The continuation of the Cold War 1.0 or the beginning of the Cold War 2.0 created a number challenges and threats for Europe and for the Russian Federation, in particular.
Nowadays, more and more experts underscore that a new Cold War really exists: some experts claim that the new Cold War is the continuation of the previous one known as the Cold War 1.0 that counterproductively embraced the globe during last century for a quite a long time; while others argue that the new war has acquired a qualitatively new phenomena – in the form of the Cold War 2.0.
The proponents of the second theory argue that the current crisis really has a new dimension that its previous pattern in the form of the Cold War 1.0 vanished in the haze officially in November 1990 when European nations in their Charter for a New Europe signed in Paris solemnly heralded its official end.
Personally, I am of opinion that the Cold War 1.0 has ended in 1990 – at least between major global powers and at least politically. The radical difference between the Cold War 1.0 and 2.0 is that the first one had a global dimension while the second one is actually in a bilateral mode – between the USA and Russia, and NATO and Russia.
But unfortunately, a new Cold War 2.0 emerged in 2014 – or 24 years after the first ended. It is per se a great contemporary challenge for Europe. It appeared very quickly and intentionally, though some real and objective factors have gradually created a solid ground for its rebirth. In spite of the end of the Cold War some 24 years ago, the old dividing lines remain discernible there.
What are these major “old” threats and challenges?
First, vast NATO enlargement took place in the Eastern direction: from the Cold War 1.0 to the beginning of the Cold War 2.0 the number of the Alliance member states has nearly doubled (from 1999 to 2009 12 states or 43% have been added to the list). Moreover, NATO is still committed to its expansion: four more states are in the waiting list, including Georgia and Ukraine. NATO official representative Robert Pzschel has confirmed at the end of October that both Georgia and Ukraine can become full-fledged members of NATO. The new NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during his inauguration ceremony October 1st, 2014 declared that the Alliance signed agreements with Finland and Sweden that would enable it to have even closer cooperation with the Western military bloc.
October 15, 2014, while addressing the Association of the US Army (AUSA) Symposium, the Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel criticized Russia for standing on the doorstep of NATO.1 As if Russia has moved further West in the direction of NATO. But the reality is that on the contrary the alliance from its inception was getting closer to the Russian territory, to Russia’s doorstep. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu says that such statement is a proof that the USA is preparing a scenario for military actions near Russian borders.
Actually, the USA has been always striving to maintain “robust shaping forces forward”, as the US Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work admitted at the Council on Foreign Relations, in Washington, D.C., September 30, 2014, even while Pentagon was fighting two big wars, namely in Iraq and Afghanistan. The term “forces forward” in the US terminology means permanently “forward-stationed forces” at the US bases overseas, and “rotationally forward-deployed forces” scattered around the globe: 80,000 in the Pacific, 20,000 in South Korea, 40,000 under the Central Command, 28,000 in Europe plus in Africa and Latin America, etc. Nowadays, as Chuck Hagel has put it at the AUSA Symposium, the US soldiers either deployed or forward-stationed in nearly 150 locations around the world. Not only on the doorstep of many countries, but really, directly on their soil.
Second, a unilateral withdrawal of the USA from the ABM Treaty in mid 2002 – the treaty that all previous US Administrations have qualified as “a cornerstone of the global strategic stability”.
Third, a decision of the previous and current US Presidents to deploy global ballistic missile defense system aimed at a number of states: the basic stages are December 2002 (Presidential directive on the US “limited” BMDS deployment), February 2005 (creation of the US Joint Functional Command for Integrated Missile Defense), in February 2007 (when the USA officially presented is the details for BMDS in Poland and the Czech Republic), and in September 2009 (Barack Obama’s announcement about the US EPAA BMD plan).
Fourth, the beginning of the first phase of the US European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) implementation in 2011, and launching its preliminary capabilities the same year, continuation of the 2nd phase, and commitment to bring about all four phases till 2022 and beyond.
Fifth, a broad-based decision made in 2010 by Washington to modernize the USair-based tactical nuclear weapons namely B-61 type, including those deployed in four countries in Europe and in the Asian part of Turkey, while enhancing its penetrating capabilities to hit hardened targets.
Sixth, this challenge is linked with the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty orCFE-1 and its adaptive version CFE-1A that ceased to be de facto in 2007 because all NATO participants in these arrangements refused to ratify them and to define a key term “substantial conventional forces”.
Seventh, NATO solidarity with Georgia when it attacked South Ossetia in August 2008 (Operation “Empty Field”).
Eighth, for the first time a creation of the “Chicago triad” – “an appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional and missile defense weapons” at
NATO Summit in Chicago in May 2012 and its confirmation at the recent NATO Summit, held last September in Newport, the UK.And, finally, ninth, when in February 2014 the USA engineered the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine that has empowered an ultra-nationalist and anti-Russian regime in Kiev which has carried out mass war crimes against peaceful citizens in Donbass – de facto and de jure Ukrainian citizens
– by using heavy weapons, including the MRLS “Grad”, “Smerch” and “Uragan”, white phosphorus and cluster bombs prohibited by two international Conventions. The Human Rights Watch acknowledged that in October Ukrainian troops again used cluster bombs against peaceful civilians. These military crime against humanity have already led to nearly 4,000 people killed and 9,000 wounded in Donbass in the last 6 months, as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in its report released October 8th, 2014.
