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Odd couples in space: Israel,
Russia
By Stephen Blank
On
December 28 last year, a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying
an Israeli telecommunications satellite blasted into
space. This event received scant global media coverage
because on the face of it there is nothing particularly
startling about such launches. Satellites are hardly big
news now, and since 1991 Russia has been using former
missile launchers that were of very high quality to
launch its own and other states' rockets into space,
thereby making a lot of money.
But in fact this
launch represents some very important developments and
its very normalcy attests to the distance we (old rival
nations?) have traveled in several directions since the
end of the Cold War.
First, who would have
thought during the Cold War that Russia and Israel would
be collaborating on programs that have definite and
substantial strategic and military implications - and
that such collaboration would be routine, a matter of no
interest to most media?
Yet that is the case and
it shows just how Russia's relations with the Middle
East in general and with Israel in particular have
changed. As numerous authorities have observed, space is
big business today, and it affects national economies in
many diverse ways. And, as noted here, space launches
are one of the few areas where Russia enjoys a
competitive advantage, and thus can cash in handsomely.
And so Moscow is launching satellites for a host of
states, including some of Israel's greatest enemies,
Saudi Arabia and Iran. And these launches, too, have
become routine affairs that receive little media
coverage.
But the tie to Israel merits
considerable coverage for it shows how far Russian
foreign policy has traveled since the Soviet period.
Even under president Boris Yeltsin, Russian ties to
Israel were growing. Ambassadors were exchanged,
embassies opened, and emigration to Israel was freely
allowed.
As a result, not only did Moscow and
Jerusalem stop sniping at each other and actually begin
to talk to each other, but also they developed
flourishing commercial relations. Because between
500,000 and a million Israelis are of Russian/Soviet
extraction, a lively business and commercial
relationship developed between both states, a trade
worth several billion dollars a year to Russia and an
equally valuable economic relationship to Israel.
Business possibilities
Even before
Ariel Sharon came to power, Israeli heads of state and
ministers were routinely traveling to Russia to
negotiate a wide range of issues and having more than
just an exchange of views with their Russian opposite
numbers. While Moscow is hardly one of Israel's great
boosters, its policies no longer exhibit the reflexive
antagonism and personal animosity, not to mention the
deep-rooted anti-Semitism that so disfigured Soviet
foreign policies for so long. Thus a genuine bilateral
relationship has opened up with major commercial and
political benefits accruing to both sides.
The
fact that both states also face threats from Islamic
terrorist movements has also led to a certain
convergence. Israel has had little to say about Russia's
harsh suppression of separatists in Chechnya. And while
the Russian foreign ministry remains largely captive of
old thinking on the Middle East, President Vladimir
Putin clearly appreciates Israel's restraint. Putin
accordingly has shown himself to be more even-handed,
although hardly overly responsive to major Israeli
concerns like hostility from Iran.
But perhaps
the most startling aspect of the Israeli-Russian
relationship is that for a long time Russian defense
industrialists and military figures have been eager to
enter into large-scale deals involving Israel and
military sales. In 1995, defense minister Pavel Grachev
proposed such large-scale partnerships and Israel has
responded positively.
This cooperation is
especially significant because in many respects Israel
competes with Russia for arms sales to growing markets
like India - where some observers contend that Israel
has already supplanted Russia as the largest exporter to
New Delhi. Israel and Russia also have collaborated on
some critical deals in the upgrading of older model MiGs
for former Russian customers.
US pressure
aborted the plan to sell China an Israeli-produced
Phalcon early-warning radar mounted atop a Russian
Ilyushin-78 aircraft, but the Pentagon has approved a
similar sale of three such equipped aircraft to India.
The agreement has been signed already. So when Russia's
military attache to India, General Viktor Chernov,
announces that Moscow is very interested in forging
trilateral arrangements with India and Israel, in order
to continue servicing the Indian market, the importance
of Russo-Israeli relations, especially commercial and
military-commercial ties, readily become apparent.
China-EU, other collaboration under
way
The importance of such collaboration is
apparent not only to India. The satellite launched for
Israel on December 28, the AMOS-2, does not only give
Israeli Aircraft Industries an opportunity to market
satellites and Russia an opportunity to showcase its
launch capabilities in Europe, it also ties both states
more closely into the European consortia for space
exploration, Ariane and Starsem.
The satellite
launch also highlights the growing salience of
international collaboration in space. Oddly enough on
December 30, two days after this launch, China launched
the first satellite of its Galileo project with the
European Union. This Sino-EU launch was intended to
track space storms and help improve the safety of space
missions. Further launches will take place in 2004.
So concerning international collaboration among
hitherto unlikely partners, the Russian-Israeli launch
is by no means atypical. Rather, it is a normal
development that shows the world just how far the
normalization of Moscow-Jerusalem ties based on the
pursuit of mutual advantage and interests has come.
All of this demonstrates the increasing
importance of the mastery of space or of space control
for military purposes. Contemporary wars dating back to
Operation Desert Storm in January 1991 demonstrate the
necessity of controlling space and of denying it to
enemies - as crucial to successful war strategies.
Yet no state or its military agencies has shown
the capability to achieve such domination, including the
United States and the Pentagon. Instead, governments and
their armed forces must compete with increasingly
sophisticated civilian and international consortia to
launch and maintain satellites and long-term orbital
capabilities and to obtain usable data from these
satellites.
These consortia and the satellites
they launch also compete favorably with military
agencies in terms of their terrestrial photography. Thus
they can potentially make available comparable images of
comparable quality, compared with what their opponents
are obtaining from their own space satellites and
orbital vehicles.
The internationalization of
this business can make for some very interesting forms
of international relations and competition in future
conflicts, or even in peace time, as the lucrative
possibilities inherent in space exploration and the use
of space for commercial and scientific purposes become
increasingly clear, increasingly available and
increasingly affordable.
Thus the
Russian-Israeli launch stands at the intersection of
several important trends in contemporary business,
politics and warfare. While it is still unclear how
these trends will influence global directions in 2004
and beyond, one could reasonably expect more such
collaborative space launches in which what once seemed
fantastic and highly improbable becomes a perfectly
routine and even unheralded event.
Stephen
Blank is an analyst of international security
affairs residing in Harrisburg, Pa.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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