "parallelism" in order to justify, for Western consumption, a possible Russian move against alleged "Chechen terrorism" inside Georgia. They appear to calculate that the West's overwhelming concentration on responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist assault might create a penumbra for Russian coercive actions against Georgia.
Upon returning from the Crawford, Texas barbecue last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin turned up the heat to grill Georgia. On Nov. 27-28, Russia's airforce bombed the Pankisi Gorge, far inside Georgian territory. The action continued a pattern set by Russian air strikes in October in another part of Georgia. The latest air raids, however, were of unprecedented scope and range, involving a dozen fighter-bombers and assault helicopters, and penetrating so far away from the Chechnya combat theater into Georgian territory as to rule out the excuse of "navigational error." The planes bombed and strafed the environs of two villages and a hydropower station under construction. Two people were reported killed in the attacks.
The U.S. State Department expressed "deep concern about these intrusions, which undermine stability in the region." Secretary of State Colin Powell intends to raise the issue -- again -- with Moscow. In Tbilisi, the British Embassy similarly expressed its support for Georgia. In Russia, the Defense Ministry and the military command in the North Caucasus replied as usual that "no Russian planes operated in the said area at the said time." Such disclaimers have often followed the deliberate air attacks on Chechen villages in both wars there. Meanwhile, Moscow continues charging that Georgia hosts "Chechen and international terrorists" in Pankisi and even in Tbilisi.
For his part, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov not only denies that Russian aviation bombed Georgian territory, but maintains that it was "Chechen and Arab fighters" within Georgia who caused the explosions. They, you see, fought each other there, and blew up ammunition dumps in the process. That was "misinterpreted" as Russian bomb explosions, Mr. Ivanov has maintained. He went on to claim that Russian planes would in any case lack the capability to operate in the darkness in a mountainous area.
The defense minister made these assertions live on two television channels. One of the Russian interviewers instantly interceded that the "defense minister is apparently mistaken," inasmuch as Russian fighter-bombers and assault helicopters -- a mix of which bombed Georgia -- are indeed equipped for night-time and all-weather operations. The interviewer, moreover, pointed out that the U.S. State Department's criticism had been based on data from U.S. intelligence satellites, which recorded the Russian air strikes.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin's Web site, Strana.Ru, managed by President Vladimir Putin's top political consultants, has fully admitted to the Russian airstrikes, describing them as justified but ill-timed and lacking political preparation. It said: "Russian generals have every reason to hate [Georgian President] Eduard Shevardnadze. He is largely responsible for the way in which Soviet leaders withdrew the troops from Eastern Europe. He is personally responsible for the unbearable conditions following the withdrawal." Yet, the commentary went on:
"Russian generals have no right to take actions that might bring far-reaching ramifications for Russia's international standing. [While] American military actions in Afghanistan have strong international political support, the Pankisi incident was a hush-hush, stealthy operation. Such strikes create colossal political problems for Russia's leadership . . . . Those ignorant of political considerations have no right to order the planes into action. Russia's leadership needs to conduct an investigation and remove those responsible for this grave political blunder from their posts. This will shore up Russia's international position, and lead to the isolation of Georgia's leaders, who are supporting international terrorism."
While taking issue so sharply with a few individual generals -- and, implicitly, with Defense Minister Ivanov -- this Kremlin mouthpiece agrees with them on the basic goal of building a case for military intervention in Georgia, "[b]ut it should be an overt operation, with the full political backing of Russia's leadership."
At the CIS summit just held in Moscow, Mr. Putin not only rehashed his Defense Ministry's tall tales, but added a whole litany of gratuitous accusations that Georgia condones "international terrorism." Without any credible evidence, he seems to be trying to build the case for a Russian "antiterrorist operation" in Georgia. By the same token, officials in Moscow sometimes openly admit that the threats are meant to intimidate Georgia into changing its Western orientation.
Georgia is the linchpin country in all the Western pipeline and transit projects to connect Europe directly with the Caspian basin and Central Asia. Without Georgia, or with an unstable and imperiled Georgia, those projects could collapse like a house of cards. Georgia has chosen the West. To be consistently maintained and defended, that choice requires undiminished and indeed broader Western support.
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