The hostilities ushered in by Kiev created negative results: The Kiev’s aggressive behavior has prompted too many people to flee from the country: 280,000 internally displaced persons moved to the rest of Ukraine, and nearly 900,000 settled in Russia. Despite a ceasefire accord announced in Minsk September 5th and
reiterated September 19th 2014, the Kiev troops are systematically violating the relevant agreements: 330 more people have been killed after the announced ceasefire. After the ceasefire the Kiev’s regular troops and irregular formations have nearly completed their regrouping in the south- east. The Western powers are still acting illegally in a way that encourages Kiev to look for military solutions that can only lead to a dead end.
The cost of Kiev’s military crackdown will weigh heavily on the besieged region of Donetsk and Lugansk, with war damage having been estimated by the freedom fighters in Novorossia by the first week of October at about US $ 1 billion. The figure is very close to Kiev’s own estimates. According to the Ukrainian Government’s figures, it will take about US $ 911 million to rebuild war-hit cities in Donbass. 65% residential buildings and 10% of schools and kindergartens have been destroyed there. No buffer zones have been created by the Ukrainian army with Donbass. 40,000 medium sized enterprises in the region have stopped functioning. The level of unemployment in Ukraine has reached 40% of its workforce. Currently, Ukraine has $ 35-80 billion-worth of external debt. Kiev cannot pay for gas because it spends too much for war against its own people. As the Ukrainian
ex-Primier Julia Timoshemko put it, the post-Maidan corruption has exceeded the level of the pre-Maidan corruption.
Due to the Ukrainian army drive to southeastern regions of the country in April the area still witnessing a severe humanitarian catastrophe, as many citizens have struggled without clean water, electricity and other basic necessities.
A new United Nations report on human rights situation in Ukraine released at the beginning of October says there are continuous violations of international humanitarian law by armed groups and volunteer battalions under control of the 
Ukrainian armed forces. “During the reporting period, international humanitarian law, including the principles of military necessity, distinction, proportionality and precaution continued to be violated by armed groups and some units and volunteer battalions under the control of the Ukrainian armed forces,” the report reads. Fourth mass grave has been found in a village in the eastern Ukraine.
The site was located a couple of days after the OSCE Monitoring Mission confirmed the discovery of three mass burial sites in areas recently abandoned by Kiev forces. In all more than 400 corpses have been found there with severe wounds and shots in the head from point-blank range. Unfortunately, manywell-known European and international NGOs turn a blind eye to the gross violations of the human rights in Ukraine. POWs that are returned by Ukrainian authorities to Donbass are in a very bad physical condition, sometimes without IDs. Kiev frequently arrests innocent people in the streets to show them up as “rebels” and to exchange them as bona fide POWs.
Another challenge related to Ukraine: the Ukrainian authorities still prevent the Malaysian experts to the visit the MH17 crash site in order to conceal the evidence in the area intentionally heavily shelled and plowed by Ukrainian MRLSs soon after the disaster took place July 17th. The challenge is that there is no proper investigation so far. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have prevented all the time not to let international investigation teams to visit the crash site. Kiev still conceals a real truth: its Air Forces deliberately downed the MH17. A Ukrainian tycoon Igor Kolomoiskiy who at the same time is the Governor of Dnepropetrovsk Region recently confessed that namely Ukrainian Armed Forces who initially wanted to destroy another airliner July 17th, ‘unintentionally’ as he put it knocked down Malaysian Boeing 777 with nearly 300 people.
There is yet another factor related to Ukraine: massive spread of fascist and die-hardultra-national ideology hostile to non-Ukrainians and other nations. The major setback in this respect is: the young Ukrainian generation is actively involved in absorbing these ideologies with the advice and consent of the supreme authorities of that country. Glorification of the German Nazi and recognition of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Ukraine which has been accused of war crimes including massive
killings of Jews and Poles in Ukraine, as war veterans are alarming bells for Europe that had suffered immensely during the WWII from Nazi. Unfortunately, no European nation or the USA or Canada have ever denounced such phenomena. It looks like the remedy to combat and eradicate a “fascist virus’ – the remedy produced by the Nuremberg Tribunal held in 1945-1946 – in the present-day environment has become non- effective.
What are the potential implications of all these nine challenges and threats listed above? After 2014 the European security and stability as a whole have actually ceased to be – with no room for amelioration in the immediate and even in a far-away future. That is why the window of opportunity for building even modest trust and confidence in Europe is being definitively a closed chapter in the current European history.
Who is responsible for unleashing the Cold War 2.0 and new threats and challenges?
Western optimism associated with the end of the Cold War 1.0 was too exaggerated. Actually, the “Cold Peace” emerged in Europe between the Cold War 1.0 and the Cold War 2.0. The USA and NATO have mistakenly regarded their military build ups during this period as if they are not seen or are innocent entertainment.
