StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

Not unnoticed in some circles was the bombast of Vladimir Putin’s speech last week denouncing the U.S. as "overstepping its boundaries" worldwide.  The question being posed, dear readers, is whether this White House understands the implications of Putin’s outspokenness.  At the time, I admittedly made light of it.

Last week: White House takes Putin to task… but lets Obama fend for himself
…The Russian president claimed that the U.S. has
undermined security in the world and prompted other nations to pursue
new weaponry with its "almost uncontained use of military force.”
Putin said that American ”unilateral, illegitimate actions have not
solved a single problem. They have become a hotbed of further
conflicts” and "one state, the United States, has overstepped its
national borders in every way…”

In response to Putin, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said
today: "We certainly disagree with the characterization of the United
States… acting unilaterally… In point of fact, the United States has
been working in every way, including with Russia, to work in a
multilateral fashion…”

OK, that was last week’s news.  But now, the possible implications of this event have sunk in, and there are a number of commentators voicing some very bothersome questions.

Start, as Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post did in her article, Our Strange Devotion to the Kremlin with Condoleezza Rice’s comments on February 15th: "I have a difficult time explaining that speech. It doesn’t accord
with either the world as we see it nor with the character of our
interactions with the Russians."  She has a difficult time?  And she is someone that some people want to run for President?

As Applebaum notes, it seems that loads of people are running around confused, and not knowing that the policy implications of Putin’s speech.  Putin accuses the U.S. of overstepping its boundaries, and yet Putin’s Russia is seemingly lining up its own business deals (e.g. with Iran’s nuclear facility construction efforts) and can’t avoid regularly blackmailing and manipulating its neighbors.  Further she notes that it is most surprising that people are surprised by Putin’s stance…its not so new!  This is a man who led the KGB and believes in "order and discipline" as a way to revive the country as a world power.

Putin, Applebaum writes, is paranoid about the United States, treats Western entities in Russia as "spies and diversionaries," and implies (if not stronger) that the West, or America was somehow involved in the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko (see the series of "Storm" posts on the subject) and 2004 Beslan school massacre.

Despite Putin’s background and his well-known views, President Bush
from the beginning of his term treated Putin the way all American
presidents treat all Russian leaders: as America’s new best friends.
Bush, infamously, looked deep into Putin’s eyes, found him to be " straightforward and trustworthy" and invited him to his ranch.

The serious questions must be asked…why are we trusting Vladimir Putin, and what are his true motives (if not to resurrect Russia as a revived Super Power)???  Appplebaum poses that "…Perhaps it’s a secret longing for the glamour of those Cold War
summits, for the days when it seemed as if the personal relations
between superpower statesmen could ward off the destruction of the
entire planet…"  Also as she notes, other Presidents have thought that they could "tame the Russian bear" and others thought that they "knew" their opponent.  The real problem that I have hear is that this is not 1960, nor is it 1980.  The post-September 11th world has been turned upside down.  We are fighting a War against (Global) Terrorism, but it is really a war against Islamic radical fundamentalism…and Russia has been clearly unable to quell the Chechyn rebellion.

One example of the bullying attitude of Putin’s Russia, and the potential effect on the new Europe is found in Russian missile "blackmail" won’t work, Czechs say (here is an additional link to the same article in case the Reuters’ link disappears, here).

…The Czech Republic said on Tuesday it would not be intimidated by
Russia over plans to site parts of a U.S. missile defense system on its
territory and said attempts at "blackmail" by Moscow would backfire.

Czech
Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said threats by Russian officials
over the plans, which would involve placing a radar system on Czech
land and a missile battery in Poland, would only make Czechs more
determined to defend themselves.

Russia’s strategic forces
commander, General Nikolai Solovtsov, said on Monday that Russia would
be capable of firing missiles at the Czech Republic and Poland if the
ex-communist states agreed to host the U.S. defense system.

He
said any decision to fire would have to be made by the Kremlin, but
that militarily it was possible to hit targets in both countries…

Quite the saber rattled, eh?  I can almost hear Khrushchev banging his shoe at the United Nations in 1960.

It is perhaps best said by Doug Farah at Counterterrorism Blog in his post, Time to Come to Grips with Russia’s Real Agenda.

…the time for treating Russia like a trustworthy ally in fighting
global terror, or having common interests with the United States in
Latin America, Africa or Europe has long passed. Only the
administration, perhaps still tied by Bush’s peering into Putin’s soul,
seems oblivious to what Russia really wants-to reestablish itself as a
world power whose interests will often collide directly with the
interests of the United States and its allies.

Russia is a sovereign state, and most (with important exceptions) of
its clients are also sovereign states, with the right to enter into
these international agreements. But it is time to stop pretending
Russia’s interests are anything but extremely hostile to combatting
Islamist terrorism, stabilizing key regions and ending regional
conflicts that pose the real threat of becoming much broader wars…

Farah’s full blog can be found here.  In this extended post, Farah notes that there is a connection between Putin’s Russian, Chavez’ Venezuela, and Ahmadinejad’s  Iran and that most of Chavez’ weapons are coming from Russia:

The Chavez government in Venezuela has spent some $4.3 billion on
weapons since 2005, placing it ahead of China ($3.4 billion); Pakistan
($3 billion); and Iran ($1.7 billion), according to the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA).

The question must again be asked, why are we trusting Putin and Russia, and maybe more incredulously, why is Secretary Rice surprised by Putin’s rhetoric?

According to Farah (see his paper on it for the International Assessment and Strategy Center) Chavez’ weapons and influence have supported the FARC in Columbia, and he has a reach of destabilization "…not only Colombia, but the rest of the Andean ridge, from Ecuador through Peru and to Bolivia…"

And we trust Putin, why?  So, it would seem that someone in the State Department or the CIA or the DIA or somewhere should be preparing Secretary Rice a bit better…and perhaps these agencies should be planning (and maybe they are) for the onset of a Second Cold War…even though Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday in a speech at a Moscow university that "Russia will respond to emerging threats to its national security in a
carefully weighed, adequate way, and won’t allow anyone to draw it into
a new confrontation, a new arms race."

The long-term effects of the attacks of September 11th are still to be felt.  The ultimate influence of Islamic terrorism and destabilization are yet to be seen (IMO, of course).  And yet, it is beginning to look like the coming of a Second Cold War…where are Russia’s true motivations?  They may well be to quell the Chechyn turmoil.  But their activities in South America might well be more of a threat to the U.S. than when Russia placed their missiles in Cuba in 1962.

The War on Terror is a Global and multi-front war.  We need to see all of these fronts as they are emerging, if not before.  So where are the intelligence analysts?  Are they talking to the Administration about this?  Are they talking to eachother?

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