The Greater Caspian Project 24

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Editorial thE russian military posturE GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI piErcing thE shiEld a lEanEr and mEanEr russia bEyond nuclEar stratEgiEs DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON & TROY BAXTER thE grand cybEr spy gamE russia, amErica, and china stEaling thE World onE bytE at a timE DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON & ANONYMOUS Fsb's snoWdEn War using thE amErican nsa against itsElF ALEXANDER S. MARTIN thE islamic statE’s FakE story russian Fsb spy JULIA SWEET playing chEss, not chEckErs russian rEsponsEs to u.s. hEgEmony in kind LOGAN WILDE

Russian peacekeepeRs in nagoRno-kaRabakh an unlikely and unwanted scenaRio RUSIF HUSEYNOV the Mighty have Fallen aMeRican space dependency on Russia NENAD DRCA vitalizing Russia- Japan Relations DR. ABDUL RUFF Ronald Reagan and Russia’s Re-annexation oF cRiMea PROF. DR. VLADISLAV B. SOTIROVIC the caucasus eMiRate MuJahedin global JihadisM in Russia’s noRth caucasus and beyond JULIA SWEET

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THE grEaTEr CaSPIaN PrOJECT

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“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools�

Thucydides

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The beast of Russian power

O

ur dedicated readers might have been taken aback to read the title of this edition of the Greater Caspian Project.

I have no doubt the initial assumption was that GCP had finally jumped on the near-universal Western bandwagon to lament Russian ‘aggressiveness’ and hand-wringingly discuss the problems of a world with Russia aiming to be a major player within it.

As you dive deeper into No. 24, however, you will see our continued commitment to bring a different approach and perspective to the global affairs arena. When we use the term ‘beast’ here it is not in a pejorative sense. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of how pervasive, extensive, and layered Russian power is in today’s global environment.

The articles within cover geopolitics, strategy, cyberwar, missile defense, intelligence, space, ethnic and religious conflict, and military studies, all of which Russia is an active, vibrant, relevant, and intriguing participant on the global stage.

Russia has a role to play because all of these issues either touch directly upon its sovereign territory, impact historic allies, are being utilized by rivals, or manipulated by self-declared enemies.

This is where GCP separates itself analytically from so many other scholarly and policy venues: our admission of the legitimate issue base facing Russia means we have no choice but to accept its need to engage and not shy away from the world stage.

There are few countries in the world that face the type of constant criticism for international engagement as Russia.

Often Russia is painted as an unwanted house guest in the home of the world. But the reality is Russian power interests quite frankly demand its global presence. This does not mean its policies are well-devised or its initiatives are beneficial and admirable. We do not sit as a proponent of Russia, just as we refuse to reflexively declare ourselves automatic opponents.

The world of global affairs, diplomacy, and international engagement cannot be seriously considered without diverse and controversial uses of power. This is by ALL actors on the stage, not just the Russian one.

This edition of GCP lets our readers see those actions, across a wide and impressive array of issues, and asks that they decide for themselves: just what kind of beast is Russian power today?

Prof. Dr. Matthew CrosstonGreater Caspian Project, Director

The Russian military posture

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders.

Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York.

GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa

T

he big parade organized on May 9, 2016 to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the USSR victory in the Great Patriotic War - as the Soviet struggle against Nazi invaders was called - was an opportunity for Russia to display its new or recent Russian weapons and, above all, to understand their strategic use.

10,000 soldiers, 135 units of military hardware and 71 aircraft paraded.

An evident show of strength and a clear, but hidden, threat to the Russian Federation’s enemies.

There was, at first, the Yars RS 24 long-range nuclear missile (the one that NATO currently calls SS 27 Mod.2), a MIRV system (that may contain multiple independent warheads, probably ten in this case) which is deployed in a regiment consisting of three battalions.

A missile needed to ward off the United States and its allies from the traditional areas of interest for the Russian Federation, such as Ukraine or the Western border following the Cold War. But also needed to make it difficult to manage any anti-Russian tensions in the Middle East, in Central Asia and in the peripheral seas. Many years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski had already assumed that Ukraine was basically close to the West and, therefore, it would become an unacceptable vulnus for Southern Russian security. All the Russian weapons showcased in the parade are powerful weapons for strategic deterrence, which will enable Russia to have a "free hand" where the Westerners’ less heavy threats cannot arrive.Also the new National Guard security force, recently created by President Putin to combat terrorism and organized crime, paraded.

The National Guard, of which we have already spoken, is armed with the new AK74M assault rifle.

The parading tanks included also the new T-14 Armata battle tank, which has an unmanned remote control of the various guns and is now considered superior to the Leopard and Abrams 2 tanks and this, too, is a clue.

Furthermore the T-14 tank is supposed to be shortly fully robotised.

Here the issue lies in making any escalation along the old Cold War borders dangerous.

The old aircraft which flew over the sky during the military parade were the solid Su-25, but also the new Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA was showcased, namely the 5th generation aircraft which is said to be superior to the F-22 and, above all, to the US F-35, which is still a generation 4++ aircraft.

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The new Sukhoi aircraft features excellent stealth characteristics, high attack speed and radar equipment using original nanotechnologies. Another aircraft displayed was the Tupolev Tu22M3, that NATO called backfire, which is operating optimally in Syria. Two other missile systems were showcased, namely the S-400 and Pantsir.

RUSSIA DOES NOT wANT US SINGLE SUPREMACY AT GLObAL LEVEL – A US SUPREMACY THAT RUSSIA wANTS TO DIVIDE INTO NEw AND DIffERENT GEOPOLITICAL AREAS

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The former, the S-400 "Triumph" (NATO code SA 21 Growler) is a new generation anti-aircraft/antimissile SAM, already sold to China and Iran, which can simultaneously intercept 36 missiles and planes (indeed, 80 in the latest versions) flying at a speed of up to 17,000 kilometres. The Pantsir S1 (NATO code SA Greyhound) is a combined system of surface-toair missile launching and anti-aircraft artillery. They are both already operating in Syria, especially in the Latakia base.

In his speech before the 71st military parade, President Putin called for an international system not based on opposing blocs, but overcoming the tendency - present in many Western countries to resume the Cold War.In other words, Vladimir Putin wants, at first, to dissuade Western countries from trying to split Eurasia which, in Russia’s opinion, should feature geopolitical continuity from Moscow up to most of the European peninsula and China, as well as geopolitical continuity

from Moscow up to most of the European peninsula and China, as well as geopolitical continuity between Europe and the great Central Asian Heartland, the area of the largest economic growth in the future.

Furthermore, Russia does not want US single supremacy at global level – a US supremacy that Russia wants to divide into new and different geopolitical areas: Japan, China, the Shi’ite region with Iran and Iraq, the large African areas, Latin America.

Furthermore, while the Americans adapt every area over which they have supremacy to the same uniform political and cultural model, the Russians plastically conform to the various economies, strategic threats and cultural patterns.

From this viewpoint, suffice to recall Russia’s actions in Syria.

All strategic areas already mentioned in which the Russian Federation wants to expand its power and, above all, to show for each of them a possible alternative to the US hegemonic policy.

Hence Russia thinks that, in the future, no country will be in a position to gain clear military superiority: in its opinion, security regards also economic, mass health and social order issues.

These are the factors that Russia can currently interpret as a direct threat to its stability and, above all, to its sovereignty.

In fact, Russian analysts were impressed by the initial effectiveness of the "colour revolutions" and the "democratic" ones in the Maghreb region. Obviously the results have gradually proved to be disastrous, but the management of non-military techniques to destabilize a country, together with Gene Sharp’s old theories which were a study subject of study for the Muslim Brotherhood during Mubarak’s fall, are the focus of the current Russian strategic thinking.

These are the Russian themes to respond to non-military subversion: 1) to immediately avoid the "cultural contagion"; 2) to strengthen the national identity and, where possible, the Welfare State; 3) to steadily increase the level of the possible military threat; 4) to develop strategies designed to avoid hidden hostile actions against Russia on the financial or commodity markets – and this holds true also for China. The economic and financial destabilization has been well studied by Russian analysts and even military superiority is needed to avoid it.

Moreover, there is also what I would call the identity strategy: the rejection of the ideological globalist mix designed to protect the Russian symbols, traditions and popular culture from the attack of the US pop culture.

This goal, too, is reached with the great military parades, the soldiers’ joyful and proud faces, as well as with a credible strategic threat.

Moreover, Russian strategic thinkers know all too well that the modern strategy is full spectrum and regards the economy, the political and cultural stability and the technological evolution at the same time.

The reason why Russia maintains a superpower’s military structure, with some technologies largely superior to its competitors’, is that President Putin wants to make the whole new Russian hegemony to be inferred from military power.

This is the primary theme raised

by Russia against NATO’s enlargement: Russia is opposed to it and it is even ready to block it, as happened with Ukraine and Crimea, as well as with the network of NATO radar stations surrounding the Russian Federation, from Poland up to Romania.Any limitation to the Russian autonomy and sovereignty will always be fiercely opposed, at first with non-military actions, and later even with surgical military strikes.

The US analysts’ idea of repeating the old Cold War game, in the current strategic imbalance situation, unfavourable to the United States, will be the harbinger of many difficulties for the Americans.

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Piercing the shield A LEANER AND MEANER RUSSIA bEYOND NUCLEAR STRATEGIES DR. MATTHEw CROSSTON & TROY bAxTER

R

ussia’s history as a nuclear state is extensive and welldocumented. It was the second country in the world to acquire nuclear weapons (after the US) and since that point it has been the world leader in stockpiled nuclear weapons.

The only other nation to remain in close contention was the US and it was estimated to have some 10,000 fewer nuclear warheads than Russia at each nation’s respective stockpiling peak. Russia has historically placed a significant emphasis on nuclear power and nuclear deterrence as a primary deterrent strategy since it first acquired the capability.This was best exemplified during the nuclear stock-piling frenzy of the

Cold War, where nuclear weapons were acquired at a rate that will likely never be seen again, and more recently with its declaration that it has the capability to punch through the US missile defense system. Yet, despite Russia’s historical comfort and reliance on nuclear power as a deterrence strategy, the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century saw Russia moving away from strict nuclear deterrence. Treaties such as START I, II, SORT and the New START, which all worked to reduce nuclear stockpiles in the US and Russia, indicated that a trend towards disarmament, coordination and cooperation was the new norm taking over in place of the old one of confrontation, competition and mutually assured destruction.

