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30 November 2010 By Rick Rozoff This past weekend the world witnessed an event that
until recently would have seemed inconceivable: A
Russian head of state attended a summit of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. President Dmitry Medvedev participated in the
NATO-Russia Council meeting during the second day of
the summit in Lisbon, Portugal on November 20 with the
heads of state of NATO's 28 member states. The national leaders signed a Joint Review of 21st
Century Common Security Challenges, agreed on resuming
joint NATO and Russian theater missile defense
cooperation and "reconfirmed a shared determination to
assist in the stabilisation of Afghanistan and the
whole region." [1] That is, Russia's Medvedev endorsed NATO's agenda
without adding anything of substance to it and without
asking anything by way of a quid pro quo. The joint declaration states that "we have embarked
on a new stage of cooperation towards a true strategic
partnership" and "that the security of all states in
the Euro-Atlantic community is indivisible, and that
the security of NATO and Russia is intertwined." [2]
It also applauds Russia referred to in the third
person for "facilitating railway transit of
non-lethal ISAF [International Security Assistance
Force] goods" through its territory for the war in
Afghanistan and for "resuming its support to NATO's
operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean Sea."
The summit declaration referred to Operation Active
Endeavor, now in its tenth year, as an Article 5
mission; that is, as part of the first and to date
only activation of NATO's collective military
assistance provision. On November 23 Russia signed a pact with NATO to
allow "NATO to ship armored vehicles and other
equipment from the region [the greater Afghan war
theater] back to Europe using the same route via
Central Asia and Russia." [3] The day before the NATO-Russia Council meeting,
where Russia was outnumbered 28-1, U.S. President
Obama met privately with Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili, Russia's Public Enemy No. 1 as military
analyst Alexander Golts described him on the occasion. Saakashvili, who was educated in the U.S. on a
State Department fellowship and came to power through
a U.S.-sponsored coup in 2003 which its perpetrators
termed the Rose Revolution, ordered sniper and mortar
attacks on South Ossetia on August 1, 2008, killing
six people including a Russian peacekeeper. The day
after the Immediate Response 2008 NATO war games led
by 1,000 U.S. troops had ended and with American
soldiers and military equipment still in Georgia. Six days later, as the opening ceremony of the
Olympic Games was underway in Beijing, Georgia
launched an all-out assault on the South Ossetian
capital of Tskhinvali. By the time Russian reinforcements beat back the
Georgian offensive and the war ended five days after
it had begun, 64 Russian service members had been
killed and 323 wounded. The U.S. provided military
transport planes to bring 2,000 Georgian troops back
from Iraq for the fighting. Shortly afterward the U.S. rewarded Georgia with
the signing of the United States-Georgia Charter on
Strategic Partnership and NATO formed the NATO-Georgia
Commission, out of which an individually tailored
Annual National Program(me) was created to further
Georgia's integration into the North Atlantic
Alliance. The declaration issued by the recently concluded
NATO summit in Portugal includes: "At the 2008 Bucharest Summit we agreed that
Georgia will become a member of NATO and we reaffirm
all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent
decisions. We will foster political dialogue and
practical cooperation with Georgia, including through
the NATO-Georgia Commission and the Annual National
Programme. We strongly encourage and actively support
Georgia's continued implementation of all necessary
reforms
in order to advance its Euro-Atlantic
aspirations. We welcome the recent opening of the NATO
Liaison Office in Georgia which will help in
maximising our assistance and support for the
country's reform efforts. We welcome Georgia's
important contributions to NATO operations, in
particular to ISAF. We reiterate our continued support
for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
Georgia within its internationally recognised
borders
.We continue to call on Russia to reverse its
recognition of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions
of Georgia as independent states." During the opening hours of the Georgian-Russian
war of 2008 Mikheil Saakashvili was reported to have
held "several phone talks including consultations with
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer." [4] That almost 400 Russian soldiers had been killed
and wounded by Georgian military forces trained,
equipped and supported by the U.S. and NATO before,
during and since the war doesn't appear to mean much
to President Medvedev. That his 28 fellow heads of
state in the NATO-Russia Council had unanimously
supported the perpetrator of the 2008 war while
demanding Russia humiliate itself by rescinding its
recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and
withdrawing its troops, thereby leaving both states
easy prey for Georgia's next assault also didn't
take the fixed smile off Medvedev's face during his
huddling with President Obama and 27 other NATO
leaders this past Saturday. The autumn session of the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly in Warsaw, Poland ending three days before
the NATO summit began passed a resolution referring to
Abkhazia and South Ossetia as "occupied territories."
