Different Russia in Middle East
Ahmed Hany
November 15, 2008
Russia took serious steps to be back in the Mideast. However, the pragmatic Russia is different from the ideological Russia of the Soviet Union. The Russian strategy in the globalization era is different from its old strategy of the bipolar system. The Georgia War proved that Russia is a military rival to the US and NATO but the collective power is something different. Therefore, Russia tries to collect the fruits of Caucasus victory that added to its national security to employ its collective power to have a say both now and in the future multipolar system.
When the US´ strategic steps to encircle Russia aiming at bringing the bear to its knees so that it could use its power unconditionally against China went too far, the Russian responded aggressively and more or less, they achieved their goal. After the Georgian War, the Russians sent their navy to Latin America while stressing on that they do not want another Cold War. Then they came to the Mideast after they successfully stroke some arrangement in Central Asia. This is called ´Approach-The-Enemy´ strategy to meet him midway. In fact, this strategy is derived from the Russian Global Strategy.
The goals of the Russia global strategy are, breaking the encircling of the Russian homeland. The second goal is having a high level of control over oil and gas, especially when it comes to supplies to the EU. The third goal is to have a good share in African investments and resources. The fourth goal is having a good share in global markets. The fifth goal is having a good share of arms sales. The final aim is employing all the previous goals to have a say in the expected US-EU-Russian partnership.
´Approaching-The-Enemy´ strategy needs military presence in overseas and in particular Latin America and Mideast. To break encircling the Russian homeland some sort of military agreements and presence of powerful destructive force near the US and its interests are vital. That is why Russia will send its navy to Syria, Yemen, Libya and Venezuela and sold arms to these countries.
What is more important is the presence in Libya helps to extend its presence to Africa. The presence in Yemen makes Russia able to pose threats to oil supplies from the Gulf. Yet to have a comfortable presence in Africa Russia needs to have some sort of cooperation and partnership with Egypt, South Africa and Morocco. This clears the aims of last year visit of Putin to Morocco and South Africa and the economic cooperation accords with these countries. It is known that Egyptian-Russian relations are improving steadily. It is declared that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will visit Moscow in November 2008 to discuss economic cooperation.
The pragmatic Russia has some constraints and limitations in its relations with Mideast countries. Militarily, whatsoever Russia does in the Mideast it will not confront the US or NATO in an open conflict. Moreover, when President Bashar Al-Asad visited Russia to buy arms, President Medevedv declared that Russian arms sales would not change the military balance in the Mideast. On the other hand, the presence of a Russian base in Tartus needs advanced Air Defence in general. These equipments could alienate the Israeli warplanes if and only if defending Syria became a part of the Russian global strategy and doing this serves the Russian goals. Therefore, the military balance in the Middle East is agreed and imposed by superpowers.
Economically, Russia cannot afford giving arms free or giving big loans as the ex-Soviet Union did. Russians are willing to upgrade their economic cooperation and they may help in upgrading industries through investment. This needs fine adjustment of the economic cooperation that Russia could help. Building nuclear plants is a good field of cooperation between Arab countries and Russia. Russia of course has the expertise and is willing to do so. Moreover, the American credibility to provide unclear help to the Mideast is not so high because the congress always responds to lobbies´ pressures and blocks some agreements after signing them, using human rights, democracy or any other thing to reason their causes.
The relations between Russia and the Arab and Islamic countries did not face frank animosity. Russia does not mix between Islam and terrorism the way the Western Media and some Western States did. The Russian Moslems constitute about 20% of the population. Russia confronts extremism whether it is Islamic or from the Neo Nazis. Russia joined the Islamic Organization and last week the Fourth Strategic Dialogue between Russia and the Islamic Countries was held in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Both Russia and Arab countries have common interests in many issues. First, both consider nuclear Israel as a threat. In fact, both call for nuclear weapons free Mideast. Russia and Arabs do not agree to a nuclear-armed Iran but support it rights to use the nuclear power for civilian purposes. Both Russia and Gulf States have an interest to develop cooperation to price oil and gas fairly.
