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7/31/2007 5:47:02 PM
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Views expressed here are author"s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is
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(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)
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A new cold-war is slowly but steadily emerging between USA and Russia, which may have significant implications for India in near future and can alter all strategic plans of India regarding its positions in the world and its economic policy. Media in India has so far ignored the issue as usual because India always wakes up too late to understand he significance of changes in major international events.
On 26 April President Putin gave his ‘State of the Nation ‘ address to Russia and declared cancellation of the Soviet era treaty with NATO to limit conventional weapons in Europe. There are speculations that Russia may cancel also the ‘Strategic Arms Control Limitation’ treaty signed in 1991 and 1993 to restrict the number of nuclear weapons and missiles by both NATO and Russia. In an assembly of world’s leaders on national security in Munich on 10 February 2007 President Putin warned that the United States' increased use of military force is creating a new arms race, with smaller nations turning toward developing nuclear weapons. He said, nations “are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations. One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is very dangerous: Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law”. Putin voiced concern about U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in eastern Europe, in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the expansion of NATO as possible challenges to Russia.
Immediately in response the U.S Secretary of Defense Roberts Gates said, “America needs a very strong army to be prepared for possible threats in the future. We need a full set of measures to conduct a war, including both special military units necessary for war against terrorists and infantry troops to be able to fight against large regular armies. We do not know what changes can take place in such countries as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and others.”
The Baker-Hamilton Study Group Report on Iraq has demonstrated the limit on the projection of U.S. power over the globe. The report suggested gradual withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq, admitting defeat in Iraq. The declared idea of the U.S of attacking Iraq in 2003 was to create democracies in the Middle East, although one may ask why the U.S tolerates dictators in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and China. The preparation for the impending U.S invasion of Iran has little to do with Iran’s nuclear programme. The answer can be found by examining the real aim of the U.S foreign policy today
On September 17, 2002 the Bush, administration published its “National Security Strategy of the United States of America”. The document asserts as the guiding policy of the United States the right to use military force anywhere in the world, at any time it chooses, against any country it believes to be, or it believes may at some point become, a threat to American interests. As President Bush asserts in the introduction of the document, America’s values “are right and true for every person, in every society.”
USA has selected three areas to contain possible rivals: The Middle East, East Europe and East Asia. In the Middle East the rival is militant Islam. In East Europe the rival is resurgent Russia under Putin. In East Asia the possible rival is China. However, China is now the most important partner of the U.S corporations and as a result is not a rival as such on the political front. United States hope that by controlling the oil wealth of the Middle East it is possible to regulate militant Islam and to set it against resurgent Russia. President Clinton has tried that by supporting Bosnian Muslims against the orthodox Christians of Serbia. He has sent an army of 10000 Arab and Pakistani terrorists to Bosnia to kill the Christians. Then he has bombed Serbia into submission to give up Kosovo. During his time Chechen Muslims revolting against Russia also got supports from USA, Britain and Western Europe. Although Iraq is certainly a set back but USA will try, as suggested by Baker-Hamilton report, to develop relationships with Syria and Iran in future to eliminate any possibility of Russian influence in the Middle East. Thus, still the real rival for the USA in the world scale is Russia as the Soviet Union was before 1991.
In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor of President Carter, published a book entitled The Grand Chessboard; by chessboard, Brzezinski meant Eurasia, the enormous landmass comprising two continents and containing the majority of the world’s population. He said that “America’s capacity to exercise global primacy” depends on whether America can prevent “the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power”. Brzezinski then concluded: “Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played.”
To contain Russia, USA has adopted a multi-level approach. It is trying to put false or half-truths in the international media to make Russia unpopular. USA and its western allies also support directly or indirectly the Islamic insurgency within Russia. At the same time there are serious efforts going on to encircle Russia by putting pro-Western governments in every former republics of the former Soviet Union. The recent reversal of the results of the election in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kirghizistan, in which elected presidents are replaced by new pro-Western presidents in new elections, as demanded by the mob, hired, fed, and employed by the Western organizations, is the direct result of that policy.
The election of a pro-Western presidents through dubious means for Ukraine, the birthplace of Russian nation of Kiev-Rus in 9th century, and for Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin, and Kirghizstan, the gateway to the former Soviet central Asia, means the US now occupy a crucial position on Brzezinski’s global chessboard.
In the Balkans following the war on Serbia in 1999, the former Yugoslavia is firmly under Western control. In 2001, in the context of the Afghanistan invasion, the US established military bases for the first time in former Soviet republics and emerged as a presence in Central Asia. Since then, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzistan and Azerbaijan have allied themselves to the US. In 2003, a pro-Western regime came to power in Georgia, through the mob violence as witnessed as well in Ukraine. In Europe, most members of the former Warsaw Pact, including the former Baltic Soviet republics, have now joined NATO and the European Union. When Ukraine would join, N.A.T.O, Russia would be largely isolated.