Also in advance of the summit, interim president of
Moldova Mihai Ghimpu, who came to his position on the
back of the latest "color" uprising in a former Soviet
republic the so-called Twitter Revolution of last
year sent a telegram to NATO Secretary General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen calling on the U.S.-dominated
military alliance for assistance in ousting 1,500
Russian peacekeepers from Transdniester (Pridnestrovie),
which refused to join an independent Moldova (and be
absorbed into Romania, now a NATO member) as the
Soviet Union was dissolving in 1990. But the legendary "reset" button has been pushed by
the Obama administration and now Russia has a new
"strategic partner." Medvedev had only been president of Russia for five
months when the war with Georgia broke out and five
months after it ended George W. Bush was no longer
president of the United States. Obama and Medvedev, it has been observed, are their
respective nations' first fully post-Cold War heads of
state. Medvedev was 26 when the Soviet Union
collapsed. Obama was 30. However, Obama's vice president, Joseph Biden, was
the first American official to visit Georgia after the
war in his then-position of chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, pledged to work with
the George W. Bush administration to secure $1 billion
in emergency aid for the Saakashvili government, and
upon returning to Washington stated: "I left the country convinced that Russia's
invasion of Georgia may be the one of the most
significant event to occur in Europe since the end of
communism
.[T]he continuing presence of Russian forces
in the country has severe implications for the broader
region." Five days after leaving Georgia on August 23
Biden was announced as Barack Obama's running mate in
the 2008 presidential election. Three weeks after taking up his current post as
vice president on January 20, Biden spoke of plans to
"press the reset button" with Russia without in any
manner adjusting his position on the South Caucasus or
any other issue: Russia had invaded Georgia. Georgia
had not attacked South Ossetia. Russian actions were
characterized as a belated confirmation of Cold War
fears of Russian troops and tanks pouring over the
territory of a defenseless nation whose only crime was
to cherish freedom and democratic values
and so on. When Obama and Biden moved into the White House in
2009 Obama had only served two-thirds of his first
term in the U.S. Senate, where he had been catapulted
from the Illinois state legislature in 2005. Biden had
served six terms 36 years in the Senate and was
the outgoing chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations. Biden, not Obama and the equally foreign
policy-challenged Hillary Clinton at the Department of
State, is the current administration's international
relations veteran and grey eminence. Though Obama and Clinton have learned to parrot
Biden's position on not only the South Caucasus but on
relations with Russia as a whole. Last month Clinton met with a delegation led by
Georgian Prime Minister Nikoloz Gilauri at the second
annual United States-Georgia Charter on Strategic
Partnership meeting in Washington, D.C. and repeated
the accusation that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are
"occupied territories," a charge she made in July
while meeting with fellow former short-term New Yorker
Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi. On October 6 she stated: "We continue to call on
Russia to end its occupation of Georgian territory,
withdraw its forces and abide by its other commitments
under the 2008 cease-fire agreements." More broadly, she added: "The United States remains committed to Georgia's
aspirations for membership in NATO, as reflected in
the Alliance's decisions in Bucharest and Strasbourg-Kehl.