Troy Baxter is currently a Master’s Student in Bellevue University’s International Security and Intelligence Studies Program in Omaha, Nebraska. He received his Honours Degree in Criminal Justice and Public Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada in 2013.

TROY bAxTER

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been spearheaded by the US, would significantly reduce its nuclear deterrent capabilities in its very own backyard. However, the US claims the defense system is being put in place in order to counter the potential Iranian and North Korean nuclear threat and that it is not set up in order to defend against a nuclear arsenal the size of Russia’s. This may very well be true in logistical or strict military terms, but it fails the perceptional conventional wisdom scratch test: you cannot propose to have missiles in Eastern Europe to ‘defend against Iran ONLY’ and expect the Russian side to believe it.

Happily, to some it seemed that a shift in the Russian defense ideology was taking place: from the old hat concept of nuclear deterrence to the new one of slow but steady disarmament and international cooperation.

Such an assessment of Russia’s defense ideology, however, has now been all but dismissed, as it was recently revealed that Russia has already started dispersing missile defense penetrating technology throughout its military and plans on developing new types of such weapons moving forward. This declaration is saying very publicly that Russia does not consider nuclear deterrence to be an old hat concept.

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In fact, the nation is saying very loudly and deliberately that nuclear deterrence is as relevant as it’s ever been and that it is intent on protecting its geostrategic realm of operations, just perhaps with a leaner and meaner face that is accentuated by nuclear and non-nuclear means.

The US and NATO have been progressively encroaching further into Russia’s geostrategic areas of operation and the discussion of a NATO missile defense system has only narrowed the gap further and caused greater Russian consternation. The fear for Russia is that the installation of this missile defense system, which has largely

Russia does, as previously mentioned, have a massive stock pile of nuclear weapons. The American limited missile defense system would be incapable of defending against an all-out nuclear warhead blitzkrieg.

Moreover, it would be shortsighted of the US to believe that a nation as historically skeptical as Russia with a leader as historically Machiavellian as Vladimir Putin would blindly accept this explanation as fact and move on, particularly as Iran and North Korea continue to cooperate in nuclear arms control talks with the UN (though unevenly). It certainly appears as if the US is positioning itself to undermine Russia for reasons other than what it has stated publicly.

In any event, this potential subversion is not a fact lost on Vladimir Putin and this has no doubt contributed to the continued strain in US-Russian relations.

These relations are arguably at their lowest point since the height of the Cold War. The conflict in Syria has only served to exacerbate them. Both nations are still engaged in the conflict (despite a Russian ‘partial’ withdrawal) and appear to be cooperating in the bombing campaign against DAESH. This cooperation, however, has not been free of tension and criticism. Russia appears to be engaged in the conflict largelyin order to show its strength on the

international stage and looselytied claims of stopping DAESH in Syria hurts potential radical Islamist movements in Southern Russia. Russia doesn’t just want but needs to be seen as an equal player to the US, which is why the nation wasted no time dropping bombs in Syria a mere 24 hours after it received political approval from the Russian parliament.

Ultimately, Russia wants a say in what happens in the region next.

It wants the ability to weaken the US presence in the Middle East.

This is a higher priority than many first surmised, which was why it deployed a significant military force to Syria despite a sluggish sanctions-hit economy and

subsequent depreciating currency. Russia has shown that it is willing to make significant military and financial commitments to Syria in order to protect its geopolitical interests in the area, regardless of the fact that it may be unsustainable economically over the long-term.

It is clear that Russia has not been swayed by the allure of disarmament and international cooperation to such a degree that it is willing to abandon coincident strategies that still push its national and global interests. The nation is still firmly entrenched in its belief that the US must be ‘managed’ at all times.

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RUSSIA IS wILLING TO CONTINUE TO AGGRESSIVELY PROTECT ITS GEOSTRATEGIC INTERESTS EVEN If IT MEANS SIGNIfICANT RISk TO ITSELf

By all indications the US firmly believes in the same strategy about Russia, as it continues to try and gain the upper hand across several different arenas and strategies. The fact that the proposed missile defense system can also be repurposed as an offensive system, if needed, only adds to the strategic concern for Russia. Russia is fully aware of the US’ geostrategic intentions to continue moving into what Russia considers its regional spheres of exclusivity. This is arguably what compelled Russia to move military forces into Syria – not just strategic objectives but PERCEPTIONAL ones.

What this says is two things. First, that both the US and Russia are still firm believers in the maintenance of old school rivalry, even under situations where they share the same objective (like defeating DAESH).

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Second, Russia is willing to continue to aggressively protect its geostrategic interests even if it means significant risk to itself.

Some might call that the Russian penchant for irrational foreign policy behavior but it is also fueled by a strong Machiavellian logic bent on balancing American power by any, and multiple, means necessary.

The apex of concern for Russia is that a world powered by American influence unchallenged is an unhealthy world for Russian visions of the future. That influence, even if it cannot be stopped entirely, has to be rivaled and compromised, whether it is politically, diplomatically, or militarily. Its deployment of a military force in Syria weakened this American influence to the point where it is almost impossible to imagine today how any Syrian conclusion will emerge that is fully endorsed or governed by American ideas alone.

And that, in the end, may be the most important ‘victory’ for Russia in this. In the old days of nuclear deterrence, piercing the shield was a purely physical military consideration. Today, that concept has expanded and been enriched by new Russian thinking. And that, moving forward, may be the biggest concern for America.

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The Grand Cyber Spy Game RUSSIA, AMERICA, AND CHINA STEALING THE wORLD ONE bYTE AT A TIME DR. MATTHEw CROSSTON & ANONYMOUS Anonymous is currently a graduate student in International Security and Intelligence Studies at Bellevue University and works within the US governmental system. The opinions expressed are strictly personal and do not reflect a formal endorsement of or by the United States’ government and/or Intelligence Community.

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E

very month another story of cybertheft linked to China or Russia emerges. Recent data breaches at Target, United Airlines, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and OPM have been linked back to Russia, while theft of key technology across major Department of Defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and US government laboratories have been linked to China.

Neither China nor Russia’s government formally admit to leveraging the internet to steal secrets from other countries but hacks

have been linked directly to their intelligence services’ respective buildings or individuals known to be under governmental influence.

International cyber incidents in Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia have all been apparently linked back to Russia while the Canadian government recently set up domestic cyber-protection programs after several major corporations were hacked by Chinese intelligence.

The US government struggles on how to approach these cyber intrusions.

Matthew Crosston is Professor of Political Science, Director of the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program, and the Miller Chair at Bellevue University

DR. MATTHEw CROSSTON Senior Editor, Caspian Project Director

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Should they be ignored so that other foreign policy initiatives can move forward? Are these initiatives acts of war or a new method of state gamesmanship?

Do these collections of vast amounts of information count as high treason/espionage or simple economic theft?

wELCOME TO THE REAL CYbER ERA, wHERE MULTIPLE PLAYERS TRY TO STEAL THE wORLD ONE bYTE AT A TIME wHILE PRETENDING TO DO NOTHING Of THE SORT

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Environmental negotiations just about broke down several years ago when President Obama called out China for hacking several governmental systems during the negotiations. What does all of this signify as Russia and China become more important strategic world partners, while still at least semi-maintaining long-held intelligence and military adversarial attitudes toward the US? Welcome to the REAL cyber era, where multiple players try to steal the world one byte at a time while pretending to do nothing of the sort.The Chinese, American, and Russian intelligence services have no issue launching clandestine internet attacks to pursue what they all consider to be legitimate national security and foreign policy objectives.

Sometimes the information collected is economic, directed against or about important corporations; other times the information is military and political.. In all cases the information is highly strategic.

While it is true that the information the Russian and Chinese intelligence services are providing to their respective policymakers is much broader in scope than the CIA or US Department of Defense, and is arguably much more domestically invasive than the FBI or DEA, both Russia and China have successfully started campaigns questioning the ‘purity of purpose’ within American intelligence given the details of the Snowden scandal. All of which begs questions: should American intelligence maneuvers match Chinese and Russian cyber precedence? Is the American public aversion to cyber collection programs really just a front for a private philosophy that already rivals China and Russia? Is there something fundamentally important for states to consider in this style vs. substance cyber spy debate?

Crucial differences in intelligence organizational culture and mission make figuring these questions out quite difficult. While the United States has been quick to leverage open-source collection for its own programs, it has supposedly been hesitant to execute the power of its cyber abilities in invasive, offensive, global scenarios (although this consideration is now being heavily debated in the classified sector and some accuse it of already transpiring).

This article will attempt to determine if Chinese and Russian intelligence services have gained a tactical advantage over the United States because of a political and bureaucratic blind spot, or if the United States intelligence collection culture is different only at the superficial level and is largely the same as its rivals in terms of true cyber substance.

Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The first five use intelligence collection as part of a law enforcement mission, while the NSA, NRO, and NGA all harvest data and imagery collection.

The first important aspect in understanding the Grand Cyber Game is to understand how the Russian, Chinese, and US intelligence communities are structured. The United States is known for the ‘big brothers’ of its IC, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Security Agency (NSA). However, there are actually 17 members of the US Intelligence Community. Some of these include intelligence offices for each branch of the US military, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy,

Traditionally, the CIA operates overseas and cultivates human sources while conducting clandestine operations. The FBI traditionally manages counter terrorism operations domestically, provides investigation support overseas when American citizens are involved, and acts under an enforcement jurisdiction to maintain the law. The NSA was established to provide cryptologic services and to protect US information systems and signals intelligence.It supports military customers, national policymakers, and counterterrorism and

counter-intelligence communities under the Department of Defense. However, in a post-9/11 world, these explicitly defined roles have become more blurred and opaque as global travel and transnational collections are intensely complicated by the internet.

Conversely, modern Chinese intelligence services have always had domestic and international missions intertwined. China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) was formed in 1954 as a domestic law enforcement agency. It managed criminal investigations, security protection, public information network security, traffic control, legal affairs, counter-terrorism, drug control, and other anti-smuggling and anti-corruption duties.In 1983, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) was established as the formal intelligence and security agency of China for non-military areas of interests.

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the Border Guard Service and the Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information.

The three intelligence services often overlap and sometimes compete against one another in the recruitment and collection of intelligence sources.

It has the same authority to arrest or detain people as the MPS with a nearly identical oversight mission by the courts, but it is also a separate, parallel network to the MPS. The MSS mission is to ensure “the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counter-revolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China’s socialist system.”

Similar to the CIA, the MSS gathers foreign intelligence from targets in various countries overseas while the MPS gathers information domestically to protect against domestic terrorism and political coups. Both heavily rely on cyber collection.

