In early August, when Israel expanded its
ground offensive in southern Lebanon against
Hezbollah, several Israeli military intelligence
analysts warned that the Shi'ite militia had some
of the most advanced anti-tank technology in the
world.
Immediately, Israeli and
international media released articles that pointed
the finger at Russia as the main supplier of such
sophisticated military equipment, although Moscow
- most of
experts maintained - provided
the weaponry to Syria and Iran, which subsequently
smuggled it to Hezbollah.
In particular,
both Israel's Public Security Minister Avi Dichter
and Defense Minister Amir Peretz claimed on August
10 that Hezbollah's guerrillas made use of the
Russian-built rocket-propelled-grenade RPG-29
Vampirs with a tandem HEAT (high explosive
anti-tank) PG-29V warhead, which proved effective
against the Israeli Merkava tanks.
Other
military sources maintained that Hezbollah has
also acquired the Russian-designed anti-tank
missile system Metis-M, the anti-tank wire-guided
missiles Sagger AT-3, Spigot AT-4 and even the
Russian-made Kornet AT-14, also provided by
Damascus and well suited to destroy low-flying
helicopters. [1]
Promptly, a spokesperson
for Moscow's Foreign Ministry said Russia honored
its international obligations and had not been
supplying modern anti-tank weapons to Hezbollah, a
response that few in Israel consider convincing.
While Israel reflects on the tactical
troubles encountered in the 32 days of conflict,
two main political and strategic questions deserve
to be addressed. The first, of course, is that of
Russian military supplies and diplomatic support
to Middle Eastern state and non-state actors
(Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas) that Washington
considers the worst enemies to its proposed "New
Middle East" project and to Israel's security.
The second question, however, is that of
Russia's grand strategy. Failing to understand the
broader picture prevents observers from correctly
assessing Moscow's controversial moves, thus
putting the opportunity of a positive grand
bargain between Russia and the US at risk.
Russia's return on the world
stage One of the main trends in today's
world politics is the return of Russia as an
influential player. This is a result of a vigorous
restructuring of domestic power by President
Vladimir Putin.
During the 1990s, after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's foreign
policy reflected much the country's internal
fragility. Powerful corporate groups (later
labeled "oligarchs" and mercilessly fought by
Putin's administration) dominated the political
life while centrifugal forces shook the Russian
Federation. As a result, Russia's foreign
policy was mainly concentrated on having good
economic relations with the United States and the
European Union and on trying, by this way, to
maintain or augment Moscow's influence on the
global stage. The results were disappointing.
Resentment against the oligarchs was coupled by
humiliation (among the citizens, but also among
many political and military power brokers) as the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
continued to expand eastward - notwithstanding
then-US president George H W Bush's promise to
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev not to do it
back in 1990.
Such a US policy had
considerable impact on the Russian elite's
psychology. While Washington promoted the eastward
expansion of the Euro-Atlantic security
architecture officially in a friendly way, in fact
it behaved as a self-confident hegemon.
What many in Moscow perceived was that
Russia was "invited" to join a broad Russo-Western
security partnership as a weak junior partner -
hence almost forced to choose cooperation with the
superpower. Such a feeling would have then reached
the climax a few years later, when Russia
understood that NATO's expansion had practically
no boundaries, and that Russia's historic core
itself, Ukraine, was targeted by such enlargement.
Therefore, the years under president Boris
Yeltsin, marked by the politics of accommodation
and the rule of corporate business, left Russia
with a widespread sensation of unacceptable
inferiority.
Putin's political strategy
took the opposite road - a road that many in the
West consider to be a tough, brutally realistic
one. To be strong and enhance its security, Russia
had to re-establish the absolute primacy of
politics over business at home, at the expense of
the so-called oligarchs. It had to restore a
strong centralized power and use its strong cards
(fossil energy and military technology) for
political as well as economic ends.
The
president knew, as he took office in 2000, that
Russia's fossil energy reserves would increase its
political weight as the alleged primacy of
consumers over producers (a widespread belief of
the mid-1990s) proved blatantly wrong. He also
knew that Russia's military technology, a legacy
of the Cold War, was able to change the balance of
power among regional actors in key geopolitical
areas.
To put it simply, Putin believed
that to speak effectively to the US and rest of
the West, endless accommodation wasn't needed.
Tactical disturbance and the political use of
resources and military exports were a better - if
annoying - way. Russia's rigid stance on Ukraine,
Belarus, Moldova and Georgia in the wide former
Soviet area going from northeastern Europe to the
Caucasus is, in fact, the other side of the same
coin: Moscow's foreign policy is at odds with
Washington's grand strategy based on fostering
regime changes to promote pro-Western elites and
the expansion of the Euro-Atlantic security
community.
