Russia and the Middle East
· 1 hour ago by Matthew Wilson
Where does Moscow stand in the fight against Islamism and
the global war against terror? Facing the Chechen threat at home, the
Russian government might be sympathetic to U.S. and even Israeli
concerns. Not so. Despite U.S. declarations that Washington and Moscow
were “increasingly united by common values” and that Russia was “a
partner in the war on terror,”[1] examination of Russian president
Vladimir Putin’s policy toward the Middle East suggests that Moscow has
become an impediment both to the fight against Islamist terror and
Washington’s desire to promote democracy in the Middle East. The 2006
U.S. National Security Strategy reinforces that U.S. policymakers
should not only “encourage Russia to respect the values of freedom and
democracy at home” but also cease “imped[ing] the cause of freedom and
democracy” in regions vital to the war on terror.[2] While Russian
officials denounce U.S. criticism, the Kremlin’s coddling of Iranian
hard-liners, its reaction to the “cartoon jihad,” its invitation to
Hamas to Moscow, and its flawed Chechen policy all cast doubt on
Moscow’s motivations.
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tags: middle-east
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Get Yer Cheap Nukes Now
· 1 day ago by Matthew Wilson
Russia is following the IKEA model, promising reliable, inexpensive goods that are easy to assemble. Only in this case, the goods are nuclear-power plants.
Are
discount nuclear plants a good idea? Russia thinks so. The Kremlin has
set about recasting Russia’s once top-secret nuclear industry as the
world’s leading mass marketer of cheap, reliable reactors. As energy
prices soar, nuclear power has been gaining in popularity, and Russia
is the market leader in cut-price reactors. Current models of its
VVER1000 cold-water reactors cost just $750 per kilowatt of capacity,
compared with $1,900 to $2,300 for a French reactor. Russia also offers
small reactors of 300 to 400 megawatts for countries with small
budgets. “Our power stations are not a bit worse than anyone else’s,”
says Sergei Shmatko, the president of Atomstroyexport, Russia’s
atomic-power-station construction company. “My dream,” he adds, “is to
make the export and construction of our nuclear stations as simple and
as fast as putting IKEA furniture together.”
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General Gareyev: Russia changing its military doctrine
· 2 days ago by Matthew Wilson
MOSCOW. (RIA
Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) – The Academy of Military
Sciences will hold a conference in the Defense Ministry in Moscow on
January 20. Its president, Army General Makhmut Gareyev, will deliver a
report on Russia’s new military doctrine. Military leaders and
academics will discuss the changes and amendments to this key document,
which will be presented to the military community.
General Gareyev discusses the new doctrine in an interview with Viktor Litovkin.
Question:
Why is Russia going to adopt a new military doctrine? What new features
will it have? Why does it concern the Academy of Military Sciences, a
public organization?
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The Bear is back in business
· 2 days ago by Matthew Wilson
In the last seven years, he has brought Russia back into
international reckoning. Today, the Russians feel sufficiently
confident to be able to cancel their production sharing agreement with
Royal Dutch Shell in Sakhalin-2 and, Gazprom, the Russian energy giant
has taken over. There is steely determination in approach, bordering on
ruthlessness at times. Chechnya and the Dubrovka theatre hostage
episode are indications of the latter; the manner in which the vast
energy resources have been used as a strategic and tactical weapon is a
sign of a single-minded desire — to protect Russia’s national interests.
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Russia: Back to the future?
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson
It’s no longer politically incorrect to be skeptical about
Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In fact, said a leading European expert on
Russia, speaking privately in Washington, “Russia is a far different
political construct than the one we Europeans thought we were dealing
with for the past five years.”
The authority’s other conclusions:
Parts
of Russia are still stuck in mid-19th century while other parts of the
economy are already globalized. Nothing indicates Russia’s new
nomenklatura wishes to emulate the political democracies of the rest of
Europe. After the Cold War, it was a “huge mistake” to assume
otherwise. Besides, no democracy is possible without a vibrant middle
class, and Russia is yet to develop one, let alone a satisfied strata
in the middle between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.
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Beware Russia, energy superpower
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Putin’s control of oil and gas may bring the West to its knees.
In
a world concerned with terrorism, genocide and nuclear-powered despots,
Vladimir Putin’s Russia is assembling an economic machine powerful
enough to force Europe, the US and Asia to their knees.
