EWI Policy Innovation

The EastWest Institute has set up a Policy Innovation Unit to produce high-impact policy papers on new and emerging areas of global risks, threats, and challenges.

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Putin 1-2-3

Greg Austin for New Europe

Vladimir Putin was wearing “his heart on his sleeve” in three separate speeches on July 1, 2 and 3. If you want to understand how and what he thinks today about where Russia sits or should sit in international affairs, there may be few better current sources.

The first speech was delivered in Moscow to an annual recall meeting of Russian ambassadors and permanent representatives on July 1. It is likely to prove to be an historic speech, in the style of his speech to the Munich Security Conference in 2007. He seems firmly set on, and is directing Russian diplomats to prepare for, a path of sustained confrontation with the West over the latter’s “deterrence policy” against Russia (NATO presence on Russian borders). He also challenged what he sees as the permissive application of international law by the United States. 

He framed it as follows: “The potential for conflict is growing in the world, old contradictions are growing ever more acute and new ones are being provoked.” He reissued his warning about Russia’s intent to protect Russian communities in neighboring states: “I would like to make it clear to all: this country will continue to actively defend the rights of Russians, our compatriots abroad, using the entire range of available means – from political and economic to operations under international humanitarian law and the right of self-defence.”

In the second speech, in Minsk, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus from Nazi occupation, Putin recalled the fraternal bonds of the former Soviet Republics, praising the existing Union State that combines Russia and Belarus, and foreshadowing the strengthening of the Eurasian Economic Union. He foreshadowed the celebration in the coming year throughout the entire Commonwealth of Independent States of the 70th anniversary of the complete defeat of the Nazi forces. 

His most heartfelt quote was probably this one: “I am convinced that the stability and flourishing of our countries, the unity of the peoples of Russia and Belarus, is exactly what the heroes of the Great Fatherland War suffered for and dreamed of”. He also called for the education of young people to ensure unqualified rejection of Nazi ideas so that they never again and nowhere reemerge.

On the third day, at a meeting of the President’s Nationalities Affairs Council, Putin staked out a new program of patriotic education for young Russians. He proposed that the Council discuss “questions of culture, schooling and broader education, and the special role that they play in the harmonisation of nationalities’ relationships, and in civic and patriotic development of our youth”.  (The word “nationality” is used in Russian to mean a community or ethnic group inside the Russian citizenship, such as Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Chechen, gypsy or Tartar.) Thus, this was a speech on domestic affairs, but it was about threats from a hostile world to the unity and strength of Russian youth.

 One of the most illustrative sentiments was this one: “Unfortunately, there is a constant struggle going on in the world for ideological and informational domination. The goal is either to weaken certain countries, or to create a competitive advantage in politics or the economy.” He talked of the rise of extremism and neo-Nazi activists and said he knew of no more serious threat to the unity of the Russian state.

Taken together, the three speeches reveal a sense of combativeness and insecurity that seems to demand the firm hand of his centralized leadership. Arguably these are sentiments he always had. Yet a case could be made that the three speeches show a significant deepening of Mr Putin’s anxieties about recent trends and a stronger determination to act robustly to address them. 

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/putin-1-2-3

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Cyber Détente is Possible

Greg Austin for China-US Focus

A 2012 paper from the EastWest Institute laid out several recommendations for cyber détente between the United States and China. It developed a case that built on remarks by Henry Kissinger and Jon Huntsman a year earlier. As the two countries prepare for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing from 9-10 July 2014, and the Strategic Dialogue on 8 July, they might usefully conduct a mutual stock taking of what went so horribly wrong in their cyber relationship and what they can do to redress it. 

Signs of Détente 

Some glimmer of hope came in the bilateral agreement in 2013 to open official dialogue on the subject and after China set up a special unit in its Foreign Ministry to deal with cyber diplomacy. These developments came after Presidential agreement in 2011 that cybersecurity was an important bilateral issue, after several rounds of multilateral dialogue within the United Nations framework over almost a decade, a decade of work within the APEC framework, and informal bilateral dialogues in the previous four years. These informal dialogues included Track 2 work by CSIS, the University of California at San Diego and the EastWest Institute, and various peer groups in China, including the Internet Society of China. The proof of the detente was in improved bilateral cooperation on cyber crime, including in the fight against child pornography. By the time it arrived, the detente was a decade overdue as the number and seriousness of threats in cyberspace had been increasing each year. 

What Went Wrong 

It would be convenient for the appearance of balance to say that both sides are to blame for the recent downturn in cyber diplomacy. But that is not what happened. The public record shows unambiguously that the good efforts were scuttled, temporarily at least, by one development: the U.S. indictment on 19 May 2014 of five Chinese PLA personnel for hacking and the separate offences of industrial espionage. China’s commitment to continuing the dialogue had survived the Snowden revelations in the previous June of the scale of U.S. cyber espionage that came just months after the two countries had set up the working group on cyber issues. And the U.S. commitment had survived what it saw as continuing egregious behavior in cyber space by China.

The bringing of the indictments has been challenged widely within the United States as bad politics and bad diplomacy.  A hard-nosed editorial in The New York Times on 24 May provides an essential critical departure point, describing the indictments as “pointless and perhaps counterproductive”. Being brief, the editorial did not venture an analysis of the charges. Moreover the editorial accepted the logic of the indictments in domestic terms -- “understandable as a feel-good gesture” -- because it also accepted the narrative of the U.S. administration of the billion dollar losses and industrial white-anting being caused by the espionage. An article in the National Journal on 28 May described the indictments as “simply silly” and an “empty gesture”. In a discussion of the indictments at a Brookings Institution event on May 22 led by the U.S. Assistant Attorney involved in the indictments, John Carlin, most comments in the question and answer session questioned the wisdom or common sense of the legal action. 

Industrial Espionage and Strategic Policy 

The U.S. assessments of China’s cyber espionage may be correct on the facts (we outside the intelligence community cannot be sure), but the overall story being woven around the alleged facts has a number of inconsistencies in it.  At one level of policy, taking the case of the solar panel industry, the indictments are based on the intelligence analysis that the competitiveness of a U.S.-based company was undermined by Chinese cyber espionage. Even a cursory glance at serious academic literature on the state of the global solar panel industry and the U.S. part in it suggests that this allegation is suspect. The industry was in a state of over investment and over-supply, with many factors affecting pricing and competiveness ahead of possible knowledge only obtainable by espionage. 

Moreover, in addition to doubts about the alleged impact on U.S. business in three sectors (civil nuclear, steel and solar panels) named in the indictments, there is room to doubt the underlying assessment that the level of industrial espionage is a threat of strategic proportions to the United States that would justify elevating it to the same level in the U.S./China relationship as the quite justified complaints at a strategic  level of the impact on the U.S. economy of  undervaluation of the Chinese currency. The “twin” main conclusion of the October 2011 report by the Counter Intelligence Executive on “Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in Cyberspace”  seem entirely reasonable: “Foreign economic collection and industrial espionage against the United States represent significant and growing threats to the nation’s prosperity and security” and “cyberspace … amplifies these threats”. Is the main problem the basic insecurity of cyberspace or is it the states that exploit it for some economic gain (China, Russia, France and Israel are named in the report). The report even shows some balance by addressing alleged U.S. cyber espionage against French companies. A subsequent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on industrial espionage released in February 2013, assessed that China’s industrial espionage was far more threatening to U.S. industrial and economic security than that from other countries.  