There is a high probability that the new American Administration and Iran would open dialogue that might include Israel in a later stage. Both Russia and the Arabs may see this dialogue contradicting their interests if the US gave Iran a wider influence space from the Gulf to Lebanon for a direct security cooperation that may threat Russia. Personally, I will not be astonished when this happens because Iran helped the Americans to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq as a part of its strategy to downplay Sunni States influences. Iran warned the West against the Saudi mediation between the Afghani government and Taliban. Hence, there is a deep and wide gap between different policies in Central Asia. It is the right of Iran to improve and develop its relations with any superpower. However, this should not harm its neighbors´ interests.
Russia is one of the international Quartet that calls for a lasting settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the Two-States solution. It arranges for a conference in 2009 to follow up negotiations between the two parts.
The Russian return to the Mideast is not tactic as it is part of its global strategy. Hence, balanced relations between the US, EU and Russia serve best the interests of the region. Any new confrontation in the region will create more problems. While the Libyan Leader Qaddafi was in Moscow to discuss economic, military and nuclear deals, his country paid 1.5 billion dollars to settle compensation case with the West.
However, there are opportunities to achieve national goals if Arabs used their collective power intelligently. Investment in Russia provides an alternative to the frozen money in the American Banks. This makes the Americans think twice before freezing their assets in the future. The Arabs should ask the Quartet a frank question about negotiations. For how long should they negotiate and what if negotiations failed? Through this question and the answers of the US, EU and Russia they will have a better view about cooperation and developing relations. Moreover if the existent military balance is against deals what would the superpowers including Russia do? Superpowers should know that Egypt could break their imposed frozen situation of no-peace-no-war in October 1973 under more unfavorable military imbalance.
If the superpowers knew that Arabs would utilize all resources to achieve their goals their views would change. The US should know that time of the unipolar power has gone and to keep alliance with the Arabs, it needs another views and the Arabs would develop their relations with Russia because at last US, EU and Russia would be partners. If the Arabs did well for the future, they would have a better future. If they stayed and cried about conspiracies against them, they would make a joke of themselves. The world would stop laughing at us when we stop deceiving ourselves.
When the US´ strategic steps to encircle Russia aiming at bringing the bear to its knees so that it could use its power unconditionally against China went too far, the Russian responded aggressively and more or less, they achieved their goal. After the Georgian War, the Russians sent their navy to Latin America while stressing on that they do not want another Cold War. Then they came to the Mideast after they successfully stroke some arrangement in Central Asia. This is called ´Approach-The-Enemy´ strategy to meet him midway. In fact, this strategy is derived from the Russian Global Strategy.
The goals of the Russia global strategy are, breaking the encircling of the Russian homeland. The second goal is having a high level of control over oil and gas, especially when it comes to supplies to the EU. The third goal is to have a good share in African investments and resources. The fourth goal is having a good share in global markets. The fifth goal is having a good share of arms sales. The final aim is employing all the previous goals to have a say in the expected US-EU-Russian partnership.
´Approaching-The-Enemy´ strategy needs military presence in overseas and in particular Latin America and Mideast. To break encircling the Russian homeland some sort of military agreements and presence of powerful destructive force near the US and its interests are vital. That is why Russia will send its navy to Syria, Yemen, Libya and Venezuela and sold arms to these countries.
What is more important is the presence in Libya helps to extend its presence to Africa. The presence in Yemen makes Russia able to pose threats to oil supplies from the Gulf. Yet to have a comfortable presence in Africa Russia needs to have some sort of cooperation and partnership with Egypt, South Africa and Morocco. This clears the aims of last year visit of Putin to Morocco and South Africa and the economic cooperation accords with these countries. It is known that Egyptian-Russian relations are improving steadily. It is declared that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will visit Moscow in November 2008 to discuss economic cooperation.