So, the new Cold War is the main challenge and threat for European stability and security. It is intentionally initiated by President Barack Obama for obvious reasons: to increase NATO military expenditures, to create more pro-Western states along the perimeter with the Russian territory, to topple the Russian President, to undermine Russia’s military and economic potential and to ruin European economy and security as its main rival. Unfortunately, all 28 NATO and the EU member-states have seconded his option. Currently such a new war is in full swing.
The EU with all of its Washington leaning has its voice to be heard, has the potential to act independently. This, however, remains almost totally unused. That is very sad, because the EU’s own voice could have added real balance to international discussions and efforts to resolve various problems.
The Cold War 2.0 and its threats and challenges deteriorate the global political, military, economic and financial climate. It is very close to the Russian land. It affects many European nations. It affects the Russian Federation. As Stephen Cohen, an open-mindedAmerican scholar, puts it last summer at the in international gathering in Washington: “The epicenter of the new Cold War is not in Berlin, but on Russia’s borders, in Ukraine, a region absolutely essential in Moscow’s view to its global security and even to its civilization”.
The Cold War 2.0 really has its own new unique challenges and threats that will have a future-oriented impact.
What are new challenges and threats in the arms control?
It has completely frozen arms control process. While during the Cold War 1.0 the USA and the Soviet Union and Russia have reached a number of bilateral and multilateral agreements in arms control domain (7 accords on SOA limitation and reductions, nuclear missiles de-targeting agreements, the INF and the Open Skies Treaties, the CFE Treaty, etc.), nowadays the arms control process between the USA/NATO and Russia has been completely stalled, with no immediate chances for its resurrection. There are 15 unresolved issues between Moscow and Washington – in some areas of a paramount importance. They constitute both threats and challenges for the regional and the global stability.
Amongst them: there is uninterrupted US global missile defense deployment; conversion of the US SSBN (strategic submarines equipped with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles) into SSGN (strategic submarines equipped with cruise missiles); there is no desire of the USA to count SOA (strategic offensive arms) warheads stored in active reserve; the USA has dismissed proposals to control long-range nuclear-tipped SLCM (sea- launched cruise missiles); the USA still has tactical nuclear weapons in Europe – outside its territory; the USA has no intention to proliferate INCSEA accord(incidents-at-sea-prevention agreement) on strategic nuclear-powered submarines (12 collisions have been recorded so far between American and Soviet/Russiannuclear-powered submarines); the USA still has an offensive nuclear doctrine based upon general nuclear deterrence and extended nuclear deterrence – with the first nuclear strike provisions in the form of preventive and preemptive strikes; there is no US intention to draft a qualitatively new CFE (CFE-2); there is no US wish to reach accord on PAROS (prevention of arms emplacement in the outer space); the USA has no plans to sign ASAT accord (anti-satellite agreement); the USA is violating of the INF Treaty by testing missile defense interceptors by using medium-range (1,000-5,500 km) and “intermediate- range” ballistic missiles (3,000-5,500 km); the USA and NATO are conducting Air Force Operation “Baltic Air Policing” during 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with DCA(dual-capable aircraft) that can carry nuclear free- fall bombs; Washington still deviates from the ratification of the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) – 18 years have elapsed since it was signed; the USA has no wish to limit armed UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and still uses them against civilians, especially in Pakistan, Afghanistan and
other nations, and finally, the USA has no desire to enforce ceilings on hypersonic conventional weapons with pin-point accuracy to be launched under the “Prompt Global Strike” strategy.
The following new threats and challenges will prevail in many years to come, if they are not contained.
In nuclear forces: The USA will completely replace its SOA traditional triad – it will create new ICBMs, new SLBMs and new heavy strategic bombers. Their warheads will be modernized. New fuel for updated ICBMs will be developed, thrust power for the newly-builtICBMs and SLBMs engines will be enhanced and their target hitting accuracy increased. The Pentagon plans to develop a new long-range ALCM and to convert extra SSBNs into SSGNs (4 “Ohio” class submarines have been already converted). There are far-reachingintentions inside the Pentagon to modernize SOA assets till the end of the current century, and TNW at least till 2075.
In missile defense: currently the US Navy has 30 “Aegis”- capable combat ships, some of them are deployed on a permanent basis in the Black and Mediterranean Seas as well as in the Baltic and Barents Seas. In 2015 the US BMD operational complexes will be launched in Romania, and in 2018 – in Poland. The Pentagon wishes to bring about the EPAA beyond 2030. No doubt, the US BMD program will go on indefinitely. At the latest NATO Summit in Wales its leaders have encouraged more states to join the BMD project. But, if the number of the US strategic interceptors exceeds the number of SOA launchers the already fragile global stability will weaken further, because it will increase a temptation to deliver the first nuclear strike and to protect the attacker with the BMD “shield”.
