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Russian Military Present and Future Foreign Policy
Pavel Simonov, AIA Russian section

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov gave yesterday a huge interview to the Russian daily Izvestia concerning the joint Indo-Russian and upcoming triple Indo-Russo-Chinese maneuvers. He also glibly described and praised the Russian "military foreign policy". But his answers are giving rise to many questions…

The interview is unnaturally huge even taking into account the capacities of the Internet editions, able to publish everything. Six pages of text is kind hard to comprehend to somebody non-professional. So we are not going to translate it fully (for it is published only in Russian) but to present the most interesting details and quotes together with some questions, which they evoke.

First of all, Sergey Ivanov noted that the Russian military is vigorously "conducting foreign policy". The triple Indo-Russo-Chinese joint military maneuvers next year and recent Russo-Indian INDRA-2005 and Russo-Chinese "Peaceful Mission – 2005" are big milestones, while there are many smaller one. The Russian Army is sending delegations all over the world, conducts meetings, seminars, officers exchanges as well as experience exchanges, imprimis with the ex-Soviet republics. There are many joint CIS drills as well as drills with the NATO members. To his mind all this serves the national interests of the country.

There is one oddity that must be marked. There is no such thing as "military foreign policy" in the normal civilized countries – the military cannot define or to manage country's foreign policy. The military fulfills the orders of the government, as 19th century Prussian military philosopher von Clausewitz put it, "war is politics carried on by other means." There might be a military diplomacy in normal states, like cooperation of the Staffs for example.

Military may influence foreign policy very vigorously – like it was in the Turkey's case when the Army Generals fearful of islamisation of the country pushed Erbakan's government (June 1996 - June 1997) for a rapprochement with Israel and not with Iran. Or like in Pakistan, where since 1999 coup the military totally defined the foreign policy, as its Chief of Staff became a President.

But none of these scripts is true for Russia, as it was not true for the Soviet Union, where for the last its decades the military was conducting activity under the Party's decisions or under decisions of the secret services. It is clearly seen in the case of the Afghani war (1980-1989), when the Army was against the invasion, but the Party and the KGB forced it to do that. Today the Party is gone, but the secret services are here. The classical example is the case of India, the rate of rapprochement with which is skyrocketing. The idea of Russia coming back to the Soviet policy of controlling India by various means, as for example weapons deliveries, belongs to Evgeny Primakov, ex-head of the SVR. Vladimir Putin, whose KGB past is known is the one who is implementing it. He sent to India as an ambassador another ex-head of the SVR Vyacheslav Trubnikov – Primakov's deputy and previously the head of the Indian direction of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence (the First Department of the KGB – PGU KGB). And who is conducting the "military foreign policy" today if not another secret service man Sergey Ivanov, the ex-deputy head of the FSB under Vladimir Putin? Seems like too many coincidences?

But lets stick to Ivanov's interview. The Russian Defense Minister stressed that though the recent INDRA-2005, "Peaceful Mission – 2005" and upcoming triple drill may be called "demonstration of muscles", or "exercise of power" they are aimed not to threaten any country or bloc.

"We have a common enemy - international terrorism. With each year its attacks are becoming more terrible and sophisticated. The geography of the acts of terror widened: New York and Madrid, London and Moscow, Budennovsk and Makhachkala, Beslan and Nalchik... It is time to put a stop in this sorrowful enumeration of crimes. Making this is possible only by combined efforts of the countries. And "Peaceful Mission -2005" with INDRA-2005 posed no threat to the interests of the other countries and they are not an evidence of any intentions to create in the region a new international military and political bloc. Their central objective is training for the combined anti-terrorist actions of the sides. Both drills can be considered a kind of a "starting points" on the way to the growing of practical interaction of our countries in the fight against the "Plague of the XXI century". We are intending to widen cooperation with other states also. For example, Indian side agreed to our proposal to conduct in the next year a drill on the territory of Russia with participation of the special units of several states, including those in NATO. It stimulates multilateral interaction in the military sphere, it contributes to the creation of united anti-terrorist front," Ivanov said to Izvestia.

