FORMER SOVIET STATES: BATTLEGROUND FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION
By Rick Rozoff
ticle_5302.shtml
Nov 24, 2009, 00:19
A Europe united under the EU and especially NATO is to be strong
enough to contain, isolate and increasingly confront Russia as the
central component of U.S. plans for control of Eurasia and the world,
but cannot be allowed to conduct an independent foreign policy,
particularly in regard to Russia and the Middle East. European NATO
allies are to assist Washington in preventing the emergence of "the
most dangerous scenario . . . a grand coalition of China, Russia,
and perhaps Iran" such as has been adumbrated since in the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization.
Four years after the publication of The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski’s
recommended chess move was made: The U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan
and expanded into Central Asia where Russian, Chinese and Iranian
interests converge and where the basis for their regional cooperation
existed, and Western military bases were established in the former
Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where they
remain for the indefinite future.
As the United States escalates its joint war with NATO in Afghanistan
and across the Pakistani border, expands military deployments and
exercises throughout Africa under the new AFRICOM, and prepares to
dispatch troops to newly acquired bases in Colombia as the spearhead
for further penetration of that continent, it is simultaneously
targeting Eurasia and the heart of that vast land mass, the countries
of the former Soviet Union.
Within months of the formal breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics in December of 2001, leading American policy advisers
and government officials went to work devising a strategy to insure
that the fragmentation was final and irreversible. And to guarantee
that the fifteen new nations emerging from the ruins of the Soviet
Union would not be allied in even a loose association such as the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) founded in the month of the
Soviet Union’s dissolution.
Three of the former Soviet republics, the Baltic states of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, never joined the CIS and in 2004 became full
members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in all three cases
placing the U.S.-led military bloc on Russian borders.
That left 11 other former republics to be weaned from economic,
political, infrastructural, transportation and defense sector
integration with Russia, integration that was extensively and
comprehensively developed for the seventy four years of the USSR’s
existence and in many cases for centuries before during the Czarist
period.
A change of its socio-economic system and the splintering of the nation
with the world’s largest territory only affected U.S. policy toward
former Soviet space insofar as it led to Washington and its allies
coveting and moving on a vast expanse of Europe and Asia hitherto
off limits to it.
Two months after the end of the Soviet Union then U.S. Undersecretary
of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy in the Pentagon,
Lewis Libby, authored what became known as the Defense Planning
Guidance document for the years 1994-99. Some accounts attribute the
authorship to Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad under Wolfowitz’s tutelage.
Afghan-born Khalilzad is a fellow alumnus of Wolfowitz at the
University of Chicago and worked under him in the Ronald Reagan
State Department starting in 1984. From 1985-1989 he was the Reagan
administration’s special adviser on the proxy war against the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan and on the Iran-Iraq war. In the first
capacity he coordinated the Mujahideen war against the government
of Afghanistan waged from Pakistan along with Deputy Director of
the Central Intelligence Agency Robert Gates, now U.S. Secretary of
Defense. (Gates has a doctorate degree in Russian and Soviet Studies,
as does his former colleague the previous U.S. secretary of state
Condoleezza Rice.)
The main recipient of U.S. arms and training within the Mujahideen
coalition during those years was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose still
extant armed group Hezb-e-Islami assisted in driving American troops
out of Camp Keating in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province this October.
Hekmatyar remains in Afghanistan heading the Hezb-e-Islami and top
U.S. and NATO military commander General Stanley McChrystal in his
Commander’s Initial Assessment of September — which called for a
massive increase in American troops for the war — identified the
party as one of three main insurgent forces that as many as 85,000
U.S. and thousands of NATO reinforcements will be required to fight.
The Wolfowitz-Libby-Khalilzad Defense Planning Guidance prototype
appeared in the New York Times on March 7, 1992 and to demonstrate
that the end of the Soviet Union and the imminent fall of the
Afghan government (Hekmatyar and his allies would march into Kabul
two months later) affected U.S. policy toward Russia not one jot
contained these passages:
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival,
either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere,
that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the
Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new
regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent
any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would,
under consolidated control, be sufficient to general global power."