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Russia operates with three principal intelligence services. The SVR focuses on foreign intelligence collection, but mainly with civilian affairs. It is formally responsible for intelligence and espionage activities outside the Russian Federation. The GRU is the main foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. It is Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency, deploying at least six times as many agents as the formal KGB successor, the SVR. The FSB operates in theory only across the former Soviet Republics and domestically, but having had its operational portfolio increased in 2003 to include

Russia also established an AntiTerrorist Center that falls under full control of the FSB. The Center’s mandate was to create a database for intelligence sharing among the security services of all members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Although the SVR has promised not to spy within CIS territories, the FSB has not. As such, it has become the de facto leading intelligence service for foreign collection activities for Russia. Interestingly, Russia has often turned a blind eye to Central Asian intelligence service activity within its borders, when Central Asian leaders are making moves against so-called political enemies (these moves are usually abductions back to Central Asia for detainment).

These activities have included both the Chinese MSS and MSP. In 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was established by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, to work together against terrorism, separatism, and extremism.

They established their own Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) that became the mechanism of choice for carrying out abductions across national boundaries, outside of standard judicial procedures. RATS operations have been compared to the CIA’s practice of extraordinary rendition and allow members to detain suspects in the six participating states outside of any rule of law. The members’ operators are not subject to criminal liability and they are immune from arrest and detention within the six states.

The reality is, on an international level, the intelligence services of all three nations operate with remarkably similar mission goals and objectives: they wish to protect the national interests of their respective states and garner advantages for said states via the acquisition of important information. While Hollywood has often focused on the political deviance and violence of intelligence missions around the world, the less exciting reality is that intelligence is more often utilized simply for political leverage. On the domestic level, the United States has long-held the moral superiority card against rivals like Russia and China, largely based on the democratic system in America supposedly being more altruistic and legally-minded than the so-called autocratic-type regimes in Beijing and Moscow.

Snowden and other details in the past several years have started to make some at least wonder how much that moralism is built upon a foundation of sand and not stone. Finally, the stylistic aspect of intelligence public relations is significantly different between the three: the US decidedly tries to maintain an air of secrecy and deniability over just about everything its Intelligence Community does or needs to do. Russia and China, while revealing no secrets, tend to be a bit more unabashed about the role and necessity intelligence plays for the furthering of state power and do not fear making public statements to that effect anywhere, anytime.

For them, therefore, the only difference between the three great players in the Grand Cyber Spy Game is the costuming and marketing of their respective goals, but NOT the ploys, initiatives, and overall desires. When it comes to winning, it seems all three are set and determined to virtually steal, that is, ‘obtain’ as much as possible. The Grand Cyber Spy Game demands no less.

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FSB's Snowden War USING THE AMERICAN NSA AGAINST ITSELf

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Alexander S. Martin is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in International Intelligence and Security Studies from Bellevue University. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Intelligence and Security Studies also from Bellevue University in 2014.

ALExANDER S. MARTIN

R

ussia's understanding of information warfare must be understood in the context of Russian statism. Russian leaders, particularly President Vladimir Putin, view state power as essential to national health and broadly-defined state power.

The state attempts to maintain absolute privilege over rights, ownership, and power, and often confers these things to others as gifts or presents. (Jurevicius, 2015) Since Putin's rise to power, exclusive private ownership within the state has been weakened and the state has increasingly used its now massive media industry as a means of influencing both the domestic population as well as foreign audiences. (Kiriya & Degtereva, 2010) In terms of foreign influence, information plays a critical role in Russian political and military strategy.

The Russian military divides information operations into two means of attack: “informationtechnological means,” which include attacks on national critical infrastructure and cyber-attaches; and information-perceptual means, which include propaganda, perception management, disinformation, psychological operations, and deception. (Liaropoulos, 2007) Russia's exploitation of US intelligence disclosures falls within this second set of means as a form of propaganda. While the Russian state has always used propaganda as a means of ensuring Russian security, examination of this tactic is under-appreciated in the modern day. (Stewart, 2014)In relation to the West, Russian information operations, often called Information Warfare by Russian strategists, fill a critical strategic role in all phases of conflict.

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wHILE IT IS POSSIbLE TO DRAw fROM A RANGE Of INCIDENTS THE DISCLOSURES Of EDwARD SNOwDEN, A fORMER NSA SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR, HAS ARGUAbLY bEEN THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL AND IMPACTfUL

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In a conflict involving kinetic operations, information warfare is used as a force multiplier “whose purpose is to guarantee the achievement of the goals of the operation” and is often seen as most effective in targeting enemy command and control structures, as well as enemy decision-making. (Thomas, 1996) Tellingly however, the Cold War notion of information warfare as a low-intensity form of conflict targeting the enemy's civilian population and its public awareness, as well as “state administrative systems, production control systems, scientific control, cultural control, and so forth” remains a key feature of Russian thinking today regarding information operations. (Thomas, 1996) It is not that other nations do not accept this anymore as a part of modern warfare, but rather only Russia is so openly adamant about the properness of such techniques. In 2013, the Russian Chief of the General Staff wrote that modern conflict includes the “broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other non-military measures.”

(Jones, 2014) Russian information warfare thinking has thus evolved beyond Soviet-era concepts into a fully modern doctrine, particularly in the more intense forms of conflict.Critical to the effective use of Russian propaganda are its intelligence

agencies, particularly the FSB. One high profile example of FSB media manipulation is the allegation that the FSB controls “troll armies,” a term used to describe an estimated 200,000 FSB employees who are tasked with flooding social networks, Internet forums, and media comment sections with pro-Russian content.

(Jurevicius, 2015) It is worth noting that this is but one aspect of the FSB's control of Russian media. While it is difficult to ascertain precisely what links exist between the FSB and Russian media corporations formally, the FSB's extensive power makes it clear that FSB-directed propaganda is likely a critical component of many Russian media operations.

In response to the expansion of US intelligence because of the Global War on Terror, Paul Todd and Jonathan Bloch wrote “just as the Cold War provided a legitimizing framework for the unprincipled and often counter productive waging of covert warfare, so the dangers of a new era of intelligence 'blowback' are all too clear.” (Todd & Bloch, 2003) Russian media propaganda against US intelligence services makes use of such allegations - of vastly expanded and illegal American power to collect information against foreign and domestic targets.

While it is possible to draw from a range of incidents the disclosures of Edward Snowden, a former NSA system administrator, has arguably been the most controversial and impactful.

Reporting on the NSA's requirement to end its collection of telephony metadata as stipulated by the USA Freedom Act, one grouping Russia Today articles highlighted the conflict between privacy advocates and US lawmakers, writing “while privacy advocates described the change as only a single step with the prospect of more progress to come, lawmakers adopted a tone of finality.” (RT, 2015) Another grouping of articles aimed at demonstrating the loophole the NSA technically used to continue collection against US citizens.

Finally a third implied that the vast metadata collection program did not provide the NSA with any operational or analytic value. (RT, 2015) These article groups demonstrate not only Russia's main aim in reporting on the Snowden leaks so as to undermine American image on the international stage, they are also an abstract attempt to achieve an important Russian foreign policy goal: using the expansive NSA collection effort targeted against US citizens to positively contrast with Russian maneuvers on the global stage. In the context of America always making charges against Russia for using draconian measures to limit its citizens' rights and invade their privacy, these reports are designed to highlight US hypocrisy

and sow the seeds of discord and doubt among American allies about any so-called US moral supremacy.

Falling approval ratings of the US Government also help determine the impact of FSB propagandizing the Snowden leaks. After Snowden leaked the disclosures, US President Barack Obama's approval ratings plummeted. (CNN, 2014) Gallup poll data show now that American confidence in all three branches of the US Government is declining, with the Supreme Court and Congress being at all-time lows in 2015.

(McCarthy, 2014) In contrast, a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that 78% of Americans view President Putin as a stronger leader than President Obama.

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USING THE ExPANSIVE NSA COLLECTION EffORT TARGETED AGAINST US CITIzENS TO POSITIVELY CONTRAST wITH RUSSIAN MANEUVERS ON THE GLObAL STAGE

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A final area of impact to consider is European reactions to the leaks.

As with the American public, European publics were outraged.

Not only by the perceived US hypocrisy, but also by the alleged NSA collection against European diplomats and elites. (Network of European Union Centers of Excellence, 2014) These disclosures have had a negative impact on US-European relations, as the EU has become increasingly reluctant to impose further economic sanctions on Russia despite US pressure. (Harress, 2015) Furthermore, European leaders are showing an increased willingness to cooperate with Russia with regard to military operations and objectives in Syria. (Bloomberg, 2015) While the reasons for these developments are complex and multi-level, the damage done to US-European relations has absolutely been impacted by explicit Russian intelligence efforts to ‘refocus’ media perception on American image and global status.

It is important to note that this form of intelligence media propaganda is not effective in isolation. It was not Russian propaganda that caused widespread distrust of the US government. However, the FSB and Russian media conglomerates are able to effectively profit from the damning Snowden disclosures by casting the US in a suspicious, negative light, while at the same time minimizing its own supposed flaws and political sins.

More study should be devoted in future to this softer but still significant aspect of US-Russian relational conflict.

The Islamic State’s fake story RUSSIAN fSb SPY

JULIA SwEET

Editor PhD Candidate, Rutgers University, NJ

I

n May 2016, Al-Hayat Media Center of the Islamic State released a new issue of Russian magazine “Istok”, which contains an article about so-called Russian secret service spy, Elvira R. Karaeva. Despite the silence of government officials, who refrain from commenting on this situation, it is highly unlikely that Elvira used to be a spy.

However, given the fact that she previously cooperated with federal investigators (at least, in one criminal case), some ISIS fighters from Kabardino-Balkaria could recognize Elvira and accuse her of spying. As a result, the Islamic State commanders decided to execute her, making an example for other members.

She was born in 1988 in a small town called Cherkessk, in the Kabardino-Cherkess republic (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, April 24, 2013). In the North Caucasus, being a militant’s wife, Elvira was involved in the illegal activities of local extremist organizations, long before her trip to Islamic State held-territories. By 2012, she had a criminal record as a member of a local extremist organization. Elvira was noticed again by the Russian security agency in March 2012 during a counterterrorist operation in Kabardino-Balkaria. The authorities received information about a suspicious group of people residing in a private house in a small village called Mir, in the Chegem district.