United States diplomacy on this issue has a problem. The U.S. assessment that China’s cyber espionage is undermining the U.S. economy at a strategic level is simply not proven in the public record. The United States has not even been able to prove it convincingly in the case of a specific sector. The Administration has simply released too little data. With the U.S. indictments subject to so much questioning at home from serious scholars and a wide range of public media commentators, and in the absence of a convincing set of econometric tools for demonstrating the alleged impact on the U.S. economy, the damage to U.S. diplomacy toward China on this issue has been magnified.      

Priorities for Cyberspace Cooperation 

Cyber détente between the United States and China will only be possible when both sides more visibly commit to some verifiable restraint. This restraint may have to be in the civil sector before more complex military or espionage aspects of cyberspace confrontation can be addressed. Within the civil sector, the United States might usefully shift away from its heavy and misplaced emphasis on seeing Chinese industrial cyber espionage as its most serious threat. There are other threats that may be far more serious and that require China’s cooperation. A 2013 report of the 2020 Project of the International Cybersecurity Protection Alliance identified nineteen features of the future threat landscape from criminals (and states supporting criminals) and industrial espionage was not one of the nineteen. 

The 2012 paper by the EastWest Institute identified two priority areas for action in the civil sphere: 

The United States and China should agree on a joint public study on the interdependence of their respective critical information infrastructure

The United States should work to include China in the existing infrastructure of the 24/7 Network of Contacts for High-Tech Crime of the G-8. 

Perhaps there would be merit in setting up a working group on a future looking subject of cyberspace cooperation, such as security of bio implements and implants. Somehow, the two sides need to find a way to return to this sort of practical agenda. It will not be easy, but it is urgent and it is still very much overdue. 

Read the original at http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/cyber-detente-is-possible

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RIMPAC 2014 and the Future of Military-to-Military Relations

Franz-Stefan Gady for China-US Focus

In June 2014, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will for the first time join the biennial Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) – the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. According to the U.S. Pacific Fleet website around 25,000 personnel from twenty-three nations, along with 49 surface ships, 6 submarines, and more than 200 aircraft will participate. The PLAN has dispatched the missile destroyer Haikou, the missile frigate Yueyang, the supply ship Qiandaohu and the hospital shipPeace Ark – all in all more than 1100 men, including a commando unit and a diving squad – towards Hawaii.  According to open source intelligence the Haikou – a Type 052C destroyer – is equipped with a modern naval weapons system en pair with the American Aegis Combat System (ACS). 

China’s participation in the RIMPAC exercise is a clear signal that neither the United States nor the People’s Republic are interested in a deterioration of military-to-military relations. In fact, RIMPAC 2014 is part of a larger effort of senior military and civilian leadership in both countries to deepen military ties. During U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s last visit to China both sides agreed to an army-to-army dialogue, and an Asia-Pacific security dialogue between the assistant secretary of defense for Asia-Pacific security affairs and the director of the Chinese Defense Ministry’s foreign affairs office, among other things. Chinese President Xi Jinping already called for a “new model of military relationship” between the two nations at the Sunnylands summit in June 2013. 

In China, participation in RIMPAC 2014 is seen as a concrete achievement in carrying out Xi Jinping’s call for stronger U.S.-China military relations. PLA Deputy Navy Commander Xu Hongmeng called PLAN involvement in RIMPAC an “important part” of stronger U.S.-China military relations. Senior Captain Zhang Junshe of China’s Naval Research Institute stated that RIMPAC would allow the PLA Navy to call into service capabilities related to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, search and rescue, and anti-piracy operations. 

According to Alexander Sullivan, Research Associate at the Center for a New American Security, China wants to demonstrate with its participation in RIMPAC that it is a serious regional maritime and political power—equal to or greater than Russia and India, who participated in the 2012 iteration—and to burnish its credentials on cooperation and confidence-building. 

“The PRC views closer military-military relations with the United States as a critical element in its concept of a new type of great-power relations, which seeks to elevate the US-China relationship above others in the region,” underscores Sullivan. 

“The People’s Liberation Army Navy gets to both advertise some new capabilities and garner sorely needed experience in expeditionary operations and naval professionalism.” Yet there is a limit to military-to-military cooperation. 

“The exercise must, by U.S. law, be designed to prevent China from gleaning any warfighting advantage, so the results for China will mostly be at the level of political symbolism and basic habits of communication between navies,” states Sullivan.

The U.S. Congress when passing the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2000 (FY 2000 NDAA) prohibited contacts between both sides that would “create a national security risk due to an inappropriate exposure”.  The NDAA lists 12 operational areas ranging from advanced combined-arms and joint combat operations to arms sales or military-related technology transfers that are off-limits. Chinese officials continue to point out that FY 2000 NDAA hampers deeper cooperation on a range of issues. As a consequence, China has been looking for closer ties with other great naval powers. 

In May 2014, China committed a substantially larger naval force for the Sino-Russian “Joint-Sea 2014” exercise – an annual event that has occurred for the past three years. Due to rising tensions in the South China Sea, China and Russia have upgraded this year’s joint naval drill by mixing their respective fleets into three joint battle groups. As my colleague Greg Austin points out, retired Chinese Rear Admiral Yang Yi stated that China should aspire to emulate the naval buildup of Russia, which according to Yi boasts the second largest navy in the world. 

Given China’s deeper ties with Russia, RIMPAC participation is meant to assuage the perpetual Chinese fear of encirclement by U.S. allies and to put a damper on nascent Sino-Russian military ties that still do not run very deep (e.g., neither China nor Russia are bound by treaty to automatically support one another militarily in case of conflict). 

Conversely, China will see her participation in RIMPAC 2014 as an opportunity to undermine the apparent Anti-China coalition in East Asia and the Pacific spearheaded by the United States. However, this should not degrade the overall stabilizing impact of RIMPAC upon naval relations between both countries. Amidst the recent misgivings over the U.S. Justice Department’s cyber espionage charges against five PLA officers, as well as the perennial standoff in the South China Sea, China’s participation in the exercise signals that the military relations model to which Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Defense Minister Chang Wanquan agreed to in April 2014 is still in place, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. 

Read the original at http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/rimpac-2014-and-the-future-of-military-to-military-relations

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Fighting for “New Russia”

Greg Austin for New Europe

Russia’s official news agency, Novosti, on 26 June used the term “Novorossiya” to describe the territory of the newly declared “Union of Novorossiya” in contrast to the territory of Ukraine. Europe has a new political reality -- an armed struggle for a territory whose very name evokes geopolitical confrontation.

Until recently, Novosti had only used the term “Novorossiya” to reflect use of it by other people. In early June, Novosti was still usually referring to the name of the entity by placing it in quotation marks or describing it as the so-called Novorossiya. In the Novosti geopolitical reality of late June 2014, Novorossiya now apparently joins Abkhazia and South Ossetia as an independent political territory. Supporters of the new entity in eastern Ukraine have designed a new flag (and even several variants) for what they are calling a newly independent part of the “former Ukraine”, to mimic diplomatic parlance for the former Yugoslavia.