We strongly support Georgia's efforts related to its
Annual National Program, which promotes defence reform
and guides cooperation with NATO. And we continue to
support Georgia's efforts on defence reform and
improving defence capabilities, including NATO
interoperability and Georgia's contributions to ISAF
operations in Afghanistan." Her comments on assisting the upgrading of
Georgia's military capability led "some observers to
surmise that Washington may consider selectively
relaxing the undeclared embargo on equipping and
training Georgia for defense of the homeland. In that
case, interoperability might extend beyond
counterinsurgency in expeditionary operations, and
start encompassing national defense. The latter would
not only answer to Georgia's own requirements but also
enhance its credentials for eventual NATO membership,
in line with NATO's core mission." [5] The government of Abkhazia responded by challenging
Clinton to label Afghanistan and Iraq
"American-occupied territories." Russian President Medvedev was silent on the
subject. As to the ultimate purpose of the U.S. training
Georgia's armed forces for deployment to Afghanistan,
in September Saakashvili told cadets at a military
base in Georgia that "someone may say: we have so
many problems, our territories are occupied and there
is no time now for going somewhere else to fight.' But
because of these very same problems that we have, we
need huge combat experience
and that [Afghan mission]
is a unique combat and war school." [6] As noted earlier, Obama set aside time on the first
day of last week's NATO summit in Portugal to meet
privately with his fellow Columbia University alumnus
Saakashvili. Between Clinton's meeting with Georgia's prime
minister and Obama's with its president, State
Department spokesman Philip Crowley sided with
military ally Japan on what Washington also considers
to be "occupied territory," Russia's Kuril Islands. On
November 2 he affirmed "We do back Japan regarding the
Northern Territories," the Japanese term for the
islands. Russia's Medvedev has made an odd choice of
partners. Washington has consistently supported Japan,
with which it is bound by the 1960 Treaty of Mutual
Cooperation and Security between the United States and
Japan, and Georgia, which it is committed to under the
terms of the 2009 United States-Georgia Charter on
Strategic Partnership, against Russia in regards to
territorial disputes and openly accuses Russia of
occupying territory belonging to two of its major
military allies. There is no reciprocity in Russian-American
relations. Even in the transition from the former Bush
administration's interceptor missile plans for Eastern
Europe, the new Phased Adaptive Approach of current
administration described by Obama himself in
September of 2009 as providing "stronger, smarter and
swifter defenses of American forces and America's
allies" than his predecessor's would have will, as
formalized by last week's NATO summit declaration, be
far broader than 10 ground-based midcourse missiles in
Poland. That NATO chief Rasmussen has repeatedly advocated
and since the Lisbon summit has secured a
U.S.-controlled interceptor missile system over all of
Europe as the continent is allegedly threatened
because "30 countries have or are aspiring to get
missile technology" without ever listing which nations
he's speaking of or being pressed to do so by the news
media is reprehensible. Four days before the summit
began he told journalists in Brussels: "There is no
reason to name specific countries, because there are
already a lot of them." That the Russian government
allows such statements to go unchallenged is criminal. This May the Pentagon moved the first interceptor
missiles into Europe by installing a Patriot Advanced
Capability-3 battery in Poland as close to Russia's
border 35 miles as possible. [7] The day before the NATO summit in Lisbon, Polish
Defense Minister Bogdan Klich revealed that the U.S.
will start rotating F-16 Fighting Falcon jet fighters
and Hercules military transport planes to Poland in
2013. The U.S. provided Poland with 48 F-16s between
2006 and 2008, the first deployment of the planes to a
former member of the Warsaw Pact and the largest arms
purchase in Poland's history. (Russia's Black Sea
neighbors Romania and Bulgaria were next in line to
purchase F-16 warplanes until the current financial
crisis hit Europe.) On November 16 the U.S. delivered the third of five
C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft to Poland.
"The C-130 aircraft are Poland's biggest transport
planes. Polish crews used the planes to fly to Spain,
Georgia, Iraq and Afghanistan." [8] U.S. F-15C Eagle aerial combat fighters are
operating out of the Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania
until the end of the year for the now six-year-old
NATO Baltic Air Policing mission, and earlier this
month they participated in a Baltic Region Training
Event with NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS)
aircraft at the Siauliai Air Base. Fellow Baltic state Estonia recently opened the
newly expanded and modernized Amari Air Base for use
by NATO and U.S. warplanes. [9] The U.S. has gained access to and has been
employing eight military bases, including three air
bases, in Bulgaria and Romania over the past five
years. This February Romania and Bulgaria were prevailed
upon by the U.S. to provide missile shield
installations for the Pentagon's and now NATO's
interceptor missile system, in the case of Romania a
land-based adaptation of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3)
as the 1936 Montreux Convention prohibits the transit
of non-Black Sea nations' warships over 45,000 tons
through the Bosporus Straits and the Dardanelles into
the sea and as such effectively excludes U.S. Aegis
class destroyers and cruisers equipped with SM-3s.
