Recent Russian Show of Force Reminds us of Cold War Realpolitik

United States President Barack Obama’s visit to Ottawa in February dominated the Canadian news for days. However, just hours before Obama bit into his first Beaver Tail in the ByWard Market, the Canadian Air Force dealt with a potentially hairy situation in the far north. According to Canadian reports, a Russian bomber was intercepted by CF-18 fighter jets as it approached Canadian airspace, and promptly escorted back to international airspace. Whether the purpose of the bomber’s flight was to assert a Russian presence in the Arctic by testing Canadian defences (as Canadians claim) or to carry out routine high-latitude exercises (as the Russians claim), we don’t really know; but the whole episode does make one a bit nostalgic for the Cold War.

Why would anyone who lived through all the chest-beating, espionage, counter-espionage, mutually-assured destruction and threat of mushroom clouds springing up like, well, mushrooms at the push of a button make that sort of statement? When the Cold War was over, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief that lasted about a decade before the newest threat to international security changed the way we live. Compared to the current problems with international terrorist organizations, during the Cold War you knew who your enemies were and where they lived.

At the beginning of the last millennium, larger kingdoms took over smaller kingdoms and became empires. Two world wars in the last 100 years saw the collapse of the old empires and the emergence of two new ones in the forms of the United States and the Soviet Union, and most of the world fell under the sphere of influence of one or the other. The most significant military alliances were the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The foreign policies of each camp clearly set out how hostile they were against members of the other. Canada, being an ally of the U.S., became an enemy of the USSR and vice-versa (no matter how much the two countries liked playing hockey with each other!).

Today, one consequence of the global market is that there are very few powerful countries that are willing to go to war, largely because everyone is so interdependent upon each other. What we have now are international terrorist groups who pose the biggest threats to Canada. It is much more difficult to pin down who the enemy is if they operate in secret. It is much more difficult to collect intelligence on them when they communicate in secret, their identities are unknown, and one can only speculate as to the leadership structure beyond a few well-known leaders. It is more difficult to hunt them down when they have no central headquarters and their bases are ramshackle at best; destroying an Al-Qaeda training facility does nothing to weaken the organization. Mostly, all you have is the name of an organization and a vague idea of from where it operates. In the past, you knew which governments were hostile to your own. You knew the names and life stories of the main players. You knew where the military bases were located. You knew the military capabilities such as the number of personnel that could be mobilized, and more importantly, the size of the nuclear arsenals. And they knew yours.

The United States compiles lists of countries that it considers to be dangerous. They are referred to in speeches as the “Axis of Evil”, “Outposts of Tyranny”, “Rogue States” and “State Sponsors of Terrorism” and include such countries as Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Belarus, Sudan, Myanmar and Zimbabwe. Truthfully, how much damage can each of these states do to the U.S. when they are either consumed with internal strife or lack the military capability to pose any real kind of threat? This brings to mind the question, what about Canada, the international good guys? Well, we do keep a list of outlawed terrorist organizations and there was a tense standoff with Denmark over an uninhabited rock in the Arctic ocean a couple of years ago, but the most hostile Canada gets towards a foreign country is to issue an unfavorable travel advisory for its citizens.

So, Canada, due to its military presence in Afghanistan and being an ally of the United States, is a target of terrorist organizations, members of which include some of its own citizens. Instead of having Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on a table in the United Nations headquarters, we now have Osama bin Laden issuing a videotape to the media from a cave in who-knows-where every so often. I slept better at night knowing that the Soviets had nuclear missiles pointed at me from silos in Siberia than now, not knowing where, when or how Al-Qaeda will strike next.

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James Conner

April 27, 2009

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Recent Russian Show of Force Reminds us of Cold War Realpolitik

The article from BBC (see link at bottom) and yours kinda got me thinking. Yes, I agree that it is awful and the social consequences of the recession will be lingering in our society and around the world for the next decade or longer.

From a political science / balance of power / geopolitical view point, this recession, has in the short-term, increased / re-affirmed American hegemony as well as Western dominance as other countries / regions (in relative terms) see their monetary strength decrease.

Russia, with its surplus of foreign capital could purchase themselves options and influence around the world that was unable to do in the 1990s.

"Observers say that this has raised the risk of social unrest - posing a challenge for the country's government after years of rapid growth." In the even of social unrest in and the social consequences for the Russian state get mitigate through the use of internal force which will also be used as a reason to "continue military spending and other investment," that are seen as strategically advantageous.

The Russian government is in a better position than it has been prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its ability to create, filter, shape and the old style of controlling the message and its informational content has strengthen. Past actions and cultural dependents will likely see Russia react as it always has... with a slight chance of revolutionary backlash against its current rulers.

With the decline of its foreign currency reserve, its ability to act internationally has become severely limited. Its hard earnings from oil exports means it will have to find financing in some other form as well. Finally, out flow of investment from Russia has and will continue to hurt the prospects of its recovery.

This outflow of funds is magnified as companies that have borrowed Billions in loans from the West, during the economic boom that in some manners led to the recession, will have to be re-payed or enter into default with external banks.

Thus, we are witnessing a state that due to internal crisis strengthens its repressionary means while its international external influence declines.

Yet, the depletion of foreign reserves does benefit the US and Western dominance as Russian influence wanes and it comes to grips with the fact that its rise was solely based on its dependence on strong oil prices that were created by financial practises of the US hedge funds industry.

Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8015186.stm

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