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COMMENTARY
September 29, 2001
Putin's leap
Supposing he indeed planned the terrorist attacks on the United States Osama bin Laden has accomplished things beyond his wildest imagination. It now appears that he has knocked Russia finally into the Western orbit; and he may even have brought some peace to Chechnya. The "geopolitical" situation is now changing faster than anyone can keep up with and in ways that must encourage a dangerous optimism. Impossible things have happened under the pressure of unlikely events. Among them this week the co-operation and support that the Sudan has promised to the U.S. in delivering terrorist suspects. Or the peaceful woman's rally in Islamabad Pakistan against terrorism and in favour of Pakistan's revived American alliance. Or Saudi Arabia's decision to put its territory at the disposal of the U.S. even for raids against Afghanistan -- of course done fairly discreetly after the Americans showed by their use of the new control facility at the Prince Sultan airbase that they weren't even going to ask permission. In each of these events we see the direct or indirect effect of the extraordinary long-reach strong-arm diplomacy of Colin Powell. He has been willing to raise stakes very quickly in each encounter with an undemocratic government. No single event illustrated this better than his direct dealings with Yasser Arafat which brought about Mr. Arafat's delayed meeting with Israel's Shimon Peres to secure a new West Bank ceasefire. The Palestinian leader was on a plane to Damascus as I understand when he received Mr. Powell's call from Washington. Mr. Arafat was playing his usual game of try-your-patience seeking who-knows-what from Syria's terrorist-sheltering regime. He was told that if he landed in Damascus the U.S. would have no further dealings with him and would lose interest in his personal safety. Instead he landed in Amman then told his pilot to fly back to Gaza to await Secretary Powell's further instructions. That he continues to play a double game between terrorism and diplomacy goes without saying; but it's a game that is now being monitored in Washington play by play. But what happened in Essen Germany on Wednesday had nothing to do with direct U.S. diplomacy threatening or otherwise. In a candid talk to leading businessmen during a long-planned visit to Germany Russia's president Vladimir Putin said the Cold War is now really over; that in the last several weeks Russia has made a crucial decision to cleave to the West. He claimed that Russian economic reforms would now begin in earnest; that Russian support of the "war on terrorism" would be robust. In a speech before the German Bundestag he actually asked for Western understanding of his position in Chechnya rather than demanding it. He extended a previous Russian promise to allow overflights for "humanitarian purposes" dropping the qualification. He appealed not directly for Russian membership in NATO but more practically for a co-operative association in confronting the common enemy of Islamist terror. In a subtle but very interesting deviation from previous Russian rhetoric he spoke of a "common Europe" in which Russia could be accepted as a "normal" country. It was if I am not mistaken the first time Russia has spoken without the inference of a bi-polar world and the intimidation implied in its superpower posturing. Why should we believe that President Putin is now sincere when he has been seen to contest U.S. and Western interests in the recent past? To my mind for three reasons. First with the explicable exception of those in the hire of his personal nemesis Boris Berezovsky Russian commentators with no established sympathy for Mr. Putin believe he is sincere and that a dramatic change in the Russian posture has actually occurred. Second it is becoming clear that the Russian national interest has been redefined by the attack on New York. Third the U.S. has moved so quickly and effectively to secure new regional alliances and restore old ones that the Russians have been left no choice. They are outmanoeuvred and must now prevent themselves from being isolated. To understand the change one must begin by looking at the Russian position before the World Trade Centre came down. Mr. Putin had been consolidating state power within Russia by annexing the interests of the country's oligarchs one at a time and restoring central authority over its far-flung oblasts one jurisdiction at a time. The oligarchs are the mafiesque economic elite who profited from the collapse of the Soviet Union brilliantly appropriating the state's former assets. They represented the beginning of an order of large-scale competitive capitalism but also a kind of gang-sponsoring "wild west". On balance it is better to have competing tyrannies than just the one and the recapture of former Soviet financial media and industrial institutions has been bad for the economy and bad for freedom. But it has also led to slight improvements in law and order and to a reduction in the money laundering and smuggling that was bleeding the country dry. At the same time the war in Chechnya was bleeding the country literally involving the loss of more than 10 000 Russian soldiers a growing toll of civilians but worse (from President Putin's point-of-view) the diminution of the state's authority and prestige in the unstanched flow of blood and resources. The central authority was meanwhile eviscerating itself with a series of totally irresponsible budgets the Russian Duma desperate to make promises that could not be fulfilled. In Central Asia as in the Trans-Caucasus Russia's attempts to recover its old imperial interests were being fumbled by incompetent intriguing among the quickly developing independent states. On the global scale Russia was increasingly at a loss to "triangulate" or exploit the developing contest between the U.S. and China. The one piece of unqualified good news was the international rise in the price of oil. Russia's dependence on this as its "silver