There are no comparable restrictions in the Baltic Sea
region where the Pentagon is also going to station
land-based SM-3s in Poland. The U.S. and its NATO allies in Europe have yet to
ratify the 1999 Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe Treaty insisting, without legal foundation,
on linkage with the demand for the withdrawal of
Russian peacekeeping contingents in Transdniester,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the U.S. and NATO are
in direct violation of it through establishing a
permanent (in all but name) military presence in
several Eastern European countries. [11] The Pentagon and NATO resumed annual Sea Breeze
exercises in Ukraine this July, presided over by
commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe and Africa
Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, after last year's exercise
was cancelled because of domestic opposition,
particularly in the Crimea where the exercises are
held near the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. In former Soviet Central Asia, the U.S. State
Department signed a military transit agreement with
Kazakhstan and the Defense Department a cooperation
agreement with Uzbekistan in the past two weeks. The
U.S. and NATO conduct ongoing operations out of bases
in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and, though
not publicly acknowledged, Turkmenistan. Earlier this
year reports surfaced of plans for the Pentagon to
construct new multi-million-dollar training bases in
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The U.S. and NATO are also expanding military
exercises, deployments and facilities in the Arctic
Ocean in concert against their only rival in the
region, Russia. [12] In return for the steadily advancing deployment of
U.S. military personnel and infrastructure to Russia's
borders, the Medvedev administration is expanding its
accommodation of Pentagon and NATO operations in
Central and South Asia by providing ever-broader
transit and overflight rights for U.S. and NATO troops
and equipment headed to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Last week the U.S. secured a port in Lithuania as
the latest transit hub for NATO's Northern
Distribution Network to bring supplies and equipment
by rail across Russia for the war in Afghanistan.
Estonia and Latvia already supply docking facilities
for goods coming to the Baltic Sea. Two years ago Russia granted Germany permission to
transit military equipment bound for the German
military base in Termez, Uzbekistan and northern
Afghanistan. Several years before Russian passengers
were forced off a train to provide seats for German
troops. German troops in Russia. After assigning its first troops to NATO's
International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan
recently, on November 12 Kazakhstan signed an
agreement with the U.S. that allows American military
aircraft to fly across the North Pole and over
Kazakhstan to supply U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Kazakhstan is a member of the Russian-led Collective
Security Treaty Organization and along with Russia and
China a member of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization. It also shares borders with China and
Russia. [13] Last August U.S. and British troops led a NATO
military exercise, Steppe Eagle 2010, in the country. The new agreement permits the U.S. to send weapons
over Kazakh airspace for the first time. Between the Arctic Ocean and Kazakhstan lies
Russia, which had to and did agree to the Pentagon
flying military aircraft over its territory. "The new arrangement will also substitute for a
previous one under which U.S. military cargo planes
flew combat troops and materiel to the Ramstein Air
Base in Germany, where they refueled, and from there
to air bases in Kuwait and other destinations in the
Persian Gulf, circumventing Iran which forbids
American military overflights, and then either
directly into the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or to
Pakistan." [14] Or from Germany over Eastern Europe
and the South Caucasus to the Caspian Sea and western
Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, where cargo was transshipped
across Tajikistan to Afghanistan. The Northern
Distribution Network also includes sea-land-sea
shipments through the South Caucasus: Georgia and
Azerbaijan on the Black Sea and Caspian Sea,
respectively. Decidedly circuitous and expensive
routes. Flying over Russia and Kazakhstan allows U.S.