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Following the report, police officers began to check the documents of all residents of this village. This group’s house was not surrounded and residents of nearby houses were not evacuated. The authorities underestimated the situation: militants had machine guns and opened fire on police (Gazeta Yuga, March 15, 2012). The operation resulted in the deaths of the militants. According to the information center of the National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC), five militants including one woman, were killed

by Russian special forces (TASS, March 12, 2012). Trying to escape with two children, Elvira was captured by police officers not far from the place of the incident (Gazeta Yuga, March 15, 2012).

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Obviously, active cooperation during the investigation helped her to avoid severe punishment.

However, since 2013, she was on a federal terrorist watchlist.

Later, her name appeared again in police reports. In 2014, the FSB indicted Elvira Karaeva and 3 other women (S. Halikova (Dagestan), P. Atemaskina (Sakhalin), and E. Arshahova (Tatarstan)) for terrorist financing and sending money to ISIS (Svoboda, April 4, 2016). They worked under the supervision of militant’s widow, Daria Izankova (Murmansk), who moved to Syria with a new husband in December 2013.The women were arrested in December 2014 and later, were transferred to a Moscow detention facility for trial.

At that time, Elvira lived in Makhachkala, Dagestan and worked together with P. Atemaskina and E. Arshahova in a local market selling children’s clothes.

However, there is no official information about the arrest or interrogation of Elvira Karaeva whatsoever. As the Russian News Portal, “Meduza”, underlined there was an absence of any information about a development in this criminal investigation against this woman (Meduza, December 29, 2015).

As many other people at-risk, the authorities monitored Elvira. Apparently, this monitoring was not good enough because after the arrest of Saida Halikova in December 2014, Elvira undertook a trip to Syria.

ISIS’S ACCUSATIONS ARE MOST LIkELY bASELESS. HOwEVER, SHE wAS bRUTALLY INTERROGATED AND LATER, ExECUTED bY ISLAMIC STATE MILITANTS

So by the moment when investigators figured out about her involvement in terrorist financing (approximately between December 2014 – May 2015), Kareva was out of their reach.

According to the “Istok” article, Elvira was directly involved in the murder of a field commander, Emir of Ichkeria, B. Gochiaev, several militants and a female, who was trained to be a suicide bomber, on December 7, 2011 in Kabardino-Balkaria. However, these people were killed by the explosion of their own bomb, which accidentally detonated. At that moment, the militants were in a car and tried to escape from the police. Also, she allegedly helped to kill a leader of a local gang, Saad or Artur Amriev (born in 1988), who was shot by police officers in the Sunjensky region of Ingushetia on November 19, 2011 (Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 11, 2011).

To summarize, Elvira Karaeva hardly can be called a Russian spy. She cooperated with police investigators and disclosed some important information in order to avoid imprisonment as almost every suspect does. Her entire life was connected to various extremist groups and criminal gangs in the North Caucasus. Trying to escape arrest for terrorist financing, this woman fled to Syria, maybe alone or with a new husband and her child. ISIS’s accusations are most likely baseless.

However, she was brutally interrogated and later, executed by Islamic State militants. The story presented in the last issue “Istok” magazine was made up by the Islamic State in order to intimidate enemies and provide an example for its members.

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Playing Chess, Not Checkers

RUSSIAN RESPONSES TO U.S. HEGEMONY IN kIND

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Logan Wilde is currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program at Bellevue University.

He has more than thirteen years of experience working in the intelligence community, primarily focusing on the Middle East and Central Asia regions.

LOGAN wILDE

F

ew would argue that Russia’s recent display of military assertiveness, in both its hybrid confrontation in Ukraine and recent intervention in Syria, is antithetical to its proposed selfimage as a regional power. This is largely the basis of Emil Aslan Souleimanov’s article explaining how Russia is using the threat of the Islamic State to attempt to reinstate political-military hegemony throughout the former Soviet states. But Souleimanov missed the broader aspect of Vladimir Putin’s true motivations in the Middle East and throughout the Caucasus: countering perceived U.S. and NATO hegemony in the region and beyond.

The 2008 skirmish in Georgia marked the first use of Russian military power to engage an independent Post-Soviet state

since the fall of the USSR. The weak reaction by the United States only highlighted the efficacy of the strategy, which came to be known as the Medvedev Doctrine, where the Russian president proclaimed that “protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens, wherever they may be, is an unquestionable priority for our country.

Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need. We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive acts committed against us.” (Friedman, 2008) This ambitious military strategy rested on the reality that Russia was suffering from an economic downturn due to low oil prices and the political threat of NATO expansion to its borders.

It is not a coincidence that Russia’s involvement in Georgiaand Ukraine symbolically coincided with each country’s stated intent to join the NATO Membership Action Plan.

Souleimanov gets into Russia’s consistent effort to link the United States to any political or military objective it deems worthy of pursuing: besides the obvious connections to NATO, the Russian media (heavily controlled by the government as to message) assumes that “the Islamic State is a U.S. project to redraw the political map of the Middle East, or that it is used by Washington to either boost America’s supremacy in this part of the world or destabilize Russia’s Muslimdominated areas in the North Caucasus, as well as Russia’s sphere of influence in Central Asia.”

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Paradoxically, this link also requires that Putin necessarily downplays the immediate threat that the Islamic State poses to Russia, which Souleimanov correctly points out.

Instead, Putin speculates that North Caucasian fighters participating in the Syrian war will return to their homeland and continue the fight on native Russian soil against Russians. This is one of his primary reasons for military intervention in Syria.

THE 2008 SkIRMISH IN GEORGIA MARkED THE fIRST USE Of RUSSIAN MILITARY POwER TO ENGAGE AN INDEPENDENT POST-SOVIET STATE SINCE THE fALL Of THE USSR

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Members of Russia’s political and intellectual elite are now arguing that the Islamic State could in fact pose an immediate threat to Russia’s political and military interests in the Central Asian region. This narrative helps to justify Russia’s strong military presence in the region, itself a response to a substantial U.S. military deployment in Afghanistan.

Russian analysts point to “Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan as the region’s most vulnerable states in the event of a concentrated attack perpetrated by ISIS or its local allies.” Although Souleimanov correctly identifies that this is actually an unlikely threat, he does not do enough to explain this conclusion. All of these states are at least semi-authoritarian and while they do not have large militaries, they do rely on Sovietstyle military agreements.

They also have substantial police forces that are trained to identify and respond to any insurgent or terrorist crises, while regularly employing torture and extralegal tactics to silence opposition.

(Human Rights Watch, 2016) In other words, this region is fundamentally hostile to an influx of Islamic State members.

Unlike in war-torn Yemen or Syria, the states in this region have absolute control over their respective populations and therefore represent a significant barrier for most jihadist groups. This at least partly explains why home-grown Islamist groups have been fairly weak throughout Central Asia for the past generation.

Souleimanov also suggests that Russia may be complicit in allowing its citizens to travel to Syria to fight alongside jihadists. There is little reason for Russian police to prevent these individuals from leaving.

In addition to Souleimanov’s explanation that Russian authorities are counting on many of these individuals being killed in combat while in Syria, they also serve to further destabilize—and therefore undermine—U.S. intentions in Syria itself.

It was also these same individuals that gave Russia the initial justification to enter into Syria, keeping in line with its doctrine to “protect its citizens.”

Partnering with Assad was merely another strategic maneuver to display Russia’s independence from U.S. goals in the region, despite both the U.S. and Russia having a similar objective of defeating the Islamic State. As Russia withdraws from Syria it will remain focused on tracking the Russian-born jihadists that are intent on returning to their homeland to continue their fight once the Syrian battlefield has grown stale.

Russia’s declining political and economic influence throughout the region has forced its hand in its attempt to establish itself as a regional power comparable to China or India.

Unfortunately, as Souleimanov points out, the “Central Asian elites have grown increasingly suspicious of Moscow’s expansionism, its hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine, and its rhetoric of protecting Russians abroad.”

(2015) This presents a problem for Russia, which has few potential solid partners beyond its former Soviet states.

Embarrassingly, the only parties that officially recognized Russia’s claim to Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 were Hamas and Nicaragua—not even the Central Asian states were willing to ally with Russia on such an openly anti-NATO maneuver. (Matthews, 2008)

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wITH SYRIA AS A SHOwCASE, RUSSIA HAS TAkEN ITS fIRST STEP IN ESTAbLISHING ITSELf AS A DOMINANT MILITARY fORCE ONCE MORE

The most palpable example of Russia’s focus on military strategy is its use to maintain its influence in the Arctic region, an area that is bound to see vastly increased economic activity as the region begins to melt and reveals access points to vast reserves of hydrocarbons. (Mitchell, 2014) This level of military quasi-aggressiveness on the international stage is unique to Russia. Even China’s military posture to preserve its influence in the South China Sea is not nearly as robust. (Rizzo, Lendon, Levine, & Ullah, 2016) Without the economic clout of China or the political standing of India, Moscow is forced to rely on modernizing and utilizing its military as a means to counter Western influence. With Syria as a showcase, Russia has taken its first step in establishing itself as a dominant military force once more that is capable of defending the region from Western—or as the Russian populace understands it, Islamic State—influence.

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But Russia must establish a foreign policy that does more than attempt to undermine U.S. and NATO activity in the region if it hopes to truthfully achieve the level of regional influence that China and India enjoy. After all, it is China’s trade with the United States and India’s strong political ties with Washington that have allowed them to grow.

Russia must embrace a similar strategy if it wishes to compete in a similar fashion on the international stage. It may have a legitimate strategic reason for all of its military posturing, but ultimately its biggest global successes and most powerful regional influence will be in showing how well it is able to partner with others as opposed to going it alone.

An unlikely and unwanted scenario RUSSIAN PEACEkEEPERS IN NAGORNO-kARAbAkH

RUSIf HUSEYNOV Independent researcher

T

he April shootouts in Nagorno -K arabak h that took dozens of lives from each side signaled to the world community that the conflict around the abovementioned region is not frozen, as it was previously claimed.

Ethnic clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in NagornoKarabakh , a mountainous pro vince inside the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, arose in 1988 toward the end of Soviet rule. The conflict of a local scale developed into a full-fledged bloody war between newly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Azerbaijan tried to maintain its control over the region, while Armenia backed the separatist movement of the ethnic Armenians.

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Although Azerbaijan was admitted to the United Nations with its Soviet-time territory that included Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian side managed to occupy both the province and the adjacent districts and proclaimed the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. As a result of the conflict, which cost the both sides more than 30,000 lives, nearly one million Azerbaijanis got expelled from their homes in the occupied territories and since then have dwelled as refugees in their own country.