Interestingly, almost everybody in the West perceived the "Peaceful Mission – 2005" as something really different. Britain's Financial Times, saw in this "innocent peacekeeping drill" as its name suggested a tool of fighting against the Central Asian "color revolutions." Japan and Taiwan media claimed that the use of amphibious equipment and a shore assault landing was to make a "show of force" to the Japan-U.S. alliance and to "daunt" Taiwan independence. Taiwan actually was so scared that its army was on full alert during the Chinese-Russian drill. A German Business daily Handelsblatt of Duesseldorf argued: "The first joint Russian-Chinese maneuver is a demonstration of power. Officially, it has been declared as an exercise for peace missions, but the saber rattling of both countries in times of highest nervousness because of Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs is a clear signal mainly to the United States. A new military cooperation is developing which must clearly be seen a counter model to NATO. With this cooperation, China and Russia are emphasizing their insistence on an order they describe as a multipolar world. Both nuclear powers do not want to be subject to Washington's diktat like with the U.S. unilateral move in Iraq. This is understandable and a well-balanced global order must be welcome, but Moscow and Beijing are not the right candidates to establish it." Italy's La Stampa alleged that: "The fear that transpires from State Department circles concerns the possibility of the birth of a regional alliance inclined to progressively reduce U.S. influence in an area considered of great importance for conducting operations in the war on terrorism.” Some editorials agreed the maneuvers will have an impact on future development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, possibly as a counter to NATO.

As to the INDRA-2005, my colleague Allister Maunk already noted that it is hard to believe that the missile cruisers or nuclear submarines will be hunting down pirates and terrorists.

Hunting down terrorists is mainly a job of secret services and special forces. The high scale military maneuvers may be considered a part of preparation to fight terrorism only if the countries involved in them want to attack a state, which harbors terrorists. It is really doubtful that Russia with India and China will attack Iran (supporting Hezbollah), for which the Russians recently launched the first spy satellite, or Syria (supporting Islamic Jihad), which they are protecting in the UN.

But unfortunately the Izvestia didn't ask Sergey Ivanov for explanations on this issue.

He was kind enough to agree that the drills were also needed to show off to the Chinese and Indians some new Russian military "toys", which are for sale. He noted that the drills might be perceived as a "promotion" of the new aircrafts by "Sukhoi" and MiG, APCs, submarines and other products of the Russian Rosoboronexport (major Russian specialised agency responsible for arms export). After all India and China, or to be true, China and India together purchase 80 per cent of the Russian military export, which is $5,7 billion high. .

Also, this exporting, as the export of the energy carriers is one of the most important articles of the income, which, by the way helps to pay for a new military products for the Russian Army itself. This year, Ivanov noted the level of the Army's orders was extremely high – the re-arming is underway.

Well, any army should rearm; the question is for what and against whom? It is very symbolic that exactly the day this interview was published the Russians successfully tested a new Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads and designed to evade any dense air-defense system, like the USA use. Maybe they are going to hit "Al-Qaeda" cells on the American territory?

But Ivanov didn't remind of that. He said that the areal of the Russian military export is widening quickly and stressed the Latin American direction, noting that ten countries on the continent already signed agreements with the Russian military.

Ivanov marked that military relations with the former Soviet republics are of highest value, for most of their weapons are Soviet-Russian made. This is understandable that the Russians don't want to lose this "military foreign policy" tool. No CIS country has the means to pass to the western made weapons – they will have to carry on buying Russian arms and modernize Russian made equipment, as it is cheaper for them. Ivanov noted that they get discounts and don't the VAT. That is a small price for Russia to pay for such an efficient dog's leash for these republics.

And the last issue worth mentioning from the interview of the Russian Minister of Defense is the peacekeeping. Ivanov marked that a special new peacekeeping brigade was formed in the Russian Army especially for such missions. All the soldiers in it are contract signed, they are trained in a special way and maybe in the future they will train together with the NATO peacekeepers and even participate in the UN missions. He claimed that in most areas the Russian peacekeepers quelled the violence, but the local politicians don't want to reach a peaceful resolution.

By Ivanov's words the Russia's voluntary involvement in the settlement of the conflicts on the post-Soviet space is an important part of its foreign policy. It is hard not to agree with him, while the Russian peacekeepers are stationed in different hot spots, sometimes against the will of the local governments and peoples (as in Georgia, for example); they protect Moscow's interests in the area. And as it seems, the new Russian peacekeeping brigade will keep up doing that not only on the post-Soviet space, but also in the other areas of the world. And one may wonder, how many Mr. Ivanov, Mr. Primakov and Mr. Putin ex –colleagues will be serving in the ranks of this brigade…

Source

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