"We continue to recognize that collectively the conventional forces
of the states formerly comprising the Soviet Union retain the most
military potential in all of Eurasia; and we do not dismiss the
risks to stability in Europe from a nationalist backlash in Russia or
efforts to reincorporate into Russia the newly independent republics
of Ukraine, Belarus, and possibly others. . . . We must, however,
be mindful that democratic change in Russia is not irreversible, and
that despite its current travails, Russia will remain the strongest
military power in Eurasia and the only power in the world with the
capability of destroying the United States."
In its original and revised versions the 46-page Defense Planning
Guidance document laid the foundation for what would informally
become known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine and later the Bush Doctrine,
indistinguishable in any essential manner from the Blair, alternately
known as Clinton, Doctrine enunciated in 1999: That the U.S. (with its
NATO allies) reserves the unquestioned right to employ military force
anywhere in the world at any time for whichever purpose it sees fit
and to effect "regime change" overthrows of any governments viewed
as being insufficiently subservient to Washington and its regional
and global designs.
Five years later, former Carter administration National Security
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who launched the Afghan Mujahideen support
project in 1978 and worked with Khalilzad at Colombia when the latter
was assistant professor of Political Science at the university’s School
of International and Public Affairs from 1979 to 1989 and Brzezinski
headed the Institute on Communist Affairs, wrote an article called
"A Geostrategy for Eurasia."
It was in essence a precis of his book of the same year, The Grand
Chessboard: American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic Imperatives, and
was published in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the New York-based
Council on Foreign Relations.
The framework for the piece is contained in this paragraph:
"America’s status as the world’s premier power is unlikely to be
contested by any single challenger for more than a generation. No
state is likely to match the United States in the four key dimensions
of power — military, economic, technological, and cultural —
that confer global political clout. Short of American abdication,
the only real alternative to American leadership is international
anarchy. President Clinton is correct when he says America has become
the world’s ‘indispensable nation.’"
Brzezinski identified the subjugation of Eurasia as Washington’s chief
global geopolitical objective, with the former Soviet Union as the
center of that policy and NATO as the main mechanism to accomplish
the strategy.
"Europe is America’s essential geopolitical bridgehead in Eurasia.
America’s stake in democratic Europe is enormous. Unlike America’s
links with Japan, NATO entrenches American political influence and
military power on the Eurasian mainland. With the allied European
nations still highly dependent on U.S. protection, any expansion of
Europe’s political scope is automatically an expansion of U.S.
influence. Conversely, the United States’ ability to project influence
and power in Eurasia relies on close transatlantic ties.
"A wider Europe and an enlarged NATO will serve the short-term and
longer-term interests of U.S. policy. A larger Europe will expand the
range of American influence without simultaneously creating a Europe
so politically integrated that it could challenge the United States on
matters of geopolitical importance, particularly in the Middle East. .
. ."
The double emigre — first from Poland, then from Canada — advocated a
diminished role for nation states, including the U.S., and Washington’s
collaboration in building a stronger Europe in furtherance of general
Western domination of Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa and the world
as a whole.
"In practical terms, all this will eventually require America’s
accommodation to a shared leadership in NATO, greater acceptance of
France’s concerns over a European role in Africa and the Middle East,
and continued support for the European Union’s eastward expansion even
as the EU becomes politically and economically more assertive. . . . A
new Europe is still taking shape, and if that Europe is to remain
part of the ‘Euro-Atlantic’ space, the expansion of NATO is essential."
While giving lip service to the role of the European Union, he left no
doubt as to which organization — the world’s only military bloc —
is to lead the charge in the conquest of the former Soviet Union as
well as the world’s "periphery." It is NATO.
