GEOPOLITICS AND THE TWO-HEADED EAGLE

GEOPOLITICS AND THE TWO-HEADED EAGLE

Russia fittingly adopted the Byzantine Empire's two-headed eagle as the state symbol in the 15th century, but it is also appropriate today. It symbolizes Russia's past efforts to expand its territory both to the East and the West. Rather than territorial aggrandizement, Russia is looking in the 21st century to strengthen its ties to its neighbors to the East and West and to create alternative foci of power to offset the global leadership position of the United States.

Russia's elites are preoccupied with advancing "Eurasianism," which sees Russia as the "ultimate World-Island state" apart from, and hostile to, the maritime and commercial Euro-Atlantic world. Russian analysts such as Yu. V. Tikhonravov argue that the nation holds a special place in the Eastern Hemisphere as a counterbalance to the "globalist" U.S.-led hegemony; their works are now part of the college curriculum approved by the Ministry of Higher Education. Because the West is so often portrayed as materialistic and corrupt, many Eurasianists advocate closer cooperation with China, the Arab world, and Iran while espousing anti-Turkic rhetoric.

Indeed, since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has become the major arms supplier for China and India. On a recent trip to New Delhi, Russian representatives signed arms and nuclear deals worth an estimated $3 billion, including cooperation in nuclear and missile areas.

Russia and China are in the process of negotiating a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, which they are expected to sign when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visits Moscow in mid-2001. Analysts have suggested that the treaty may have secret appendices outlining the conditions for a common defense, military cooperation in space, cooperation on military technologies, and new weapons sales.¹⁵ Russia is already selling nuclear weapons blueprints, multiple warhead (MIRV) technology, Sukhoi-27 fighter jets, and, most recently, $1 billion worth of A-50 Beriev AWACS early warning planes to China that will make it possible for the People's Liberation Army to coordinate its air, surface, and naval operations in areas like the Taiwan Strait. Russia supports China's claims regarding Taiwan, and China supports Moscow's activities in Chechnya.Finally, both Russia and China have vociferously opposed Washington's plans to deploy an NMD system.

Restoring ties with Europe has become a personal objective for Putin, who has cultivated a friendship with Prime Minister Tony Blair and also has carefully strengthened Moscow's ties to Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder of Germany. As France and Germany have sought to strengthen the European Union and offset European military reliance on the United States, Moscow has begun to express an interest in joining the ESDP, which would drive a wedge between Europe and the United States. Russia's offer to construct a common missile defense with the EU may have been made with the same strategic goal in mind. However, Putin, who had suggested in March 2000 that Russia may one day be interested in joining the NATO alliance, later disavowed this possibility.

Russia's increasing activities in the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East are causing concern in Washington. Since 1991, Russia has sold Middle Eastern countries $6.9 billion worth of modern weapons, including almost $3 billion in sales to Iran alone. Aided by its multibillion-dollar missile, military technology, and civilian nuclear reactor deals with Russia, this unstable Islamic state is emerging as the predominant military power in the Gulf.

Moscow recently announced that it had annulled a secret memorandum signed by Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin in June 1995, which acknowledged that Russia had sold Iran such conventional arms as submarines, anti-ship missiles, and tanks.The agreement between the two officials made it clear that the United States would do nothing about the arms sales if Moscow promised to cease these activities by 1999. The weapons sales continue. Moreover, the secret agreement may have been in violation of the 1992 Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act cosponsored by then-Senator Gore (D-TN), which stipulates that the United States would impose sanctions on Russia if it persisted in selling weapons of this type to Iran or Iraq.

Moscow disclosed that, in summer and fall 2000, it shipped 325 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft SA-16 missiles to Tehran, part of a deal totaling 700 missiles worth $1.75 billion. Because Tehran is known for re-exporting weapons to Islamic radicals in the Middle East, such as the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement, it is only a matter of time before these latest missiles find their way to Hezbollah terrorists or the Islamic Jihad. U.S. objections over this sale were met with terse advice from Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov:

The issue is that Russia, when it comes to military cooperation with Iran as well as with other countries, does not consider itself constrained by any special obligations in spheres which are not restricted by international obligations.

Since 1992, Congress has attempted to impose sanctions on countries and companies that contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), especially to rogue states. The provisions of the Arms Export Control Act, the Iran-Iraq Non-Proliferation Act, and the Iran Non-Proliferation Act of 1999 call for imposing sanctions against Russia. However, these sanctions have not worked in Iran or Iraq. Saddam continues to acquire WMD and the technology to deliver them. Moreover, Russia ignored its obligations as a member of the Nuclear Supplier Group Agreement and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and continued proliferating weapons and weapons technology to Iraq. The Clinton Administration failed to uphold the law and impose the sanctions.

Moscow is also boosting its ties with Iraq to break U.S. domination in the Persian Gulf and to recover some of the Soviet-era Iraqi debt of approximately $7 billion. In violation of the U.N. sanctions against Iraq, Russia began supplying it with high-tech military spare parts, such as gyroscopes for its Scud missiles, and equipment for the production of bacteriological weapons. Its efforts to rebuild the once-strong relationship between Iraq and Moscow include exchanges between the pro-Putin Unity party of Russia and Saddam's Ba'ath party.

Public Support for Putin's Approach
Russia's frustration with America's global preeminence began escalating under former Prime Minister Primakov and has continued escalating since Putin's ascent. An increase in nationalist sentiment and a substantial decrease in support for the United States have been reported by pollsters since 1993. Representative polling by a reliable Russian public opinion institute demonstrates how quickly attitudes about the United States have deteriorated under Putin. In December 1998, 67 percent of those polled characterized their attitude toward America as "very positive" or "basically positive."By May 1999, at the height of the NATO bombardment of Serbia, which Russia opposed, less than a third of respondents subscribed to this view, and the number of those who said their attitude was "very negative" or "generally negative" shot up from 23 percent to 52 percent. The shift is even more dramatic considering that in 1993, according to the United States Information Agency (USIA), 70 percent of Russians felt favorable toward America.

During Kosovo, it should be recalled, Russian officials encouraged the Russian people to demonstrate in front of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Serbian diplomats provided Moscow State University students (who were bussed to the demonstrations by city authorities) with eggs and tomatoes to throw at the U.S. embassy. In the heat of these demonstrations, a Russian vigilante fired a shoulder-launched missile at the embassy. Clearly, the intention of the government is to increase anti-American sentiments.

An examination of current Russian TV programming and media content demonstrates how anti-American and anti-Western that content has become. Television moderators and reporters covering last November's vote count problems in Florida, for example, expressed glee over the "deep crisis" of the "overrated" American democracy.Such anti-Americanism, rarely heard since the early 1980s, is very troubling to Russia experts and policymakers in the United States. Yet the Clinton Administration did little of substance to counter this trend.