MOVING TOWARDS MULTIPOLARITY IN WORLD AFFAIRS

Naresh ‘Nadeem’
September 23, 2007

People’s Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist)

VIEWED in context of the seven-year 200 billion dollars rearmament plan
which the Russian Federation president, Vladimir Putin, signed earlier
this year, the recent testing of the "Father of All Bombs" by the
country signifies a spurt in the arms race in the world — in an era
that is supposedly free from the Cold War mentalities. Interestingly,
the test was conducted on September 11, sixth anniversary of the 9/11
and 34th of the CIA-engineered assassination of Salvador Allende.

IN RESPONSE TO US ARROGANCE

Yet the most crucial fact, to be noted down in black and white, is
that the Russians tested this thermobaric bomb in just a reaction to
the recent testing of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb earlier
this year by the US. The Yankee imperialists displayed so much glee
over this weapon that they arrogantly expanded the abbreviation MOAB
to claim that their bomb was the "Mother of All Bombs."

However, if the MOAB was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon till
the time it was tested, the latest Russian bomb is four times more
powerful than the MOAB, and it was not quite unnatural therefore that,
in response to the US imperialist arrogance, the Russians termed
their bomb as the "Father of All Bombs."

Variously described as a vacuum bomb, a fuel-air bomb, an aviation
explosive device etc, the Russian thermobaric bomb comes at a time
when the US has been insistent on displaying that it cares a damn for
the hitherto existing international arms treaties. Till the time the
Soviet Union existed, the US had no option but to pretend at least that
it would abide by the arms treaties signed between the two countries.

During the last one decade and a half, however, the Yankees have taken
several steps to encircle the Russian Federation, as one of the most
significant parts of their drive for global hegemony.

Moreover, though rated as equivalent to only 11 tonnes of TNT or just
0.3 percent of the bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima (equivalent
to 13,000 tonnes of TNT) in 1945, the Americans bragged that the
strike of one single MOAB could flatten as many as 9 city blocks. This
logically annoyed the Russians who viewed the MOAB in conjunction with
the US moves to expand the NATO war alliance eastward by inducting
into it such ex-socialist countries and former Soviet republics as
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, with the
US move to deploy a part of its contemplated anti-ballistic missile
defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic in Central Europe,
which would upset the balance of power in Europe, and with the US
moves to penetrate Central Asia which is not only rich in oil and
gas resources but strategically important as well.

Not content with such moves, the US also made efforts to get
the existing regimes replaced in some former Soviet republics by
more pro-West regimes through orange, velvet and other coloured
‘revolutions’ which were no more than CIA engineered putsches. One
could well imagine the excruciating situation the Russians faced in
the wake of such developments.

The Russian Federation’s 44 tonnes FOAB, so to say, needs to be viewed
in the context of all these developments.

RESISTANCE TO IMPERIALISM

This brings us to a crucial aspect of the contemporary world
situation. When a large number of media-cres, so to say, and their
paymasters were chuckling over the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991,
there indeed were people wondering whether the resultant unipolar
world would last for long after all. The reason was that, because of
its sheer intensity, the US imperialist drive to impose its hegemony
over the world was bound to evoke resistance from the people around
the globe, and also from the existing regimes in many countries.

And the events in the last one decade and a half have indeed shown
that imperialism is imperialism first of all, it is imperialism after
all, and becomes all the more venomous if there is no resistance to
its depredations.

The popular resistance to the latest phase of imperialist depredations
is most evident in Latin America which the US imperialists for long
considered their reserved and exclusive "backyard." Now, if the US most
brutally exploited the natural and human resources of this region to
gain and then sustain its supremacy in the world, the moot question
is: Will the loss of this region leave the US’s economic strength
and consequently its military strength untouched — in the medium
term at least, if not in the short term?

On the other hand, significantly, the economic powers of West Europe
have gained a backyard of their own through the largely eastward
expansion of European Union (EU). As many as 8 out of the 10 new
entrants to the EU are the formerly socialist countries that are
going through a phase of impoverishment and unemployment. Is it too
much to surmise that the cheap human and natural resources of these
formerly socialist countries may eventually give an edge to the EU
and thus intensify the mutual contradictions among imperialist powers?

At the level of regimes, perhaps the most significant resistance
to the US hegemonic drive came from the Russian Federation which
took resolute steps to cobble together a Collective Security Treaty
Organisation (CSTO) with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Creating deterrence to the NATO’s eastward
expansion is one of the understood aims of this organisation.

RUSSIAN MOVES

In the recent months, the Russian Federation has also conveyed its
intentions to the imperialist powers by cornering a no-insignificant
chunk of the Arctic Circle. Though some commentators have dubbed this
move as symbolic only, it certainly shows the country’s no-nonsensical
approach in world affairs.