Already stating in 1997, two years before his native Poland, the Czech
Republic and Hungary would become full members of the Alliance, that
"Ukraine, provided it has made significant domestic reforms and has
become identified as a Central European country, should also be ready
for initial negotiations with the EU and NATO," he added:
"Failure to widen NATO, now that the commitment has been made,
would shatter the concept of an expanding Europe and demoralize the
Central Europeans. Worse, it could reignite dormant Russian political
aspirations in Central Europe. Moreover, it is far from evident that
the Russian political elite shares the European desire for a strong
American political and military presence in Europe. . . . If a choice
must be made between a larger Europe-Atlantic system and a better
relationship with Russia, the former must rank higher."
That a former U.S. foreign policy official and citizen of the country
would so blithely determine years before the event which nations
would join the European Union went without comment on both sides of
the Atlantic. That the nominal geographic location of a nation —
placing Ukraine in Central Europe — would be assigned by an American
was similarly assumed to be Washington’s prerogative evidently.
Despite vapid maunderings about desiring to free post-Soviet Russia
from its "imperial past" and "integrating [it] into a cooperative
transcontinental system," Brzezinski presented a blueprint for
surrounding the nation with a NATO cordon sanitaire, in truth a wall
of military fortifications.
"Russia is more likely to make a break with its imperial past if
the newly independent post-Soviet states are vital and stable. Their
vitality will temper any residual Russian imperial temptations.
Political and economic support for the new states must be an integral
part of a broader strategy. . . . Ukraine is a critically important
component of such a policy, as is support for such strategically
pivotal states as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan."
Adding Georgia and Moldova, the three states he singles out became
the nucleus of the GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan,
Moldova) bloc originally created in the same year as Brzezinski’s
article and book appeared. (Uzbekistan joined in 1999 and left
in 2005.)
GUAM was promoted by the Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright
administration as a vehicle for planned Trans-Eurasian energy projects
and to tear apart the Commonwealth of Independent States by luring
members apart from Russia toward the European Union, the so-called
soft power preliminary stage, and NATO, the hard power culmination
of the process.
In the above-quoted article Brzezinski also wrote, in addressing
Turkey, that "Regular consultations with Ankara regarding the future
of the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia would foster Turkey’s sense
of strategic partnership with the United States. America should also
support Turkish aspirations to have a pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan,
to Ceyhan on its own Mediterranean coast serve as a major outlet for
the Caspian sea basin energy reserves."
Eight years later, in 2005, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline
transporting Caspian Sea oil to Europe came online, followed
by the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline and the
Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway, with the Nabucco natural gas
pipeline next to be activated. The last-named is already slated to
include, in addition to Caspian supplies, gas from Iraq and North
Africa.
The book whose foreword Brzezinski’s "A Geostrategy for Eurasia" in a
way was, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic
Imperatives, laid out in greater detail plans that have been expanded
upon in the interim.
The volume’s preface states, "It is imperative that no Eurasian
challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also
challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated
Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book. . . .
Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition
of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran. . . . Averting this contingency,
however remote it may be, will require a display of US geostrategic
skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia
simultaneously."
In pursuance of "America’s role as the first, only, and last truly
global superpower," Brzezinski noted that "the chief geopolitical prize
is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by
Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional
domination and reached out for global power. Now a non-Eurasian power
is preeminent in Eurasia — and America’s global primacy is directly
dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the
Eurasian continent is sustained."
The military fist inside the diplomatic glove is and will remain NATO.
"The emergence of a truly united Europe — especially if that should
occur with constructive American support — will require significant
changes in the structure and processes of the NATO alliance, the
principal link between America and Europe. NATO provides not only the
main mechanism for the exercise of US influence regarding European
matters but the basis for the politically critical American military
presence in Western Europe. . . . Eurasia is thus the chessboard on
which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played."
In a section with the heading "The NATO Imperative," the author
reiterated earlier policy demands: "It follows that a wider Europe
and an enlarged NATO will serve well both the short-term and the
longer-term goals of US policy. A larger Europe will expand the range
of American influence – and, through the admission of new Central
European members, also increase in the European councils the number of
states with a pro-American proclivity – without simultaneously creating
a Europe politically so integrated that it could soon challenge the
United States on geopolitical matters of high importance to America
elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East."
