SPY SPAT HAS A COUNTERPUNCH
By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
Oct 5 2006
When spy author John le Carre’s Our Game appeared more than 11 years
ago, the Cold War was over, the Berlin Wall had come down and British
intelligence had apparently put its operatives out to pasture.
Thus le Carre had to plow an altogether new furrow in the exotic
setting of Ingushetia and Ossetia in the Caucasus by weaving a plot
around a people suppressed by the White tsars and their Red
successors. By doing this, le Carre made an important point, that
spies never truly retire. Indeed, the conspiracies of stupendous
scope unfolding in the ramparts of the Caucasus mountains could be
straight out of a le Carre plot – taut and suspenseful.
Last week in Georgia, the security services detained four Russian
senior military officers for "illegal intelligence gathering"
concerning Georgia’s cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO). Simultaneously, the Georgian police cordoned off
the headquarters of Russian troops in Tbilisi, ostensibly to nab yet
another fugitive Russian spy who had taken shelter there.
Georgian authorities threatened to remand the detainees in custody
for two months and then put them and 10 Georgian accomplices on public
trial. Moscow was not amused.
Amid acrimonious verbal exchanges between Moscow and Tbilisi,
Russia began retaliating in calibrated moves. Protesters besieged the
Georgian Embassy in Moscow. Moscow recalled its envoy in Tbilisi and
evacuated its diplomatic personnel and their families based in Georgia;
announced it was closing travel routes to Georgia; and suspended postal
services. Moscow further hinted it might suspend banking operations
and money transfers between the two countries.
If the Russian moves, firmly dismissive of the Georgian allegations of
spying charges, were meant to remind Tbilisi about the facts of life,
they indeed worked, considering that the remittances by the 300,000
Georgian workers in Russia alone make up about 4% of Georgia’s gross
domestic product and Russia is Georgia’s number one trading partner.
At any rate, on Monday evening, Tbilisi handed over the four Russian
officers at the heart of the spy scandal. At which point, however,
the plot began to thicken.
Over the weekend, Washington effectively stonewalled a Russian
diplomatic offensive directed against Tbilisi in the nature of a
resolution by the UN Security Council in New York calling for the
urgent release of the Russian officers.
This provoked the Kremlin to bring out into the open the
hidden "American hand" in the plot. President Vladimir Putin,
while addressing the Russian Security Council on Saturday over
developments in Russian-Georgian relations, reportedly said, "These
people [Georgian authorities] think that under the protection of their
foreign mentors, they can afford to feel comfortable and secure. Is it
really so? Evidently, there are forces that specialize in provoking new
crises, estimating that it may distract attention from old problems."
Putin then gave some advice to both Washington and Tbilisi: "Probably
in a short-term perspective, it [provoking Russia] may have such an
effect [of distracting attention], but such attempts will not for
sure help in solving the old and rather serious crises in the world."
The Kremlin was making clear its sense of indignation in being
subjected to humiliation by Washington’s close ally, Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili. It rankled in the Russian mind that Saakashvili
would make faces at the Kremlin solely on the basis of his confidence
of American protection from any Russian retaliation.
Russi’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov,
describing Tbilisi’s spy charges as "absurd", accused some unnamed NATO
countries of illegally selling weapons to Georgia. "Some members of
NATO – shall we say, the ‘younger generation’ – are supplying Georgia
with arms and ammunition of Soviet vintage," Ivanov was quoted as
telling a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council of defense ministers in
Slovenia last Friday.
Ivanov was indirectly alleging that some of the pro-American
Baltic States and eastern European countries acting at the behest
of Washington were encouraging Georgia to adopt a confrontationist
attitude toward Russia.
Washington seemed to have read the Kremlin’s barely disguised warnings
of the implications of a likely hardening of Russian attitudes apropos
such festering American wounds as the Iraq war and the Iran nuclear
issue, where the US dependence on Russian cooperation is becoming
critical. (Nicholas Burns, the US under secretary of state for
political affairs, claimed as recently as Monday that Washington
had won a united front with Moscow and Beijing in pushing for UN
sanctions against Iran if the latter did not agree to suspend its
uranium-enrichment activity within this week.)