The USA has spent over 100 million dollars on so-called color revolutions in post-Soviet republics of Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. The figures were unveiled in a documentary by French film-makers titled “Revolution.com. The USA. The Conquest of the East.” According to French film-makers, the USA stands behind a whole series of color coups: the velvet revolution in Serbia, the revolution of roses in Georgia, the orange revolution in Ukraine and the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan. The USA, the documentary says, is certain that the war is not necessary to bring the required regime to power in this or that country. It is not ruled out that the USA repeats its previous experience in other republics of the former Soviet Union, such as Moldova. Four violent revolutions, four totalitarian regimes and vestiges of the erstwhile Soviet power sank into oblivion within a couple of weeks. The events happened under one and the same scenario: falsified elections are held; authorities show desperate resistance and eventually give way to protesters. The French believe that the USA tested that technique for the first time in Serbia.
Emerging Relationship between Ukraine and USA:
The US continued with its aggressive strategy and groomed the pro-Western president Yushchenko. Donations from institutes established by Soros have helped develop and finance the Ukrainian student movement “Pora” (“It is Time”) along the lines of similar movements in Serbia and Georgia to remove pro-Russian politicians from power. Pora has been in the forefront of the demonstrations in support of Yushchenko. The US state department said recently, it had spent $65m over the past two years financing groups in support of democracy in Ukraine, part of the $1bn spent for the same purpose globally each year.
Yushchenko's way to power was accompanied with a series of strange assassinations. The assassinations of Viktor Yushchenko's first wife, and the former chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, Vadim Getman, were ignored by the Western media in its drive for democracy in Ukraine. Yushchenko fled Ukraine after being the finance minister, was arrested in the U.S for theft charges but came out from the US prison when his first wife was murdered and he married an official of President Bush in a hurry. He then came back to Ukraine as the champion of democracy for Ukraine. Ukraine is about to join NATO.
Threats to Russia:
With nearly 50 million inhabitants, Ukraine is, after Russia, by far the biggest of the successor states of the Soviet Union. Ukraine is connected to Russia by a common history, extending back to the Kiev-Rus in the ninth Century. During the past 300 years, the largest part of today’s Ukraine was either Russian or Soviet national territory, or both. The heavy industry of the Eastern Ukraine, developed under the Soviet regime, is closely linked with its Russian counterpart. The dissolution of these links would have damaging consequences for both countries.
An additional factor is the strategic significance of Ukraine. Eighty percent of Russian gas and oil exports to Europe—its most important source of foreign exchange—flows through Ukrainian pipelines. The main base of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Sebastopol, is also situated on Ukrainian national territory. Russia is threatened with the loss of influence over one of the most important industrial regions of the former Soviet Union and the loss of control over the export routes of its most important raw materials, oil, and gas.
Russia has planned a trade and security alliance that would incorporate some of the republics of the former Soviet Union in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, in which Russia would be the dominant power. Wherever Moscow attempts to reassert its influence, it meets with opposition from the Euro-American alliance, which has the strategic aim of incorporating Russia's periphery -- especially in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus -- into the Western system of market economy and the N.A.T.O. Ukraine now is a candidate for admission to both the European Union and N.A.T.O.
Affairs in Georgia:
During the Soviet Union era, most of the Soviet investment went into building up the backward, mostly Muslim nations and areas rather than Russia proper. The result is well-educated and well-organized republics such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan among others. These countries are sitting on top of or in close proximity to Caspian Basin oil.
After the overthrow of the Soviet Union, the United States moved to establish its strength in the Caspian area. They practically bought up Georgia, a key Caspian country. Both the former and the current head of the Georgian government, Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikhail Saakashvili, are bitterly anti-Russian and very pro-U.S. The whole war in Chechnya is nothing more than a reflection of this
The most important factor in Georgia is that the country is an essential link in the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline that will carry oil from the Caspian Sea to the West. Control over Caspian Sea oil is perceived by the Western powers, led by the United States, to be a vital strategic interest. Uppermost in Western policy towards the entire Caucasus region is the goal of sufficient political stability to guarantee that the oil will flow. Georgia's strategic importance has resulted in an American military presence in the country to train its armed forces. American firms are now building a major pipeline through this volatile area. This American presence is only likely to expand in future when the pipeline begins to transport oil and fighting in the area intensifies.
Mr. Saakashvili, who forced President Edward Shevardnadze to resign on 23 November 2003 after three weeks of peaceful demonstrations, during which the population challenged the results of the general elections that were held on 2 November 2003, has colossal support from George W. Bush himself. The result of the new election is the withdrawal of Russian military bases from Georgia and their replacements by the U.S. army, which the former president Shevardnadze had resisted. Now Georgia wants to NATO as well.