A Europe united under the EU and especially NATO is to be strong
enough to contain, isolate and increasingly confront Russia as the
central component of U.S. plans for control of Eurasia and the world,
but cannot be allowed to conduct an independent foreign policy,
particularly in regard to Russia and the Middle East. European NATO
allies are to assist Washington in preventing the emergence of "the
most dangerous scenario . . . a grand coalition of China, Russia,
and perhaps Iran" such as has been adumbrated since in the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization.
Four years after the publication of The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski’s
recommended chess move was made: The U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan
and expanded into Central Asia where Russian, Chinese and Iranian
interests converge and where the basis for their regional cooperation
existed, and Western military bases were established in the former
Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where they
remain for the indefinite future.
Western-controlled pipelines traverse the South Caucasus — Azerbaijan
and Georgia — to drive Russia and Iran out of the European and
ultimately world energy markets, with a concomitant U.S. and NATO
takeover of the armed forces of both nations. The two countries have
also been tapped for increased troop deployments and transport routes
for the war in South Asia.
The West is completing the process described by Brzezinski in his
1997 book in which he stated "In effect, by the mid-1990s a bloc,
quietly led by Ukraine and comprising Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
Azerbaijan and sometimes also Kazakhstan, Georgia and Moldova, had
informally emerged to obstruct Russian efforts to use the CIS as the
tool for political integration."
Note, not to obstruct a new "imperial" Russia from exploiting the
Commonwealth of Independent States to dominate much less absorb
former parts not only of the Soviet Union but of historical Russia,
but to integrate — or rather maintain the integration of — nations
which were within one state until eighteen years ago. At that time,
1991, the Soviet Union precipitately disintegrated into fifteen new
nations and four independent "frozen conflict" zones — Abkhazia,
Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Transdniester — and Russia made
a 180 degree turn in its political structure and orientation, both
domestically and in its foreign policy.
The response to those developments by the U.S. and its NATO cohorts
was to scent blood and move in for the kill.
Starting in 1994 NATO recruited all fifteen former Soviet republics
into its Partnership for Peace program, which has subsequently
prepared ten nations — all in Eastern Europe, three of them former
Soviet republics — for full membership.
As noted above, in 1997 the West absorbed four and for a period
five former Soviet states — Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova
and Uzbekistan — into the GUAM, now Organization for Democracy
and Economic Development, format, which has recently been expanded
to include Armenia and Belarus with the European Union’s Eastern
Partnership initiative. The latter includes half (six of twelve) of
the CIS and former CIS nations, all except for Russia and the five
Central Asian countries. [1]
Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Ukrainian troops have been enlisted
by the U.S. and NATO for the war in Afghanistan, with Moldova to be
the next supplier of soldiers. All five nations also provided forces
for the war and occupation in Iraq.
The five Central Asian former Soviet republics — Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — have provided
the Pentagon and NATO with bases and transit rights for the war in
South Asia and as such are being daily dragged deeper into the Western
military nexus. Kazakhstan, for example, sent troops to Iraq and may
soon deploy them to Afghanistan.
In recent days the West has stepped up its offensive in several former
Soviet states.
GUAM held a meeting of its Parliamentary Assembly in the Georgian
capital of Tbilisi on November 9 and the leader of the host nation’s
parliamentary majority, David Darchiashvili, said "GUAM has significant
potential, as its member states have common interests while the CIS
is a union of conflicting interests" and "It is important for GUAM
members to have a specific attitude to the EU. GUAM has a potential
to develop a common direction with the EU under the policy of the
Eastern Partnership." [2]
Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze said at the event that
"Our relations are extending, new partners appear. The US, the Czech
Republic, Japan and the Baltic states will become GUAM partners soon.
They will participate in economic projects with us." [3]
The Secretary General of the Council of Europe Torbjorn Jagland met
with GUAM member states’ permanent representatives to the Council of
Europe and during the meeting "the Azerbaijani side emphasized the
need to intensify the Council of Europe’s efforts in the settlement of
‘frozen conflicts’ in the GUAM area." [4] The allusion is again to
Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Transdniester where
several thousand lives were lost in fighting after the breakup of
the Soviet Union and, in the case of South Ossetia, where a Georgian
invasion of last year triggered a five-day war with Russia.