It
does not involve uranium, explosives or suicide bombers, but the
natural resources that power the global economy. Russia will soon exert
such sway over the supply of oil and natural gas that the OPEC
crisis of the mid-1970s could seem trivial. Its pipelines will flow
east into Asia and west into Europe and tankers will sail from Siberia
to California.
Russia will soon have such control over energy supply and pricing that it will be able to do anything it wants politically.
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Russia Delivers Missiles to Syria
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Moscow, Jan 16 (Prensa Latina) One of the Russian
companies recently sanctioned by the US, the Machine-building Design
Bureau, handed over to Syria the Strelets missile systems it had
contracted, Valeri Kashin, chief designer of that firm said Tuesday.
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Russia Pledges Military Cooperation to Ortega’s Nicaragua
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Russia will resume military and technical cooperation with
Nicaragua, the head of the Russian Audit Chamber, former Prime Minister
Sergei Stepashin, told journalists Jan. 12 in Managua.
“The
whole Nicaraguan Army and other power agencies use arms and vehicles
mostly of the Soviet and Russian production,” Stepashin said. “We do
not return to a bare field in Nicaragua, but resume our relations on a
very serious basis, both technological and human.”
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Ivanov: Russian Missiles Delivered to Iran
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has confirmed that Russia has sold new anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
Ivanov
told reporters in Moscow Tuesday that Russia has supplied the TOR-M1
air defense missiles, in keeping with a contract between the two
countries.
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Cold War was paradise compared with modern threats - Ivanov
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson
MOSCOW, January 16 (Itar-Tass) –
The world is changing dynamically, and threats to it are increasing at
kaleidoscopic rate, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov said at the first session of the Public Council on
Tuesday.
“The times of the “Cold War” compared with today were a paradise; all was predictable and calculated in advance then,” he said.
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Moscow's Mideast myopia
· 4 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Russia sees its relations with Iran as leverage to
influence diplomacy in the wider Middle East, where the U.S. has
successfully sought to exclude the Kremlin since the end of the Cold
War. Russia’s other self-interest has been to exempt from sanctions the
Bushehr nuclear reactor that it is building for Iran (to be in
operation later this year), and to ward off a UN-sponsored financial
squeeze on Iran that might put at risk the profits Russia hopes to earn
from providing nuclear fuel for the reactor.
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Overtones ominous for 2007 global woes
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson
In the realm of foreign affairs, many issues will appear
to be the same in 2007: the threat of global terrorism, the struggle in
Iraq, tension in the Middle East, global warming, international drug
trafficking, the spread of infectious diseases, the U.S trade deficit,
etc.
The most pressing issues, however, and the ones most likely to plunge
the world into crisis in the next year or two are interconnected:
? the spread of nuclear weapons;
? the ambitions of Russia and China; and
? the competition for energy resources.
A cloud over Putin
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“Freedom vs. Non-Freedom: A View from Russia”
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson
The story of the destruction of freedom in my own country,
Russia, is sad. But this story should be told, should be known, and
should be remembered—to avoid repeating it and in order one day to
reverse it.
First, there was an assault on the people of
Chechnya. Many Russian people thought that it was not their business to
defend the freedom of the Chechen people. People in Chechnya lost their
independence, their political rights and—many of them—their lives. Many
Russians lost their lives as well.
Then there was an assault
on the Russian media. This time many Russian people thought that it was
not their business to defend the freedom of the media. As a result, the
media lost its independence—first television channels, then radio
stations and newspapers. And now the censors are turning their
attention to the Internet.
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Russia Wields A Crude Weapon
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson
It seems no longer in doubt: Post-Soviet Russia, under
President Vladimir Putin, sees its immense energy resources not merely
as a means to economic advancement, but as a weapon to get back in the
Superpower game with the U.S.
Make no mistake, Russia’s
energy weapon is indeed formidable. It has the largest national gas
reserves in the world and is thought to be No. 3 in oil assets. But
last year’s production of 9.2 million barrels a day was more than any
other country’s, including Saudi Arabia.
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Hugging Russian bear may lead to a mauling for EU
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Not for the first or last time, Europe ignored American
warnings. Now EU free-traders who believe in the efficiency-enhancing
effects of the free flow of capital see their theoretical belief
foundering on the rock of their energy dependence. Russia has billions
available to invest in overseas companies. It refuses to allow foreign
investment in its own renationalised energy infrastructure, but insists
on its right to buy up the energy infrastructure of other countries.
Result: the Russians have pipeline monopolies into Europe, and want to
extend the reach of those monopolies beyond Russia’s borders, deep into
the heart of Europe.