One of Russia’s independent researchers, Dmitry Trenin, reported in 2011 that at the time of the Orange Revolution and Ukrainian interest in membership of NATO (around 2005 and following), “some not entirely academic quarters in Moscow played with the idea of a major geopolitical redesign of the northern Black Sea area, under which southern Ukraine, from the Crimea to Odessa, would secede from Kiev and form a Moscow-friendly buffer state, ‘Novorossiya’.” Trenin concluded that by 2010 the prospects for such a set of circumstances had dimmed.

In a long interview on 17 April, President Putin referred to the troubled region in eastern Ukraine as “the Russian southeast. It’s New Russia.”. He followed with this: “Kharkiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in Czarist times. They were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows. Then for various reasons these areas were gone, and the people stayed there. We need to encourage them to find a solution.” In May and June 2014, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin met with leaders from Transdnistria in Moldova and the leader of the Novorossiya Popular Front, Igor Tsarev, in Moscow. 

Thus while most Western media reports of the past week have been focused on the so-called cease-fire talks or on so-called negotiations between Ukraine and its rebels, a very different picture has rapidly crystallized in the reports of the Russian government media that focusses more on the new political entity called Novorossiya. Novosti is now referring to the anti-rebel forces in this region as “forces under the control of Kyiv”. 

By contrast, the word Novorossiya does not turn up on the Russian Foreign Ministry Russian language website, and appears only once on the Presidential Russian language website (the 17 April interview). So for now at least, as of 27 June, the Russian government is maintaining radio silence on the emergence of the new entity.  

The online news site, Information Agency Novorossiya, lists eight of Ukraine’s provinces (its entire south all the way to Odessa) as part of Novorossiya. Russia’s government-owned news agency TASS has reported that the new entity is already seeking membership of the Eurasian Customs Union, led by Russia and comprising so far Belarus and Kazakhstan. We can expect strong reaction from USA and EU to the unification of the two rebel governments (Donetsk and Luhansk) and the emergence of the new entity. 

On 26 June, the Chairman of the new Union of Novorossiya, Tsarev, who had met with a team sent by Kyiv to open consultations, set terms for any formal talks “with Ukraine” that were tantamount to recognition of the full political independence of the new entity. Russia’s official media appear to support his view.    

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/fighting-%E2%80%9Cnew-russia%E2%80%9D

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The Luhansk Border: A New Crisis Point

Greg Austin for New Europe

According to a 2012 study from Volodymyr Dahl University in the city of Luhansk, the main focal area for Ukraine/Russia land transport has been Luhansk province. This region has the longest border of any of Ukraine’s provinces with Russia, some 800 km. One of its main border check points was at Chervonopartizansk, one of 14 check points on the provincial border with Russia. According to the New York Times on 4 June, the government of Ukraine lost control of that border crossing because its personnel simply walked away, fearing attack from armed rebels.

In spite of the fact that these check points remained the last bastion, even imperfect, against infiltration of pro-Russian fighters and weapons, it seems that the border guards were rattled by the rebel capture of the provincial command post of their service on the outskirts of Luhansk city sometime in the preceding 24 hours. This had followed at least two weeks of repeated attacks on the command post, the final one of which raged for two days or so and involved several hundred rebels.

On 4 June, the Ukraine Border Guards Service announced that “Luhansk border guard detachment and Stanychno-Luhanske border guard division were repositioned to safer places”. The reason cited was that they had been “sustaining attacks of large groups of well-armed gunmen” and were no longer able “to continue to perform administrative functions at their permanent garrisons”. The area nearby the Stanychno-Luhanske command post is where the Russian border comes closest to the provincial capital of Luhansk (around 20km)

In all of Ukraine, the border troops number less than 50,000 in total and most are deployed on the country’s western borders, not on the Russian border. They are only lightly armed.

The New York Times article correctly identified the threat to Ukraine from the loss of control of the border check points, a situation that will allow a flood of new fighters and weapons into Ukraine. The border guards had been turning back hundreds of suspect travelers and capturing hundreds of weapons in recent months.

But the loss of control by Kyiv of the Luhansk/Russia border would be a threat of wider geopolitical significance. First, it would bring much closer the likelihood of de facto independence from Kyiv for the whole province of Luhansk. Second, it would open a new, fairly secure base inside Ukraine for pro-Russian rebels in neighboring Donetsk province or elsewhere in the country.

Third, and arguably more seriously, it would put Russia and the trans-Atlantic allies in NATO on course for a further downward spiral in relations. On 4 June, in spite of the pull back of Russian military forces from the Ukrainian border, President Obama still called out the need for NATO to oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine. The same day, G7 leaders met in Brussels and committed to further sanctions if Russia could not show its good faith in containing and reversing the armed rebellion. With a newly breached border between the two countries, and Luhansk rebels edging toward full control of the city and possibly the province, the stage is set for angry charges from the United States and its NATO allies that Russia did not do enough to control the transit of weapons and fighters across the border.

Russia will counter, as it has consistently, that the rebels are self-motivated and do not depend for encouragement or sustenance on the Russian government. Such Russian denials, regardless of their veracity, will probably not stave off a new round of sanctions in direct response to the attacks in Luhansk -- unless Moscow now takes firm action to secure the common border.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/luhansk-border-new-crisis-point

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Eurasian Union Will Test Brussels

Greg Austin for New Europe

If ever the European Union needed a different eastern policy, it will certainly be the case on 1 January 2015, once the Eurasian Union (EaU) – my abbreviation – takes concrete existence. 

The treaty which will give life to the new union is due to be signed by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on 29 May 2014. In August 2013, the Yanukovych government in Ukraine expressed interest in being an observer to the new organization. The EaU, to be dominated by Russian officials, is as much a geopolitical gambit as an economic one. 

The former U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, is reported to have said in 2012 about the EaU that the United States was “trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it”.  Her reason was that it was a Russian attempt to reassert influence in the post-Soviet space. State Department officials have been ignoring it in their public remarks. Most Western analysts have regarded it as something of a joke.

Well, Vladimir Putin is deadly serious about this project, so it would profit all of us to study it and develop policy for it.  

On the Russian side, the EaU plan has been fifteen years in the making, with the establishment by treaty in 2000 of the Eurasian Economic Community, joined by Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia and Tajikistan. Ukraine and Moldova became observers in 2002. Though the idea originally came from Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev 20 years ago, the treaty setting it up was signed just seven months after Putin’s acting presidency of Russia was made whole in the March 2000 election.

The essence of the future problems between the EaU and the EU lies not so much in their independent operation, but in what is increasingly taking the form of a contested zone between them – the territory of Ukraine and Moldova. We can get a taste of what lies ahead from a speech prepared by the Commissioner for Enlargement, Štefan Füle, in the lead up to the now historic Vilnius Summit on the EU’s Eastern Partnership, the occasion when Ukraine walked away from its commitment to sign the Association agreement. 