Later at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Edinburgh,
Scotland from November 13-17, Azerbaijani member of parliament Zahid
Oruj said that "the territories of both Georgia and Azerbaijan were
occupied and the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s policy
in the region proved that" and he "characterized these steps as an
action against NATO." [5] The Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) is a post-Soviet security bloc consisting of Russia, Armenia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Belarus
(initially) and Uzbekistan both boycotted the creation of the new CSTO
rapid reaction force last month and the Eastern Partnership is designed
in part to pull Armenia and Belarus out of the organization. Comparable
initiatives are underway in regards to the four Central Asian members
states, with the Afghan war the chief mechanism for reorienting them
toward NATO.
During the NATO Parliamentary Assembly session, for example, a Turkish
parliamentarian said "Armenia’s releasing the occupied Azerbaijani
territories [Nagorno Karabakh] will create a security zone in the South
Caucasus and pave the way for NATO’s cooperation with this region."
An Azerbaijani counterpart was even more blunt in stating "NATO
should defend Azerbaijan" and stressing "that otherwise, security
will not be firm in the region, stability can be violated anytime
[and a] new military conflict will be inevitable." [6]
The day after the NATO session ended the president of Azerbaijan,
Ilham Aliyev, revealed the context for NATO "defending Azerbaijan"
when he announced that "There is strong support for building the
national army. Our army grows stronger. We are holding negotiations
but we should be ready to liberate our territories any time from the
invaders by military means." [7]
The same day Daniel Stein, senior assistant to the U.S. Special Envoy
for Eurasian Energy, was in Azerbaijan where he confirmed strategic
ties with the nation’s government and said that as "global energy
security is one of the priorities of US foreign policy, his country
supports diversification of energy resources while delivering them
to world markets." [8]
Also on November 18 Stein’s superior, U.S. Special Envoy for Eurasian
Energy Richard Morningstar, addressed the European Policy Center, a
Brussels-based think-tank, and said "Turkey will become a very strong
transit country in transporting the gas of the Caucasus and Central
Asia to Europe" — via Azerbaijan and Georgia — and "Turkmenistan and
Iraq could join in as other suppliers besides Azerbaijan. . . ." [9]
The following day, November 19, a conference on NATO’s New Strategic
Concept: Contribution to the Debate from Partners was held in Baku,
the capital of Azerbaijan. The host country’s deputy foreign minister,
Araz Azimov, stated at the meeting:
"I offer the signing of bilateral agreements between NATO and partner
countries to cover security guarantees for partner countries along
with the responsibility and commitments of the parties.
"Yes, we (partner countries) are important for NATO in general for the
security architecture of the Euro-Atlantic area. Today Azerbaijan’s
borders are the borders of Europe." [10]
On November Azerbaijan hosted an international conference titled
Impediments to Security in the South Caucasus: Current Realities and
Future Prospects for Regional Development, co-sponsored by Britain’s
International Institute for Strategic Studies. Speakers included
Ariel Cohen, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and
the Washington, D.C.-based Jamestown Foundation’s President Glenn
Howard and Senior Fellow Vladimir Socor.
Socor, a Romanian emigre and former Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
employee, in addressing the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over
Nagorno Karabakh, "stressed the necessity of an undertaking by NATO
of analogous steps in this conflict taken for the settlement of the
conflicts in the Balkans and former Yugoslavia." [11]
Novruz Mammadov, head of the Foreign Relations Department of
Azerbaijan’s presidential administration, said that "Azerbaijan is the
only country in the post-Soviet space usefully and really cooperating
with the West," and Elnur Aslanov, head of the Political Analysis
and Information Department for the President of Azerbaijan, said:
"The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars
projects . . . stimulate the development of regional cooperation,
and also are important from the security standpoint. . . . Azerbaijan
is a reliable partner of the European security architecture . . . the
country plays an important role in ensuring European energy security."