In conventional forces: Possessing totally 24,000 combat aircraft and 800 blue- water naval vessels, NATO at its latest Summit in Newport last September has announced its intention to enhance its combat capabilities of the forward- deployed forces, especially in the areas adjacent to the Russian borders. The Summit approved the
Readiness Action Plan that will enable the transatlantic military bloc “to respond even faster to fast-moving crises”. NATO will maintain a continuous presence and activity in the Eastern part of the Alliance, on a rotational basis. Its air patrols over three Baltic nations (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) and naval deployments in the Baltic and Black Sea will be expanded. Rotation of forces throughout Eastern Europe for exercises will also acquire a routine pattern. NATO will set up the Spearhead Force – so that its troops stand ready to deploy “within days”. Next February NATO defense ministers will agree on the design, the composition and the size of the Spearhead Force.
The USA has opened 8 new military bases in Europe: including 2 Naval bases in Bulgaria and Romania, and 6 Air-Force bases in Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland. 2 new NATO C3 I centers will be opened in Poland and Lithuania. The USA uses European landmasses for deployment of its BMDS alongside with the NATO enlargement further East. Two more BMDS bases will be opened soon– in Romania and Poland. Undoubtedly, these bases or any others will be automatically targeted by the Russian BMDS and other weapon systems.
Deterioration of Russia’s relationship with the NATO alliance, particularly regarding the Ukraine crisis, has made too obvious the inability of the alliance to change its geneticmilitary-political code it embedded during the Cold War 1.0 era. NATO military capabilities’ build up in the vicinity of the Russian land and Russian shores can be qualified as the demonstration of hostile intentions and as the scheme for provocative power projection. It is NATO that really moved on Russia’s doorstep.
One more challenge: hostile accusations and war-flagging rhetoric
Hostile statements coming from the White House and addressed to Russia, like “to teach it a lesson”, “Russia will pay a huge price for its military intervention into Ukraine”, “annexation of Crimea”, and, finally, that Russia ranks second place between Ebola disease and “Islamic State”, as Barack Obama put it at the recent UN General Assembly session in September 2014 are completely unfounded. Vladimir Putin’s response to this was in a clear-cut form: together with the sanctions against entire sections of the Russian economy, this approach can be called “nothing but hostile”.
Moscow has never launched any military intervention either in Crimea or in Donbass though there have been many voices to send Russian military contingents in Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (16%). As for Crimea, Russian troops were stationed there a long time ago before the Crimean Republic decided to reunite with Russia – they have stayed there under several bilateral accords with Ukraine on the Black Sea Fleet division and never exceeded the overall limit of 25,000 men. No single shot was fired in Crimea before it reunited with Russia. Crimea has been (from 1783) and will be the Russian land forever. It will never be returned to anybody as a gift or as incentive to expand “friendly ties”.
Russia will not accept the term “annexation” in this respect. After “annexation” only 3,500 Crimeans decided to move to Ukraine for good. On the other hand, nearly all Ukrainian servicemen in Crimea took oath to serve in the Russian Armed Forces. Its reunification with Russia took place peacefully, as the result of democratic referendum held last March.
For Washington it was the easiest thing to do: to recognize the Crimean reunification with Russia. But among the two states – Ukraine and Russia – Washington unfortunately has chosen a failed, unpredictable, dangerous ultra-nationalistic state, a state whose statements are full lies, a state that steals gas and coal without any payment and does not pay back credits and loans.
As to the developments in Donbass, there is no need to send Russian troops there, simply because the number of freedom fighters operating in the area is sufficient to repel Kiev genocide in the form of “Anti-Terror Operation”. Russia has not occupied an inch of the Ukrainian land, and does not have any intention to do so. True, 10 Russian military men that once lost their way and appeared on the Ukrainian territory. Was it an “aggression”? There was no fighting. All of them have returned to Russia. If it is an “aggression”, what term one might use in case when about 460 Ukrainian servicemen crossed the Russian border in several groups? Is it a “super aggression”?
The dramatic developments in Ukraine have revealed a large-scale crisis in terms of international law, the basic norms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. We see numerous violations of Articles 3, 4, 5, 7 and 11 of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of Article 3 of the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of December 9, 1948.
Unbiased experts are witnessing the application of double standards in the assessment of crimes against the civilian population of southeastern Ukraine, violations of the fundamental human rights to life and personal integrity. People are subjected to torture, to cruel and humiliating punishment, discrimination and illegal rulings.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said on the sidelines of the recent NATO summit in Newport, Wales, that he was promised arms supplies by various NATO countries. So far, five of them openly admitted this, including the USA that have agreed to deliver even lethal arms to Kiev, as the Pentagon official stated October 9th. If so, such deal will be illegal, because it will violate official declarations of the EU and OSCE (of which practically all the NATO states are also members) that expressly prohibit arms supplies to parties involved in a conflict.
Nothing the West can do will change that. Instead of recognizing this reality, the West’s illegal and miscalculated military support for Kiev risks entrenching a regime which will continue to wage the aggressive war on its own people.