The Füle document of 11 September 2013 was surprisingly confrontational, especially in its title, even though he was claiming to be more moderate than most: “Statement on the pressure exercised by Russia on countries of the Eastern Partnership”.  It warned: “The last thing we want to see is a protectionist wall cutting our continent in two. … we cannot afford to waste our efforts on a regional geopolitical rivalry.” He laid some misplaced blame at the feet of Russia for sequencing. He said that “When we set out to build the Eastern Partnership at Prague in 2009, the Eurasian Union project had yet to get off the ground. It is the Russian decision to build the Customs Union and the Eurasian Union that created a situation where our European partners are now confronted with a choice”.

The choice made by Ukraine at the Vilnius summit could have been foreseen because of the Russian pressure so well characterized by Füle. Immediately after the event, Spiegel Online warned in a headline on 29 November 2013 “EU Needs New Russia Policy after Ukraine Debacle”. The EU did not adjust its policy. In twenty years of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has never been able to agree on a viable common strategy toward Russia. After the historic ten-state expansion of the EU in 2004, and with the EU’s Eastern policy cemented less than one year after the Georgia crisis in 2008, there may have never been any real hope of a workable relationship with Russia. The Füle prediction of inter-bloc economic tension now seems inevitable.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/eurasian-union-will-test-brussels

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A Crisis Year for China’s Leaders

Greg Austin for New Europe

This year may turn out to be the worst for China in a quarter of a century, since 1989. The first five months have been difficult to say the least.

Anti-China riots in Vietnam in the past week in response to clashes between Chinese and Vietnamese boats have given an ugly public edge to the maritime disputes. Also in May, a Chinese official leaked the country’s contingency plans for regime collapse in North Korea against the background of leadership strife there. Earlier in April, a Chinese court ordered the seizure of a Japanese ship in pursuit of a civil claim against Mitsui for actions committed by the Japanese Imperial Navy. The war history is regaining currency as Japan is unapologetically removing self-imposed constraints on its military policy, such as the export of weapons, and as it embarks on a naval development program motivated by fear of China.

On the home front, May saw yet another knife attack on a railway station in China, following two earlier confirmed terrorist attacks on other train terminals this year. The purge and prosecution of corrupt high level Communist Party officials is continuing, with public legal action against the former security chief, Zhou Yongkang, widely anticipated by Chinese media. As the economy continues to slow, the Communist Party is trying hard to control a burgeoning popular culture of resistance and complaint. One instance of this rising tide is the 2013 film, A Touch of Sin, still not released in China, that depicts a rootless, corrupted and violent society.  The purpose of framing this unhappy constellation of events for China is not to suggest the imminence of an outbreak of nationwide protest against Communist Party Rule, as in 1989, but rather to pose a question. What does this unprecedented constellation of unhappy circumstance mean for how the country’s leadership will respond? How will they stabilize the ship of state?

There is a sixty point plan on deepening reform adopted by the Communist Party in November 2013 that should be the master plan. It speaks to many challenges underlying the negative events of this year and it offers useful transition strategies to ameliorate some of the problems.  If implemented progressively through this year and next, especially in areas of rule of law and consultative government, the leaders and the citizens will reap the benefits. 

Yet two structural problems will undermine the relevance of the 60-point plan to how the rest of 2014 unfolds for China.

The first is that the areas where reform is most urgent (rule of law and consultative government) are de facto controlled or retarded by the Central Political and Legal Commission (CPLC) of the Party, the very organization that provided the power base for Zhou Yongkang, and which is undergoing rectification because of corruption. This body also has primary responsibility for fighting domestic terrorism, countering the self-immolation of Buddhists, repressing Falun Gong, containing public demonstrations, monitoring the internet and fighting crime. 

The second structural deficit of the 60-point plan is that it contains few prescriptions for foreign policy. The leadership may be united around domestic reform but it seems less effective in managing international affairs, on a level sufficient to suggest less unity at the top, or at least less attention to the problems.

If this analysis is correct, then perhaps the only way China can look forward to a better year may be for it to break up the power of the CPLC and broaden the base of input into foreign policy. Open and structured debate about economic reform will need to be accompanied by similar un-ideological debate about these hitherto closely guarded domains. 

Read the original at: http://www.neurope.eu/article/crisis-year-china%E2%80%99s-leaders

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A Call To Europe's Foreign Ministers

Greg Austin for New Europe

If the situation in Ukraine presents the worst security crisis in Europe for three decades and if it has deteriorated seriously in recent weeks, then the 28 foreign ministers due to meet on 13 May need to have a plan that matches the seriousness of the threat. The meeting will officially mark the tenth anniversary of the decision in 2004 to admit ten new member states to the European Union (EU).

Russia’s bottom line is an end to further EU expansion. It appears to want the Eurasian Economic Union (to be formally established by 2015) as the future for all former Soviet republics not currently in the EU. On 28 March, in response to the annexation of Crimea and Russian military measures, the European Council decided to sign part of the long-delayed association agreement with Ukraine and agreed on punitive action against Russia. On 17 April, President Vladimir Putin of Russia called publicly for a new (unspecified) sovereignty arrangement for important cities in Ukraine: “We need to encourage them to find a solution” to their estrangement from Russia, he said. He was not moved by the EU strategy.

Any new EU plan must have two elements: one that strengthens Ukraine and its people with political will and economic resources to rebuild; and one that addresses the crisis dynamic now in play between Russia and the EU. Yet so far, in spite of limited financial support to Ukraine and long-overdue signature of the association agreement, it is hard to see any material distinction between EU policy towards its crisis with Russia and its policy on the more than 30 countries, from North Korea to Ivory Coast, named in the list of “Restrictive measures (sanctions) in force” circulated by the Council. Is there no material difference for Europe between these other countries and what is going on in relations with Ukraine and Russia? Sanctions have a feel good effect for the imposer, but by themselves do not constitute a strategy.

The two elements of the new EU strategy must be tightly integrated: the measures to shore up political resilience in Ukraine must also speak directly to resolution of the crisis with Russia. 

The new strategy must be clear on incentives for de-escalation of tension around violence in Ukraine even as the EU gears up for an increase in political conflict with Russia. The EU strategy must aim for a reduction in violence and the threat of use of armed force, but it must not aim to reduce political tensions with Russia without having sight of the formula for a lasting settlement with Russia on the issue that led to the crisis. To reach this point, EU foreign ministers need to admit serious mistakes and failures in diplomacy over the last decade. The purpose in admitting mistakes is to establish a baseline for new policy. If the main lines of the new policy toward Russia and Ukraine look and feel like the policy before the crisis, merely with sanctions against Russia just tacked on, then they will be inadequate. The danger is that without a clear and bold new strategy, EU officials will have no choice but to continue executing pre-agreed policy in Ukraine, even if this continuation exacerbates the crisis with Russia. The foreign ministers might consider the value of abandoning linkage on issues of integration as part of a formal process of “association” and move rapidly to institute, as befits the crisis situation, practical measures for deeper integration of Ukraine on the human and social levels. 

While supporting Ukraine more directly, the Council also needs a new strategy to address the psychology in Russia that underlies this crisis.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/call-europe%E2%80%99s-foreign-ministers

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Putin vs Turchynov

Greg Austin for New Europe

As commanders in chief of the armed forces of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Oleksandr Turchynov appear to be poorly matched. The former has been commander in chief (de facto) through the last war in Chechnya, the Georgian campaign in 2008, and the Syrian civil war for the last three years. The latter, though a political campaigner since 1992 and head of Ukraine’s security service for seven months in 2005, cannot match Putin’s experience of diplomacy, war, politics or covert operations.