military transport planes to go directly from Alaska
to Afghanistan without refueling. "The new route over the North Pole to Bagram Air
Base, the military's main air hub in Afghanistan, will
allow troops to fly direct from the United States in a
little more than 12 hours." [15] Last April Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs and senior
director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the United
States National Security Council, said the agreement
would also "allow troops to fly directly from the
United States over the North Pole to the region" in
addition to supplies and equipment. "This will save
money; it will save time in terms of moving our troops
and supplies needed into the theater." [16] Additionally, "Chartered passenger jets could leave
from Chicago and fly over the North Pole to deliver
troops." [17] Presidents Obama and Medvedev prepared the way for
the recent agreement in a verbal commitment on polar
overflights in the summer of 2009. "The White House
said at the time that the accord would set the stage
for 4,500 polar-route flights a year over Russia and
Kazakhstan, saving the U.S. government $133 million
annually in fuel, maintenance and other transportation
costs." [18] The Obama administration has approved a $708
billion defense budget for next year the largest in
constant dollars since 1946 and over $2,300 for every
man, woman and child in the United States and Russia
is kind enough to save it $133 million on the war in
Afghanistan. The Medvedev government is even more
obliging considering that two of three armed groups
the U.S. and NATO are laying waste to Afghanistan in
the name of fighting are those of Jalaluddin Haqqani
and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who Washington and its
then-CIA deputy director, now defense secretary Robert
Gates funded and armed to kill young Russian and
other Soviet conscripts in the 1980s. Soon U.S. and NATO planes, troops and equipment
will criss-cross Russia from the west, east and north.
Russia has made a new friend, has found a new
"strategic partner," at the expense of its traditional
allies, its national interests and its self-respect
alike. The Russian position on regional and international
developments has changed radically since
then-President Vladimir Putin addressed the Munich
Security Conference in February of 2007 and said: "What then is a unipolar world? However one might
embellish this term, at the end of the day it
describes a scenario in which there is one centre of
authority, one centre of force, one centre of
decision-making. It is a world in which there is one
master, one sovereign. And this is pernicious, not
only for all those within this system, but also for
the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from
within. And this, certainly, has nothing in common
with democracy. Because democracy is the power of the
majority in the light of the interests and opinions of
the minority. "Today we are witnessing an almost unrestrained
hyper-use of force military force in international
relations, a force that is plunging the world into an
abyss of permanent conflicts." Two years before, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) held its fifth annual heads of
state summit in Kazakhstan at which India, Pakistan
and Iran (in addition to Mongolia) were welcomed as
observer nations. Addressing the attendees of those
nations and the six members of the SCO Russia,
China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan the host country's President Nursultan
Nazarbayev said they represented half of humanity.
[19] After the summit nations as diverse as Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nepal and even NATO
member Turkey expressed interest in joining or
affiliating with the SCO. In reference to the SCO and to the RIC (Russia,
China, India) and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, China, India)
formats, discussions of a new multipolar world order,
of a just, rational and peaceful world, and of a new
international security architecture were heard in
Eurasia and throughout the world. When in 2007 Putin warned against the unrestrained
use of military force in the world, his comments came
three years after the U.S. and its NATO allies had
launched three wars in less than four years: In
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. His speech was
condemned in the West, after which Putin was labeled a
new czar, commissar and so forth, but was welcomed in
most of the rest of the world, even being translated
and posted on the website of the Turkish armed forces. Russia is uniquely positioned to rally the world