Another challenge: economic and financial sanctions
Economic and financial sanctions versus Russia and a number of high- ranking Russian officials outnumber similar restrictive measures imposed upon the Soviet Union in the past, e.g. due to involvement in Afghanistan, or against Russia when Georgia attacked South Ossetia in 2008.
Russia does not understand why these sanctions have been imposed against it. Moscow has done nothing wrong to be punished. But at the same time there is a strong feeling amongst Russians that West’s colonial-style sanctions on Russia have little to do more to resolve the Ukrainian crisis. The true goals of these restrictions are to alter and to reshape Russia, to change its positions on key international issues that are the most fundamental for it, and make it to accept the unacceptable visions of the West. “That is the last century, the past epoch, colonialist thinking linked with inertia”, – said Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Ministry, October 19th. These sanctions are unlikely to divert Russia from its current stance. But the more anti-Russian sanctions are used, the stronger will be moral support of Ukraine from the West in Kiev’s “blundering into a disaster”, as Robert McNamara, the ex- US Defense Secretary, once entitled his famous memoirs.
President Vladimir Putin has recently called the present-day Western economic and financial measures as “full foolishness” and added that they would produce no harm to the state and national social and economic programs. 94% of Russians have said that they are not afraid of any US and the EU sanctions and would tolerate them even if they might have any negative effect. For Russians these sanctions are “not so hot, and not so cold”, as they used to say. Russian Central Bank admitted that Western sanctions have affected only operational activity of some Russian banks, but had no negative impact at all. On the contrary, the trust of clients for “Russia” Bank and SMP Bank that have been included into the sanction list has increased: the deposits went up by 20%.
Sanctions are already undermining the foundations of world trade, the WTO rules and the principle of inviolability of private property.
Sanctions will not produce a deep-seated effect on Russia’s economy as their creators have thought. Russia’s industrial output for the last eight months grew by 2,5% (last year, industrial output grew by only 1.5% during the same period). Last year, Russia’s agriculture sector grew by 2.5% during the first eight months of the last year, whereas this year, we had 4.9% growth for the same period of time. This year national budget will have positive surplus more than 1 trillion Roubles or around Euros 200 billion. Russia still posseses US $ 450 billion in gold and hard currency reserves.
On the other hand Western sanctions are as sharp double-edged tools: so far European countries have lost US $ 1 trillion after they imposed sanctions against Russia.
Besides obvious economic consequences, the EU sanctions versus Russia have political implications that are harmful to the Europeans themselves. It is known that sanctions have inflicted to Russia’s economy a certain damage. But at the same time the European economy also has suffered harmful consequences. A number of European companies representing different branches of industry have been cooperating with the Russian business community. After sanctions have been introduced such cooperation became impossible, and the Western partners’ investments into Russia might not come back in the way it has been expected. No doubt, the medium and small businesses that have been oriented directly linked with such cooperation, have suffered most. Naturally, their bankruptcy will entail mass layouts as well. And, as a result, one may witness the growth of unemployment, mass discontent over state policy and lowering of trust amongst the population. During last several years namely in these conditions “the colored revolutions” or “revolutions caused by controlled chaos” have swept many countries. And nowadays, all these represent additional threat to the European security.
Western sanctions are flying as a boomerang. For example, Poland introduced sanctions against Russia and immediately lost huge Russian apples market: every year Poland sold 900,000 tons of apples to Russia or 90% of all its export volume in apples. Currently Russia buys apples from Serbia, New Zealand and South Africa, but not from Poland. Polish apple industry has been ruined by the Poles themselves. Nobody wants to by buy Polish apples for 10 Eurocents per kilogram.
Some Western sanctions look irrelevant, like a sanction against Nikolai, a 10-year son of the Byelorussian President Aleksander Lukashenko or against Russian MP Elena Mizulina who is opposing gay marriage. Some sanctions are simply laughable, like a sanction versus a horse from a stable belonging to the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. 2
The USA and European nations who have used the mechanism of sanctions will find it difficult to recover from reputational damage inflicted by their own sanctions. Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund said October 9, 2014: “While the impact of the conflict in Ukraine has been relatively contained to date, further escalation could generate significant negative spillovers, both regionally and globally.”
A new package of the US sanctions versus Russia is a primitive attempt to revenge at a time when the situation in Ukraine is not developing along the scenario written hastily in Washington. Whatever their scope, it is useless to talk to Russia in the language of sanctions. In the atmosphere of massive anti-Russian sanctions stemming from the West, Moscow has the right to impose uninterruptedly its own sanctions against the USA in every domain in response. But, as you see Moscow has not embarked upon the entire list of sanctions against those nations who have decided to use them first and for nothing special.
Instead of paying all debts it recognizes, Kiev has stockpiled the Stockholm Arbitrary Court with dubious and irrelevant files and launched various sanctions against Russia first. In general terms, one may put a fair question: “How can we talk about the de-escalation the situation in Ukraine while decisions on new sanctions against Russia are introduced almost simultaneously with agreements on the peace process?”