Velvet revolution in Kyrgyzstan:
The former of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev said in his book "Thinking of the Future with Optimism: Ideas on Foreign Policy and the World", that, “ Installation of the new regime in Georgia is a challenge to all CIS countries. Proliferation of the technology of velvet revolutions aims to weaken the Commonwealth”. Akayev became the president in 1990 and was re-elected in 1995 and again 2000. The West and the local opposition have not recognized the election unless the pro-Western candidate Felix Kulov was elected after a mass protests resulted into reelection in Kyrgyzstan after the elected pro-Russian candidate Askar Akayev fled to Moscow in April 2005.
Empire building for Oil:
Now, as the United States wages its war in Afghanistan and Iraq and deploys troops for the first time in the energy-rich regions of Central Asia and the Caucasus, the borders of a new American empire appear to be forming. The aim is to protect the growing economic interests of USA in Central Asia and the Caucasus, which are crisscrossed by oil and gas pipelines. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in December 2004 that Kazakhstan's oil was becoming of "critical importance”. Jane's Foreign Report said recently that "Caspian reserves could be critical to future global energy supply," This is in line with the doctrine of 'full-spectrum dominance' that now seems to govern American foreign policy and is manifesting itself in the Caucasus and Central Asia".
Analysis:
In his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbignew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter, urged that the U.S. take command of Central Asia and its "enormous concentration of oil and gas reserves’ in order to command all of Eurasia. Brzezinski noted that "a truly massive and widely perceived external threat" would be needed to incline the U.S. public into a "supportive mood" for engagement in international war. That was in 1997, four years before the 9/11 attacks on World Trade Center in New York. Brzezinski remembered, "the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor" as providing just such a threat or pretext.
In 2000 Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and current Defense Policy advisor Richard Perle were among authors of Project for the Next American Century (PNAC) papers, which repeated the goal of absolute U.S. supremacy. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all the other authors share ties to the oil-and-gas and/or pharmaceutical and/or weapons-of-mass-destruction industries.
PNAC also wrote in September 2000 that the U.S. military should be transformed to a capability that let it "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. PNAC 2000 estimated that such a "transformation" would require defense spending to have "a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.” PNAC 2000 added, one year before 9/11: "The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event–like a new Pearl Harbor.” Following the "new Pearl Harbor" of " ‘9/11’ ", the defense budget of the U.S. rose to $345.7 billion in 2002, a 12% increase from 2001. The Defense budget rose to $365 billion in 2003, not counting costs of war against Iraq, which is now about US$320 billion so far.
Russia, which was during the days of President Yeltsin impoverished and descending into social and political chaos, is now revived by Putin and by the enormous amount of wealth from exports of oil and gas. It is still armed with thousands of nuclear warheads, sprawling across Eurasia, encompassing or bordering on vast energy reserves in Eastern Siberia.
Thus, it is not surprising that the Western media is now spreading disinformation to discredit Russia. Recently when Russia has asked the hostile government of Ukraine to pay the international price for oil and gas it receives from Russia rather than having a 70 percent subsidy, western media and their government has termed that as economic blackmail of Ukraine. Suddenly a British academic with close contact with the British secret service has published a diary of a dead KGB officer defected to the West, Vasili Mitrokhin, as authentic document describing how KGB has bribed well known politicians of the world including François Mitterrand, Neil Kinnock, and Indira Gandhi along with ten Indian newspaper editors. Most recently the Western media is trying to discredit Russia by blaming for the sudden death of a former KGB officer, Alexander Litvinenko, who was defected to the West, became a Muslim and a member of the exiled Chechen terrorists living in London with close connection with Boris Berezovsky, who fled to London after stealing more than US$ 350 million from the Russian airline Aerofloat.
With the withdrawal from Iraq, exports of democracy will be redirected with full force to East Europe and the former Soviet Union. As Russia is the real obstacle on the way for this export, it is essential for the western media and the US government to discredit Russia by all means. The US Council on Foreign Relations has recently published a special report on Russia, “Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do”, written by Jack Kemp and Senator John Edwards, the possible democratic candidate for the presidency in the next election in USA. According to it, “the power in Russia is democratic only outwardly, whereas the content of the Russian power is not democratic at all.” Vladimir Putin in reply, in his 2006 annual state of the nation address, compared the US to a hungry wolf that "eats and listens to no one".
It is now clear was the actual reason for the highly costly and ineffective regime change in Iraq was not ‘Democracy’ but control of oil and gas resources of the world. The quest for energy control has initiated the attempts for regime changes in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgystan in recent years. It also can explain the USA’s hostility towards Lain America’s very popular democracies in Venezuela and Bolivia. The impending invasion on Iran is another attempt of the U.S to control Iran’s oil resources, where only the Western companies would be allowed to control all natural resources of the world eliminating all competitions from Russia or any other nations.
