11 September 2003 02:27
Bleak Outlook 2 Years On
Two years ago the entire world was shocked by the scope and deadliness of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. The seemingly invincible sole superpower, separated by oceans from the hotbeds of war, deprivation and discontent in Asia and Africa, turned out to be soft and vulnerable.
The al-Qaida masterminds most likely believed that this demonstration of vulnerability would teach the "Yanks" some humility and facilitate a U.S. strategic withdrawal into Fortress America. In Moscow many in the military, intelligence and political elite believed that after Sept. 11 Washington should turn to the UN and act with other countries, paying special respect to Russia. The post-Sept. 11 world seemed to offer an opportunity for a true equal partnership with America, fighting a common enemy in Chechnya, Afghanistan and so on. The prompt, positive response by President Vladimir Putin after Sept. 11 and the support offered in 2001 to oust the Taliban regime from Kabul were manifestations of the belief that we were now somehow equal.
Of course, there were skeptics in the Russian military and intelligence communities that never trusted the Americans, who believed the United States will always be an enemy -- the center of world evil and Zionism. In 2001 these skeptics were angrily muttering behind the scenes: "The Yanks say they've moved into Central Asia 'temporarily,' but they'll stay and it is us who will be forced out step by step."
Today, after so many U.S. unilateral actions, these skeptics seem to be in the process of taking over Russia's domestic and foreign-policy decision-making completely. The turning point was Iraq. The bitter squabbles in the UN Security Council were paralleled by no less bitter infighting inside the Kremlin. Members of the old Family of former President Boris Yeltsin, led by chief of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin, advocated a continued alliance with Washington, with Russia not opposing in any way the invasion of Iraq. The intelligence and military lobby - the chekists and siloviki - pressed for Russia to oppose America adamantly and to use its UN Security Council veto together with France if need be. Putin listened to both groups, nodded to both, but in the end sided with the siloviki and with Paris.
This joint opposition did not stop the U.S. invasion, but it altered profoundly Russia's internal political balance. After winning over Iraq, the chekists' power inside the Kremlin continued to increase. In July, they organized an attack on oil major Yukos - a company led by the most pro-American of the oligarchs, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Last week, the well-informed Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky publicly acknowledged that the chekists and siloviki are close to taking over power in Russia. The Family and pro-Western oligarchs wanted, under Putin's leadership, to build a mildly authoritarian state with "controlled" democracy, a moderately liberal market economy, a pro-U.S., pro-Western foreign policy - a country that would rapidly modernize Western-style and integrate into the West. The chekists and siloviki want instead the restoration of "Great Russia," Soviet-style -- a rigid authoritarian police state with a state-run economy, xenophobic, anti-American and anti-Semitic.
In the United States, the post-Sept. 11 national unity has been short-lived and there is now an increasingly bitter squabble between American siloviki (the civilian leaders of the Pentagon, the vice president and national security adviser) who want to continue an aggressive interventionist foreign policy and an opposition being formed of Democratic presidential hopefuls, pacifist liberals, Republican isolationists and so on. Obvious mistakes were made before the invasion of Afghanistan and even more before Iraq. The regimes in Kabul and Baghdad were relatively easily overthrown, but both countries continue to suffer internal strife and are still in many ways a base for anti-Western, anti-American radical jihadists.
Today the world seems in many respects to be as bleak a place as it was two years ago. Will the isolationists win over? Will there be an "exit" from Iraq? Will the U.S. forces retreat into Fortress America, leaving the rest of the world to face the inevitability of future local nuclear wars in the Middle East and Asia? Will the coming Bush-Putin summit reestablish some kind of an alliance? Today, the future of billions of people depends on the good judgment of a few, as it did during the Cold War.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.
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