The pragmatic Russia has some constraints and limitations in its relations with Mideast countries. Militarily, whatsoever Russia does in the Mideast it will not confront the US or NATO in an open conflict. Moreover, when President Bashar Al-Asad visited Russia to buy arms, President Medevedv declared that Russian arms sales would not change the military balance in the Mideast. On the other hand, the presence of a Russian base in Tartus needs advanced Air Defence in general. These equipments could alienate the Israeli warplanes if and only if defending Syria became a part of the Russian global strategy and doing this serves the Russian goals. Therefore, the military balance in the Middle East is agreed and imposed by superpowers.
Economically, Russia cannot afford giving arms free or giving big loans as the ex-Soviet Union did. Russians are willing to upgrade their economic cooperation and they may help in upgrading industries through investment. This needs fine adjustment of the economic cooperation that Russia could help. Building nuclear plants is a good field of cooperation between Arab countries and Russia. Russia of course has the expertise and is willing to do so. Moreover, the American credibility to provide unclear help to the Mideast is not so high because the congress always responds to lobbies´ pressures and blocks some agreements after signing them, using human rights, democracy or any other thing to reason their causes.
The relations between Russia and the Arab and Islamic countries did not face frank animosity. Russia does not mix between Islam and terrorism the way the Western Media and some Western States did. The Russian Moslems constitute about 20% of the population. Russia confronts extremism whether it is Islamic or from the Neo Nazis. Russia joined the Islamic Organization and last week the Fourth Strategic Dialogue between Russia and the Islamic Countries was held in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Both Russia and Arab countries have common interests in many issues. First, both consider nuclear Israel as a threat. In fact, both call for nuclear weapons free Mideast. Russia and Arabs do not agree to a nuclear-armed Iran but support it rights to use the nuclear power for civilian purposes. Both Russia and Gulf States have an interest to develop cooperation to price oil and gas fairly.
There is a high probability that the new American Administration and Iran would open dialogue that might include Israel in a later stage. Both Russia and the Arabs may see this dialogue contradicting their interests if the US gave Iran a wider influence space from the Gulf to Lebanon for a direct security cooperation that may threat Russia. Personally, I will not be astonished when this happens because Iran helped the Americans to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq as a part of its strategy to downplay Sunni States influences. Iran warned the West against the Saudi mediation between the Afghani government and Taliban. Hence, there is a deep and wide gap between different policies in Central Asia. It is the right of Iran to improve and develop its relations with any superpower. However, this should not harm its neighbors´ interests.
Russia is one of the international Quartet that calls for a lasting settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the Two-States solution. It arranges for a conference in 2009 to follow up negotiations between the two parts.
The Russian return to the Mideast is not tactic as it is part of its global strategy. Hence, balanced relations between the US, EU and Russia serve best the interests of the region. Any new confrontation in the region will create more problems. While the Libyan Leader Qaddafi was in Moscow to discuss economic, military and nuclear deals, his country paid 1.5 billion dollars to settle compensation case with the West.
However, there are opportunities to achieve national goals if Arabs used their collective power intelligently. Investment in Russia provides an alternative to the frozen money in the American Banks. This makes the Americans think twice before freezing their assets in the future. The Arabs should ask the Quartet a frank question about negotiations. For how long should they negotiate and what if negotiations failed? Through this question and the answers of the US, EU and Russia they will have a better view about cooperation and developing relations. Moreover if the existent military balance is against deals what would the superpowers including Russia do? Superpowers should know that Egypt could break their imposed frozen situation of no-peace-no-war in October 1973 under more unfavorable military imbalance.
If the superpowers knew that Arabs would utilize all resources to achieve their goals their views would change. The US should know that time of the unipolar power has gone and to keep alliance with the Arabs, it needs another views and the Arabs would develop their relations with Russia because at last US, EU and Russia would be partners. If the Arabs did well for the future, they would have a better future. If they stayed and cried about conspiracies against them, they would make a joke of themselves. The world would stop laughing at us when we stop deceiving ourselves.
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