against the post-Cold War unipolar dominance of what
current U.S. president Obama referred to as without
irony, though under ironic circumstances: while
receiving the Nobel Peace Prize the world's sole
military superpower. [20] Because of Russia's size and location. Because of
its vast natural resources, including oil, natural gas
and uranium; its military technology; its possession
of the only nuclear deterrent and triad of delivery
systems that matches those of the U.S. Because of its
history: Its predecessor state the Soviet Union had
supported independence and national liberation
movements in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin
America for 70 years. Calls from Russia for, not a revival of a bipolar,
but the creation of a multipolar world had to be taken
seriously. After the financial crisis that began on Wall
Street in 2008 and soon engulfed the world, Russia
suffered several serious blows, affecting its two main
export products: Energy and arms. The price of oil and natural gas plummeted
precipitately, which in turn led to a decrease in
foreign arms orders from oil- and gas-producing
nations and a substantial depletion of Russia's
previously formidable gold and foreign exchange
reserves. NATO expansion into Eastern Europe has also
led new member states and candidates to discontinue
the acquisition of military equipment made, designed
and licensed by Russia in favor of U.S. and Western
European arms, and deals struck during President
Obama's recent visit to India have advanced the
displacement of Russia as that Asian giant's main
weapons provider. Nevertheless, the abrupt about-face in Russia's
foreign policy is not solely attributable to nor can
it be excused by the above-cited developments. In addition to unconscionably dragging out the
completion of the nuclear power plant it has been
building in Bushehr after draining Iran of substantial
sums of money, in June of this year Russia joined
China in voting for the harshest sanctions yet against
Iran in the United Nations Security Council. The
measures would have stronger, no doubt, without
Russian and Chinese efforts to soften them, but both
countries had the option of voting against and if need
be vetoing them. Claiming the very sanctions it had supported as the
rationale, in September President Medvedev signed a
decree which banned the delivery of S-300 air defense
missiles to Iran a $1 billion dollar package for
which Iran had already paid $166.8 million and other
weapons including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters,
ships and missile systems. At several decisive points in the middle of this
decade key Russian officials including the country's
foreign and defense ministers and top military
commanders warned against military attacks against
Iran. It is to be assumed that such public
pronouncements as well as back channel communications
may well have stayed the hand of the U.S., Israel and
perhaps both. However, with the Russian political leadership's
turn toward the U.S, and NATO, the prospects of an
attack against Iran and all the catastrophic perhaps
cataclysmic consequences it will unavoidably bring
in its wake is heightened dramatically. To an extent
that the conflagrations in Afghanistan and Iraq will
seem mild in comparison. In the past year and a half the only
military-security formation Russia is a member of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization has been
weakened, perhaps fatally, with Belarus and Uzbekistan
drawing back from commitments and joint exercises and
the remaining members Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan being courted and in
varying degrees won over by the U.S. and NATO. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, once a model
and a source of inspiration for the world, has
degenerated into an ineffectual forum, with this
year's summit in Uzbekistan a non-event where Russia's
Medvedev stated that "Countries which have
difficulties with their legal status cannot claim SCO
membership." An allusion to Iran and the sanctions
Medvedev's government had voted for two days before. In February of this year Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov hosted Madeleine Albright and her NATO
Group of Experts at the Moscow State Institute of
International Relations as part of a tour in
preparation for presenting a report on the military
bloc's new Strategic Concept. A leading Russian think tank, the Institute of
Contemporary Development, issued a report whose
contents, divulged in early September, detailed
prospects for Russia collaborating more closely with
NATO, even discussing the nation joining the Alliance.