Gazprom is believed to be planning to
make a bid for Centrica, the British gas distributor that also supplies
gas and electricity to 1.5m customers in nine American states. It will
then move on to attempt takeovers of key energy infrastructure projects
in America.
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The Middle East Press Cheers the Rise of Russia
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Many articles in the Middle Eastern press have been
discussing Russia’s growing influence and activities in the region,
which are in direct opposition to American policy and are playing a
negative role in the war on terror. To date, it is unclear what the
American government is doing about it. One thing is for certain: Russia
has big plans for itself in the Middle East.
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Reporting from the Russian Front
· 17 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Russia is no longer Russia. It is now “Putin’s Russia,” a
country ruled by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, whose centralization of
power and crackdown on the press have alarmed the West and all but
stifled dissent.
Who is to blame for the former KGB
spy’s election, in 2000, as president of one-sixth of the world’s
landmass, and his re-election, with a stunning 70% of the vote, in
2004? Whose fault is it that, as Anna Politkovskaya writes in “ Putin’s
Russia” (Henry Holt & Company, 255 pages, $25), “more than six
thousand ex-KGB/FSB people followed Putin to power and now occupy the highest offices” in Russia?
According
to Politkovskaya, the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of
the Russian people: “It is we who are responsible for Putin’s policies,
we first and foremost, not Putin. The fact that our reactions to him
and his cynical manipulation of Russia have been confined to gossiping
in the kitchen has enabled him to do all the things he has done in the
past four years.”
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Russia to assist China in space
· 18 days ago by Matthew Wilson
MOSCOW – Russia will cooperate
with China on space projects, but will not transfer sensitive
technologies that could enable Beijing to become a rival in a space
race, the head of Russia?s space agency announced last week.
Anatoly
Perminov, chief of Russia?s Federal Space Agency, said Moscow and
Beijing would cooperate in robotic missions to the moon. He added,
however, that Russia would maintain restrictions on sharing technology.
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Belarus-Russia gas dispute threatens Poland, Europe: officials
· 20 days ago by Matthew Wilson
WARSAW (AFP)
– The dispute between Belarus and Moscow over natural gas prices
threatens the energy security of Poland and the rest of Europe, an
official at the Polish foreign ministry has said.
ADVERTISEMENT
“This problem poses
a threat to us and this is why we have had heated debate in the past
few months about Polish-Russian relations and relations between Europe
and Russia,” Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Kowal said Wednesday.
“Energy
security today is a fundamental issue for Poland and we want to
convince the rest of the world that it is also fundamental to Europe.
This example is yet another illustration,” he said.
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The Kremlin's oil grab
· 29 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Big oil has a long history of having assets appropriated
by hostile governments. Yet no one has been quite prepared for the land
grab by Gazprom of a 50% stake in the Sakhalin-2 project.
This
will come as a nasty blow to all overseas investors in President
Putin’s Russia and emphasises the vulnerability of European energy
supplies to the whims of the Kremlin.
The way in which the Russian authorities slowly tightened the noose on Shell can be seen as carefully orchestrated blackmail.
It will send shivers down the spine of BP investors who are heavily exposed to Russia through the TNKBP joint venture.
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Motherless Russia - Muslims and Chinese Vie For Huge Assets of Dying Nation
· 29 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Some think that France will be the first European country
in modern times to be taken over by Muslims due to her very large,
violent immigrant population and effeminate native populace. Others
point to the Netherlands, from which native Dutch people are beginning
to flee in the face of hostile Islamism among the immigrants in that
densely-populated nation. But Russia—a huge nation with vast natural
resources, thousands of nuclear warheads, and until recently a global
superpower—-may be the first to go under. This seems possible even
though Russia suffers little from the suicidal tolerance and
multiculturalism that afflicts Western Europeans.
All the
would-be conquerors, tyrannical tsars, and sinister Communists could
not destroy Russia. Yet there is a force more powerful than all these,
a force which can overcome comparatively minor factors such as wealth,
size, and military power, and that is demographics. And it is
demographics that will deliver Russia into the hands of chaos, Islam,
China, or most likely a combination of all three.
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Lavrov Lashes Out at the West
· 30 days ago by Matthew Wilson
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday blasted
Western leaders for criticizing President Vladimir Putin to score
points at home and contain Russian power.
Speaking at his
traditional, end-of-the-year news conference, Lavrov stressed that
Russia’s resurgence to the status of global player would continue and
defended Russian policy in the former Soviet Union.
“We very
often take into account recommendations when our partners pose conc