[12]
Jamestown Foundation chief Glenn Howard added "that Azerbaijan is an
important partner for NATO in terms of energy security," and backed
the nation’s deputy foreign minister’s demand the previous day that
NATO must offer Yugoslav war-style support to its Caucasus partners
"especially after the war in Georgia last year."
Howard added:
"NATO can give security guarantees to a country in case of an attack,
which is what happened in 1979 in the Persian Gulf — after the
fall of the Shah of Iran the US gave security guarantees to countries
through bilateral agreements with those countries. . . . If Azerbaijani
troops are going to help in one area, that will lessen the need for
NATO troops in this particular area, so that they can be involved in
some other area, for example, that helps put more troops in fighting
the Taliban. . . ." [13]
Azerbaijan is not the only former Soviet republic the U.S. intends to
use to penetrate the Caspian Sea Basin. After leaving Baku the State
Department’s Daniel Stein arrived in Turkmenistan where he stated that
"The United States offers its mediating mission in Turkmen-Azerbaijan
disputes over the Caspian status," in relation to a border demarcation
conflict in a sea that the two nations share with Russia and Iran. He
added, "The U.S. and EU member countries try to assure Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan that they should reach an agreement on the division
of the Caspian to create real opportunities for Nabucco and other
projects." [14]
The same day U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and
Central Asia George Krol was also in the Turkmen capital to deliver
an address at the the annual Oil and Gas Conference there and said,
"The U.S. considers energy security as a priority issue, and Central
Asia is an important region in the global energy map." [15]
In Azerbaijan’s fellow GUAM member state Moldova, the new government
of acting president Mihai Ghimpu, which came to power after April’s
so-called Twitter Revolution, announced that it was establishing a
national committee to implement an Individual Partnership Action Plan
for NATO membership. To indicate the importance the new administration
attaches to integration with the bloc, "Minister of Foreign Affairs
and European Integration Iurie Leanca has been appointed committee
chairman." [16]
Earlier this month it was reported that the government’s Prosecutor
General’s Office had "dropped criminal proceedings against the
people accused of masterminding riots in the republic’s capital
in April, following the Opposition’s protest against the results
of the parliamentary election. . . . After the early parliamentary
election on July 29 when the Opposition came to power, most cases were
closed" and instead "When the new prosecutor general was appointed,
criminal cases were opened against police who took part in driving
the protesters from the city center and their arrests." [17]
On the same day that the Jamestown Foundation’s Glenn Howard and
Vladimir Socor were in Azerbaijan advocating NATO intervention in
the South Caucasus, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden held a phone
conversation with Georgian president and former U.S. resident Mikheil
Saakashvili in which the first "reiterated the United States’ ‘strong
support’ for Georgia´s sovereignty and territorial integrity" and
"underscored the importance of sustaining the commitment to democratic
reform to fulfill the promise of the Rose Revolution." [18]
Also on November 20 a major Russian news source reported that
Washington had shipped nearly $80 million in weapons to Georgia in
2008 and plans to supply more in the future.
"Despite the economic crisis, Georgia is increasing expenditure on
arms purchases in the U.S.," although "Independent sources say[ing]
Georgia´s unemployment stands at about one-third of its able-bodied
population." [19]
On the same day a delegation from the Pentagon was in the
Georgian capital to meet with Temur Iakobashvili, the nation’s
State Reintegration Minister — for "reintegration" read forcible
incorporation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia — and the Georgian
official announced "We introduced to the guests our plan to ensure
security in the occupied territories. We also talked about the role
the U.S. will play in assisting the ensuring of regional security."
[20]
The U.S. Defense Department representatives, including Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Celeste Wallander, met
with Georgian Defense Minister Bacho Akhalaia "to hold consultations
on defence cooperation issues concerning the two countries," and
"Wallander personally inspected ongoing military trainings aimed at the
preparation of the 31st Battalion of the GAF [Georgian Armed Forces]
for participation in the ISAF operation in Afghanistan. The sides
evaluated the US assistance provided during 2009 and considered in
detail future cooperation prospects for 2010/2011.