The Russia-brokered negotiations secured a truce in 1994 and ceased the hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan but failed to ensure sustainable progress.

Controlled by the Armenian separatists, Nagorno-Karabakh has

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maintained de facto autonomy since the cease-fire, while the region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

Official mediators of the Nagorno - Karabakh conflict, Russia, the USA and France, initiated several proposals and organized direct meetings of Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents. Yet any attempts to finally resolve the conflict have failed: Baku has repeatedly offered a wide autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, while the Armenian side demands independence for the breakaway region.

The full-scale hostilities in April that involved almost all types of weaponry, have been defined as "the worst" since 1994. The sides, according to an unofficial estimation, lost around 90 troops each.

However, the clashes labeled “four-day war” by the media have not fully ended as cross-border violence still continues to harm civilians and their estates.

The recent fight raised once again the issue of deploying Russian peacekeeping forces in the disputed area. Some hints and even open statements on this matter have been pronounced by proRussian media and several politicians several times over the past years although the idea was never implemented. In April 2015, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Kremlin`s unofficial spokesperson, claimed that the war in Karabakh would be stopped by Russian peacekeepers. His statements, sometimes utterly unbelievable, should be considered seriously as he usually proclaims the Kremlin`s position or future plans.

In September 2015, Stratfor offered a scenario, according to which Russian peacekeepers would replace Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh. In April 2015, by referring to a Russian daily Izvestia, Stratfor revealed Moscow's plan to deploy Russian peacekeepers to the conflict zone. During and in the aftermath of the clashes, the introduction of peacekeeping forces in the region emerged anew. Having received an unexpected blow by the Azerbaijani Army and lost several important positions along the frontline, Armenia`s president Serzh Sargsyan noted in one of his recent interviews that his country is not against peacekeeping forces in the region. However, it was not fully revealed in the context whether it could be Russian or international troops.

International media also recalled this issue, by referring to the aforementioned Stratfor`s report.

A recent article on OSW, Poland`s Centre for Eastern Studies, also mentioned that the major political beneficiary of the four-day conflict is Russia, which has strengthened its position as the de factoprincipal conciliator and guarantor of the ceasefire. It cannot be ruled out that the current phase of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is part of a broader Russian plan aimed at changing the situation and at introducing Russian troops into the region as peacekeepers.

This would strengthen Russia’s geopolitical position in the Caucasus, and would mean that the Western influence is being marginalized.

The introduction of Russian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh does not seem an acceptable idea, however, for a number of countries, including the both warring sides and the powers interested in the region.

First of all, such development would let Russia regain full military control over the South Caucasus and undermine the independence of the regional countries. Interestingly, Azerbaijan was among the first post-Soviet countries that managed to achieve the withdrawal of remaining Russian troops in 19921993.

Despite Russia`s own economic difficulties to afford the withdrawal and accommodate Russian troops at that time, the relevant agreement is marked as one of the most important events in the history of independent Azerbaijan. To compare, the withdrawal of Russian troops from another South Caucasian country, Georgia, was quite painful and took longer. But Russia could still maintain its forces in Georgia`s breakaway areas, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Meanwhile, Armenia, where a Russian military base is still stationed, is sometimes referred to as Russia`s outpost or its remote province.

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‘THE INTRODUCTION Of RUSSIAN TROOPS wILL UNLEASH A wAVE Of HATRED TOwARDS RUSSIA’, SAYS AN ARMENIAN POLITICAL ExPERT

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With heavy anti-Russian sentiments, local societies both Azerbaijan and Armenia protest the deployment of Russian troops in the region, simply aspiring to keep it as a quarrel between the two and realizing Russia`s involvement would lead to loss of the territory for either warring party.

A last year`s online survey by an Azerbaijani media outlet revealed that the majority of respondents believe Nagorno- Karabakh could be permanently lost for Azerbaijan in that case. Besides, for the current generation in Azerbaijan, the Russians are seen as direct and indirect perpetrators of the two most terrible events which have occurred in Azerbaijan’s contemporary history: Black January (when Soviet soldiers entered Baku to suppress the independence movement and killed over 100 people in 1990) and Khojali massacre (when a Russian regiment aided Armenian gangs to slaughter unarmed civilians in 1992 during the Karabakh War).

There are also calls on Armenian side against Russian peacekeepers as it also might lose the control over Nagorno-Karabakh: ‘The introduction of Russian troops will unleash a wave of hatred towards Russia’, says an Armenian political expert. Moscow`s sale of arms to Azerbaijan has ignited anti-Russian sentiments and led to big protests in Yerevan.

Furthermore, it is not guaranteed that Russian peacekeepers would bring the settlement for the conflict. The Russian troops currently stationed in similar breakaway regions, namely Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria have simply cemented the frozen status of the respective conflicts and keep prolonging the situation, which might eventually lead to the full independence and international recognition for the mentioned regions.

Big powers that have their own interests and vision in the region seem never to approve this scenario either. The United States, which has already allowed Russian engagement in the Middle East, a traditionally American sphere of interest, would not be happy about Putin`s another military involvement and further strengthening of the Russian positions in this neighborhood.

With recently severed confrontation with Russia, Turkey will not easily acquiesce to Russia`s military presence in Azerbaijan, which is Turkey`s natural ally through political and ethnocultural links. Establishing its military bases under the name of “peacekeeping forces” would enable the Russians to obtain control over important regional projects that Turkey, together with Azerbaijan, Georgia, the USA and the EU, has been effectively building and operating.

Thanks to these combined efforts, South Caucasus has turned into an important energy and transport corridor. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, as well as Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum and TANAP gas pipelines have increased the significance of the region and contributed to the energy diversification of Europe. Thus, the latter would also be interested in having a stable alternative energy source/corridor in order to reduce its own dependence on Russia.

Furthermore, China`s recent attempts to revive Silk Road by circumventing Russia also promise to seal the status of Central Asia and Caucasus as a bridge between East and West.

Therefore, Russian threats on the Silk Road project could harm the interests of China, the project`s initiator.

In this context, despite statements of several Russian politicians and experts on deploying Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno - Karabakh, this development remains highly unlikely and quite unacceptable. Simply lobbying this scenario without intention to implement it might also provide several goals for Russia, including strengthening the Kremlin`s positions against its regional and global rivals, reminding authorities and societies in either belligerent country who is the boss in the region.

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The Mighty Have Fallen

AMERICAN SPACE DEPENDENCY ON RUSSIA

T

he space program that gave the United States much-deserved global recognition is looking very dierent today.

Somewhat embarrassingly, the United States relies on the Atlas V rocket, powered by a Russian rocket engine, to transport crucial space satellite technology.

It is concerning to the US to heavily depend on Russia, at the moment still under sanctions for interfering in Ukrainian unrest.

Thus it seems imperative that this situation needs to change for the long-term benefit of the American space program.

In order to be ready for future conflicts, which may include space, US armed forces need to rely on space technology such as GPS, communication satellites, and intelligence gathering equipment.

The United States must maintain uninterrupted and independent access to space due to 21st century national security interests.By heavily depending on Russia, Washington is supporting the defense industry of a state that carries, to put it mildly, deep skepticism toward American power.

Nenad Drca is a former military trilingual linguist who worked across many nations over eight years. He lived and worked on three continents.

This experience gave him a deep appreciation for intelligence community.

After graduating with BA in Psychology he returned to work for the US Army as a DOD civilian. He expects to graduate next March with Master of Science in International Security and Intelligence Studies degree.

NENAD DRCA

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It is unwise policy to depend on Russia for vital space missions and even worse policy when this dependence might help Russia takes steps against US national security interests. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has described American fees for the space transport as “free money” that is invested directly into Moscow’s missile development program. NASA spokesman Mr. Allard Beutel stated recently that his agency still has a transport contract with Russia until June 2020.

RUSSIA IS DEVELOPING ITS OwN ARRAY Of MILITARY EqUIPMENT THAT COULD TRACk, APPROACH, INSPECT, AND POSSIbLY SAbOTAGE fOREIGN SATELLITES IN ORbIT

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This idea of American space dependence on Russia is receiving increasing criticism in Washington. Recently Senator John McCain said: “today Russia holds many of our most precious national security satellites at risk before they ever get off the ground."

His concerns were not unfounded because in 2014 Rogozin, in light of impending sanctions, openly threatened to prohibit the export of Russian rockets that facilitate deployment of the American satellite program. If that happened the United States would have no means of deploying its essential satellite technology into space.

More disconcertingly, the new federal budget proposed to cut NASA’s Fiscal Year 2017 funds even further. In perspective, NASA’s budget is dangerously small when compared to regular expenditures.

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin stated that Americans spend more annually on pizza (27 billion USD) than on space. Due to such changes NASA’s mission today is much weaker than several decades ago. The United States, first to send men to the moon in 1969, now struggles in the 21st century to reach beyond low-earth orbit without expensive Russian assistance. How the mighty have fallen indeed.

While proposed budget cuts to NASA have been causing bitter debates in Congress, the reality is that any good change will take years before empirical results become visible. In 2011, policymakers decided to eliminate NASA’s Constellation program: $9 billion dollars of diligent labor to construct a new Orion spacecraft and Aries rocket canceled.

Some of the main objectives of the program were completion of a new International Space Station and a return to the Moon by 2020, with subsequent manned trip to Mars. The Constellation program was meant to reinvigorate American space supremacy.

No other nation, including Russia, China, India, and Japan, was meant to be able to successfully compete or outmaneuver such an advanced program. Now those countries do not even need to bother.

In 2015, Russia deployed 17 unmanned satellites into orbit, further expanding its capacity for remote sensing systems and intelligence collection. In addition, both Russia and China are developing provocative new space technologies such as anti-satellite weapons. That would allow Russia and China to deny access to any adversary during conflict. The intense reliance of modern warfare on satellite access is impossible to underestimate.

The possibility of having Russia and China interrupting and disabling vital communications and navigation space equipment should therefore be very concerning to the United States. The threat is so serious that US policymakers have authorized an additional $5 billion dollars to be used on defensive and oensive capabilities to overcome deficiencies in the American military space program.

Russia is developing its own array of military equipment that could track, approach, inspect, and possibly sabotage foreign satellites in orbit. While China has publicly announced its space endeavors are nothing more than peaceful science experiments, Russian oďŹƒcials have remained silent. Ironically, both Russia and China have been promoting for years a treaty on the prevention of the placement of weapons in outer space and the threat or use of force against outer space objects. Interestingly, Washington opposes this treaty, which was submitted to the United Nations by Russia and China. The reason for opposition is basically the American perception that Russia and China are both disingenuous. In other words, the US feels both Moscow and Beijing will work on space militarization while letting the treaty automatically counter any potential rival entrants.