Putin has been in power since 7 August 1999, initially as Prime Minister, though having announced for the Presidency that very day. Turchynov has been interim President of Ukraine for two months, having served a similarly short interim term as Prime Minister several years ago.

The mismatch between the two leaders became painfully obvious on 30 April, the day that Turchynov declared that his military forces were unlikely to regain control in critical parts of the east of Ukraine, and that the government should concentrate on stabilizing important cities like Kharkiv and Odessa. His remarks to a meeting of regional governors were reported as follows: “I would like to say frankly that at the moment the security structures are unable to swiftly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions back under control.” He expressed doubts about the ability of the security forces to protect the people of Ukraine.

The Turchynov statement, though doubtless an accurate description, will play badly into the psychology of the conflict dynamics. The President’s statement cannot have been regarded positively by anyone in Ukraine still hopeful of keeping the country together and stopping the revolt.

By contrast, Putin has been feeding the enthusiasm of the rebels with successive psychological boosts. Typical of this was his April 17 interview in which he referred to the troubled region in Ukraine as “the Russian southeast. It’s New Russia.”. He followed with this: “Kharkiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in Czarist times. They were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows. Then for various reasons these areas were gone, and the people stayed there. We need to encourage them to find a solution.”

He reminded the world that the Russian parliament had approved use of Russian military forces on the territory of Ukraine. The statements taken together provide a clear message to the rebels in Ukraine: press on with civil unrest because “mother Russia” will back you.

Many observers have interpreted the Putin statement similarly, but less attention has been paid to what it says about the escalation dynamics of the conflict inside Ukraine and around it.

We see as adversaries two very unequal states, Ukraine and Russia, led by two very unequal leaders – in an insurgency the like of which has not been witnessed in Europe for more than sixty years, not even in Northern Ireland. Russia is supporting its allies in the domestic struggle inside Ukraine with military power, while Ukraine has no international allies willing to do the same. Russia and the pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine are united, while their opponents inside Ukraine could not be more divided. In fact, they are fighting an election campaign against each other. 

The election for a new President scheduled for May 25 was a good idea on February 21.  By now, the election has become a highly destabilizing element in the conflict dynamics. The election process will now become a new locus of violence and civil discord. On May 26, Russia will have a President, and his name is Putin, but Ukrainians now face considerable uncertainty over whether their election will even produce a nationally acceptable commander in chief, let alone one who can match Putin in the struggle over “new Russia”.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/putin-vs-turchynov

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Failure of Diplomacy

Greg Austin for New Europe

Perhaps the current situation of Ukraine was inevitable in some way, given the emerging realities through the last several years. Inevitable or not, it was certainly foreseen.

In 2009, a group of eminent persons convened by the EastWest Institute warned of a possible crisis in and around Ukraine. The report documented a collapse of trust between NATO and the West, especially after the short military conflict in Georgia in 2008, and the failure of Europe’s institutions to address the basic challenges that surfaced in that unhappy event. “NATO and Russia have declared that they are no longer enemies”, the report noted. “They need to agree just what that means in terms of a number of important military/political issues.” It went on to say that the “heated debates over NATO expansion … provide the proof that the two sides have not yet made that fundamental settlement.”

It was absence of a fundamental settlement that prevented collaboration between Russia, Europe and the United States to help Ukraine through its crisis in the last five years and, more recently, since November last year.

The 2009 report warned that “If not corrected, those trends will produce negative strategic consequences for the future stability of Europe as a whole. This may be playing out in Ukraine, which is experiencing high levels of internal political tension at a time of a profound economic crisis.” And so it came to pass.

The report, titled “EuroAtlantic Security: One Vision, Three Paths” made several recommendations. Some are still relevant today, albeit with some adjustment. One set of recommendations (one of the three paths) that argued for a fundamental transformation of security relations, had warned that “there will be no reversal of the deteriorating trends in security relationships unless political leaders find a way to move decisively toward the joint decision-making and joint problem-solving in this sphere that are foreshadowed in the NATO-Russia Founding Act.” To address this, some members of the group recommended a mechanism to escape the unstable and narrowly conceived structure represented by the NATO Russia Council (NRC). One proposal was to create a new structure at EuroAtlantic level that would bring the heads of state of Russia, the EU and the United States together to create the necessary political channel which was missing in the NRC. This idea also had the advantage of modernising the Europe/Russia security relationship through a structure not dependent on NATO, Moscow’s historic adversary. Russians often complained that the NRC was really a “28 against 1” structure in which its voice was not taken seriously.

Given events in Ukraine so far in 2014, it is hard to imagine that the relationship between NATO and Russia will stabilise any time soon. Also, it may seem to many observers that the time is simply not right to think about the bigger picture while the very future of Ukraine is in peril. Yet

we do need to look ahead to begin to imagine what a new, predictable and trusting security relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe will look like.

If we want to get that future plan right, we do need to have some understanding of what went wrong. Why was this crisis not avoided? One answer to this is that powerful NATO leaders wanted Ukraine to have the right to join it, while Russia was opposed to that right -- the two views were irreconcilable and thus a security crisis in and over Ukraine was inevitable. Another answer, more serious in its implications, is that the diplomats on both sides failed to heed the clear warning signs, visible at least five years out, and failed to take appropriate preventive measures.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/failure-diplomacy

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Popular Diplomacy Against Russia

Greg Austin for New Europe

We saw “people’s diplomacy” in action this past week when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted on 9 April to declare the Russian annexation of Crimea a grave breach of international law. Popular sentiment should be a powerful influence on foreign policy. PACE is a legitimate place for the expression of democratic sentiment on big issues of foreign policy affecting the Council’s mission. Its members are entitled to a view.

Yet there are circumstances in which democratic sentiment and effective diplomacy are not necessarily compatible: when popular attitudes are highly inflamed and when there is a crisis in international security. There is considerable art and heavy political responsibility (accountability) that goes with making the right choices in such circumstances. In most democratic states, decisions for crisis management are constitutionally delegated to an executive branch. 

It is against these considerations that one might evaluate a second resolution of PACE on 10 April – the decision to suspend the voting rights of the Russian delegation until January 2015. Even if one shares a sense of outrage at Russian actions over Crimea, a case can be made that the PACE vote on suspension is destructive of the Council charter’s aim of achieving a greater unity between its members on safeguarding common principles in its field – the domestic administration of human rights. The Council’s 1949 charter gives the committee of ministers (the executive arm of governments) the right to suspend representation rights if a member fails to “accept the principles of the rule of law and of the enjoyment by all persons within its jurisdiction of human rights and fundamental freedoms”. The aim of the Council is “to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realizing the ideals and principles which are their common heritage”. The Charter obliges its members to be mindful of the mandates of other European organizations and excludes national defence policy from its purview.

