Dr. Alexandr Nemets
Monday, March 30, 2003

The Kremlin’s Motivation and Strategy

From the evening of March 12 to the morning March 19, the author was in Washington, D.C., and held a lot of talks with friends in several think tanks (Hudson Institute, American Foreign Policy Council, American Enterprise Institute).

Naturally, the discussions were concentrated on the forthcoming war in Iraq, the positions of Russia and China, and the crisis over North Korea. Some conclusions that “crystallized” in the discussions are as follow:

1. During the last two or three years, Russia managed to supply many advanced weapons to Iraq, thus significantly enhancing Saddam Hussein’s military capabilities, especially air defense. Deliveries usually took place through Ukraine (e.g., Kolchuga, a sophisticated air defense radar system, was developed and produced in the East Ukrainian city of Donetsk, with a major contribution from Russia), Belarus (training Iraqi officers in the maintenance of the S-300, a high-level air defense missile system, and, probably, delivery of this system itself), and other secret channels.

2. The Kremlin and Russian foreign intelligence (both belonging to FSB/KGB and the Russian army general staff) evidently provided Baghdad, during the last several months, with a lot of highly sensitive information regarding U.S. troops deployed already and to be deployed around Iraq, along with their weaponry. This information was a major help to Saddam’s regime.

3. The most important conclusion is the precise understanding of Moscow and Kremlin’s motivation. Moscow is interested, first of all, in maximally high world prices for crude oil, oil products and natural gas. These items make up at least 45 percent of all of Russia’s exports and provide the same share of income to the Russian budget.

The Kremlin knows that any significant world crisis, particularly in the Middle or Far East, adds greatly to world instability and, consequently, to hydrocarbon prices. The Kremlin received many billions of dollars of additional income between September 2002 and March 2003 when, in the environment of “no war and no peace in the Middle East,” world oil prices fluctuated in the range $30 -$38 per barrel.

4. The Kremlin perfectly understands that, in the case of rapid toppling of Saddam’s regime by American and British forces, the situation in the Middle East would normalize, at least temporarily, and world oil prices would fall to $20 per barrel or even less. This could have very heavy consequences for the Putin regime.

That’s why Moscow did its best, during the last half year, to delay the attack on Iraq. And once U.S. and U.K. forces attacked Iraq, Moscow will spare no effort to extend the conflict, to make it as long and costly for the allies as possible. From Moscow’s point of view, this would slow the falling oil prices.

5. When Saddam’s regime is finished – and that will happen in the near future – Moscow will concentrate its efforts on expanding or “creating” other major conflicts. These could include:

• the existing conflict around North Korea, where Kim Jong-il intends to produce, in 2003, several additional nuclear warheads and ICBMs for their “delivery” to American territory;

• the potential conflict around Iran; this country is on the brink of nuclear weapons development and, again, Russia plays the major role here;

• more conflicts in various parts of the world – say, around Syria and Libya, in the Taiwan Strait, around Cuba and/or Venezuela, etc.

Any large new conflict would result simultaneously in a rise of hydrocarbon prices and an increase in new orders for Russian weapons and related technologies. And the “rogue” nations as well as China are the major customers for these weapons.

6. The policy of the U.S. government toward Moscow, beginning from mid-2001, is a disastrous one. All the attempts to “appease” Moscow are doomed to failure. The basic interests of America and those of Moscow have nothing common, and it is necessary to recognize this self-evident fact.

The War Begun

The long-awaited attack of U.S. and British forces on Iraq began on March 20, just several hours after the author returned to Minneapolis.

The allies are successfully moving toward Baghdad, despite the growing resistance of Iraq, and each military achievement is accompanied by cries from Moscow.

Putin himself, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and those of less rank in Moscow (including Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky) had harsh words for Washington and London. And it would be better not to quote from articles in the Moscow media, both leftist and pro-government.

All these official, half-official and unofficial sources repeat, many hundreds of times a day, such words as “criminal aggression against a sovereign state,” “the suffering of innocent civilians,” “the demolition of the U.N.,” etc.

The real meaning of all this is very easy to see: “Oh, our sweet money from oil exports! We are going to lose half of it after Saddam is toppled!”

Indeed, the price of oil already has decreased by at least 25 percent and is going to fall much greater after the Iraq war is over.

It appeared that Russia provided, in the several days just before the conflict began, GPS jamming systems, anti-tank grenade launchers and night vision devices for the Iraqi army.

No doubt Putin was making a last attempt to help Saddam with military means, once diplomatic tools appeared to be exhausted. A number of Russian military specialists came to Baghdad to train Iraqi servicemen in using these weapon technologies.

Eventually, Washington had to recognize an unpleasant reality and even made an official protest. Should we say that it is too little, too late?

A lot of advanced weapons of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarus origin in the Iraqi inventory is still unaccounted for, though it works and could aggravate the allies’ losses during the storming of Baghdad.

And if the war continues for several more weeks, Iraq could get new shipments of weapons from the same sources and even groups of trained Russian volunteers, who had a lot of fighting experience in Russia and abroad during the last 11 years. That’s what will happen according to the most recent reports in the Russian media.

So, what is necessary now:

• Change the official U.S. policy toward Moscow. Particularly, the American subsidies to Moscow for “re-employment of former Soviet weapons specialists” (approximately $500 million during the last eight years, according to a recent article in the Washington Times), is completely senseless. Baghdad, Pyongyang, Tehran and Beijing are receiving these specialists.

• Drastically decrease, to the smallest possible size, business cooperation with Russia.

• Take measures against Moscow’s “agents of influence” in the Russian-language community in America.

• Most important, finally recognize the real essence of the Putin regime (described in the author’s articles on NewsMax*). One hopes it is not yet too late.

*Author's previous articles about Putin:
Putin the 'Janus-Faced'
Stop Coddling Putin

Dr. Alexandr V. Nemets is co-author of "Chinese-Russian Military Relations, Fate of Taiwan and New Geopolitics" and the forthcoming "Russian-Chinese Alliance."

Visit Dr. Nemets' Web site at http://excelenterprises1.tripod.com.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Russia
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
War on Terrorism

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