Europe After Paris

In the face of the Paris terrorist attack, European officials seem on the verge of making some mad decisions (in every sense of the word, “mad”).

The need to respond to the attack with forceful measures is unquestionable.  However, there are appropriate and inappropriate responses.  Inappropriate responses will lead to failure, and failure is within our grasp if we are not careful.

For instance, Jacques Attali’s analogy that joining forces with Russia to fight terrorism is equivalent to joining forces to win WWII is false.  Joining forces was necessary then to prevent the Axis powers from overwhelming all of Europe.  The terrorist threat is not of the same magnitude, no matter how horrific their actions.  Joining forces with Putin’s Russia when there is no existential threat would undermine European values and authority because it would obscure whether there were limits to what Europe was prepared to tolerate or overlook about Russia’s anti-democratic and despotic government.

More appropriate measures would be the following:

A commitment to a principled response to terrorism and the immigrant crisis that reflects fundamental European values along the lines of those expressed by Angela Merkel, including openness to people who are prepared to share Europe’s values and live within its laws and humane treatment of immigrants who are fleeing intolerable conditions in their countries of origin, as well as zero tolerance for extremism directed at harming individuals or groups who are viewed as different.

Distinguishing between terrorism and the immigrant crisis.  Immigrants are victims of terrorism—at the moment most are the victims of Syrian President Assad’s tyranny.   They do not bring with them the virus of extremism.  Stopping immigrants will not end terrorism because the overwhelming majority of immigrants are decent but desperate people.  Extremists exist and will attempt to enter Europe whether there are immigrants or not.  Moreover, many of the terrorists are Europeans—not just immigrant Europeans who can be distinguished from “other Europeans” by appearance or personal background.  There may be some reasonable measures that can be taken to bring order to the flow of immigrants into Europe and weed out high-risk individuals but the latter should be carried out with extreme care under a well-thought out policy that does not oppress innocent individuals or groups.

Not allowing the political right in Europe to define the problem, especially based on an anti-immigrant basis.  Immigrants are not terrorists.  Muslims are not terrorists.  Extremists are terrorists.  The West must strike at the source of the threat by attacking the conditions that breed extremism in its countries of origin, including in Europe.

Legislating new penalties that address terrorism.  Europe needs to overhaul its laws against those that support terrorists, including those that travel to meet with or learn from terror organizations and those that teach or endorse extremism in Europe or elsewhere or those that fund or receive funding from terrorist organizations (including in some cases Europe’s own far right and left when these espouse violence against groups different than themselves).

Not collaborating with Russia on Russia's terms.  Russia under Putin is a rogue state.  It is no more trustworthy or legitimate then the terrorists.  In fact, Putin’s purpose is the same as the terrorists, to disrupt or collapse the Western-lead international order.  Blogger Ariana Gic Perry said it very well; “Partnering with Putin legitimizes his dictatorship and sacrifices the rights and freedoms of Russians and the lives of Ukrainians.”  And, I would add, the rights and lives of all democratically-minded people elsewhere.

In particular, Russia should not have a voice in defining the objectives or methods against terrorism.  If Russia wants to be partner with the West against terrorism, it should contribute to the existing coalition-lead process to oust Assad and form a stable administration in Syria until a new government and civil order can be established.  Russia, if it choses, could be one partner among many if it is prepared to behave within the bounds of acceptable international statecraft.  If Russia wants to be useful, it should convince Assad to step down, it should police its own borders in the Caucasus to halt the flow of fighters (and material) into Syria, and it could accept many of the immigrants escaping the Syria conflict.

The Russian Doping Scandal

A Doping Travesty Russia Cannot Duck http://nyti.ms/1kRzEih

Russia's president, government and media lie.  Such is their reputation that if they were to announce that the sky is blue, it would have to be independently validated before it could be believed.  Russia's moral authority is in tatters and its civil society is deeply eroded by pervasive corruption.  The shocking scope of Russia's doping scandal reflects this profound crisis in Russian society.  It is worthwhile though to remember that the evidence of official Russian deceit in the Ukraine crisis and the doping scandal has come from courageous individual Russians.  

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This One Is For The Russia Conspiracy Buffs

Not that I am saying that the following is so, but, if #Putin believes, as widely reported, that the West, led by the US, wants to destroy Russia or reduce it to an impoverished state selling primary resources to the advanced Western economies, what is Putin prepared to do to save #Russia?

We already know that he will go to great lengths.  He has plunged Russia into an economic and international relations crisis by seizing Crimea, invading eastern Ukraine, threatening other countries, and launching his own military campaign in Syria, because he believes Russia is under threat from the West.  He is prepared to act aggressively, if not rashly, to stave off what he believes is a threat to Russia’s existence.  We also know he will strike out in unexpected ways, using force, threats, lies, deception and subterfuge to force outcomes on his own terms.  Certainly, he has shown he is prepared to take risks beyond the West’s expectations.