"Under the visit’s agenda the high-ranking US official met with the
Security Council Secretary, Eka Tkeshelashvili, State Minister for
Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili and Defence and Security Committee
members of parliament." [21] The inspection mentioned above was of
training following that conducted by U.S. Marines. The first contingent
of new Georgian troops thus prepared was sent to Afghanistan four
days before.
Two days earlier NATO spokesman James Appathurai announced that the
Alliance was forging ahead with plans for both Georgia’s and Ukraine’s
full membership and that "assessments would be made at a meeting of
the NATO-Ukraine and NATO-Georgia Commissions to be held in Brussels
in early December at the level of NATO foreign ministers." [22]
Also on November 18 Georgian Vice Premier and State Minister for
Euro-Atlantic Integration Giorgi Baramidze met with NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Brussels. "The Georgian delegation
also included Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria and Deputy Defense
Minister Nikoloz Vashakidze. A meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission
at the ambassadorial level was also held in Brussels." [23]
The day preceding the meeting, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Michael Posner and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European
and Eurasian Affairs Tina Kaidanow were in Georgia to convene
"working meetings with Georgian authorities within the Strategic
Partnership Charter.
"The delegation will monitor the implementation of the U.S.-Georgia
Strategic Partnership Plan" inaugurated in January of this year,
less than four months after the war with Russia. [24]
The prior week Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Western
and allied nations of continuing to arm Georgia, stating "I hope
many take lessons from last year’s August events. But I have to say
that according to the reports of various sources, some countries are
sending arms and ammunition demanded by the Georgian leadership via
different complicated schemes." [25]
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin warned on the same
day that "[Georgian] military drones have started flying over South
Ossetia and Abkhazia" [26} and the day before Nikolay Makarov,
Chief of the General Staff, said "Georgia is getting large amounts
of weapons supplied from abroad" and "Georgian military potential is
currently higher than last August." [27]
Makarov’s contention was confirmed by Georgian Defense Minister
Bacho Akhalaia on November 14 when he said "the country’s defense
capabilities are now better than they were a year ago and they are
further improving."
The defense chief added, "a strong army will be one of our key
priorities until the last occupant leaves our territories." [28]
The "occupants" in question are Russian troops in Abkhazia and South
Ossetia.
Azerbaijan is not the only South Caucasus NATO partner preparing
for war.
Regarding the recently concluded two-week Immediate Response 2009
exercises run by the U.S. Marine Corps in Georgia, a leading Russian
news site wrote "Perhaps, the exercises were aimed at issuing a
warning to Russia." [29]
On November 13 the Russian General Staff revealed that "Russian secret
services have declassified information about Georgia’s plans to start
forming its special forces in a move that will be implemented in
close cooperation with Turkey," and "voiced concern about Georgia’s
ongoing push for muscle-flexing amid efforts by Israel, Ukraine and
NATO countries to re-arm the Saakashvili regime." [30]
In Ukraine, on November 19 Deputy Foreign Minister Kostiantyn Yeliseyev
said of American ambassador to Georgia and ambassador designate
to Ukraine John Tefft that "The U.S. Senate [Foreign Relations]
Committee has approved his candidacy and we are expecting him to
arrive soon." [31] In time for January’s presidential election.
Incumbent president and U.S. client Viktor Yushchenko is running dead
last among serious candidates and his poll ratings are never higher
than 3.5%. Tefft’s task is to engineer some variant of the 2004
"Orange Revolution."
Yushchenko is a die-hard, intractable, unrelenting advocate of forcing
his nation into NATO despite overwhelming popular opposition and for
evicting the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimea.
On November 16 NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen addressed
High-Level NATO-Ukraine Consultations at the Alliance’s headquarters
in Brussels and said:
"In 2008 at the Bucharest Summit NATO Heads of State and Government
welcomed Ukraine’s aspirations for membership in NATO and agreed that
Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance. To reflect this spirit of
deepening cooperation, Ukraine has developed its first Annual National
Programme which outlines the steps it intends to take to accelerate
internal reform and alignment with Euro-Atlantic standards." [32]
The same day Reuters revealed that "Poland and Lithuania want to
forge military cooperation with Ukraine to try to bring the former
Soviet republic closer to NATO." Poland’s Deputy Defense Minister
Stanislaw Komorowski was quoted as saying of the initiative, "This
reflects our support for Ukraine. We want to tie Ukraine closer to
Western structures, including military ones." [33]
The agreement was reached at talks in Brussels attended by Ukraine’s
acting Defense Minister Valery Ivashchenko, Lithuania’s Minister of
National Defense Rasa Jukneviciene and Poland’s Komorowski.