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Thus, the fear is that Russia and China want to use the treaty only to curb a resurgence of American space capabilities. Regardless of whether or not these suspicions are true, the problem with any space treaty will be the diďŹƒculty in achieving real compliance and oversight verification.

China's Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping has stated on several occasions that Beijing intends to increase its cooperation with Russia on several space projects.

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In the meantime, Russia is planning to build its own space station by the year 2024. The Chinese government is also planning to construct its own orbiting space station by the year 2020. In 1998, when the International Space Station launched, it was the most expensive project ever built at approximately $150 billion.

The United States generously gave more than $100 billion toward its construction. Today, only Russian rockets equipped with a Russian docking system can bring necessary ISS supplies. Realistically, the United States is approaching a critical moment when space dependency on Russia will have to end. Perhaps the arrival of successful private companies such as Space X will fill the void left by diminished NASA support.

By allowing private industry to compete and provide necessary services, the need for Russia might diminish.

Frankly, American policymakers have been too slow to act on minimizing the negative consequences of their budget cuts in crucial space areas. Allowing Russia or China to militarize space while also making America addicted to Russian space services can only lead to vulnerability in critical military areas.

Placing Russia or China in the leadership position for space would cause great concern among many nations and even negatively impact global economic security. Many civilian and scientific organizations have their satellites in low-Earth orbit. It is fair to assume that as of today most of them prefer a leading

American presence over Russian or Chinese. But that preference right now is not matched by any empirical reality.

But so far, that policy wisdom has yet to emerge. As a consequence, the future of space will remain crowded, confused, and potentially conflict-ridden.

What might help even the playing field is corruption and mismanagement: it was reported that over $1 billion cannot be accounted for in the Russian space program. Even at its best, the Russian space program budget is only slightly bigger than NASA’s smallest budget. The United States still has the leading technology assets. They are simply being hindered by poor policy choices.

Both Russia and China depend on media propaganda to maintain their image of power and strength in space. The United States space program does not need more media coverage but better policy to move forward.

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Vitalizing

Russia- Japan relations DR. AbDUL RUff

Prolific writer, Independent Analyst; Columnist contributing articles to many newspapers and journals on world politics; Expert on Mideast aairs, Chronicler of foreign occupations & freedom movements

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However, since there are other more important veto claimants like Saudi Arabia and Turkey Americans hesitate to undertake steps to make Japan a veto member. Moreover, Strategic experts view Japan’s veto status would even be detrimental to US global interests.

A

top nuclear power with a veto on the UNSC, Russia enjoys, almost at par with US super power, certain privileges and international prestige that Japan, a non nuclear and non veto power, does not. USA looks after Japan’s interests in the UNSC. A close NATO ally of USA, Japan is currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and its veto ambition in the UNSC is a very important topic for the country.

Russo-Japanese relations have been strained for decades manly due to four islands that the mighty Soviet Union had annexed from Japan in the WW-II. The four Kuril Islands — Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai — have been administered by Russia since the end of World War II, but Japan still lays claim to them.

Ties between the two countries deteriorated two years ago after Tokyo announced that it would support Western economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over its alleged interference in Ukraine, but the lack of stable relations actually goes back decades.

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KURIL ISLANDS Commenting on the background to the diplomatic good will visit in analysis Russian geopolitical analysts noted that at first glance, Russian Japanese relations are exceptional in their astonishing irrationality.

Relations between Russia and Japan are not on the positive side and they are a continuation of tensed Empire of Japan–Russian Empire relations, covering 18551917 and equally tensed Japan– Soviet Union relations covering 1917-1991. The two countries have been unable to sign a peace treaty after World War II due to the Kuril Islands dispute.

RUSSO-JAPANESE RELATIONS HAVE bEEN STRAINED fOR DECADES MANLY DUE TO fOUR ISLANDS THAT THE MIGHTY SOVIET UNION HAD ANNExED fROM JAPAN IN THE ww-II

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It appears Russia seeks to upgrade its relationship with Japan and on April 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Tokyo for a two-day official visit, discussing political and economic issues. Lavrov invited Prime Minister Abe to visit Russia.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe left on May 01 for a weeklong visit to major European countries and Russia to lay the groundwork for the Group of Seven summit he will host this month and to address a decades-old territorial row with Moscow. Abe conferred with European leaders on how to support the world economy amid China’s economic slowdown. He visits Italy, France, Belgium, Germany and Britain before traveling on to Russia.

He also plans to discuss counterterrorism measures and appeal to European members of the G-7 to emphatically denounce North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile launches at the summit.

On his way back from Europe, Abe is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks in the southern city of Sochi on issues including the long-standing dispute over four Russian-held islets off Hokkaido. “I hope to resolve the issue by patiently negotiating based on a policy of resolving the issue of the ownership of the islands and concluding a peace treaty,” Abe said at the airport. The government hopes Abe’s meeting with Putin in Sochi will pave the way for the Russian president to visit Japan, something once tentatively planned for 2014 but postponed due to tensions over Ukraine.

The specific character of the Japanese-US alliance shows that Tokyo, as a part of NATO, is occasionally forced to subordinate its interests to those of the Americans. For example, because of US pressure, the Japanese were forced to join in on the West's anti-Russian sanctions, and cancel a number of high-level meetings between officials.This, of course, is something Lavrov reminded his partners about in Tokyo." "In order to find compromise, it is necessary to maintain a continuous, uninterrupted dialogue.

But Japan made the decision to limit contacts with us at a certain point. In my opinion, this does not meet the interests of the Japanese government or the Japanese people," Lavrov emphasized. At the same time, the minister noted that "despite pressure from its partners, and particularly the United States, our Japanese friends are nevertheless committed to maintaining these relationships."

Moscow hopes that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s forthcoming visit to Russia will give impulse to the entire complex of Russian-Japanese relations. “We understand that contacts during this visit will allow for additional impulse in advancing the entire complex of our relations in line with the joint statement of the two leaders in 2012 and the following agreements,” Lavrov said during a joint press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo.

Next round of Russian-Japanese peace treaty talks will be held shortly after the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Russia.

Russia’s top diplomat Lavrov said in a positive tone that RussiaJapan peace treaty issue cannot be reduced to "territorial claims" at the very least because the only document that was signed and ratified by both sides — the joint declaration of 1956 — states that the sides have agreed to renounce all claims against each other, and the next task is to sign a peace treaty," Lavrov said in an interview with Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian media.

Lavrov said Prime Minister Abe expressed interest in visiting Russia. As for a possible visit to Japan

by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lavrov stated that there are "absolutely no obstacles.""In order for the visit to take place, we need for the invitation… to take the form of a specific date," he added.

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THE JAPANESE DEMAND ALL fOUR ISLANDS AND wILL NOT AGREE TO ANY COMPROMISE SOLUTION. bOTH COUNTRIES DISCUSSED THE ISSUE fOR YEARS bUT COULD NOT REACH A CREDIbLE SOLUTION

Lavrov also said USA does not like any credible improvement in Russo-Japanese relations and that disapproving statements coming from Washington regarding high-level contacts between Russia and Japan are simply outrageous.

“I think our Japanese colleagues understand this and assess it in a way such unacceptable manners should be assessed."

The United States' exerting pressure on Japan undermines Russian-Japanese bilateral relations.

US pressure on Japan leads to narrowing of dialogue between Moscow and Tokyo, Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said responding to a request to comment on the Japanese media reports that US President Barack Obama called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, asking him not to come to Russia.Japan narrowed Russian contacts and curtailed the work

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in bilateral direction, under the pressure and insistent recommendations of the United States.

Japan’s officials have been recommended not to pay or exchange visits to or with Russia in a rather harsh manner before. However, the official Washington spokesman has recently said that if one contact with Russian officials takes place, then it’s alright, thus giving the go-ahead.

Lavrov said that overall the upcoming Russian-Japanese summit agenda looks very dense both in terms of bilateral and international issues. “We would like to see Russia and Japan move from just exchanging opinions to coordinating approaches to urgent international issues”Experts and diplomats acknowledge that they have been preparing this series of visits for several months.

The main obstacle had been for Abe and Putin to voice at least a

framework for a compromise.

And given that the visits have been discussed, this seems to indicate that a formula for a compromise framework has finally been determined.

TERRITORIAL DISPUTE Nearly 71 years after the conclusion of the Second World War, Russia and Japan still have no peace treaty between them.

However, they never fought a war since WW II. The dispute over the Russian-held islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, has prevented the two countries from peace treaty to officially end World War II. Ties between two countries deteriorated after Tokyo announced support for certain Western economic sanctions against Russia imposed in 2014 over Moscow's alleged interference in the eastern Ukrainian conflict.

Russia has resolutely denied the accusations. The dispute over the Southern Kuril Islands deteriorated Russo-Japan relations when the Japanese government published a new guideline for school textbooks on July 16, 2008 to teach Japanese children that their country has sovereignty over the Kuril Islands.

The Russian public was generally outraged by the action and demanded the government to counteract. The Foreign Minister of Russia announced on July 18, 2008 "these actions contribute neither to the development of positive cooperation between the two countries, nor to the settlement of the dispute," and reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands.

And the territorial issue is the key stumbling block. The two sides cannot agree on the territorial issue. The Japanese demand all four islands and will not agree to any compromise solution. Both countries discussed the issue for years but could not reach a credible solution.

The two sides agreed to seek a resolution over the persistent Kuril Islands dispute, but the decision of the dispute is not expected in the near future. Despite the territorial dispute, Hata offered some financial support to Russian market-oriented economic reforms. . In March 1994, then Japanese minister of foreign aairs Hata Tsutomu visited

Moscow and met with Russian minister of foreign aairs Andrei Kozyrev and other senior oďŹƒcials.

Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin took power in Russia in late 1991. Moscow took a stand in opposition to relinquishing the disputed territories to Japan.

Although Japan joined with the Group of Seven industrialized nations in contributing some technical and financial assistance to Russia, relations between Tokyo and Moscow remained poor.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin postponed a scheduled September 1992 visit to Japan to October 11, 1993.

He made concessions on the Kuril Islands dispute over the four Kuril Islands (northeast of Hokkaido), a considerable obstacle to Japanese-Russian relations, but did agree to abide by the 1956 Soviet pledge to return two areas (Shikotan and the Habomai Islands) to Japan. Yeltsin apologized repeatedly for Soviet mistreatment of Japanese prisoners of war after World War II. In 2010, President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian president to take a state trip to the Kuril Islands.

