The working groups active between Russia and NATO are comparing notes on air-space control, logistics and material-technical supplies, and – most importantly – on ballistic missile defence. The latter is by and large a code for defending the motherland against incoming missiles from the south. Over many years, Russian and US teams have explored avenues of cooperation, especially for theatre missile defence (TMD), notwithstanding the US cancellation of the ABM Treaty or, more recently, Russian protestations about the proposed US radar site in the Czech Republic and the ten anti-missile missiles to be put into Poland as a defence against potential Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles en route to the US or Europe.
When Putin raised the issue at the 2007 Munich Security Conference Russian anger seemed to be implacable. In the meantime the Russian military offered a disused radar site in Azerbaijan for cooperation with US anti-missile forces. Scoring political points among anti-American crowds in the West was one thing; gaining access to American anti-missile technology quite another.
Meanwhile, there was even talk of joint exercises and action as part of multinational contingency forces. After 9/11 those activities were enhanced. At the Munich Security Conference of 2002 the then Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov mentioned work on the Status of Forces Agreement, allowing for joint training and exercises, both through command post exercises and field exercises. There is a framework Agreement – in response to the Kursk disaster off the Murmansk coast – about Submarine Emergency Crew Escape and Rescue: ‘It may seem to be purely technical, but in reality it has brought NATO-Russia interaction up to quite a practical new level.’[6]
First and foremost non-proliferation
Among all these common concerns, keeping the lid on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is paramount, and the Russians as much as the Americans know that they have to do it together – or give up. This explains the close cooperation in dissuading North Korea from continuing on the nuclear path. It also helps in understanding the complex Russian-Iranian relationship: helping to construct the nuclear power plant at Busheer while keeping the nuclear fuel out of Iranian hands. The philosophy of non-proliferation dates back to the days of the Cold War when both Americans and Russians were united in preserving the nuclear monopoly, regardless of UK, French and Chinese aspirations, and restraining the ambitions of Third World countries. This has undergone no fundamental change and is not likely to change. Not only the Russians but also every US administration since Richard Nixon have always understood the paramount national interest in keeping the nuclear genie in the bottle.
Today not only Russia’s security but also Russia’s international standing depend on preserving the nuclear cartel with the US and, to a lesser extent, China, the UK and France. When Russian politicians talk about terror being their foremost concern they mean, of course, Chechen rebels and Islamist fighters in nearby territories. But the nightmare of all nightmares for Russia is terrorism with nuclear weapons. In this, the Russians are not alone. NATO leaders, instead of turning fear of Russia into a self-fulfilling prophecy, could and should overcome the shadows of the past and concentrate on the real dangers in the offing. Neither the state of the Russian army nor the layout of Russian grand strategy warrants a return to Cold War conditioned reflexes and policies. Never mind occasional militant rhetoric and boasting from Moscow loudspeakers when new weapons are put on display for potential customers, military spending in Russia has remained, for many years, well under budget. And those budgets were, to judge by complaints from the military, already modest by any standard. Russia is an exhausted empire, and it is not through the currencies of the past, tanks and Marxist ideology, that it seeks new power, but through oil, gas, pipelines and petrodollars. Welcome to the modern world.
7
Crescent rising over Kazan
‘One has to come to Russia to see the result of this terrible combination of the intelligence and the silence of Europe with the genius of Asia.’
When night falls over Kazan, the ancient capital of the Tatars where the Kazanka river flows into the mighty Volga, the Kremlin of Ivan the Terrible rises like a ghost from olden times over the city and its modern high riser. Walls, crenellations and towers are bathed in an aggressive white light. The ancient fortress is a monument to Russia’s expansion from Moscow into both Europe and Asia and to the centuries of imperial glory and pity that were to follow.
The most recent addition to the architecture, however, tells a different story. A brand-new, white-marble mosque, built by a Turkish company, towers over the old Russian buildings and tells the story of the politico-religious upheavals of the early 1990s, of Saudi money, and of an uneasy peace between Islam and Russian Orthodoxy, the past and the present, the many children of the Muslim women and the few children of the Russian women. The huge cupola of the mosque, rising high into the ink-blue sky, is framed by four giant minarets which at nightfall are bathed in blue and green light. The symbolism of Islam triumphing over Russian conquest cannot be overlooked, and it carries all the way to Moscow eight hundred kilometres to the west a strong message not about who the troubled past belongs to but about who will own the future.
Defeating Ivan the Terrible
Four centuries ago Ivan the Terrible came from Moscow leading a force of 60,000 fierce and battle-ready soldiers to break what Russians to this day, with a feeling of horror, self-doubt and awe, call the yoke of the Tatars, meaning 300 years of domination by the people of the Eurasian steppe. The Tsar, once the city had been duly raped and plundered, had the fortifications strengthened, and in this shape they survived difficult times: forever a powerful bulwark against Asian invasions and, even during Soviet times, a strong reminder of the self-ascribed Russian mission to conquer, to civilize and to stay. The golden crescent, however, now rising from the bell tower of the tsar and pointing in the direction of Mecca in the far south, is hardly what the grim conqueror could have imagined, let alone welcomed. In Kazan, from time immemorial the point of entry for Asian hordes into Europe, a Muslim reconquest is being announced to the Russians – but also, if they care to listen, to the peoples further west. This reversal of history is counted not in years but in generations, and it has only just started. The wild martial dances, performed by horsemen for the benefit of foreign travellers in the evening, are certainly more of Tatar than of Russian origin. And the message they carry may be more serious than mere folklore.
A notably successful survivor from Soviet decades, proud of his wide popularity and his indisputable democratic credentials, is Mintimer Shaimiev, president of the republic of Tatarstan. His almond-shaped black eyes reveal his Tatar lineage. In the past, he must have been a dutiful Soviet agricultural apparatchik as, at the tender age of twenty-nine, he had already been appointed head of what the Soviets called an agro-industrial complex. When he went into politics, middle-aged, accumulating decorations, offices and influence, he managed the turn-around after the fall of the Soviet Union, kept things around Kazan mostly peaceful and was reelected three or four times. He makes no bones over the fact that he feels embarrassed by the recent confirmation in his leadership by order of the Kremlin. People, he insists, should be allowed to elect their leaders themselves. This reservation, however, does not detract from his conspicuous friendship with Vladimir Putin, displayed in brochures and on billboards of no small size along the short stretch of motorway leading out of the city, where a southern Kremlin chief shakes hands with a northern one. Shaimiev is also one of the leaders of United Russia. His popularity is such that his black Mercedes S-class is not the armoured version. Nor does he need a convoy of similar cars to mislead and frustrate would-be assassins. He is the boss, and he means business.