Ukraine still unpaid 11,5 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia and 100.000 tons of coal from Poland. Including a number of previous debts Ukraine owes to Russia totally $ 9,8 billion. It has not returned this money yet. But Russia is not a charity organization to supply Ukraine with gas free of charge or to give money without return. From 1991 to 2014 Russia gave Ukraine nearly $ 200 billion. So, currently Ukraine is a rather risky and dangerous client in the world economy. As Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, has said in October 2014:”I have a feeling that Ukraine is waiting for resolving its own difficulties by all others, but not by itself”.
It would be fair if such sanctions would have been imposed versus current Ukrainian regime for its atrocities against its own citizens, for the fact that Ukraine has never been and will never be as a fair economic and financial counterpart. If Russia, the EU and the USA have imposed sanctions against Ukraine, Kiev would have immediately stopped its massive war crimes in the South-East against its own citizens.
Imposing sanctions is, as a rule, the result of political disagreements. However, the policy of pressure through sanctions is bearing an exclusively counter-productive nature. When sanctions are imposed, there will be no winners. In this particular case Russia is located in one camp, and the USA, Europe and the other pro-Western states are occupying the other. Obviously, somebody will suffer most, and others will suffer less. The USA being far away from Russia in terms of its geographic disposition, is conducting its foreign policy independently from the EU. At the same time, moving into economic and political confrontation with Russia, the White House demands from Europe the relevant support and in so doing first and foremost emplaces the EU member-states in a rather awkward situation.
Moreover, witnessing obvious negative economic and political consequences, the activity of the US intelligence community that inflicts direct losses to the European security interests, pours oil on the flames. The US special services are manipulating the world public opinion via the global mass media. Suffice it to recall at least Iraq where the CW agents have been allegedly found.
One more threat: Color Revolutions & Hybrid Wars
The number of cases of direct intervention of the USA and its closest allies into sovereign states have intensified. Washington has openly declared its right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own “vital interests”. Military interference has become a norm — even despite the dismal outcome of all power operations that the USA has carried
out over the last 70 years. Whenever the USA appears militarily – everywhere one may witness instability, calamity, hostility and bloodshed. Washington has created more failed states than there have been before during the Cold War 1.0.
Madam Sharon Tennison, the president of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, the USA, urged the US leaders not to wage more proxy wars, not to destabilize more the other elected governments, not to demonize more other leaders and countries and to stop using military might to intervene all across the globe. She made an eloquent remark:”All of the countries we [the United States] invaded in the past dozen years are worse off now than before we put boots and weapons on their soils”. In her letter to Nancy Pelosi, a former candidate for the US presidency, Sharon Tennison also confessed that she has never seen anything so egregious, wrong-headed and dangerous as the current Washington’s policy toward Russia. She put quite some logical questions – what the USA will do if Russia put Warsaw Pact armed forces and missile installations along Mexico and Canada’s borders, what the USA will do when there was a possibility of weapons being put in Cuba?
Besides using strong military power to replace “unfriendly governments” like in Libya, Iraq and some other countries in the past (e.g. Guatemala, Cuba, Northern Vietnam and Northern Korea, etc. ), the USA also widely uses its secret services whenever it feels that the use of military force will be too costly or too risky from the prism of the international law. A number of attempts to stage various “colored revolutions” in the former Soviet space is a graphic example of such schemes. It was reported recently that the USA are ready to wage secret and undeclared wars by using rebels against various governments and by exploiting political, economic, military and psychological methods upon the any adversary, as it was stated in the announcement of the US Special Operations Command.
One method was exploited by the USA was to replace the existing governments through elections when substantial amount of money was allocated to bribe potential voters, election commissions at the polling stations and upwards, via carefully calibrated and specifically trained journalists, mass media agencies, through faked voting bulletins and distorted calculation of voters’ returns who supported the opposition being unhappy with the current authorities and their policies.
Such method was vividly described by then the US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul prior to his appointment in that capacity and before his selection for the position of US National Security Adviser – that is when he was a Stanford University professor studying Russia. In his public lecture in a West European country some years ago Michael McFaul openly revealed to the audience the number of the US agencies (e.g. USAID) that have been given moneys to various Ukrainian NGOs and Ukrainian mass media bodies to bring to power a pro-Western President Viktor Youschenko in 2004 who advocated the immediate entry of Ukraine into NATO. The specific amounts of money have been identified by Michael McFaul that have been channeled to the existing and specifically set up Ukrainian NGOs prior to the 2004 presidential elections under the motto to enhance “the civil society” in that country. Substantial resources have been given by the CIA to the Russian opposition via Russian and foreign NGOs implanted in Russia to prevent the election of President Vladimir Putin in 2012.
The latest pattern in this list is Ukraine where using of an air power to topple President Viktor Yanukovich has never been debated in the Pentagon. But it was the major task of the CIA and other US secret services to replace him through different pattern of actions, including via the cover up operations staged inside Ukraine. The latest method of the government change was through inciting massive “Maidan riots” (or “riots in the main square”) by paying lump amounts of money to “peaceful demonstrators” that assembled to initially criticize corruption, poor social welfare system, violations of law etc. When peaceful protests in the Maidan Square and adjacent streets in Kiev turned to be on the verge of exhausting, the US secret services with the direct assistance of the Ukrainian SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) arranged indiscriminate snipers’ fire at innocent people on the either side of barricades: both policemen and demonstrators.