Implications for India:
In 1978 India had failed to understand the significance of the US design to provoke Pakistan to invade Afghanistan in the guise of tribal Muzzahideen. The objective of the US as admitted recently by Zbignew Brzezinski (in Le Nouvel Observateur of France, Jan 15-21, 1998) was to drag the Soviet Union into Afghanistan to defend the country against Pakistan. In July 3, 1979 President Carter signed the first directive for that secret aid and the Soviet Army came to Afghanistan in 24 December 1979 otherwise Pakistan would have occupied Afghanistan by then. Weapons for the Mujahideen were bought with U.S. and Saudi funds from China and Egypt. Reagan increased the budget by thousand folds. As a result of the continuous military aid from the US Pakistan became very powerful. Ayub Khan wrote in his recently published diary that in 1968 US was thinking of an independent Kashmir in collaboration with Pakistan. The war against the Soviet Army gave a boost to that effort.
In 1987 the Soviet Union has decided to withdraw the Soviet Army from Afghanistan as the situation was then stabilized according to Gorbachev. Violent demonstrations in Kashmir for independence have started also in 1987. It began with anti-India tirade all over the valley and mushrooming of a number of underground militant organizations like J.K.L.F. and Hizb-i-Islami. The operation was designed in Pakistan with a code name Operation TOPAC. General Zia addressed a meeting of selected military commanders and top bosses of I.S.I. (Inter Services Intelligence) in April 1988 and said: " As you know, due to our preoccupation in Afghanistan, in the service of Islam, I have not been able to put these plans before you earlier. Let there be no mistake, however, that our aim remains quite clear and firm and that is the liberation of the Kashmir Valley - our Muslim Kashmiri brothers cannot be allowed to stay with India for any length of time, now. We whip up anti-Indian feelings amongst the students and peasants, preferably on some religious issues, so that we can enlist their active support for rioting and anti-government demonstrations. By the grace of God, we have managed to accumulate large stocks of modern arms and ammunition from US consignments intended for Afghan Mujahideen. This will help our Kashmiri brethren achieve their goals.”
In 1989, the last soldier of the Soviet Union had left Afghanistan. A full-scale attack on the non-Muslims of Kashmir also had started in 1989. In 1992, Pakistan army in the guise of Muzahideens occupied Afghanistan and reduced the country to the Stone Age. In 1992 President Clinton’s special assistant to South Asia Robin Raffael had declared that USA does not recognize J&K as a part of India.
Even today India does not understand the design of the US in central Asia. United States constructed its most active regional terrorism partnerships with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, despite evidence that both governments had been penetrated by Al Qaeda. As Zbignew Brzezinski said " the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals including gold...It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America...A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions.” This geopolitical strategy of dominion in Central Asia, begun in 1978 with the "Afghan trap to ruin the Soviet Union has emerged again to stop Russia to reemerge as a superpower challenging the supremacy of the US in Eurasia.
India with very limited natural resources like oil would be very badly affected if the U.S will have monopoly power on the oil resources. It can cut off all supplies to India as it has done in 1960 to demand arbitrary price and other concessions from India. In 1960 India had two formidable friends, Iraq and the Soviet Union, to ignore the US pressure. However, today India because of its own lazy foreign policy is practically without any real friend in this region. Experience for the last sixty years should be enough lesson for India to understand that US is an unreliable friend, who has a very different plan for Eurasia, which does not accommodate India in the picture. Pakistan can still be useful for the US to control the region and that was the reason Pakistan is already chosen as the NATO ally of the US. China is a very important economic partner of the US. India thought for many years that the US would declare Pakistan as a terrorist state. It did not. Now India is making the mistake to think that USA will consider it a strategic partner against China. It will not because China is not a strategic enemy of the US but a strategic collaborator. Thus, India by refusing to understand the full implication of this emerging cold war is making a serious mistake once again as it did before regarding Afghanistan, and Pakistan. India refused to help Afghanistan in 1989 when Dr. Najjibullah pleaded India for help. As a result Pakistan had turned Afghanistan as one of its province and then sent terrorists to take away Kashmir in the same way. Indian policy makers today are making the same mistake by not understanding the significance of this emerging cold war.
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References & Notes:
William Blum, “Killing Hope,” In Le Nouvel Observateu, 15-21 Jan 1998
Kristen Lundberg, Politics of a Covert Action: The U.S., the Mujahideen, and the Stinger Missile, Boston, MA: The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1999.
Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996, p252.
Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, p71.
Abram N. Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt, Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence, Washington, DC: Brassey’s Inc., 2002, p94.
Julie Kosterlitz, “Troops and Consequences: America’s track record in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan suggests that today’s solutions can lead to tomorrow’s problems,” National Journal, November 2001, 3420.
Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998 in http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html
Mohammad Ayub Khan, Diaries of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, 1966-1972, Oxford University Press, April 2007
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