Is the Western threat real?  Putin feels entitled to think so.  The expansion of NATO, the two Iraq wars, the US-led UN intervention in the Balkans, and Western support for “democratic” revolutions in Libra, Egypt, Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, suggest a pattern of engagement directed at something.  Not incidentally, that something undermines Russian clients and expands Western military power into what Russia considers its strategic space. 

Certainly containing Russia seems to be a part of a US strategy.  A recent article in The New Yorker, “How the Bushes Misunderstood Cheney”, discusses how Vice President Cheney “tilted away from Mikhail Gorbachev and toward Boris Yeltsin because he believed that Yeltsin would push harder for the dissolution of the Soviet Union.”  The New Yorker reports that the Neoconservatives, who still prowl the corridors of Washington licking their wounds, had been asked by Cheney to prepare a study (led by Paul Wolfowitz) “…calling for the maintenance of a one-superpower world in the post-Soviet era as the core principle of US foreign policy.”

So if Putin believes that Russia’s existence is at stake, what else is he capable of?  His seemingly reckless and impulsive actions and apparent indifference to the harm these have done to Russia, suggest he is capable of more, substantial surprises.

Would recent seemingly unrelated news reports amount to a plausible guess? Let’s see…

One example of such news reports is that Russia is on a “voracious” gold buying spree.  It bought 31 tons of gold in August and 34 tons in September and in October, up from 36.8 tons bought in the entire second quarter of 2015.  Buying gold may make sense as a confidence building measure to support the ruble and to diversify Russia’s reserves away from dependence on the US dollar and the Euro.   But why buy gold now?  Putin has said that the worst of the economic crisis is behind Russia, so what is his concern?  Is the explanation that hoarding gold also makes sense if Putin plans more provocations?  Does he believe that buffering the ruble with gold will insulate Russia from the consequences of those provocations?  What does Putin have in mind?

Another example, on November 12 news services aired a story about plans for a new Russian torpedo equipped with a tactical nuclear warhead that is capable of taking out coastal infrastructure or population centers.  Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict it has been reported that members of Putin’s coterie favor the use of tactical nuclear arms to, for instance, take out a small European city (think, Kyiv or Lviv, or Warsaw) to convince the West that Russia was too dangerous to mess with.  The experience of Chernobyl is supposed to have convinced them that the damage to Russia from a limited nuclear event could be contained.  The “leak” of the nuclear torpedo story gives currency to the risk of a tactical nuclear event if Russia feels threatened.

Or, for example, on October 25, The New York Times and other news services reported that Russian submarines were “aggressively” prowling near the Atlantic underwater cables that carry most of the world’s Internet communications.  Damage to these cables would bring down not only vital global communications but also the Western economies, which are dependent on the flow of information.

Is this just saber rattling, or does Putin plan new provocations?  Does he believe that husbanding gold can insulate the ruble from the financial system consequences of another provocation?  Does Putin believe that a strike--even a substantial one-- on the West’s economic infrastructure is feasible because, if limited, it would not result in a fatal Western response?  Putin certainly has a taste for brinksmanship, and the tepid Western response to his provocations so far has only increased his distain for his opponents.  Does he believe that by delivering blows that incapacitate the West’s ability to respond he can save Russia—perhaps by delivering the blow through proxies that he can disavow, such as jihadists armed with dirty bombs using Russian-supplied materials.  If he believes Russia’s existence is at stake, how far is he prepared to go?

Just saying.

Lost Russian Lives in Sinai

It is hard to believe that a tragedy such as the crash of the Russian commercial passenger plane, Kogalymavia Fight 9268, in Egypt could affect the course of political events in Russia.  Afterall, it is simply an un-looked for tragedy, with a high cost in lives cut short and grief for surviving family members.

However, such is the absorption in Russia with all things Putin that the government’s response to the tragedy could have profound political ramifications.  Especially if the plane was sabotaged by Islamic terrorists, the cost of Putin’s Syrian gambit just rose to 224 innocent Russian and (a few) Ukrainian lives.  Just as the price of Putin’s gambit in eastern Ukraine was the nearly 300 innocent lives lost in the downing of Malaysia Flight MH17 (not counting the thousands killed in the conflict on the ground).

What Putin fears most is that the tragedies in Ukraine or Syria will rebound upon the Russian people because, until now, he has convinced them that these adventures cost them nothing.  At some point, the truth will pierce Putin’s massive deception and all hell will break loose.