Before that, in July, two Russian Tu-95 bombers had flown deep into
the NATO territory for the first time in the post-Soviet period. Then,
in the second week of August, Russian bombers undertook long-range
flights — as far as up to the US naval base in Guam in the Pacific
Ocean, off the coast of Peru. Then, in the same month, in yet another
post-Soviet first, 14 missile carriers, support and refuelling aircraft
started off from 7 air bases in Russia, spread out across the Atlantic,
and came back before the NATO jet fighters could scramble. Putin
announced after the event that such patrols, discontinued since 1992,
were strategic in nature and would be carried out in future as well.

The Russian Federation has also announced that it would continue its
cooperation with Iran in the field of civilian nuclear energy (it is
already building a nuclear power reactor in that threatened country),
and at the same time it has expressed intention to re-discover its
ties with the countries of the Middle East where some of the regimes
and many of the people are willing to welcome Russia’s presence in
the area.

Despite the differences in perception, a delegation of the Hamas has
already visited the Russian Federation and the latter is not averse
to doing something for the beleaguered Palestinian Authority. Russia
has already waived a Soviet era loan owed by Algeria; it amounted to
more than 15 billion dollars.

And above all this, the Russian Federation is now all set to send an
armed fleet to the Syrian port of Tartus in the Mediterranean Sea. One
recalls that the USSR had had a naval base there for decades, which
Yeltsin (whom a retired Indian diplomat described as "an occasionally
sober Boris Yeltsin") had got dismantled after the demise of the
Soviet Union.

To Admiral Vladimir Masorin, head of the Russian navy, "The
Mediterranean Sea is very important strategically for the Black Sea
fleet." After his tour of the Russian naval base in the Sevastopol
port in Ukraine, he said Russia intended to restore its "permanent"
naval presence in Tartus, with the involvement of its Northern Fleet
and Baltic Fleet. This, he added, would amount to "planting the
white-blue-and-red Russian banner in the Middle East."

As Mark Mackinnon wrote in the Totonto Globe and Mail on August 9,
"It would mark the first time Russia has established a military
presence outside the borders of the former Soviet Union since the
USSR fell apart in 1991."

While Kremlin’s decision has been welcomed by many, it has perplexed
Washington and Tel Aviv, gripping them in anxiety no end. "The Russians
are coming," so screamed the Yediot Aharonot, a large-circulation
Israeli daily. And an article in the same paper noted, "A Russian flag
on Syrian soil has significant implications. Firstly, it challenges
the United States and the dominance of the Sixth Fleet stationed
in the Mediterranean. Secondly, with its actual presence in Syria,
Russia is announcing that it is actively participating in any process
and conflict in the Middle East….." The article concluded that the
latest Russian stance "must be reckoned with."

As for Russia, it is just a trash to say that its naval presence in
Tartus would enable it to keep an eye on US moves in the whole of
the all-important sea route of Mediterranean — from Jabr al-Tariq
(Gibraltar) to the mouth of the Suez Canal — and, if necessary,
to counter those moves well in time.

SHANGHAI GROUPING

Undoubtedly much more important than all the above developments,
however, is the metamorphosis the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
(SCO) has undergone of late.

Though the SCO was formed more than a decade ago (in April 1996,
to be precise), it began to make its presence felt only in the last
three to four years.

This regional grouping, with the Russian Federation, People’s Republic
of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members,
granted observer status to Mongolia in June 2004 and to India, Pakistan
and Iran a year later. This grant of observer status to some countries
was a gesture signifying that the SCO intended to expand its economic
and related interests beyond Central Asia.

The SCO officially adopted its charter of objectives in June 2002,
at its second summit conference in St Petersburg. (The fact that six
long years elapsed before the organisation could hold its second summit
or adopt a charter of objectives, may be taken as an indication of
the initial prevarication on part of the member countries.) Through
its charter, the SCO gave to itself the mandate to build mutual
trust, friendship and good-neighbourly relations among the member
countries. It also decided that all SCO decisions would be arrived
at through consensus.

As Russia faces the terrorist menace in Chechnya, China in Western
Turkistan and other countries are also facing it to a greater or lesser
extent, the SCO moved to create a Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure
(RATS) for information networking in June 2004. The RATS was finally
headquartered in Tashkent though, initially, Bishkek was chosen for
the purpose.

However, though the SCO had evolved as the most powerful regional
organisation in Asia, it never intended to develop into a military
organisation. Its members always and repeatedly insisted that it was
a community for mutual trade and economic cooperation, for transfer
of technology and other crucial inputs, and not an alliance against
any specific adversary.