Over the weekend, therefore, Washington swung into action, dispatching
the chief of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), Karel De Gucht, to Tbilisi on a mediatory mission to resolve
the diplomatic row. He later said that after negotiations with all
parties, including with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
that Georgian leadership had agreed to hand over the Russian "spies"
to the OSCE and that they had been returned to Russia on Monday night.
For Washington, it was a "win-win" situation. Washington shrewdly
calculated that maximum propaganda mileage could be squeezed out of
the episode designed to show Russia as a bully in its behavior toward
a tiny neighbor. And from now on, the law of diminishing returns would
be at work, whereas, with a bit of timely, demonstrative goodwill as
a well-meaning mediator, it might be possible to earn some reciprocal
Russian gesture elsewhere.
But Moscow has shown no hurry to acknowledge the apparent US "goodwill"
in resolving the standoff with Tbilisi. Asked about the usefulness of
"mediators", Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sarcastically remarked
on Monday that third countries were already "energetically involved"
in Russia-Georgia relations. He elaborated: "We have many times drawn
the attention of those third parties, you may call them ‘sponsors’ –
those who supply weapons to Georgia and blocked a resolution at the
UN Security Council – to the problem."
If anything, Lavrov continued the diplomatic offensive. He said,
"The actions of the Georgian leadership have unquestionably become
consistently anti-Russian" and that the current developments were
"not the culmination but a reflection" of the hostile policies pursued
by Tbilisi toward Russia.
Lavrov said that Moscow had warned Western countries about the danger
of conniving with the policies pursued by Saakashvili, but instead
Georgia received promises of closer cooperation from NATO.
(Washington recently announced additional financial support of
US$10 million for bringing the Georgian armed forces closer to NATO
standards.)
"It is clear by now that Saakashvili’s main goal is accession to
NATO. He is hoping to resolve all other problems through this route,"
Lavrov observed.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin press release said that in a telephone
conversation on Monday, Putin warned US President George W Bush about
Georgia’s "destructive policy". Putin reportedly highlighted that
"any actions of third countries that Georgia’s leadership could
interpret as encouraging its destructive policy were unacceptable
and dangerous for peace and stability in the region".
Russian commentators uniformly believed that Saakashvili acted with
Washington’s prior knowledge and approval. They saw a pattern in the
sequence of events during the past three months following Saakashvili’s
visit to Washington.
During this period, Georgia deployed its troops in the Kodori Gorge
in Abkhazia, apparently taking one step further toward seeking a
"military solution" to the political separatism in the breakaway
province; Saakashvili ordered a crackdown on opposition political
figures who were mounting an increasingly effective campaign against
the power structure in Tbilisi, allegedly for their "pro-Russia"
stance; Tbilisi commenced a process of "intensive dialogue" between
Georgia and NATO (which is a stipulated prerequisite as per the
NATO charter for new members’ accession); and last but not least,
Saakashvili precipitated with great deliberation a totally unnecessary
crisis by detaining the Russian military officers.
Thus, Russian commentators saw last week’s developments as falling
within the overall context of Russian-American rivalry for influence
on the territories of the former Soviet republics. They visualized
that the US geopolitical objective was to force Russia out of the
Caucasus as part of Washington’s agenda of effecting the Atlantic
integration of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, and, specifically,
of replacing all traces of Russian military presence in any corner
of the region through which the strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil
pipeline and a future trans-Caspian pipeline run.
Now that the "color revolutions" have receded, Russian-American
rivalry in Eurasia is taking a new form in the nature of intensified
attempts by the international community to settle the so-called
"frozen conflicts" in Moldova and South Caucasus.
Russia is viewing with growing concern Anglo-American attempts in
recent months to orchestrate discussions over these conflicts within
European institutions.
Britain, Poland and Lithuania are leading a campaign at the European
Commission and the European Parliament for the EU to adopt a Caucasus
Project. Alongside, the pro-American GUAM (a regional grouping of
Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) is also being encouraged
by Washington to adopt a coordinated position on issues such as the
"frozen conflicts", Russian-Georgian relations, and the continued
presence of Russian peacekeeping forces in the breakaway republics
of Trans-Dneister, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Washington hopes to incrementally evolve a common strategy and
solidarity between the US and the EU concerning relations with Russia
within the overall framework of Euro-Atlanticism. But there are wheels
within wheels. In essence, Britain, in league with the pro-American
bloc of countries of "New Europe", is striving within the European
institutions to hedge French and German policies toward Russia.