The inability of the
administration of US President George W Bush to
engage Russia effectively in global security
policies only added to Putin's determination to
restore Russia's power and influence in a tough
way - often siding with China rather than the US,
and practically ending the dramatic Sino-Russian
split that had lasted since 1962.
Thus,
cultivating good relations with US regional
enemies in the world's most delicate geopolitical
area, the Middle East, appeared in line the new
Russian course. In fact, looking at Moscow's
Middle Eastern policy as far back as Cold War
times, Putin's strategy looks familiar, but with
some interesting new features - such as better
relations with Tehran. This brings us to the
second question: the scope and aim of Russia's
diplomatic and strategic relations with Damascus,
Tehran, and non-state actors in the region.
Courting the 'rogues'? The
overwhelming majority of US, British and Israeli
observers and analysts show irritation as they
comment on Moscow's diplomatic and strategic
relations with so-called rogue states. Apart from
North Korea, which is a specific geopolitical and
diplomatic case, Russia's good relations with Iran
and Syria (but also, until 2003, with Saddam
Hussein's Iraq) have exasperated Washington and
its closest allies.
Israel's intelligence
community has repeatedly blamed Russia for
dangerously supporting Jerusalem's deadly enemies.
To begin with, Moscow has implemented a complex
anti-terrorist policy, which resembles US hard
stances against terrorist groups in some aspects -
such as zero tolerance and total de-legitimization
of Caucasian Islamists in Chechnya and Dagestan -
but at the same time refuses to join Washington in
putting Hezbollah and Hamas on the blacklist.
In a way reminiscent of Cold War times,
Moscow seems to differentiate between "radical
groups" accused of being purely terrorist
organizations that the civilized world must
annihilate, and national-liberation movements,
which may have recourse to terrorism, that help
Russia to achieve its political aims in areas of
interest.
While some analysts believe it
is possible to retrace the route of a long-term,
direct Russian support for Hezbollah, [2] Israel's
official stance is that by supplying advanced
military equipment to Syria and Iran, Moscow
indirectly reinforces Hezbollah's capabilities.
Back in February 2005, for instance, the
administration of Israeli prime minister Ariel
Sharon actively tried to prevent a Russo-Syrian
US$70 million deal being signed. The contract
foresaw the selling of 20 9K38 (SA-18 according to
NATO terminology) Soviet-made man-portable,
infra-red-homing surface-to-air missiles.
Russia's military support to Damascus is
accompanied by diplomatic support, and there are
reasons to think that such a stance serves the
Russian goal of putting a wedge into Washington's
aggressive Middle East policy in two ways: first,
and most obviously, by countering the US
diplomatic offensive against Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad's regime; second, by courting
Syria and paving the way for a stable Russian
military presence in the region.
Notwithstanding Russia's official denial,
the newspaper Kommersant reported in June about
Moscow's decision to establish naval bases in the
Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia. According to
the sources, Moscow would proceed with the
installation of an air defense system with
S-300PMU-2 ballistic missiles.
On August
15, the Russian newspaper Mosnews reported that
Israel had "found evidence" that Hezbollah fought
the Israeli army with "Russian weapons" provided
by Iran and Syria: "In a garden next to a junction
used as an outpost by Hezbollah lay eight Kornet
anti-tank rockets, described by Brigadier Mickey
Edelstein, the commander of the troops who took
Ghandouriyeh, as 'some of the best in the world'.
"Written underneath a contract number on
each casing were the words: 'Customer: Ministry of
Defense of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia.'
Edelstein said: 'If they tell you that Syria knew
nothing about this, just look. This is the
evidence. Proof, not just talk.'"
Prospects Russia has undoubtedly
signaled that it is able to change the military
balance in selected regional contexts. For
instance, and almost unnoticed by the Western
media, Moscow is adding significant arms deals to
its energy-cooperation projects with Algeria, in
such a way that could dramatically change the
regional equilibrium in North Africa (which is -
let's not forget it - included by Washington in
the "Greater Middle East").
But deducing
from such a fact that Moscow is structurally
hostile to the West would be a serious mistake. On
the contrary, Russia's tough message is a call for
a fresh start in the Russo-Western security
relations on a global scale.
As a
consequence, the US and its Western allies should
reconsider their strategic ties with Moscow.
Thinking that it is possible to enlarge NATO and
the EU by following an exclusively Western agenda,
and by ignoring Russian security concerns, will
only push Putin and his followers toward a more
unfriendly foreign-policy strategy, behind the
diplomatic jargon and the official stances, with
dire consequences for global stability.