The USA secret services have been broadly involved in implanting a failed, butpro-Western regime in Kiev last February: open sources claim that US$ 10 billion have been spent for this aim, and much more moneys secretly brought to Kiev in the diplomatic pouch at the end 2013-early 2014. A critical remark to the US CIA: the Agency can engineer a coup, but it is not able to forecast – what would happen afterwards. Ukrainian tragedy is a vivid example of this.
Washington has masterminded the Maidan riots last February and has brought to power rather nonprofessional personalities in Kiev. A retired CIA officer confessed last summer that at least a year of planning is needed before a covert operation of this sort can succeed. The West has not given itself that year, and now seems unable to understand that the people of the Donbass have had enough. They will never join Ukraine again. Too much blood of them has been spilt, too many houses have been destroyed, and too muchdeep-seated antipathy has been accumulated. They do not want to live under the Ukrainian yoke and in the Ukrainian shackles. They want a separate state within the administrative boundaries of their own land.
By implanting its “closest ally” as the current President of Ukraine, the US secret services continued to make the entire Ukraine as 100% pro-NATO and pro-American. To maintain anti-Russian mood and pro-Western feelings amongst the general public in that country the US secret services that nowadays have their own “instructors” and “advisers” in almost every Ukrainian state ministry and department and are actively participating in the information war versus Russia and other countries that have not supported a bloody unconstitutional takeover in Kiev and the rest of Ukraine. The gimmick is simple as that: they hammer out in the Internet any type of false or dubious piece of news, and later by referring to it make a far-reaching conclusions and supply them to the US leaders or to the general public as a reality. A recent example: there was a claim by the Ukrainian Security Service that the cadets of the Russian Artillery College took part in artillery fires in Donbass, but such college has been disbanded six years ago. Another story: false Russian IDs have been presented to the mass media as a proof that Russian troops are conducting an “aggression against Ukraine”. But Ukrainian SBU and the US CIA simply do not know that such type of IDs have been cancelled many years ago. Last summer the SBU revealed the story that Vasiliy Geranin, allegedly the GRU officer, had a telephone talk with the freedom fighter in Donbass named Igor Bezler. But I saw the photo of the alleged “Vasiliy Geranin” I realized that the man is actually Musa Khamzatov whom I know personally due to our contacts at MGIMO – the Moscow State Institute for International Relations.
Witnessing obvious negative economic and political consequences, the activity of the US intelligence community that inflicts direct losses to the European security interests, pours oil on the flames. The US special services are manipulating the world public opinion via the global mass media. Suffice it to recall at least Iraq where the CW agents have been allegedly found.
In general terms the CIA manipulates the public perceptions of what is going in this world, it interferes into a private life of rank and file citizens and world leaders. In thepresent-day environment and in the future the USA secret services should stop infiltration into internal affairs of the other nations and single individuals, and better serve its natural goal – to maintain and guarantee the security of its nation. In this context listening of phone calls and readinge-mails of almost every citizen in the USA and more than 30 world leaders should be prohibited because such practice is a threat to individual liberties and runs counter to the basic human rights and the international law.
What are the ways from the impasse of the Cold War 2.0?
Addressing the Valdai discussion club meeting in Sochi October 24th, 2014, Vladimir Putin observed that the world is becoming less safe and more unpredictable, and the risks are increasing everywhere. The security system has become seriously weakened, fragmented and deformed. A unilateral diktat and imposing one’s own models produces the opposite result. Instead of settling conflicts it leads to their escalation, to the growing spread of chaos, to a very dubious support for open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals. The world is witnessing new efforts to fragment the entire global situation, to draw new dividing lines and put together coalitions directed against others having different views, to create the image of an enemy as was the case during the Cold War years, and to impose a convenient model for perpetuating the USA leadership.
The United States, having declared itself the winner of the Cold War, instead of maintaining order and stability, took steps that threw the current security system into deep imbalance. The so-called ‘victors’ in the Cold War have decided to reshape the world to suit their own ‘vital’ needs and interests.
A Report prepared by the Polish Institute of International relations in October 2014 made it clear that the reasons for the Russia–West crisis run much deeper than a deficit of trust or inadequate channels of communication between the parties. The mistrust itself is not a product of misunderstanding of the motives of the other side, but rather it reflects fundamental differences in the sphere of values and conceptualization of interests between the West and Russia.3 But, unfortunately, the Report puts a blame for this exclusively upon Russia.
Сurrently, there is little or even zero chance of rebuilding trust between the West and Russia without tackling the fundamental differences between them.