The UK and the US share a sense of deep disquiet over Russian, German
and French integration in the energy sphere. The Anglo-American concern
is that with the passage of time, if the present trends strengthen,
increased cooperation in the energy sphere will inevitably bring
Russia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungary, etc to act in concert
on major areas impacting European security and stability, such as the
status of Ukraine, NATO’s future expansion, or Russia’s legitimate
politico-security interests in the Trans-Caucasus.
At the same time, Britain and the US appreciate that the eastern
European countries of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact and the Baltic
republics harbor strong anti-Russia bias while they remain engaged in
the process of consolidating their European outlook. The Anglo-American
attempt has been to harness this "critical mass" of animus against
Russia already available within the European institutions.
Part of the Anglo-American strategy is to calibrate the irritants
in relations between the GUAM member-countries and Russia. The
virulently anti-Russia bloc of countries in eastern Europe (Poland
and the Baltic states) within the EU has been playing the role of
inciting the GUAM countries against Russia. The tactic enables the
US and Britain to stay in the background and avoid complicating their
bilateral relations with Moscow.
The "frozen conflicts" present themselves as a convenient topic to
ratchet up tensions between Russia and its GUAM neighbors. But it
is not as if the US or Britain can offer any viable solutions for
settling the conflicts in Moldova and the South Caucasus. In fact, as
the Nagorno-Karabakh problem illustrates, there are no easy solutions
to these regional conflicts in the foreseeable future.
The geopolitical complexities of the region are such that the US
and Britain need to work hard to consolidate the GUAM positions. For
instance, within GUAM, Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan do not consider
it expedient to share Georgia’s passion for ganging up against Russia
(even though they may share an interest in sequestering their energy
communication links from Russian domination).
To be sure, the US objective is nonetheless to nudge the GUAM countries
toward a common platform on as many fronts as possible so as to create
a new political reality in Eurasia that Russia has to learn to live
with, and to encourage the GUAM countries to play an increased role
in the security sphere.
The political developments in Ukraine in the recent months leading to
the unraveling of the so-called "Orange" alliance no doubt constituted
a temporary setback to the US’s GUAM strategy, but Washington would
harbor the hope that in the medium and long term Kiev would revert
to its GUAM moorings and assume a leadership role in the community
of democratic nations in Eurasia.
All the same, Washington has no illusions that GUAM alone can ever
muster the capacity to solve security issues in the region. In
the US perception, the need exists for the active involvement of
the international community. For this reason, the question of GUAM
countries’ accession to NATO has become a priority.
In fact, the entire US strategy in the region revolves on NATO’s
expansion in the Caspian and Black Sea regions and in South Caucasus.
That is the reason why Washington even advocates that the eligibility
bar for NATO accession should be lowered for Ukraine and Georgia at
the cost of degrading the alliance’s defense, political and economic
standards.
France and Germany, however, do not share the Anglo-American interest
in NATO expansion, in priority terms. Neither France nor Germany has
taken an unequivocal position on the subject, either.
Washington hopes, arguably, that episodes such as the current
Russian-Georgian spy scandal show up Russia in poor light as a country
impeding conflict resolution and occupying the territories of other
countries (Georgia and Moldova) on the pretext of peacekeeping
operations, while in reality carrying out subversive activities
against the regimes in power, apart from blatantly using energy as
an instrument of foreign policy.
In Washington’s estimation, such an argumentation would convince the
doubting Thomases within the trans-Atlantic community, especially
in Paris and Berlin, regarding the "reality" of the threats posed
by a resurgent Russia and the imperative of NATO expansion in the
prevailing situation.
In immediate terms, the Anglo-American strategy is to force Russia
to withdraw its peacekeeping forces in Georgia and Moldova, as then
only will these countries become eligible for NATO accession. One
way of pressuring Russia will be to transfer the agenda of conflict
resolution in the Caspian and Black Sea regions and in the Caucasus
to the arena of the United Nations.