bullet" became obvious with the tabling of the most recent Kremlin budget which though it promised to balance revenues with expenditures for the first time since the Soviet collapse relied on projections of oil-based revenues that were laughably unrealistic. Moreover an accelerating and unpredicted inflation has wiped out the gains from the meltdown devaluatioin of the rouble in 1998. Mr. Putin's prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and finance minister Aleksei Kudrin have been exposed as the usual pathetic incompetents. The recent slide in oil prices has already opened a $10 billion hole that is widening daily while various plans to move the state back into control of the energy sector fall in the sides. President Putin's popularity or rather confidence in his leadership was similarly beginning to cave in at the moment the airliners struck New York. Here was a stark choice: gut expenditure and provoke riots or somehow manipulate the price of oil. The only way that could be done would be the old-fashioned Soviet way by stirring up trouble in the Middle East. But now there is trouble anyway even without Russian intervention through arms exports and political interference and the oil price isn't recovering. The checkmate was clinched by developments in Central Asia. With Afghanistan providing the promise of a more reliable American presence in the region; and the more efficient Western oil conglomerates already extensively invested there; with the prospect of new pipeline schemes to export oil from this region along routes that would bypass Russia entirely -- the last pawn fell. For even until they are built the Russians could not close the taps without foregoing lucrative transit fees. Only two weeks ago the Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov was wondering aloud what terms he might offer to allow American planes to land in Tadzhikistan. It seems to have come as a surprise to him to discover they were already there. Likewise wherever else the Russians have turned to advise and patronize former clients they seem to have found the Yankees there first. Did they really want to line up for one last stand with Saddam Hussein? It did not take President Putin long to see that this was a non-starter. The best he has been able to get as a tit-for-tat against Western interests is an agreement from the West to stop yammering about Chechnya. This undertaking he has effectively received from the Bush administration and from Chancellor Schroeder's German coalition minus the inconvenient greens. The thrillingly candid Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi went so far as to speak the new formula aloud in President Putin's presence. He said the West is beginning to realize that the conflict in Chechnya wasn't as simple as it seemed. (This was the premier who helpfully announced that Christian civilization was superior to Muslim the day before.) While there has been speculation in the liberal media about "secret agreements" the Bush administration has made to obtain Russian support -- for instance a withdrawal of its missile plans -- I don't believe it. The circumstances described above persuade me that the Russians are not in a position to make huge demands. On the other hand they will be almost compulsively guided by their ex-Soviet instincts to recover their position in Central Asia over the longer term. Their calculation will be that the U.S. is here today but will be gone tomorrow and when they go the most powerful pro-American dictatorial regime that of Uzbekistan will fall. But this is counting chickens that are not yet conceived. President Putin will also be trying to use the American connection to advance his private political agenda which includes nailing his rival oligarchs through U.S. efforts to attack international money laundering. More positively he has already used the American connection to bring the Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov closer to the negotiating table. Peace in Chechnya would pay a substantial domestic dividend. President Bush himself went some distance to found a personal relationship with President Putin on his early summer trip to Europe. He has already proved a shrewd judge of political character even across cultural divides and I think he has been able to provide some direct American influence on new Russian thinking. He has sent fresh American advisers to expound the wisdom of free enterprise; I suspect this has something to do with Mr. Putin's new excitement about foreign investment. For he has been speaking almost as if he were wearing an Adam Smith tie while pitching Russia everywhere he goes. The most ludicrous pitch was made to Saudi Arabia -- it came down to Time to diversify your oil supply portfolio, invest in the new Russian industrial demand. There is apparent chaos at the conceptual level as Russia finds itself simultaneously both centralizing regulatory controls over energy transportation and telecommunications and consolidating its tariff structure -- while opening its doors to new free market business. But the two efforts may coalesce for what investors want to see is more law and order. As a new ally in the Western camp Russia seems to be dropping its objections to the eastern expansion of NATO. Rather more and more desperately it wants to be let in. President Putin is looking ahead not only to a decade of struggle against Islamist terror but also at the continuing rise of China. He has decided where long-term safety lies and with that decision comes a realization that Russia must prove itself reliable. For the immediate future Russian membership in NATO is inconceivable -- the country does not yet resemble a bourgeois democracy and could not be assimilated into the NATO command without bending the latter out of shape. But in the longer run the desire to join forces with NATO can only provide a constant pressure towards Russian political and economic reform. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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