 The second PACE resolution, to suspend the Russian delegation’s voting rights, looks very much like a sanction intended to influence the outcome of the crisis. PACE appears to be scapegoating the 18 Russian MPs for the policies of the Putin Administration. It is holding them to account for their parliament’s support for the Administration’s request for use of armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. Even so, for the PACE to arrive at a situation where it, a multinational “parliament” dedicated to promoting cohesion and dialogue around common principles of human rights, is suspending its own members for supporting a foreign policy act of their home government seems to lack a clear organizational logic. 

The bigger problem though is that the parliamentary assembly seems to be taking responsibility for influencing diplomatic outcomes in a crisis outside its mandate. The European Union has applied a set of sanctions, why shouldn’t PACE do the same? The answer is that this is not its job. Moreover, in the second PACE resolution, the assembly did not meet the first test of the principle of democratic consent – the need for an informed decision. PACE did not reasonably evaluate the consequences of their action. Russia may abandon the Council completely.

Yet the Council may be the last hope of keeping present-day Russia in communication with the values of present-day Europe. A time of crisis and popular outrage is a time when councils are particularly needed – if only for a continuation of dialogue. I trust that experienced diplomats can swing into action here, regardless of what Russia may do in Ukraine in coming weeks, and work to keep it in the Council of Europe.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/popular-diplomacy-against-russia

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US Self-Restraint in Cyberspace

Greg Austin for New Europe

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has declared a new doctrine of self-restraint in cyberspace. This is an historic milestone in the evolution of cyber diplomacy in an environment marked by rising concern over American supremacy in military and intelligence uses of cyber assets.

The commitment was issued on 28 March in an unusual setting: in a televised statement by the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at a farewell for General Keith Alexander, the head of Cyber Command and simultaneously Director  of the National Security Agency (NSA). In a speech on 17 January, President Obama had made plain his view that NSA had gone too far in its global surveillance operations.

Hagel said: “The United States does not seek to militarize cyberspace.” It wants to promote the qualities of the Internet that have made it a “catalyst for freedom and prosperity”, he said. “Consistent with these efforts, DoD will maintain an approach of restraint to any cyber operations outside of U.S. government networks.” The concept of restraint is new as a public articulation in American cyber policy. It was needed. While the United States is not alone in pushing for the technological frontier in military uses of cyberspace as part of a doctrine of information superiority, the country’s undisputed technological edge was creating new insecurities globally and aggravating old ones.  This is not just a question of cyber war but of the way in which the full spectrum of informational technologies and electromagnetic weapons are redefining the operational and strategic uses of existing military hardware, including nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missiles and military space assets. The increasing concern of world leaders about security aspects of cyberspace was demonstrated in the announcement on 27 February that China’s Xi Jinping would be the first general secretary of the Communist Party to take over a revamped Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization. The announcement was accompanied by a statement from Xi that China would do whatever it takes to become a “cyber power”.    

Hagel did include a qualifier to his claim for self-restraint (“outside of U.S. government networks”). This implies that the DoD may not feel obliged to exercise restraint in response to any attack on its government networks. That only seems reasonable. Having given a lead on the goal of exercising restraint, Hagel and the United States will now need to give some more contours to what that might look like. In his remarks on 28 March advocating the new position, he said that “We are urging other nations to do the same”.  So now the diplomacy of cyber security will enter a new phase as countries begin to define what forms of restraint might be appropriate. There will also be the challenge of how a country can best convince others that it is in fact exercising restraint. In January 2014, the EastWest Institute issued a report under the title of “A Measure of Restraint in Cyberspace” which advocated that states agree to quarantine certain forms of critical infrastructure from cyber attack. That report focused on the case of civil nuclear facilities. It argued that all countries have a common interest in protecting certain high value forms of infrastructure in cyberspace. We are also developing a similar argument for the international protection of stock exchanges and clearing houses from cyber attack. U.S. credibility for its claim to restraint in cyberspace is open to question but Hagel’s statement should be taken at face value. The need is there but so are the options. Diplomats and policy analysts will now need to lay out a path to entrench self-restraint as an operational doctrine among the leading cyber powers.   

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/us-self-restraint-cyberspace

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North Korea Attacks: Connection to Crimea?

Annie Cowan

March 31st saw an exchange of artillery fire between North and South Korea over the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea. The incident took place over a period of 3 hours, with the North initiating aggression during a live-fire military drill near the western sea border.

According to Reuters, North Korea fired over 500 shots, 100 of which landed across the NLL into South Korean territory; South Korea retaliated by firing over 300 shots in return1. The South then scrambled a number of F-15 fighter jets, which remained on the southern side of the border. No injuries or casualties were reported, though the South temporarily evacuated residents of nearby Bangnyeong Island. This marks the most serious escalation of tension between the two nations since 2010, when a torpedo widely attributed to the North sank a South Korean warship, killing 46. This was followed months later by Pyongyang’s shelling of the South’s Yeongpyeon Island. The shelling of Yeongpyeon was a reaction to a South Korean live fire drill and resulted in 4 deaths2.

The live-fire drill on the afternoon of the 31st was announced hours earlier via a fax to the South Korean Navy’s Second Fleet, enabling the South to clear the area and declare its intention to retaliate should any shots fall over the NLL3. This warning, unusual for the North, indicates that the drill was likely intended to send a message rather than spark a significant military conflict. South Korea, via Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok, claims the North’s firing into its waters was a deliberate attempt to test the South’s willingness to defend the border, which the North does not officially recognize4.

The exchange of fire came just days after South Korea seized and released a North Korean boat that had drifted into its waters, and just one day after the North released a statement threatening to test new nuclear weapons. It also coincides with annual springtime US-South Korea training exercises, which typically elicit saber-rattling and bellicose rhetoric from the North. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has intensified its aggressive rhetoric and conducted a number of short-range missile tests.

The increase in tension between North and South Korea coincides with the brewing of other tensions on the international stage. With the West viewed as preoccupied and even ineffective as attention is focused on Ukraine, Pyongyang may be acting out when it knows international concern is focused elsewhere, taking advantage of the relative lack of supervision to make a point to Seoul. Still, the clouds gathering on the Korean peninsula present a worrisome complication in the current global political climate, with regional tension between China and Japan making the timing all the more inopportune. This move from Pyongyang comes as the rogue state is also appearing to chastise China in light of Xi’s meeting with Park at the Nuclear Security Summit. A conservative South Korean newspaper reported on the 24th that North Korea’s premier Kang Kon Military Academy has displayed a sign declaring China “a turncoat and our enemy,” a 1992 quote from Kim Il-Sung5. China expressed its concerns over Pyongyang’s actions on April 1st, calling for restraint from both sides, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei stating, “The temperature is rising at present on the Korean peninsula, and this worries us.6”

With many analysts already couching the Crimean crisis in Cold War language, the buildup of tension in this area takes a more ominous tone. A renewal of significant military action on the Korean peninsula, a leftover flashpoint of Cold War proxy conflict, could prove disastrous should North Korean antagonism remain unchecked and escalate beyond control. Although the situation in Ukraine is taking the spotlight off Pyongyang’s incendiary actions, the simmering threat of an old crisis in the Korean peninsula should not be ignored.