Medvedev shortly ordered significant reinforcements to the Russian defenses on the Kuril Islands.

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THE UNITED STATES' ExERTING PRESSURE ON JAPAN UNDERMINES RUSSIAN-JAPANESE bILATERAL RELATIONS

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Medvedev was replaced by Vladimir Putin in 2012. In November 2013, Japan held its first ever diplomatic talks with the Russian Federation, and the first with Moscow since 1973. Further talks are expected in 2014, with a formal peace treaty on the table as both sides seem willing to compromise

should include at least a third island.Moreover, Tokyo has also suggested another option: that Russia gives up two islands now, launching strong bilateral relations and two more at a later point.

As of 2016 matters remain unresolved, and these disputes have effectively soured relations between the two countries. Since governments are not maintain good relations, peole in both countries do not have a positive view of each other. According to a 2012 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, 72% of Japanese people view Russia unfavorably, compared with 22% who viewed it favorably, making Japan the country with the most anti-Russian sentiment.

In any case, now Russia is not planning on giving anything up, as the Foreign Ministry's statement shortly before Lavrov's departure made perfectly clear. The statement clearly said that progress on any peace treaty would remain impossible without Japan's recognition of post-war realities.

JAPAN’S DEMANDS The Kremlin considers all for islands as strategic territories. As Japan demands all the four islands, Russia's leadership was willing, in 2004, to make a compromise along the lines of the 1956 proposal – to transfer two islands and sign the peace treaty after that. Moscow said two of the four islands is the compromise.

Japan has held and continues to hold a different position: for them these two islands are just the start of negotiations in which a compromise can be found, which

In fact Japan wants all four islands from Russia.

And Russia's stubbornness can be explained not only by the fact that Moscow does not want to throw away its strategic territories, and not just because Japan needs the peace treaty and an improvement in relations more than Russia does but also because the Kremlin is not convinced in the reliability of any agreements with Japan.

NEW EFFORT FOR MUTUAL BENEFITS The status of disputed islands and unstable bilateral relations continues to disturb any normal relations but the NATO of which Japan is an important financing member did not let the relations to take any positive plunge.

However, Moscow says it wants to stabilize ties with Japan. Sergei Lavrov’s Tokyo visit was meant essentially to hold a comprehensive discussion on bilateral and international issues. His visit to Japan comes partly in preparations for Abe’s possible arrival in Russia to discuss the territorial issue.

The visit aimed at laying the groundwork for improved relations between Moscow and Tokyo, and to iron out details on a future visit to Russia by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Russian business magazine experts mull the prospects for Russian-Japanese relations.

There are other options for solving the territorial dispute that do not involve Russia giving up its sovereignty over the Kuriles. This, for example, may include the creation of a special economic zone with preferences for Japanese investment. Such a scenario would bring a number of benefits for both Japan with Prime Minister Abe being able to say that he has returned partial control over the islands, and for Russia, since Japanese investments would help the islands' economy.

It appears this will be one of the topics to be discussed by Abe during his visit to Russia," which could be held as soon as next month.The Japanese prime minister is set on resolving the territorial issue and has said so more than once and is ready to discuss the various options personally with Vladimir Putin. These discussions would continue, most likely in Tokyo, where the Russian president would arrive with a return visit, a prospect which requires only the setting of a specific date, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

It would seem that both countries would benefit from almost a strategic partnership level of relations. Russia can offer Japan the energy it requires, as well as resources and a market for the expansion of Japanese capital. But more importantly, the Kremlin could become a geopolitical balance, helping Tokyo to find a formula to defend against an ever-strengthening China. After all, Russia is one of the few countries in the region that does not hold animosity for Tokyo over Japan's war crimes in the first half of the 20th century.

In turn, Japan can provide Russia with technology, industrial goods, investment and innovations, and actively participate in the development of the Russian Far East.

The Kremlin, for its part, is ready to sign such a treaty immediately, and then begin to build a strategic partnership. Without effective cooperation with Japan, there can be no complete 'eastern pivot' in Russian foreign policy, but only a 'Chinese tilt'.

However, Tokyo has one condition: the Japanese want the South Kuril Islands, which the USSR took from Japan after the Second World War. The problem of the peace treaty is directly linked to the issue of the northern territories, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said ahead of Lavrov's visit, referring to the Kuriles.

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Reagan and Russia’s Re-annexation of Crimea Mykolas Romeris University, Faculty of Politics and Management Institute of Political Sciences, Vilnius, Lithuania www.sotirovic.eu vladislav[at]sotirovic.eu

PROf. DR. VLADISLAV b. SOTIROVIC

O

n March 18th, 2014 following a popular self-determination referendum of the people of Crimea the Russian Federation declared re-annexation of the Crimean Peninsula which was annexed by the Soviet Ukraine in 1954.

Nevertheless, the western global corporative media, politicians and statesmen classified such act as a matter of “aggression, violation of international law and unlawful occupation of a part of a territory of internationally recognized independent state and the UN’s member”.

Russia’s authorities on this occasion issued an official statement that Crimea’s re-annexation by Russia is based on the same selfdetermination rights as of the people (the Albanians) of Kosovo in 2008 which self-proclaimed independence from Serbia (by Kosovo parliament without any popular referendum) is already recognized by almost all western liberal governments.

The following text is a personal contribution to better understanding of the case of Russia’s “dirty policy of occupation and annexation” of Crimea in March 2014.

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Grenada is an independent state, a member of the UN, located in the southern portion of the Caribbean Sea very close to the mainland of the South America (Venezuela). The state is composed by southernmost of the Windward Islands combined with several small islands which belong to the Grenadines Archipelago, populated by almost 110,000 people of whom 82% are the blacks (2012 estimations).

fOLLOwING ALSO REAGAN’S LOGIC fOR THE MILITARY INVASION Of GRENADA IN 1983, THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENT COULD SEND A REGULAR ARMY Of THE RUSSIAN fEDERATION TO OCCUPY UkRAINE

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The state of Grenada is physically mostly forested mountains’ area (of volcanic origin) with some crater lakes and springs. In the valleys are bananas, spices and sugar cane grown. The country is out of any natural wealth significance but has relatively high geostrategic importance. Economy was and is primarily agricultural with some very limited small-scale industry of the food production nature with developing tourism sector as growing source of the national GDP. The state budget is constantly under a high level of foreign debt (a “debt slavery” phenomenon).

As the island, Grenada was discovered by the Europeans (Ch. Columbus) in 1498 and colonized by the French in 1650 becoming a possession of the French royal crown in 1674. During the Seven Years War (1756−1763) between all major European states, Grenada was occupied by the British and according to the

Peace Treaty of Paris in 1763 was given to the United Kingdom being a British possession for almost two hundred years with preservation of slavery.

The process of democratization of the island started in 1950 when the universal adult suffrage is granted by the United Labor Party. Being shortly a member of the West Indian Federation (1958−1962) and seeking internationally recognized independence, Grenada was granted such separate independence only in 1974 with Matthew Gairy (a leader of the United Labor Party) as the first Grenada’s PM. However, only three years later in 1979 Gairy was deposed from the post in a coup d’état lead by Maurice Bishop (1944−1983) as a leader of a Marxist political group under the official title of the New Jewel Movement. M. Bishop proclaimed a new Government under the name of the People’s Revolutionary Government that became not welcomed by the US administration like the Socialist (Marxist-democrat) Government in Chile after the 1970 elections formed by Salvador Allende (1908−1973).

The issue is in this case that Allende was the first Marxist in the world’s history who became elected by the popular vote as the President of one sovereign and independent state.

Peace Treaty of Paris in 1763 was given to the United Kingdom being a British possession for almost two hundred years with preservation of slavery.

The process of democratization of the island started in 1950 when the universal adult suffrage is granted by the United Labor Party. Being shortly a member of the West Indian Federation (1958−1962) and seeking internationally recognized independence, Grenada was granted such separate independence only in 1974 with Matthew Gairy (a leader of the United Labor Party) as the first Grenada’s PM. However, only three years later in 1979 Gairy was deposed from the post in a coup d’état lead by Maurice Bishop (1944−1983) as a leader of a Marxist political group under the official title of the New Jewel Movement. M. Bishop proclaimed a new Government under the name of the People’s Revolutionary Government that became not welcomed by the US administration like the Socialist (Marxist-democrat) Government in Chile after the 1970 elections formed by Salvador Allende (1908−1973).

The issue is in this case that Allende was the first Marxist in the world’s history who became elected by the popular vote as the President of one sovereign and independent state.

A new President of Chile was a head of the Unidad Popular that was a coalition of the Marxists (Communists) and the Socialists and therefore faced by hostility of the USA whose administration supported Chili Congress against Allende. The Congress backed by the USA heavily opposed Allende’s radical program of nationalization and agrarian reform – a program voted by the electorate in 1970.

Due to such obstruction, there were inflation, capital flight and balance-payments deficit which heavily contributed to an economic crisis in Chile in 1973: exactly what the US administration wanted and needed. The crisis became the main excuse for the military coup organized and accomplished by the Chili army Commander-in-Chief general Augusto Pinochet (born in 1915) – a typical local exponent of the US global politics.

As a consequence, there were around 15,000 killed people together with President Allende and about 10% of the Chileans who left the country during the new military dictatorship (1973 −1990) which replaced Chili democracy elected by the people and brutally abolished all labor unions and any opposition organizations and groups.

The capitalism was fully restored with the economy and social order very depended on the US financial support as a price for transformation of the country into a classic (US) colony.

Nevertheless, the 1973 military suppression of democracy in Chile was a clear message to the whole Latin America that the Monroe Doctrine of “America to the Americans” (read in fact as “Americas to the US”) is still leading framework of the US foreign policy in this part of the globe.

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The Monroe Doctrine was articulated in President James Monroe's seventh annual message to Congress on December 2nd, 1823. The European powers, according to Monroe, were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of interest. Following later such doctrine, for the matter of illustration, there was the US direct military invasion of Panama causing the fall of General Noriega in December 1989: “Operation Just Cause”.

This fact became the main reason that political situation in Grenada became of interest of the U.S. administration.

However, due to the internal quarrel within the People’s Revolutionary Government, Bishop was overthrown from the post and murdered by another Marxist, Bernard Coard, in 1983 who took control over the Government. There were the clashes of protesters with the governmental troops and soon violence escalated.

Similarly to the Allende Case in Chile, Grenada governed by the President M. Bishop turned to the left in both inner and external policy of the state. Therefore, he encouraged very closer relations with F. Castro’s Cuba and potentially to the USSR. As a result, at the island there were some Cuban military presence composed by the engineers who were repairing and expanding the local airport.

However, the army troops under the command of General Hudson Austin soon took power and established a new military regime.

This new Grenada coup was immediately followed by direct US military intervention in the island on October 23rd, under the order by the US President Ronald Reagan (the “Operation Urgent Fury”), for the very real reason to prevent a Marxist revolutionary council to take power.

The US military troops left Grenada in December 1983 after the re-establishment of “democratic” (pre-revolutionary) regime and of course pro-American one transforming Grenada into one more Washington’s client state.

It is of very concern to see what was de jure explanation by the US President Reagan for such military intervention and de facto the US military occupation of one sovereign and independent state.

The President, based on the CIA reports on the threat posed to the US citizens in Grenada (the students) by the Communist regime, issued the order to the US Marines to invade the island in order to secure their lives. Here we have to remember a very fact of issue how much the CIA reports have been (and are) really accurate and reliable by only two fresh examples: 1)In 1999 Serbia and Montenegro were bombed by the NATO troops (the “Operation Merciful Angel”) exactly based on the CIA information about the organized (the “Operation Horse Shoe”) and well done massive ethnic cleansing of the local Kosovo Albanians (100,000 killed) committed by the Serbian regular army and police forces.

2)In 2003 the US and the UK troops invaded Iraq based also on the CIA reports about possession of the ABC weapons for the

massive destruction by the regime of Saddam Hussein (1937−2006) (the “Operation Desert Storm 2”). However, in both mentioned cases the reports are “proved to be unproved”, i.e. very false.

The fact was that in the 1983 Grenada Case, there were really about 1,000 US citizens in the island, majority of them studying at the local medical school. Citing the alleged danger to the US citizens in Grenada, the President ordered around 2,000 US troops, combined by some international forces from the Regional Security System based in Barbados. The White House claimed that it received a formal request

for military intervention by the PM of Barbados and Dominica (both the US clients). If it is a true, and probably it is, then any state receiving such invitation by the foreign Governments (second states) has right to invade other state (third state) in order to restore the “democratic” order (in the sense of bringing justice) or at least to protect its own citizens.

For instance, following the White House logic from 1983, overthrown legal President of Ukraine V. Yanukovych by the street-mob in 2014 could call the Russian President V. Putin to restore a legal order in whole Ukraine by the Russian army.

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The US President Ronald Reagan with Afghan Taliban (later Al-Qaeda) representatives in the 1980s negotiating American support for their fight against the Soviet troops

In regard to the 2014 Kyiv Coup, according to Paul Craig Roberts, Washington used its funded NGOs ($5 billion according to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at the National Press Club in December 2013) to begin street protests when the elected Ukrainian Government turned down the offer to join the European Union.

Similarly to the Ukrainian coup in 2014, the Guatemala coup in 1954, when democratically elected Government of Jacobo Arbenz became overthrown, was also carried out by the CIA. Following also Reagan’s logic for the military invasion of Grenada in 1983, the Russian President could send a regular army of the Russian Federation to occupy

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Ukraine for the security reasons of Russia’s citizens who were studying at the universities in Kyiv, Odessa or Lvov. Nevertheless, similar Reagan’s argument was used (among others) and by Adolf Hitler in April 1941 to invade and occupy the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as, according to the German intelligence service, the German minority in Yugoslavia (the Volksdeutschers) were oppressed and terrorized by the new (pro-British) Government of General Dušan Simović after the coup in Belgrade committed on March 27th, 1941.

Nonetheless, the fact was that during the intervention in Grenada, the US troops faced military opposition by the Grenadian army relying on minimal intelligence about the situation in the country.

For example, the US military used in this case old tourist maps of the island. Similar “mistake” the NATO did in the 1999 Kosovo Case by bombing the Chinese embassy in the wider center of Belgrade using also outdated tourist map on which a new Chinese embassy did not exist (here we will not comment or argue on credentials of such army and its headquarters to intervene outside of its own home courtyard).

In order to break the Grenadian resistance the “Hollywood” President R. Reagan sent additional 4,000 troops to the island. Finally, an “international coalition” lead by the US troops succeeded to replace the Government of Grenada by one acceptable to the USA. Regardless to the fact that a great part of the Americans did not support the 1983 Grenada Case that it took place only several days after a very disastrous terror act on the US military post in Lebanon when over 240 US troops were killed, calling into very question the use of the US military force in order to achieve the political goals, Reagan’s administration officially proclaimed the case to be the first “rollback” of the Communist influence since the beginning of the Cold War in 1949 (as the US military interventions against the “Communist infection” in Korea and Vietnam have been unsuccessful).

A justification of the military invasion was mainly framed within the idea that the US citizens (students) in Grenada could be taken as the hostages similar to the 1979 Teheran Hostage Crisis.

However, several US Congressmen, like Louis Stoks (Ohio), denied any real danger for any American in Grenada prior to the invasion (that was confirmed and by the students themselves) followed by unsuccessful attempt by seven Democrats in the Congress, led by Ted Weiss, to introduce a resolution to impeach R. Reagan.

Finally, the UN General Assembly with majority votes (108, with only 9 against and 27 abstentions) adopted Resolution 38/7 on October 28th, 1983 which clearly accused the USA for violation of international law ("deeply deplores the armed intervention in Grenada, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of that State").

The 1983 Grenada Case is not for sure either the first or the last “Hollywood-style” violation of the international law and territorial sovereignty of some independent state by the US (or other) administration. But it is sure that it was done by the order of up today the only “Hollywood” cowboy-actor star in the office of White House in Washington as according to the US Constitution, Arnold Schwarzenegger does not have right to run for the post of the US President as he was not born on the US territory.

Finally, if you think that the 1983 Grenada Case has nothing common with the 2014 Crimean Case, you are absolutely right.

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The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond JULIA SwEET

Editor PhD Candidate, Rutgers University, NJ

R

esearch on the insurgency and the appearance of local jihadist groups within the North Caucasus after the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been dominated by studies of the uneasy history of Islam under Russian rule, the oppressive post-colonial political rhetoric in handling insurgencies, Chechen wars in the 1990s, and the Russian militaristic counterterrorism approach.

Many studies are devoted to Islamic revival, the spread of radical Islam, Russian war crimes, and human rights violations in Chechnya. Mainly, previous studies failed to track down the evolution of the North Caucasus jihadist insurgency due to their narrow focus.

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A holistic picture demands a multifaceted approach, and in this regard this book provides an alternative view and comprehensive analysis of the situation. The book by Gordon M. Hahn is an attempt to present the modern development of jihadist groups in the North Caucasus as an integral part of the global jihadist phenomenon.

Chapter 1 of this book provides a critical overview of the structuralist approach to the upsurge of jihadism and its theoretical limitations. In particular, the author argues that local socio-political and economic factors such as poverty, unemployment, rigid political order, cannot provide a clear picture on either the upsurge of local or global jihadism.

The widely practiced deep focus on these factors leads, at least, to oversimplification of the situation. Therefore, when doing research, it is important to refer to the models of political revolutions and regime transformations with unique compilations of relevant economic, political, cultural, ideological and other determinants.

According to the author, the revolutionary situation within the Islamic states leads to a gradual transformation of nationalistic movements into jihadist local branches connected to outside counterparts (Al-Qaeda, etc.).

“The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond” Gordon M. Hahn, 2014.

This dramatically changes the nature of local Islamic groups and opens up new opportunities for them. Being a part of a global revolutionary movement, local movements get access to a socalled jihadist collective experience that embraces ideological, organizational, and structural facets, including theo-ideology, charismatic authority, effective guidance (methodology and cadres), and an organizational pattern.

Applying these theoretical models to the North Caucasus issue, this book indicates that disregarding crucial factors - ideology, political contingency and operationalizing factors, have to be accounted and analyzed.

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THE bOOk bY GORDON M. HAHN IS AN ATTEMPT TO PRESENT THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT Of JIHADIST GROUPS IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS AS AN INTEGRAL PART Of THE GLObAL JIHADIST PHENOMENON

Chapter 2 of this book examines the impact of Al-Qaeda foreign fighters, who moved to the North Caucasus in the 1990s and participated in Chechen wars, on the Chechen insurgency. Through a detailed and well documented history of the connections between Al-Qaeda and the Chechen rebels, the author underlines that the main purpose of Al-Qaeda was to spread its influence over these new territories and develop jihadism.

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya (ChRI) became Al-Qaeda’s partner, spreading its jihadi ideology and fighting strategies within the region. The chapter concludes that this close connection and the infiltration of foreign fighters altered the nature of the Chechen national separatist movement, replacing its nationalistic and secular agenda with a jihadist one.

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Chapters 3 – 5 scrutinize the Caucasus Emirate, which can be considered a successor of the ChRI, and its organizational hierarchy, cadres, ideological foundation, conducted operations, and jihadist strategies in light of its connection with Al-Qaeda and its integration with the global jihadi movement from October 2007 to 2011. The book stresses many Muslims from the North Caucasus received religious education abroad after the fall of the USSR, which accelerated and facilitated the adaptation of the jihadist ideology. In particular, Astemirov, Buryatskii, and Vagabov’s activities had the most profound impact in this regard.

Chapters 6-9 reveal the logic of the CE’s development in other Muslim areas of the Russian Federation such as Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino- Balkariya, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.

To be accustomed to the jihadist ideology, this organization announced global goals, declaring war against Western civilization.

The CE’s ideological metamorphosis resulted in significant alterations in tactical approach, which included shifting to suicide bombing, targeting civilians, and even the usage of WMD. The growing role of this organization in global terrorist operations, especially in Europe, which has a big immigrant community from the North Caucasus, is underlined in chapter 10 of this book. Thus, the chapters emphasize that this organization as a part of the global jihadist movement became extremely dangerous not only for the national security of the Russian Federation, but for the stability of the entire world community.

Chapter 11 serves as a summary for the author’s pivotal conclusions about the nature of the North Caucasus movement and its evolution.

This book is very informative, detailed, and well structured, and undoubtedly provides an essential contribution to the field. Its critical engagement with the structuralist approach and acquaintance with the different trends of academic research make this book an interesting read for scholars, professionals, policy makers, students, as well as concerned individuals.

Nonetheless, for a better understanding of the presented ideas, it is important to read Gordon M. Hahn’s previous book “Russia's Islamic Threat”, 2007.

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