The combined military unit will be stationed in Poland and include
as many as 5,000 troops. The joint buildup on Russia’s western and
northwestern borders "may have a political objective. It is meant
to set up an alternative center of military consolidation for West
European projects, a center which could embrace former Soviet republics
(above all Ukraine), now outside NATO. There is no doubt who will
control this process, considering U.S. influence in Poland and the
Baltics." [34]
On the same day that the Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian defense
chiefs reached the agreement, Poland hosted multinational military
exercises codenamed Common Challenge 09 with "2,500 troops from
Germany, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland — forming the
so-called EU Combat Group. . . . Common Challenge is being held for
the first time in Poland. Exercises are conducted simultaneously in
Poznan, western Poland, and the nearby military range in Wedrzyn."
[35]
In a complementary development, The Times of London published an
interview with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on November 15
in which he "said Italy would push for the creation of a European Army
after the ‘new Europe’ takes shape at this week’s crucial November
19 EU summit following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty." [36]
A commentary from Russia, which of course will not be included in
the plans, mentioned that "NATO has been actively discussing the
possibility of establishing a joint European army for a long time"
and that Frattini had "reiterated the need for deploying a joint
naval fleet or air force in the Mediterranean or other areas crucial
to European security." [37]
In a Wall Street Journal report titled "Central Europe Ready To
Send More Soldiers To Afghanistan," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw
Sikorski, again emphasizing the connection between war zone training
in Afghanistan and preparation for action much closer to home,
was quoted as saying "The credibility of NATO will be decided in
Afghanistan. If NATO can be successful with what was a success in
the Balkans and Iraq, its deterrent potential will rise, and it is
in Poland’s national interest." [38]
On November 18 the ambassadors from all 28 NATO member states
gathered in Brussels commented on Belarusian-Russian military
exercises conducted months earlier, Operation West, and "expressed
concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that
envisioned an attack from the West. . . ." [39]
Sikorski’s allusion to so-called NATO deterrent potential is, then,
clearly in reference to Russia.
On November 17 the European Union’s Special Representative for
the South Caucasus Peter Semneby announced that the first foreign
ministers meeting of the Eastern Partnership program will be held
next month. He said that "The Eastern Partnership will be under the
jurisdiction of a new representative for foreign affairs and security.
The appointment will come after the Lisbon summit," [40] as will the
creation of the new European Army Italian Foreign Minister Frattini
spoke of earlier.
Participants will include the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, half — six of twelve —
of the members or former members of the Commonwealth of Independent
States and all those in Europe and the Caucasus except for Russia,
which is not invited.
Comparable efforts to pull the five Central Asian CIS members —
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — away
from cooperation with Russia through a combination of an analogous EU
partnership, energy project agreements and involvement in the Afghan
war are also proceeding apace.
The eighteen-year-old project of Paul Wolfowitz, Zbigniew Brzezinski
et al. to destroy the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States
and effect a cordon sanitaire around Russia, enclosing it with NATO
member states and partners, has continued uninterruptedly since 1991.
Washington will not tolerate rivals and will ruthlessly attempt to
eliminate even the potential of any nation to challenge it globally
or regionally. In any region of the world. Russia, because of what it
was, what it is, where it is and what it has — massive reserves of
oil and natural gas, a developed nuclear industry and the world’s only
effective strategic triad outside the U.S. — is and will remain the
main focus of efforts by the United States and NATO to rid themselves
of impediments to achieving uncontested global domination.
Carthage must be destroyed is the West’s policy toward the former
Soviet Union.