President Medvedev is the chairman of the institute's
supervisory board. Two days after the NATO summit in Lisbon ended,
Eduard Shevardnadze, former president of Georgia
ousted by the "Rose Revolution" and the last foreign
minister of the Soviet Union, told one of his nation's
newsweeklies that "Russia will become a NATO member
soon." [21] In an analysis published three days before the
Lisbon summit, Victor Kovalev, a corresponding member
of Russia's Military Science Academy, warned of what
confronts Russia as it intensifies its collaboration
with NATO: "The NATO summit which will convene in Lisbon on
November 19-20 will adopt the alliance's new strategic
concept switching NATO from regional defense to
global-scale missions. In practice, the reform will
institutionalize the West's victory in the Cold World
War III. The already visible results of the victory
include the ongoing departure from the Yalta-Potsdam
system and the downscaling of the role played by the
UN or at least by the UN Security Council in
international relations." "The new world order built as we watch on the ruins
of the Yalta-Potsdam system automatically energizes a
range of negative global processes and is prone with
new wars or major regional conflicts. At the moment,
the situation in the Far East already appears similar
to that in Europe on the eve of World War II." This
week's developments on the Korean peninsula bear out
the contention. "Under the circumstances, Russia's priority should
be to avoid being dragged into the epicenter of the
coming collapse. Hoping to get rid of competitors in
the post-capitalist world and to enforce a final
solution' of the Russian problem, the West is luring
Russia into this very epicenter." [22] The author also pointed out that by assisting the
U.S. and NATO in their plans for Eurasia and much of
the rest of the world Russia risks alienating the
Muslim world. Approximately 20 percent of Russians are
Muslims or of Muslim religious background and in 2005
Russia became a permanent observer at the 57-nation
Organization of the Islamic Conference. Russia will also "be neutralized during the planned
attack against Iran," though still be affected by
whatever broader consequences such an action would
entail. It will expend material resources and political
capital on the flagging and failing war in Afghanistan
which has already contributed to an explosion in opium
production that has led to 2.5 million heroin addicts
and 30-40,000 annual overdoses in Russia according to
the nation's Federal Drug Control Service. The Russian analyst also stated that increased
cooperation with NATO would lead to Russia Moscow
"see[ing] its promising dialog with Beijing suspended
as China would end up fully encircled" by a
U.S.-created Asian NATO. Russia will also be expected to distance itself
from historical allies in the Arab world like Syria
and Libya and to abandon burgeoning relations with
Latin American partners like Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba,
Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Nicaragua and
Venezuela have recognized the independence of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, which none of Russia's partners in
the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization have yet to do. The
U.S. and its NATO allies President Medvedev's new
friends are adamant in branding the two new nations
Russian-occupied Georgian territories. Moscow will be
punishing its real friends and rewarding its
competitors and adversaries. Africa, where during the Soviet period Russia was
the continent's main political and economic partner,
will have to be acknowledged as the exclusive province
of the Pentagon's Africa Command. The analyst also warned that Western preconditions
for integrating into NATO include the resolution of
territorial disputes and could lead to demands to cede
the Kuril Islands and even Sakhalin to Japan. That
Russia would have to abandon claims in the Arctic
Ocean in favor of NATO members the U.S., Canada,
Denmark (through Greenland) and Norway, and "as a
minimal concession" would have "to renounce its claim
to the Lomonosov Ridge." Russia might also be confronted with territorial
claims by Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Georgia and
Ukraine and be compelled to make concessions in the
Caspian Sea. The Kaliningrad exclave is not free from
potential claims by Poland, Lithuania and even
Germany. By aligning itself with the U.S. and NATO, Russia
has nothing to gain and everything to lose. 1) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, November
20, 2010 http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-4F07AFE2-C5D95F20/natolive/news_68876.htm 2) NATO-Russia Council Joint Statement http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_68871.htm 3) Xinhua News Agency, November 23, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
poland-u-s-moves-first-missiles-troops- near-russian-border 8) Xinhua News Agency, November 17, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
baltic-states-pentagons-training-
grounds-for-afghan-and-future-wars
. http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
pentagon-confronts-russia-in-the- baltic-sea 10) U.S. And NATO Accelerate Military Build-Up
In Black Sea Region http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
u-s-and-nato-accelerate-military-
build-up-in-black-sea-region
. http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
romania-u-s-expands-missile-shield- into-black-sea 11) Pentagon Forges NATO Proxy Armies In Eastern
Europe http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../pentagon-forges-nato-proxy-armies-in-eastern-europe
. http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
u-s-consolidates-new-military-outposts-in-eastern-europe 12) Canada Opens Arctic To NATO, Plans Massive
Weapons Buildup http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
canada-opens-arctic-to-nato-
plans-massive-weapons-buildup
. http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../
loose-cannon-and-nuclear-submarines-
west-prepares-for-arctic-warfare
. http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../
natos-pentagons-new-strategic- battleground-the-arctic 13) Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military Outpost
Between Russia And China http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military- outpost-between-russia-and-china 14) Ibid http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../150 20) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect
Mankind http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../
obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for- imperfect-mankind 21) Trend News Agency, November 22, 2010 http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2010/../
the-cost-russia-will-pay-for- nato-rapprochement.html |
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