      __________________________________________________________

1Reuters. “North Korea fires more than 500 shots of artillery, South returns with 300”. 31 March 2014. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-korea-north-artillery-idUSBREA2U0BL20140331

2Kwon Hyuk-chul. “President Lee has changed his position from controlled response to manifold retaliation”. The Hankyoreh. 24 November 2010. <http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/450423.html>

3 Kim Eun-jung. “N. Korea conducts live-fire drill in western sea”. Yonhap News. 31 March 2014. < http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2014/03/31/25/0301000000AEN20140331002553315F.html>

4 Jack Kim. “North, South Korea trade artillery rounds into the sea: Seoul”. Reuters. 31 March 2014. < http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-korea-north-drills-idUSBREA2U05520140331>

5The Chosunilbo. “N.Korean Military Warned Not to Trust China” 24 March 2014. <http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/03/24/2014032401520.html>

6 Jack Kim. “North, South Korea trade artillery rounds into the sea: Seoul”. Reuters. 31 March 2014. < http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-korea-north-drills-idUSBREA2U05520140331>

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OSCE and Ukraine

Eric Cappon

At the 2014 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly Winter Meeting held February 13th and 14th, there was an organized debate on the situation in Ukraine. The 57-member OSCE — which includes the likes of Russia and the United States and lists crisis management as one of its main functions — had an understandable interest in the growing turmoil. On February 24th, two days after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) Astrid Thors cautiously commended the solutions emerging to end the violence. Thors noted that all actors must tread carefully though, as the situation on the ground remained precarious. In reaction to the decision made the previous day to cancel the 2012 law on the “Principles of State Language Policy”, Thors also warned that language policy is a very divisive issue and that the acting leaders of Ukraine should take a “balanced and inclusive approach towards language policy” that respects speakers of Russian, Ukrainian and other languages.

Before leaving for Ukraine on March 2nd to assess the situation first-hand and to participate in meetings aimed at de-escalating the crisis, Thors expressed concern about the events unfolding on the Crimean peninsula. On the 3rd, Thors met with acting Foreign Minister of Ukraine Andrii Deshchytsia to discuss how the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities could contribute to resolving the conflict. Deshchytsia requested that the HCNM provide assistance in creating new Ukrainian legislation in the area of minority language policy. In making this request, the interim government signalled its trust in the HCNM as a reliable advisor of minority issues.

Although Thors did participate in some of her scheduled meetings in Crimea, her visit there was cut short when angry crowds amassed to protest her presence. Meanwhile, a small OSCE observer mission that had been sent, at Ukraine’s request, to monitor Crimea was denied entry to the region altogether. On the 6th of March, Thors reiterated her concern that tensions between ethnic groups on the Crimean peninsula might be mismanaged as the climate of fear deepened. She reminded authorities to ensure that everyone’s rights are protected, “regardless of whether they are of Russian, Ukrainian or Crimean Tatar or other origin”.

On March 14th, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that OSCE Chair-in-Office Didier Burkhalter had overstepped the mark three days earlier by declaring the forthcoming referendum in Crimea illegal. Russia felt that Burkhalter had strayed from the OSCE mandate, formalized in 2002, to take the opinions of all member states into account when acting as chairman on behalf of the organization. In a statement reminiscent of comments made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the beginning of 2013, the Ministry accused other OSCE member states of maintaining “double standards” that unfairly target Russia.

Despite these signs of turbulence, the potential of the OSCE to serve as a point of contact between Russia and Western states was demonstrated less than one week later. As an organization that acts on the consensus of its members, the OSCE proved on the 21st of March that it can be a useful forum for negotiation on issues of peace and security when it announced that its members (including Russia) had decided to send a 6-month special monitoring mission to Ukraine. The Kiev-based mission, consisting initially of 100 civilian monitors, will gather information, report on the security situation, establish facts, monitor human rights and the rights of minorities, and work to normalize relations between the conflicting parties.

With OSCE Chairperson Burkhalter expressing on April 2nd his satisfaction with the state of deployment in the early stages of the OSCE special mission to Ukraine, one major sticking point remains: whether or not Crimea is included in the mission’s scope. Immediately following the March 21st announcement, the United States argued that it “is clear that with the adoption of this decision this mission has a mandate to work in Crimea and in all other parts of Ukraine”. Russian Ambassador OSCE Ambassador rebutted that the mission has no mandate in Crimea, staying true to the Russian assertion that Crimea is now part of Russia. This sentiment was reinforced the following day by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Sending observers from the OSCE Ukraine mission into Crimea would fundamentally undermine Russia’s claim that Crimea is no longer a part of Ukraine. As such, it appears unlikely that its officials would support sending anyone operating under that banner into Crimea. On this front, the OSCE’s hands may be tied, as deploying observers against Russia’s will would be asking for trouble. At the very least, such a move would signal the end of the OSCE as a bridge for dialogue between East and West. Although the bigger issues might be best contested in a bigger forum, the OSCE has shown the potential in the past few weeks to be an invaluable resource both in terms of championing minority rights and in bridging the gap between East and West. With regard to the latter quality, it is telling that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly agreed during a telephone conversation in late March that the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine is a positive move. At a time when Russia and the West can find little else upon which to agree, this is no small feat.

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NATO-Russia Council: From Ordinary Disagreements to Crisis

Eric Cappon

On January 16th the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) held an Arms Control, Disarmament and Non Proliferation Working Group meeting to review work completed in 2013 and to discuss the year ahead. As the main facilitator of NATO-Russia contact, the NRC was also at the centre of other discussions between the two sides in early 2014. On January 22nd, the 2014 NRC Military Representative’s Work Plan was approved by the Council’s 29 Chiefs of Defence, with key areas of cooperation for 2014 being identified in the plan. Six days later, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met to discuss topics related to the NRC, as well as broader international issues. Rasmussen noted that high-level political dialogue between NATO and Russia must continue this year, both in areas of existing agreement and in areas of disagreement.

With the 2014 agenda for the NRC broadly established in January, the next contact between NATO and Russia took place outside of the NRC framework and more clearly revealed some of the tensions straining the relationship between them. Addressing attendees of the Munich Security Conference on February 1st, Rasmussen underlined his belief that it is very important to build a strong strategic partnership between NATO and Russia. He went on to express concern about the distance that remains between the two sides, highlighting his own unease at hearing Russia talk of deploying offensive weapons systems, the characterization by Russia of NATO’s missile defence system as offensive, and Russia’s negative view of NATO’s Open Door Policy. Shortly after, Lavrov in his own address responded to Rasmussen, reiterating the view held by the Russian government “that the ABM is part of the strategic arsenal of the United States, which is an integral component of the entire strategic stability”. He also expressed his disapproval of discussing serious matters of NATO-Russia cooperation indirectly “through an audience” (i.e. at the Munich Security Conference), stating that discussions of these matters should take place directly through regular NRC meetings.

Apart from the encounter between Rasmussen and Lavrov at the MSC, there does not appear to have been very much NATO-Russia contact made public in February as the situation in Ukraine escalated. On March 5th though, the NRC met alongside the North Atlantic Council to decide next steps in light of increasing tensions between Russia and NATO member-states. Rasmussen announced that NATO had decided to suspend its military-political cooperation with Russia and that next steps would be determined at the NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in early April. He asked the Russian ambassador to express NATO’s firm message to Moscow. With military and political cooperation put on hold and “the entire range of NATO-Russia cooperation under review”, Rasmussen added that NATO wants to keep the door to political dialogue open and therefore is willing to hold further NRC ambassadorial meetings.

Most public contact between NATO and Russia since the March 5th announcement has been very indirect, consisting mainly of Rasmussen denouncing Russian actions. On March 21, however, there was direct contact when Rasmussen and Aleksandr Grushko, Russian ambassador to NATO, both took part in a panel at the Brussels Forum. Grushko argued that Russia’s actions in Crimea have been legitimate and that the results of the referendum should be respected. He added that Russia, like NATO, is free to make any decision to address its legitimate security concerns. Despite challenging Russia’s actions, Rasmussen acknowledged that completely ending contact between NATO and Russia would not be the right choice from a diplomatic standpoint.

In a statement from Brussels on April 1st, the NATO Foreign Ministers condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine and formally extended the suspension of “all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia”. They added that political dialogue in the NATO-Russia Council can continue at the Ambassadorial level and above, and that relations between NATO and Russia will be reviewed at the next ministerial meeting in June. In the meantime, cooperation between NATO and Ukraine will be intensified, with the objective of enhancing Ukraine’s capacity to protect itself.

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Uniting for Peace over Ukraine and Palestine

Greg Austin for New Europe

The United Nations General Assembly last Thursday adopted a resolution that expressed a majority view on the illegality of the Crimea referendum and secession. The vote on 27 March 2014 occurred because Russia had opposed a similar resolution in the Security Council.

The Assembly vote does not have the force of law, as a Security Council Resolution can do, but it is a powerful tool in expressing global demand for peaceful resolution of a conflict. The most recent example of a similar vote took place on November 29 2012 when the Assembly adopted a resolution supporting the designation of the Palestinian Authority as an observer state at the UN. That vote occurred because of opposition by the United States in the Security Council to early formalization of a two-state solution. 

The Assembly’s 2012 vote on Palestine showed numbers not too dissimilar from the Crimea vote: 138 votes in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions in the former case, and in the latter case, 100 votes in favor, 11 against, and 58 abstentions. 

President Obama’s remarks in advance of the 2012 vote on Palestine are memorable. He said: “There is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations.”

There are two lessons we might draw form the 2012 vote and Obama’s statement to help us understand the meaning of the Assembly vote on Crimea last week.

First, if the Assembly is voting on a peace issue over the head of the Security Council, then the problem will likely remain intractable in the absence of a major policy shift by those on the losing side of the vote. Since Russia will not lightly walk away from Crimea any time soon, the world now has another threat to peace that will be with us for decades to come.

Second, as Obama and the United States were isolated in 2012 over the Palestine vote, so too are Putin and Russia now isolated over the Crimea vote. Even Russia Today, an official news organ of the government, reported the Crimea vote in the Assembly as “overwhelming”. It did however cite the claim by the Russian Permanent Representative, Vitaly Churkin, that it proved Russia was not diplomatically isolated. 

Churkin can take comfort from the fact that Russia had fewer states actively opposing it in the Crimea vote, and may therefore be less isolated on this issue than the United States was on Palestine in 2012. But the size of the NO vote in both cases is compelling: only eleven and nine respectively. The reference to “overwhelming” in the Russia Today report on the Crimea vote made Churkin’s claim look hollow.     

 The power of the Assembly vote is that it delivers a certain moral authority. If a country can only summon eleven votes out of 193 behind its position on the sovereignty of a certain territory, then it should probably accept that it has been condemned in some way in the court of international public opinion. 

In the case of Russian policy on Crimea, as in the case of United States’ policy on Palestine, the citizens of the global community and those in the affected territories expect a positive response to such criticism. Such an expectation has practical consequences. Protracted denial of the expectations (nothing more or less than a call for justice) becomes in itself a cause of insecurity, including terrorist actions against the state involved. Russia may control Crimea now but its grip will become more insecure each year that it ignores overwhelming public opinion from states and global citizens alike.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/uniting-peace-over-ukraine-and-palestine

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The Putin Doctrine

Greg Austin for New Europe

For Vladimir Putin, the collapse of the USSR was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. As a result of it, he believes that Russia “was not simply robbed, it was plundered.” That was the departure point for his speech in the Kremlin on 18 March. He blamed the Bolsheviks for incorporating large parts of southern Russia in the former Ukrainian Soviet Republic that in 1991 became separated from the mother state.

This short article tries to capture in Mr Putin’s own words (albeit in translation) his view of the policy Russia will now follow toward its stolen territories.

“Large sections of the historical South of Russia… form the Southeast of Ukraine”.  With the collapse of the USSR, brought on by the “sovereignty parade” of its republics, “millions of people went to bed in one country and awoke in different ones, overnight becoming ethnic minorities in former Union republics, while the Russian nation became one of the biggest, if not the biggest ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders.”

The speech is clearly about territories other than Crimea.

Since Russia in the 1990s accepted the split, “we had to proceed from the existing reality and build our good-neighborly relations with independent Ukraine on a new basis. Meanwhile, our relations with Ukraine, with the fraternal Ukrainian people have always been and will remain of foremost importance for us.” 

The phrase “fraternal Ukrainian people” is one that will remind people of similar language used by the USSR in reference to its use of force in Eastern Europe. 

In the early 2000s, “by agreeing to delimit the border [between Russia and Ukraine] we admitted de facto and de jure that Crimea was Ukrainian territory, thereby closing the issue.” This was, Mr Putin says clearly, his government’s decision.

What changed that could justify reversal of the recognition of Ukrainian sovereignty and independence? “We expected Ukraine to remain our good neighbor, we hoped that Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine, especially its southeast and Crimea, would live in a friendly, democratic and civilized state that would protect their rights in line with the norms of international law.” “Attempts were made to deprive Russians of their historical memory, even of their language and to subject them to forced assimilation. Moreover, Russians, just as other citizens of Ukraine are suffering from the constant political and state crisis that has been rocking the country for over 20 years.” 

“Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites” executed a coup against the incompetent Ukrainian government. “There is no legitimate executive authority in Ukraine”. There was a chance that Sevastopol would become a NATO port.

“Those who opposed the coup were immediately threatened with repression. Naturally, the first in line here was Crimea” whose residents “turned to Russia for help in defending their rights and lives, in preventing the events that were unfolding and are still underway in Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkov and other Ukrainian cities”.

The reference to “first in line” and “other Ukrainian cities” will be troubling to many. “The situation in Ukraine reflects what is going on and what has been happening in the world over the past several decades”. The West’s “actions were aimed against Ukraine and Russia and against Eurasian integration.” “With Ukraine, our western partners have crossed the line.” 

Crimea is a “strategic territory should be part of a strong and stable sovereignty, which today can only be Russian.”

“The guarantee of Ukraine’s state stability and territorial integrity” is the full protection of the Russian minority’s “rights and interests”. What Mr Putin means by “full protection” could now usefully be spelled out more clearly to reassure all of his neighbors holding “plundered” Russian territory.

Read the original at http://www.neurope.eu/article/putin-doctrine