But the sheer pressure of the situation developing in the region
and the world has compelled the SCO to reorient itself, and it began
to hold joint military exercises since 2005. And, held in the Ural
mountains in Chelyabinsk region of the Russian Federation in mid-August
2007, the latest round of joint military exercises have been unique in
their ambitious scale as well as their sharp message. These three-day
military manoeuvres of the SCO involved no less than 6,500 troops and
over 10 aircraft, and synchronised with a three-day summit conference
of the organisation in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. On August 17,
the last day of the manoeuvres, the leaders witnessing it included
Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China, apart from those
from other member and observer countries.

Speaking at the SCO summit in Bishkek on August 16, Putin admitted
that even though Russia was not trying to forge a Cold War style
military bloc, the SCO intended to outgrow its original character of
an economic association and take on a greater military role.

Categorically announcing that "any attempts to solve global and
regional problems unilaterally have no future," Putin pointed to the
SCO "becoming a more substantial factor in ensuring security in the
region." He also sought to clarify that "Russia, like other SCO states,
favours strengthening the multipolar international system providing
equal security and development potential for all countries."

According to Ivan Safranchuk, Moscow director of the World Security
Institute, "The SCO clearly wants the US to leave Central Asia;
that’s a basic political demand. That’s one reason why the SCO is
holding military exercises, to demonstrate its capability to take
responsibility for stability in Central Asia after the US leaves"
(quoted by Fred Weir in the Christian Science Monitor, August 17).

The words pronounced here do give a patently wrong impression that
there is a threat of instability in Central Asia once the US leaves
the region, and the implication may well be that it was the US that
brought stability to the region. Yet the message has been grasped in no
uncertain terms: "The SCO clearly wants the US to leave Central Asia."

WHITHER NOW?

Depending upon their orientations and even extraneous considerations,
commentators have variously interpreted the recent strategic steps
taken by the Russian Federation. Some of them have even gone down
to the level of suggesting that Russian generals want a bigger role
for themselves in the internal and international affairs, and others
see all this as a result of President Putin’s megalomania. Even the
observation made by a serious analyst like Fred Weir — that Russia
"is moving to reclaim the former Soviet Union’s status as a global
military power" — ignores the question: What for?

There is yet another view that Putin’s recent postures are geared more
to the coming elections than to anything else. One notes that elections
to the Russian Duma are to take place in the coming December and to
the presidency in March 2008. As the Russian constitution forbids
Putin to contest for a third time while his personal rating is quite
high at the moment, some commentators are of the view that he wants
to secure his party before he steps down.

The virtually forced resignation of Mikhail Fradkov from the prime
minister’s post immediately after the testing of the vacuum bomb
and the appointment of Viktor Zubkov in his place have lent further
credibility to the theory. Fradkov’s letter of resignation citing the
"approaching significant political events" was followed by these words
from Putin: "We all have to think together how to build a structure
of power so that it better corresponds to the pre-election period and
prepares the country for the period after the presidential election
in March" (Itar-Tass, quoted by UNI, September 12.) Zubkov has been
an old colleague of the president.

These developments do give an indication that the approaching elections
are very much on Putin’s mind; it is another thing that in itself
there is nothing wrong in it. The crucial question is whether, more so
after the presidential polls, the Russian Federation will stick to its
professed objective of forging multipolarity in the world affairs or
adopt a stoic indifference a la Gorbachev whose government did not move
its little finger to prevent the first Gulf War in 1991? If Russia,
in particular, fails to pursue its quest for an end to the currently
obtaining unipolarity, it would be nothing less than betraying the
world peoples.

As for India, its stance vis-a-vis the recent developments has been
one of ambivalence — to say the least. Take its approach to the SCO,
for instance.

While India wants to take advantage of the Central Asian energy sources
and of the emerging opportunities for trade, it still tries to play
safe in relation to the SCO. For example, while Mongolia sent its
president, Iran its vice president and Pakistan its prime minister
for the 2005 SCO summit in St Petersburg, India thought it prudent to
get represented by nobody higher than Natwar Singh, the then foreign
minister. This year too, who represented India at Bishkek? Just the oil
and petroleum minister, Shri Murli Deora, showing how little importance
we are prepared to give to the SCO. As one Rup Narayan Das said in a
recent commentary on the All India Radio, "India’s initial enthusiasm
for the SCO to push multipolarity, cooperation with Central Asia,
strengthening Russia-China-India trilateral efforts and securing
strategic energy resources seems to have mellowed down in the wake
of the Indo-US nuclear deal."

The question is: What role would India play in world affairs with
such an ambivalent stance, which is tantamount to try becoming clever
by half?