As Jeffrey Tayler, an editor of “The Atlantic”, recently observed: “America embarks on this road to confrontation [with Russia] without sure, seasoned hands at the wheel in the White House; in modern history, no US administration has proved more inept at dealing with Russia…. Americans are being marched off to a new war—a cold one for now—with no idea of what the outcome will be. They need to demand of the Obama administration: “Tell us, how this ends.” Really: how this will end? 4
First. The USA and its NATO allies should stop any military build-up near Russia’s borders. The US tactical nuclear weapons with relevant infrastructure and the BMD assets must be removed from Europe and brought to the continental USA. A new multilateral ABM Treaty limiting the number of the strategic interceptors should be developed. A qualitatively new CFE has to be elaborated and signed between all NATO member-states, including new entrants, and Russia. An international treaty banning arms deployment in outer space should be accepted by all states. And de facto and de jurenuclear-weapon states have to assume commitments not to use nuclear weapons in the first strike. The next New US-Russian START (START-4) may be debated provided all previous arrangements are implemented. The USA and NATO have to regard Russia as their permanent ally, rather than permanent foe.
Second. Economic and financial sanctions versus Russia should be lifted for good and in full as unfair and illegitimate arrangement undermining the WTO principles and norms of a fair trade. At the same time Russia will not tackle any conditions aimed at lifting off these sanctions as a trade-off for changing its stance on the Ukrainian crisis created not by it.
Third. Ukraine will have to declare its pledge to retain its non-nuclear and non-aligned status for ever.
The people of Donbass will have the right to determine their own future – without any aggression and punitive actions within its own administrative borders within the rest of Ukraine. A peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis requires not merely a ceasefire, but a complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian regular troops and irregular formations from the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics. Kiev authorities should sign a non-aggression pact with them. Kiev should also compensate all human and material losses for Novorossia – promptly and without delays.
The US military and political elite have to realize that Ukraine is a kind of geopolitical andmilitary-political Rubicon that the Russian Federation will never step back or give up its core principles. Nobody must interfere with the upcoming elections in Donbass that fully correspond to the Minsk accord, scheduled for November 4, 2014 – likewise nobody has interfered with the recent Parliamentary elections held in Ukraine.
Fourth. In general terms, the time has come to prohibit from the international life the use of threats under dubious pretexts and vague explanations. Vladimir Putin recently observed: “We hope that our partners will realize the futility of attempts to blackmail Russia and remember what consequences discord between major nuclear powers could bring for strategic stability”.5 The world community at large must firmly oppose the attempts to revive the results of the WWII and consistently combat any forms and manifestations of racism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism and chauvinism.
A special US-Russia’s summit is badly needed to tackle all these issues. But not with Barack Obama. It is impossible to convene such a meeting during his presidency.
Conclusion
The world we are living in and where the successive generations will live should be built upon the principle of multipolar world and “mutually assured security”, upon the reduced number of weapons rather than on “mutually assured destruction” – the basic motto invented by the USA and NATO during the Cold War 1.0. But, unlike the Cold War 1.0 that proliferated around the globe, the new Cold War has been imposed so far between the USA and Russia, and NATO and Russia. It has a potential to spill over, if it is not stopped. It can create a lot of troubles to many countries. That is why the Cold War 2.0 should not proliferate into other areas of the globe.
At the same time any hybrid-type warfare in its modern connotation meaning conventional wars plus cyber and information wars, and infiltrations into domestic affairs of the other states in the form of the “controlled chaos” or “proxy wars” should be eradicated.
If these measures are not implemented there is a great probability that the Russian Federation will have to rethink its responsive measures especially in relation to the USA and NATO and their policy, and make necessary changes to its updating Military Doctrine that will replace the one enacted in 2010 and in the White Book on Defense that will be released early next year by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Final brush: there is the urgent need to carry out a rational reconstruction of the present-day situation and adapt it to the new realities in the system of international relations.
Instead of imposing the Cold War 2.0 that has already been initiated by the USA and NATO, and producing qualitatively new threats and challenges the entire Europe and the world at large really will have to initiate a really global detente that was developing quite successfully during last century.
Notes
1 “But we also must deal with a revisionist Russia – with its modern and capable army – on NATO’s doorstep.” Association of the United States Army (AUSA).As Delivered by the US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, October 15, 2014// http://www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1894
2 In late August and early October 2014, horse called Zazu won 5,000 Euros and 2,000 Euros inBaden-Baden and Dusseldorf horse races, respectively. The German Government, however, banned the horses’ owner from receiving price money, saying Kadyrov was subject to EU sanctions. The authorities also banned the horses from further participation in races till sanctions on Kadyrov are lifted. See:<http://rt.com/politics/197396-kadyrov- horses-sanctions-apology>.
3 Is a New Cold War Inevitable? Central European Views on Rebuilding Trust in the Euro- Atlantic Region Warsaw: PISM. 2014. October. P. 5. http //www.pism.pl/files/?id_plik=18495.
4 Jeffrey Tayler. The Seething Anger of Putin’s Russia//The Atlantic. 2014.September 22.http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-west-united-states-past-future-conflict/380533/2/
5 Vladimir Putin. Interview to the Serbian daily “Politika”, October 15, 2014 //http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/23099.
Vladimir P. Kozin is Chief Adviser and the Head of the Group of Advisers to the Director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Presidential Administration Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences.
