Posted by
The Vehement Moderate on Friday, August 17, 2007 9:28:19 AM
In response to Oliver North's article about the looming threat of Russia, he couldn't be further from the mark.
Russia's direction is not one of military confrontation for the simple fact that Russia could never pose a true conventional military threat to either Europe or to China. Russia's economy is growing with incredible speed right now, thanks only in part to some petrodollars, which is giving its leaders more and more reasons to play ball with the rest of the world. Russia's admission into the WTO was recently finalized, it hosted the last G8 Summit, and it was just recently awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics bid, which will give it even more reasons to stay the development course.
The tough-talking responses that have made Putin such a hit with his local population work to build up and maintain a body of support. Putin is using the eternal Russian problem of alienation from the outside world to attract real support from nationalists, hard-liners, patriots, young professionals, aspiring politicians and the military simultaneously. Russia has always felt threatened by the outside world, and the only way that it can reassure its population that everything will work out is to answer threats with threats.
Let us remember that all of this happened when the US took the most aggressive military step in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War with the promise of deploying a missile shield. This missile shield (which doesn't even work - it never has), has no real strategic value, but tremendous symbolic value. Realizing the loss of American support in Europe, Bush wanted to try to keep Europe from moving more towards Russia and Iran, and closer to the US in terms of relations. The quickest way to scare Europe is to get Russia to make threats. The quickest way to get Russia to make threats is to scare Russia. The quickest way to scare Russia is to deploy anti-missile systems that are pointed at Russia.
As far as military exercises are concerned, Russia needs a military ally, and China fits that role neatly. China is already Russia's #1 customer for raw materials, and Russia's biggest, strongest neighbor. China also sees the advantage of keeping the cheapest commodities market in the world happy. After all, both armies use Kalashnikovs.
Russia, although intimidating, is much more of a trading partner than a potential military threat. Too many people are making too much money, and too many trends are pushing Russia towards the West for Moscow to blow it all with any sort of military action.
However, I do want to point out that I completely agree with the point made about a lack of capable humint in Russia, or anywhere for that matter. Bush's gutting of the CIA and appointing of cronies in top positions after George Tenet's resignation - taking a bullet for Iraq - has left US security in a dangerously perilous position. Intelligence is by far our most vital asset in combating terror, and the administration's actions in destroying our intelligence networks, either through re-aligning the CIA or in mishandling / revealing agents is entirely inexcusable. The administration obviously no longer considers security a priority, and they have taken the most clumsy and reckless action to endanger the US since 9/11.