Asia Times
By MK Bhadrakumar
[US suggests new expanded arc of containment against Russian
'aggression' amid hints of another Biden-Putin meeting before year
end]
Moscow butted the grand old trans-Atlantic alliance in the chest on
Monday with the Foreign Ministry announcing that it will suspend the
NATO military liaison mission with effect from November 1 and recall
the accreditation of its staff in response to the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization’s decision to withdraw the accreditation of eight
Russian diplomats.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov curtly added, “If NATO has some urgent
matters, it may contact our ambassador in Belgium.” Sparring has begun
for the next NATO summit in Madrid on June 29-30, 2022.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during a recent visit to
Madrid that the summit will adopt NATO’s next strategic concept,
“which will reflect the new security environment” and the
trans-Atlantic alliance’s 2030 agenda that aims to deal with a “more
unpredictable and dangerous world” of “increasingly aggressive”
Russian behavior, China “flexing its economic might to intimidate
others,” and instability in the Middle East, North Africa, and the
Sahel.
NATO plans to shake off the gloom over the defeat in Afghanistan by
marching on. NATO-Russia conversations had dried up already much
before that sobering moment. The 1977 NATO-Russia Founding Act has
been moribund since 2014, when relations between Moscow and the West
landed in a deep freeze.
But in such situations, there is always a tipping point. Most
certainly, the regional tour by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to
Georgia, Ukraine and Romania en route to the NATO ministerial meeting
in Brussels (October 21-22) came to be that.
Austin’s remarks suggested that an encirclement of Russia in a new arc
that includes Transcaucasia is in the cards. “Russian aggression” was
his constant refrain.
On the last leg of his tour in Romania, Austin claimed, “The security
and stability of the Black Sea are in the US’s national interest and
critical for the security of NATO’s eastern flank.”
The Pentagon said Austin’s tour is a way to “reassure allies and
partners of America’s commitment to their sovereignty in the face of
Russian aggression.”
The power dynamic is shifting.
On Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu alleged that the
US military “has stepped up work with the full support of its NATO
allies to modernize tactical nuclear weapons and their storage sites
in Europe.”
He noted that “a cause for special concern is the engagement of pilots
from the bloc’s non-nuclear member states in the drills to practice
employing tactical nuclear weapons. We regard this as a direct
violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”
To be sure, Russia will make countermoves. Shoigu made the above
remarks while the chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed
Forces, General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, was on a high-profile
four-day visit to Russia.
Shoigu told Bagheri that Russia is ready to maintain “dynamic and
versatile” military cooperation with Iran, and proposed Syria-style
cooperation in Afghanistan and “on the territory of neighboring
states.”
After a tour of the Russian Navy’s headquarters in St Petersburg and
military facilities in Kronshtadt after talks with Shoigu and with the
chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, Bagheri voiced
satisfaction that “the conclusion of arms agreements and their
implementation in the near future will considerably deepen our
relationships.”
The US strategy of encircling Russia has been very consistent since
the Bill Clinton presidency when NATO expansion began. Recently
declassified Western archival materials confirm Moscow’s claim that
then-US secretary of state James Baker and German chancellor Helmut
Kohl had assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev verbally that NATO
would not expand “one inch” to the east in a post-Cold War setting.
By 2003, president George W Bush unilaterally withdrew the US from the
ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, which was a cornerstone of global
security, anchored on the complex security matrix of gaining strategic
advantage by de-energizing the nuclear potential of a probable
opponent.
President Barack Obama followed up with planning missile-shield
deployments in Romania and Poland, just outside Russia’s Western
Military District. Obama resigned from his promise in 2012 to
then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that after winning a second
term, he would reach a consensus with Moscow on missile defense
deployment.
Obama’s successor Donald Trump thereafter withdrew the US from the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty banning
intermediate-range missiles.
Surveying this debris of broken promises, the paradox of the US-Russia
relationship is that while President Joe Biden is content with
selective engagement of Russia and is in search of “predictability,”
President Vladimir Putin regards the US policy as highly predictable
in its potential toxicity but is pleased nonetheless that the
engagement is constructive enough.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are probably on the same page
here. Interestingly, Putin spoke at some length recently on China. At
the Russian Energy Week International Forum last week, Putin said, “As
far as I understand the Chinese philosophy, including state-building
and governance, it does not include the use of force.
“I believe China does not need to use force. China is an enormous and
powerful economy. It has become the world’s No 1 economy in terms of
purchasing power parity, leaving the United States behind. China is
capable of achieving its national goals by building up this capacity,
and I see no threats here.” Putin was referring to Taiwan.
As for South China Sea, Putin said wherever “mixed interests are at
play … every country in that region should be given a chance to
resolve all arising controversial issues without the intervention of
non-regional powers in a calm manner relying on the fundamental norms
of international law and by way of negotiations. I believe the
potential is there, and it is far from being fully tapped.”
There are similarities in the Russian and Chinese strategies – and,
possibly, coordination too. Thus the new mantra in the White House is
“responsible competition.” Biden needs to focus on his domestic
agenda, which is decisive in clinching a second term for his
presidency in 2024.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disclosed on Wednesday that US Under
Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, who visited
Moscow recently, discussed “various options and certain understandings
were reached” on another Putin-Biden meeting.
Asked whether another Putin-Biden meeting was possible this year,
Peskov noted that “it is realistic in one format or another,” and
added that Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov and Nuland reached some
understanding “in terms of the prospects for further dialogue at the
highest level in the near future.”
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M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat.