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1. Five Long-Term Challenges for NATO beyond the Ukraine Crisis

Author:
Karl-Heinz Kamp
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Moscow's aggression against Ukraine has truly been a “game changer” for the Atlantic Alliance. Its implications for NATO's further evolution can hardly be over-estimated and after the likely shoot-down of a Malaysian civil aircraft over Ukrainian territory, controlled by pro-Russian rebels, the situation is even more unpredictable. Even if the catastrophe has put heavy political pressure on President Putin to reduce Russian involvement in Ukraine, Moscow is still not likely to revert the annexation of the Crimean peninsula. As a result, the crisis will dominate the international security debate for a long time to come. Thus, signs of resolve directed at Russia, measures to reassure the NATO members in Eastern Europe and indications of further cooperation with Ukraine will rank very high on the agenda of the NATO summit in Wales in September 2014. With the draw-down of the operation in Afghanistan, some Allies tend to see NATO's future role as primarily to preserve the territorial integrity of its member states. Hence, they argue in favour of a “back to basics” approach with an Alliance concentrated on its defence mission, according to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, and International Security
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Malaysia, Ukraine, Asia, and Moscow

2. NATO Enlargement and Russia: Die-Hard Myths and Real Dilemmas

Author:
Michael Ruhle
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
The crisis in Ukraine, which culminated in Russia's annexation of the Crimea, marks a new low in NATO-Russia relations. While this relationship had been deteriorating for quite some time, Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis revealed a geopolitical agenda that caught many observers by surprise. In the course of just a few weeks Russia clearly emerged as a revisionist power, behaving in a manner reminiscent of the "predatory nation-states from the 19th century" and changing borders by force in order to deny a neighbouring country the choice to determine its own alignments.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Asia, and Moscow

3. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Author:
Stephen Blank
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The SCO grew out of a Chinese initiative (hence its name) from the late 1990s that brought together all the states that had emerged from the Soviet Union in 1991 and signed bilateral border-delimiting treaties with China: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In 2001, these states and Uzbekistan formally created the SCO. Since then it has added observer states—Mongolia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Pakistan—and dialogue partners—Turkey, Belarus, and Sri Lanka. The SCO's original mandate seemingly formulated it as a collective security organization pledged to the defense of any member threatened by secession, terrorism, or extremism—for example, from Islamic militancy. This pre-9/11 threat listing reflected the fact that each member confronted restive Muslim minorities within its own borders. That threat may indeed be what brought them together since China's concern for its territorial integrity in Xinjiang drives its overall Central Asian policy. Thus, the SCO's original charter and mandate formally debarred Central Asian states from helping Uyghur Muslim citizens fight the repression of their Uyghur kinsmen in China. Likewise, the charter formally precludes Russian or Chinese assistance to disaffected minorities in one or more Central Asian states should they launch an insurgency. In practice the SCO has refrained from defense activities and followed an idiosyncratic, even elusive, path; it is an organization that is supposed to be promoting its members' security, yet it is difficult to see what, if anything, it actually does. Officially published accounts are of little help in assessing the SCO since they confine themselves to high-flown, vague language and are short on specifics. We see from members' actual behavior that they primarily rely on bilateral ties with Washington, Beijing, or Moscow, or on other multilateral formations like the Russian-organized Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), itself an organization of questionable effectiveness. Therefore, this essay argues that the SCO is not primarily a security organization. Rather, it provides a platform and regulatory framework for Central Asian nations to engage and cope with China's rise and with Sino-Russian efforts to dominate the area. As such, it is attractive to small nations and neighboring powers but problematic for Russia and the United States. Analyzing the SCO's lack of genuine security provision, its membership expansion considerations, and Russia's decline in power will help clarify the organization's current and future roles.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, United States, China, Iran, Washington, Central Asia, India, Shanghai, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Beijing, Tajikistan, Soviet Union, and Moscow

4. Politics of Two Anniversaries

Author:
Yu Bin
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The summer of 2011 marked two anniversaries for China and Russia. In June, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) celebrated its 10th anniversary at the annual SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. Over the past 10 years, the regional security group has grown fed by its “twin engines” of Russia and China. Immediately following the SCO Summit, President Hu Jintao traveled to Moscow, marking the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Friendship Treaty between Russia and China. There was much to celebrate as Moscow, Beijing, and the SCO have achieved stability, security, and sustained economic development in a world riddled with revolutions, chaos, crises, and another major economic downturn. The two anniversaries were also a time to pause and think about “next steps.” While the SCO is having “growing pains,” China and Russia have elevated their “strategic partnership relations” to a “comprehensive strategic cooperation and partnership.”
Topic:
Security and Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Moscow

5. Russia's New Nobility: The Rise of the Security Services in Putin's Kremlin

Author:
Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In December 2000, Nikolai Patrushev, who had succeeded Vladimir Putin as director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), gave an interview to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. He described the FSB's personnel: "Our best colleagues, the honor and pride of the FSB, don't do their work for the money," he said. "They all look different, but there is one very special characteristic that unites all these people, and it is a very important quality: It is their sense of service. They are, if you like, our new 'nobility.'"Over the last decade in Russia, the FSB, the modern successor to the Soviet secret police, the KGB, has been granted the role of the new elite, enjoying expanded responsibilities and immunity from public oversight or parliamentary control. The FSB's budget is not published; the total number of officers is undisclosed. But even cautious estimates suggest that the FSB employs more than 200,000 people. For ten years, Putin, a KGB and FSB veteran himself, has held power in the Kremlin as president and now prime minister. He has made the FSB the main security service in Russia, permitting it to absorb much of the former KGB and granting it the right to operate abroad, collect information, and carry out special operations. When Putin was elected president, in 2000, the Russian secret services were in an extremely difficult position. They had been left behind in the mad rush to market reforms and democracy of the 1990s, and their ranks had thinned due to the lure of big money in Russia's new capitalist economy. Those who remained faced daunting and dispiriting new challenges: the festering war in Chechnya and the resulting rise of terrorism in Moscow and other cities far from the Chechen battlefield. FSB officers faced pressures of corruption that far exceeded those of Soviet times. The organization also suffered from deep public distrust, a legacy of both the repression carried out by the Soviet KGB and the chaotic first decade of Russia's post-Soviet experience.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Russia and Moscow

6. Russian Geopolitical Power in the Black and Caspian Seas Region: Implications for Turkey and the World

Author:
Marat Terterov, John Van Pool, and Sergiy Nagornyy
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Exerting influence in the wider Black and Caspian Seas region is becoming a crucial element in Russia's current geopolitical strategy. Energy and security are two of Moscow's primary concerns relating to the region. Turkey, the EU, and the United States, as well as international energy companies will have to be aware of the operational instruments which Moscow has been deploying as part of its geopolitical strategy in the region, which include: 1) inserting itself into the domestic political affairs of its post-Soviet neighbors; 2) simultaneously acting as a crisis mediator/peacekeeper and fostering regional tension to provoke further crisis; 3) behaving as the regional “strong man” in the name of protecting Russian minorities; 4) strengthening energy ties with other former-Soviet Republics in the region; and 5) striking bilateral commercial deals with select Western corporate partners and governments. The deployment of such instruments will ensure that Moscow's approach to regional geopolitics will remain purposefully unpredictable and full of intrigue, and will invariably continue to take other regional actors by surprise.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Turkey, Soviet Union, and Moscow

7. Abkhazia on Three Wheels

Author:
Alexander Cooley and Lincoln Mitchell
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
World Policy Journal
Institution:
World Policy Institute
Abstract:
SUKHUMI—The land between Georgia and this breakaway region represents a tense coda to a short war and a tenuous peace, a tribute to the fragile nature of such territories. Here, the frontier post is considered an international border by the Abkhaz and is patrolled by Abkhaz troops. Russian forces are camped nearby. After Russia and Georgia's brief war in 2008, Moscow recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia's declarations of independence. Since then, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have, with the Kremlin's support, lobbied for others' recognition but have, for the most part, failed. The territories are internationally isolated and increasingly dependent on Russia for security, hence the Russian troops. A steady stream of tired residents from Gali, an ethnic region on the Abkhaz side of the checkpoint, cross this frontier with shopping bags filled with goods for trade. By an unfortunate confluence of geography and politics, they are caught in between.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Russia and Moscow

8. Rights and Responsibilities in Cyberspace: Balancing the Need for Security and Liberty

Author:
Jody R. Westby, Henning Wegener, and William Barletta
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
Cyber war has become the drumbeat of the day. Nation-states are developing national strategies, creating offensive and defensive cyber war capabilities, conduct-ing cyber reconnaissance missions, and engaging in cyber attacks, all with alarming frequency. What is blatantly apparent is that far more financial resources and intel-lectual capital are being spent figuring out how to conduct cyber warfare than are being spent figuring out how to prevent it. The lack of international dialogue and activity with respect to the containment of cyber warfare is simply stunning. As Winston Churchill famously noted, “It is bet-ter to jaw-jaw than to war-war.” It is time for governments to begin discussions aimed at assuring an agreed-upon level of geo-cyber stability through mutual cooperation and international law.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and War
Political Geography:
Moscow and Brussels

9. Building a Strategic U.S.-Pakistan Nuclear Relationship

Author:
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
On april 12-13, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama hosted the Washington Nuclear Security Summit. The final communiqué released from the summit, and agreed to by the 47 countries in attendance, stated that “nuclear terrorism is one of the most challenging threats to international security, and strong nuclear security measures are the most effective means to prevent terrorists, criminals, or other unauthorized actors from acquiring nuclear materials.”With this commitment, the bar has been raised for all countries to reassess their current levels of engagement with one another in an effort to achieve a greater level of nuclear security. As President Obama stated in Prague in April 2009, “one nuclear weapon exploded in one city—be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad, or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague—could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the consequences might be—for our global safety, our security, our society, our economy, to our ultimate survival.”
Topic:
Security and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Washington, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Mumbai, and Islamabad

10. Afghanistan: A View from Moscow

Author:
Dmitri V. Trenin and Alexey Malashenko
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The Afghanistan problem has many angles, but a view from the North—the perspective of Russia—has been missing from many previous analyses. The ten-year-long Soviet military involvement in the country is too often dismissed as having little in common with NATO's current mission. The Soviet Union, after all, has failed, and NATO still plans to succeed. For the Russians themselves, the “Afghan syndrome” continues to be very powerful and warns against any new engagement in Afghanistan. While many in Russia still see developments in Afghanistan in a historical context, however, Russia is entwined in a complex web of relationships with the Afghan parties, neighboring states, and the West. Moscow is an important part of the Afghan equation.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, Asia, Soviet Union, and Moscow