We may see signs of this happening in the coming months. Russia seems
ready to pre-empt the US design to create an utterly unfavorable
situation for it by orchestrating a GUAM move (preferably in tandem
with a common EU position) in the UN in the near future that may
hold the potential to snowball into focused international scrutiny
of Russia’s policy toward its smaller neighbors.
Thus, on Tuesday, despite the previous day’s release of the Russian
military officers by Tbilisi (significantly, under OSCE auspices,
which in itself amounts to "internationalization" of Russian-Georgian
relations), Moscow decided to submit a draft resolution in the UN
Security Council calling for the withdrawal of Georgian troops from
the Kodori Range. The resolution demands that Tbilisi honors all its
international obligations, including the mandate for the Commonwealth
of Independent Countries’ peacekeeping operations in Georgia, and
avoids any precipitate steps aggravating the problem of the breakaway
republic of Abkhazia.
The resolution specifically seeks an extension of the UN mandate for
the Russian peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia until April 2007. The
Russian resolution is due to come back for an open vote at a Security
Council meeting next week.
Moscow is also attempting to checkmate the Anglo-American gameplan on
NATO expansion by harping on the trend-setting nature of the referendum
in Kosovo (and Montenegro) recently held with EU endorsement and US
support on the province’s separation from Serbia.
Moscow has argued that what the West considers acceptable in Kosovo
(or Montenegro), namely, the right of self-determination, should
be equally acceptable to Trans-Dneister, Abkhazia or South Ossetia
(the breakaway regions of Moldova and Georgia).
Moscow is confidently asserting an important point of principle,
comfortable in the knowledge that the overwhelming popular opinion
in these breakaway regions of Moldova and Georgia is for close ties
with Russia. Of course, if a string of newly independent states with
pro-Russia outlook were to appear in Eurasia, that would throw NATO’s
expansion plans into disarray.
Speaking at a news briefing in Slovenia on Friday against the backdrop
of a joint meeting with NATO defense ministers, Ivanov gently reminded
Washington that taking all factors into account, Russia was not short
on options if driven into a corner.
Ivanov said: "We should not forget that 90% of the population
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are Russian citizens. They were
never citizens of Georgia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the local population in the region, which was then holding Soviet
passports individually, sought formal Russian citizenship. And we
issued passports and granted citizenship rights not only to the
citizens of the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic but also
to the residents in all other former Soviet republics.
"Millions of people opted for Russian citizenship. That was their
right and prerogative".
All in all, therefore, the "frozen conflicts" when applied to
the post-Soviet scenario, while appearing to lend themselves as
a convenient lever for Washington to purge Russian influence from
Eurasia, could in reality turn out to be a historical trap. For the
fact remains that to resolve the conflicts they need to be "defrosted"
first. And no one can foretell with certitude the consequences of
such a step.
The point is, present-day ethnic conflicts in the region
began historically with a process of development of national
consciousness a long time ago in the run-up to the collapse of
the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires. The ideology of
national self-determination is still alive in those regions and may
have, arguably, become even stronger in the post-Cold War era.
Indeed, the list is long: Armenian enclaves in Georgia, Crimea,
Trans-Dneister, Gaguzia, Transylvania, Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Kurdistan, etc.
Speaking on the subject in May, Putin called on Washington to
understand that given the complexities of sub-nationalism and ethnicity
in the region, geopolitical rivalries should not assume the nature of a
"sports competition".
"I believe," Putin said, "we all can, and should, cooperate to
draft common rules and uniform approaches … otherwise, there will
be chaos." Emphasizing that "Russia has never raised the issue of
annexing any territories outside its present borders", Putin, however,
cautioned, "when we hear that one approach is possible in one place
but is unacceptable in another, it becomes difficult to understand,
and is even more difficult to explain to people".
Putin pointed out that similar processes were underway in Europe,
too, and Russia was seriously concerned about it. He was underlining
that Russia would share common interests and concerns with Europe
apropos conflict resolution in Eurasia – unlike the US, which was
busy consolidating its trans-Atlantic leadership role in the post-Cold
War era.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador
to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress