The ongoing crisis between Britain and the Russian Federation over the
poisoning of a former GRU colonel on British soil is the latest episode in what
for a number of years has effectively been a ‘Cold War’ between Russia on the
one hand, and the Western alliance nations comprised of Nato and the European
Union on the other. It is important, nonetheless, to note that friction and
dissonance between Russia and Britain has been an enduring one spanning the
centuries. It is a rivalry that has been predicated on cultural differences,
ideological antagonism and imperial ambition. It can in many ways be argued to
be in essence a recurring clash of civilisations which today is fixated on the
attempts of the Anglo-Saxon powers and their Western allies to maintain their
global military and economic domination in the face of a surgent Eurasia at the
centre of which is Russia. But with the ideological Cold War with the old
Soviet Union long ended, a crucial question that continues to elude discussion
concerns the efficacy of Britain’s prolongation of a ‘rivalry’ with a faraway
Eurasian power.
Culture
“All shall serve the state
Only a strong ruler can save Russia
Only strong rule and a united state can repel the enemies at our
borders”.
- Words of Ivan the Terrible at his coronation in the Kremlin in Sergey
Eisenstein’s 1944 film about the first Tsar of Russia.
A useful
starting point would be to emphasise the historical distinctions between
Russian and British conceptions of the state as well as the perceptions held by
the respective populaces of the role of the state. While the origins of both
the British and Russian states are rooted in the autocratic rule of monarchs,
the concept of state in feudal England arguably never bore the hallmarks of the
sort of absolutism that developed in Russia where the equivalent term for
state, gosudarstvo, connoted a
sovereign who ruled with unfettered and unaccountable power.
The English
innovation of a law-governed state that continued to evolve after Magna Carta
contrasted with the iron-fisted rule,
zheleznaya ruka, that is the legacy of Russia having been submerged by
centuries of Mongol occupation. Writing when he held the position of British
Ambassador to Russia at the time of Ivan the Terrible, Giles Fletcher’s
astonishment at the unchecked power of the Tsar is evident:
The form of government is plainly tyrannical.
All are beholden to the Prince (Tsar) in the most barbarous manner. In all
matters of state: making and annulling public laws, making magistrates, the
power to execute or pardon life. All pertain absolutely to the emperor as he
may both be commander and executioner of all.
Where
Anglo-Norman constitutionalism progressively developed, the vestiges of consultative
government of the sort practised by Kievan Rus and Novgorod became lost to
Russia during a tumultuous history. If, for argument sake, there is truth to
the allegations of state-sponsored assassinations of opposition politicians and
journalists as well as traitorous figures in the field of intelligence under
the rule of President Vladimir Putin, then some will argue that in the Russian
psyche the individual consciously subordinates himself to the state and
understands that he is liable to forfeit his life to the state in a manner that
is incomprehensible to the average Briton. This applies equally to those who
sacrifice themselves for Mother Russia, as in the case of Prince Igor’s doomed
expedition against the Polovtsians, as well as those who either speak out
against an incumbent head of state or who otherwise betray the state.
Thus it is
not difficult to fathom why, regardless of the deliberately contrived
anti-Russian sentiment by the Western media, many could rationally believe that
Putin, a former official of the KGB, who is perceived in the West as a
strongman-ruler in the mould of an oriental despot, could be responsible for
the targeting of figures such as Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko.
Imperial
Ambition
“To those socialists and pacifists I say, ‘Would you betray the courage
of the gallant fallen by abandoning our imperial borders to the possibility of
future aggression intrigues of the Russians?”
- Winston Churchill, ‘The Riddle of the Frontier’.
It is
important to recall the rivalry between the British and Russian empires during
the 19th century because there are parallels with the present day confrontation
between the West and Russia. The Bolshaya
Igra or ‘Great Game’, a term popularised by the English writer Rudyard
Kipling, describes the competition between both empires for spheres of
influence in Central Asia.
In January
1830, an edict issued by Baron Rupert Ellenborough, the governor of British
India, established a new trade route from India to Bukhara (part of modern Uzbekistan)
via Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan. It had the objective of keeping in check
any advance of Russia towards the warm-water sea ports of the Persian Gulf.
This stood in opposition to the Russian aim of turning Afghanistan into a
neutral zone through which it could secure access to key trade routes.
A series of
military confrontations ensued: The first Anglo-Afghan War from 1839 to 1842,
the first Anglo-Sikh War from 1845 to 1846, the second Anglo-Sikh War from 1848
to 1849 and the second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878 to 1880. British success in
these wars was limited while the Russians succeeded in colonising several
central Asian Khanates including the much prized Bukhara. Nonetheless, the
British managed to keep Afghanistan as a buffer between Russia and India.
The ‘Great
Game’ came to an end with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907
which delineated mutual spheres of influence in Persia. Both sides agreed to
refrain from intervening in Tibet and Russia acknowledged British influence in
Afghanistan.
Ideology
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain
has descended across the continent”.
- Winston Churchill speaking in 1946 at Westminster College, Fulton,
Missouri.
Britain and
Russia became allies against Kaiser-era Germany in the First World War and
Britain and the Soviet Union would be allied in the effort to defeat Nazi
Germany in the Second World War. But such were the differences in ideological
outlook between the Western allies and the Soviet Union that a ‘Cold War’
ensued with Britain becoming a part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(Nato), a military alliance that was confronted by the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
Winston
Churchill, who coined the phrase ‘Iron Curtain’, had as the war secretary
overseen the British-led foreign invasion of Russia via Archangel, a move which
he saw as an opportunity to strangle Bolshevism “in its cradle”. That military
action, as had the Crimean War in the 19th Century in which Britain had allied
with France, contributed to the age-long Russian fear of foreign attacks. The
British Secret Intelligence Service was also involved in intrigues geared
towards overthrowing the Bolshevik regime which had signed an accord with the
Germany enemy and through the efforts of Robert Bruce Lockhart, although
ostensibly working for the Foreign Office, were almost certainly involved in a
plot to assassinate leaders such as Lenin and Trotsky.
The post-war
confrontation with the Soviet Union lasted for much of the second half of the
twentieth century. While the issues of a
nuclear arms race and proxy wars were significant factors in the rivalry
between the West and the Soviets, the intelligence war remains a hugely
emblematic feature of the era replete with intrigues of espionage during which
British intelligence often tangled with their Soviet counterparts.
Soviet
intelligence had great success in penetrating Britain’s domestic and foreign
intelligence services, as the defections of Guy Burgess, Donald MacLean and Kim
Philby spectacularly revealed.
There was
also a gruesome episode where the Soviets disrupted a British attempt to spy on
a Russian naval cruiser, the Ordzhonikidze, which was berthed at Portsmouth
Dockyard during a 1956 visit to Britain by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, recruited Commander Lionel ‘Buster’
Crabb, a retired naval frogman to reconnoitre the ship on a spying mission
which was done without the knowledge or the permission of Prime Minister Harold
MacMillan. It ended disastrously. Crabb disappeared and a body purported to be
his was found by fisherman a year later decapitated and shorn of its hands.
But the
British intelligence services did have their successes. The recruitment of Oleg
Penkovsky, the GRU colonel who provided valuable information used by the United
States during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, was undertaken by MI6. MI6’s
‘turning’ of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB agent who was later appointed the London
station chief, also counted as a triumph as did its exfiltration of Gordievsky
from Russia after he had been recalled home and interrogated as a suspected
double agent.
An overall
assessment of the degree to which intelligence made a difference in the ‘Cold
War’ is difficult because it ultimately did not break out into an all out war
after which the strength and accuracy of intelligence related to the other side’s
intentions and capabilities could be validated - if at all. For while Britain
and the Soviet Union performed excellently in the field of intelligence during
the Second World War, a highlight of the former been its breaking of the German
enigma code and the latter, SMERSH’s outmanoeuvering of the German Abwehr on
the eastern front, an outbreak of all out war between forces of Nato and the
Warsaw Pact would have resulted in the mutual annihilation of both sides.
The Cold War
in Fiction
“Dear God you’ve no idea have you! People in this business; they’re not
noble warriors, saints and martyrs. They don’t sit in London like monks
renouncing Satan and Lenin both. There are a procession of fools and chancers,
pansies, cowards, daredevils, drunkards and some of them are brilliant. They
don’t do it for peace and freedom; they do it for the game.” - Alex Leamas in
John le Carre’s ‘The Spy Who came in from the Cold’.
The fiction
of the British writers Ian Fleming and John le Carre played a huge part in
mythologising this ‘Great Game’ of intelligence. In the case of the former, the
James Bond novels consistently sought to portray Britain, whose power was
greatly diminished in the post-war period, as a vital cog in the efforts of the
American-led ‘free’ West to counter the threat of the spread of Soviet-inspired
communism. But where the reduction in power and prestige remained unmentioned
in Fleming books, le Carre’s early works frequently reference Britain’s
rationale for seeking to compete with the Soviet Union. This relates to a
yearning on the part of the British for the pre-war period of imperial
grandeur. It also offers a measure of insight into the reason why Britain has
continued to pursue a rivalry with Russia after the end of this
ideologically-based conflict.
The Soviets
were, of course, depicted as villains in Fleming’s books and the Russians,
specifically imbued with unenviable characteristics. In You Only Live Twice, a character warns Bond who is suffering from
amnesia to be careful about a proposed expedition to Vladivostok because the
Russians “are not a friendly people”.
It seems
quite possible to argue that the image of Russia never recovered from the
negative portrayals of Western political propaganda and popular culture during
this era. Indeed, right at its outset, Stalin had not only denounced
Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech as “war mongering”, but also interpreted his
reference to the “English-speaking world” as imperialist “racism”.
In contrast
to the glamour and moral certainties of the Fleming books are the works of John
le Carre who’s gritty and morally ambiguous renditions bore the ring of
authenticity. The spy games played out in an ideological war between capitalist
states and communist states took on undertones that did not reflect the notions
propagated in the West of a straightforward morality play of the ‘good’ West
versus the ‘bad’ East.
Espionage on
both sides was an endeavour shrouded in a great deal of ugliness. In his most
famous book, The Spy Who Came in from the
Cold, ‘Control’, the fictional head of British intelligence admits that
both sides essentially employ the same methods when stating that “you can’t be
less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government’s policy is
benevolent, can you now?”
In several
ways, the book portrays British intelligence as been even more ruthless and
amoral than the rival secret services of the Soviet bloc. Le Carre was a former
intelligence officer with firsthand experience of the intelligence war and this
acknowledgement that the British play the game of covert operations as dirty as
anyone else should be borne in mind when considering what misdeeds the British
and Russian secret services are each capable of accomplishing.
As a
character in one of his later books, The
Little Drummer Girl explains: “Terror is theatre … Theatre’s a con trick.
Do you know what that means? Con trick? You’ve been deceived.”
Anglo-American
Hegemony and the Threat of Eurasia
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
Who rules the World-Island controls the world.
- Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).
Russia sits
at the heart of a contiguous land mass encompassing Europe and Asia. In 1904, a
British geographer and scholar named Halford Mackinder, postulated the
‘Heartland Theory’ in a paper he titled The
Geographical Pivot of History. This is a geostrategic theory which divides
the world into three geographical regions. The Americas and Australia were
referred to as “outlying islands” and the British Isles and the islands of
Japan he labelled “outer islands”. The combination of Africa, Europe and Asia he
termed the “World-Island”. And at the centre of the “World-Island” is the
“Heartland”, which stretches from the Volga River to the Yangtze River and from
the Himalayas to the Arctic Ocean.
Later in
1919, Mackinder summarised the essence of his theory as follows: Who rules East
Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the
World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.” It served as both
a warning and a suggestion. It warned that sea power which had seen the rise of
Western European powers and the United States would give way to land power and
it suggested that controlling Eastern Europe would serve as the means through
which the Heartland’s power could be balanced.
The
modifications offered to Mackinder’s thesis by other theorists do not diminish
the importance of Russia in any calculations related to the geopolitical
balance of power and this is borne out by the policies of Britain and other
Western nations in the past as well as the present. Russia is after all located
at the centre, the Eurasian core which Mackinder named the “Pivot Area”.
The British
Empire, sometimes in concert with other powers such as France and the Ottomans
in relation to Crimea, fought the Russian Empire as a means of preventing its
expansion southwards. The aim of containing Russia was thus an extension of
Britain’s ‘balance of power’ foreign policy doctrine which informed its
relations with continental Europe. This was also the rationale behind the
alliance first with the Russian Empire as part of the ‘Triple Entente’ against
Austria-Hungary prior to the First World War and secondly with the Soviet Union
against Nazi Germany.
Britain’s
empire of course rapidly dissolved after the Second World War, and so it is not
quite accurate to refer to it as having been a rival to the Soviet Union and
now Russia. But it remains an important part of the Western alliance led by the
United States. Mackinder’s ideas helped shape the West’s management of the
‘Cold War’ and his influence is strong in the foreign policy America has
conducted since the ending of the Cold War.
It is
important in this context therefore to consider the thinking that has informed
American global foreign policy which Britain has slavishly supported. The
Brzezinski doctrine is derived from an explicit formulation by Zbigniew
Brzezinski in his 1988 book, The Grand
Chessboard, which theorised a formula that was fixated on preventing the
rise of a Eurasian power or combination of powers which could challenge the
global dominance of the United States. The idea was that the United States
needed to militarily intimidate Russia while working to dismantle it for the
purpose of using it as a pliant source of Western energy needs.
It is a
theory that is in accord with the neoconservative philosophy which has been
consistently influential on the policies of successive American administrations
dating back to that of President Bill Clinton. Brzezinski’s analysis devoted a
great deal to geostrategy in Central Asia which of course was the centre of
conflict between British and Russian Empires during the ‘Great Game’.
The end of
the Cold War was thought by some intellectuals such as Francis Fukuyama to have
represented the ‘end of history’, and, by implication, the end of geopolitics.
But the neoconservatives and those imbued with a belief in the messianic aspect
of ‘American Exceptionalism’ saw in this historical ‘victory’ of liberal
democracy and the free market an opportunity for the United States to impose
its will on the rest of humanity. Thus the Wolfowitz doctrine asserted the
right of the United States to enforce a global American imperium -even at the
cost of abrogating on multilateral agreements- in order to assure the continued
political and economic hegemony of the United States.
The result
was the inauguration of a new age of American militarism which has been
supported and embraced by Britain. Thus Britain, under the aegis of the United
States-led Nato alliance, supported American interventions in the Balkans,
Afghanistan and Iraq. Britain also joined with France and the United States in
toppling the government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.
Further,
Britain has supported covert operations overseen by American intelligence
agencies that have threatened Russia’s security interests. The effort begun in
2011 to attempt to overthrow the secular government of Bashar al Assad in
Syria, where Russia has a longstanding naval base, was based on a plan of
infiltrating the country with jihadists. Britain through Nato and the EU
supported a United States instigated coup d’état in Ukraine which overthrew the
democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych and installed a
Russophobic, ultra-nationalist regime which threatened to eject Russia’s Black
Sea fleet from its base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula.
While Britain
and the West has sought to portray Russia under Vladimir Putin as revanchist,
that is, as an aggressive power intent on restoring the former glory of the
Soviet Union including the re-acquisition of old territories, the truth is that
Russian foreign manoeuvres have been reactive rather than proactive.
The Russian
incursion into Georgia was a reaction to a Georgian attack on South Ossetia
which had been encouraged by Nato. Russia later withdrew it forces. Russia’s
re-acquisition of Crimea following a referendum came after a United States-sponsored
coup carried out by ultranationalist and neo-Nazi groups which caused fear and
concern among the Russian-speaking population in the eastern part of the
country. Russian troops were already in Crimea under a post-Soviet agreement
and there was no invasion of the Ukraine despite calls from Russian
ultranationalists for Putin invade and annexe the eastern part of the country.
Russian
military involvement in Syria was a reaction to Nato’s support for the
infiltration of Syria by Islamic fanatics who were to be used to overthrow the
secular Baathist government. Britain has supported this endeavour as evidenced
by the revelations of Roland Dumas, the former foreign minister of France, who
claimed in 2013 that while on a visit to England a few years before, he had
been informed of a plan to overthrow the Syrian government. British military
officers were among Nato officials stationed on Syria’s border with Jordan in
order offer training to Syrian rebels. Furthermore, in 2015 the Old Bailey
trial of a man charged with terrorist activities in Syria collapsed on the
grounds that Britain’s security and intelligence services would have been
“deeply embarrassed” about their covert support for anti-Assad militias. The
fall of Syria would have provided a launch pad for the jihadists to foment
trouble in the Muslim areas of the Russian Federation.
Russia’s
decision to reorganise its military districts and its battle offensive
capabilities including developing a new generation of nuclear weapons can also
be considered to be reactive rather than as part of a policy of aggression.
This is because it is arguably a development stemming from the decision of the
United States to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty back in 2002.
It is also arguably a reactive episode based on the expansion of Nato to its
borders, in contravention of an agreement reached by the leaders of the West
and the Soviet Union that Nato would not move an inch eastward in return for
consenting to the reunification of Germany as a part of Nato.
While Putin
may have declared in 2005 that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the
“greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”, his statement cannot be
definitively taken to reflect a lust to reacquire Soviet borders. Context is
important. Putin took over the presidency of Russia, a vast nation that had
endured the complete collapse of state authority twice in the twentieth
century, after the retirement of Boris Yeltsin, a weak and ineffectual leader
who presided over the chaotic and traumatic transformation from a planned
economy to a Western free market economy. This period saw the rise of the
oligarchs and the wholesale plunder of Russia’s wealth during a structural
adjustment programme overseen by Western economic advisors. The Russian death
rate increased, living standards decreased and an aura of general insecurity
was prevalent. Putin is credited with bringing this state of affairs
-comparable in the Russian psyche to the Smutnoe
Vremya or ‘Time of Troubles’- to an end.
An
understanding of this background is thus important in comprehending the state
of animus existing today between Britain and its Western allies on the one hand
and Russia on the other. The West is comfortable with a weakened, and even
prostrate Russia; a Russia which can be manipulated and exploited, not one
which is stable and possessing the potentialities associated with a powerful
Eurasian entity. A united and stable Russia which refuses to submit to the
hegemony of the West presents an existential threat to continued Western
domination.
This
sentiment is explicitly expressed by Michael Fallon, a former British minister
of defence who in a speech in February 2017 entitled ‘Coping with Russia’,
said: “Our hope was to have a partnership with Russia that recognised nations’
pursuit of their self-interest within the framework of the rules-based
international order. But Russia has chosen to become a strategic competitor of
the West”.
Whereas the
West has consistently ignored a ‘rules-based’ approach to international
affairs, demonstrated by the destruction -with key British assistance- wrought
by invasions and fomented conflicts in locations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and
Libya, Russia’s actions have been reactive. Its decision to enter into the
Syrian conflict at the invitation of the legal government of that nation, an
action which reintroduced multipolarity into the geopolitical arena, has been
welcomed by many. In assisting the Syrian Army, Iran and Hezbollah in
destroying Western-sponsored Islamist groups, Russia, in the words of Britain’s
former foreign secretary Lord David Owen, has “saved civilisation”.
The Aftermath
of the Poisoning of Sergei Skripal
“Frankly, Russia should go away - it should shut up”.
- Gavin Williamson, Britain’s defence secretary, speaking in March
2018.
The poisoning
of Sergei Skripal, the former GRU colonel turned MI6 double agent in the
English city of Salisbury has plunged Anglo-Russian relations to new depths.
The tit-for-tat expulsions of embassy staff are reminiscent of the Cold War
era. The immediate reaction by British politicians and much of the mainstream
media was to immediately hold the Russian state responsible for the attempted
murder of Skripal and his daughter.
But within
the atmosphere of strident accusation and vilification, is a litany of
unanswered, even troubling questions. Firstly, why would the Russian state feel
it necessary to attempt to kill an apparently retired agent who no longer poses
a threat to its security? Secondly, why would the assassins choice of weapon,
novichok, a nerve agent developed by Russia, be utilised for such an enterprise
in the full knowledge that the source of the attack would be traced back to
Russia? Thirdly, how were the victims able to survive what has been described
as a “military grade nerve agent”? Fourthly, what would Russia stand to gain
from committing such act so close to the Russian presidential elections and only months
away from the World Cup which it will be hosting? Fifthly, why would Russia
risk upsetting the established convention associated with spy swaps which
entails that such agents are not subject to future reprisals?
The rush to
judgement, which has involved abrogating the key tenet of Anglo-Saxon
jurisprudence of the presumption of innocence before a finding of guilt is
somewhat perplexing. As Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour
Party said: “To rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police, in
a fevered parliamentary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national
security”. Prime Minister Theresa May had been quick to announce to the House
of Commons that “there is no alternative conclusion other than the Russian
state was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter”.
May’s demand
on March 14th that Russia provide an “explanation” within 48 hours, was, argued
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, a violation of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. Britain, he insisted was under an obligation to hand over samples
of the chemical agent allegedly used in the attack to the Russian side and that
a ten day window be given.
There is an
argument that Article IX (2) of the convention has not been breached by Britain
because the language used in the convention is not of an absolute nature. There
is also the claim that as the British government concluded that Russia was
“highly likely” responsible for the attack, the provision which refers to “any
matter which may cause doubt about compliance” did not apply and that Britain
was free to pursue a different way of dealing with the matter.
But these
arguments are just that: arguments. While it is true to assert that the
convention does not provide an exclusive remedy and that exchange of
information would not be practical under circumstances when countries are
engaged in full-blown military exchanges, the request of Russia appeared
reasonable because both nations are not involved in an all-out war.
Further, it
can be argued that reasonable doubt does persist given the fact that the
British government has failed to disclose any hard evidence confirming the use
of novichok. The novichok programme was centred in Nukus, Uzbekistan -not
Russia- where weapons stocks are claimed to have been dismantled and destroyed
under supervision of the United States. But even if Russia still has stocks of
the nerve agent, as the whistleblowing Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov alleged,
it is not accurate to declare that only Russia is capable of producing the
variants of the chemical. Indeed, a book published in 2008 by Mirzayanova
entitled State Secrets: An Insider’s
Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Programme, provides the formula
associated with the production of novichok. This means that any chemical or
pharmaceutical corporation or government agency such as Porton Down, the
British government-run scientific research laboratory, would be capable of
reproducing it.
While it is
not beyond the scope of Russia to have committed the attack, some harbour suspicions
that it may have been a black operation conducted by British intelligence
agents with the motive of discrediting Russia in a campaign that has been
actively pursued for over a decade. The allegation made by Andrei Lugovoi, the
former FSB agent whom the British authorities claim murdered Alexander Litvinenko
that the Skripal incident was another “provocation by British intelligence
services” will not impress the many who are aware of the historical record of
generations of Soviet and Russian intelligence agencies.
But Ray
McGovern, a former long-serving CIA officer who received the Intelligence
Commendation Medal is on record as not ruling out the possibility of an
operation carried out by either Britain’s Security Service or Secret
Intelligence Service. Britain’s intelligence agencies have after all been
claimed to have been involved in plots of assassination against world leaders
ranging from Vladimir Lenin to Muammar Gaddafi and Slobadan Milosevic.
There will be
those who will refuse to follow the official narrative because of the lack of
evidence and motive on the part of the Russians. Some will go further in asserting
their belief that the incident is part of a sinister propaganda exercise. The
proximity of Porton Down, to Salisbury, will for some be a source of disquiet.
Porton Down has a murky history that includes the use of unwitting individuals
and the general public in secret experiments.
Furthermore,
it may not be coincidental that a number of attacks made during the Syrian
conflict which have involved chemical weapons such as in Ghouta in August 2013
and Idlib in April 2017 came at significant junctures in the conflict where
their use happened to provide justification for Western intervention in ways
that would debilitate the Syrian government, which of course has been supported
by Russia. Blame on each occasion was affixed to the Syrian government in highly
disputed circumstances where there was no discernible advantage to be gained by
the Syrians in employing their use against Western-backed rebel forces.
The analogy
with the Salisbury attack is that Russia, as was the case with the Syrian
government, have little to gain, while Britain has the opportunity to take the
moral high ground from which to demonise an enemy and discredit an enemy which
has won a great deal of goodwill around the world because of its decisive role
in defeating Islamist militias in Syria where it has frustrated Western efforts
aimed at overthrowing the government of Bashar al Assad.
The
underlying question remains: cui bono?
Conclusions
“Even I thought that with the end of the ideological barrier in the
form of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, things would change radically.
But it turns out … there are geopolitical interests not linked to ideology at
all”.
- Vladimir Putin, speaking in 2015.
The maelstrom
of invective and counter-invective related to the fallout over the attempt on
the life of Sergei Skripal -one episode within the wider, longstanding state of
tension between Russia and the West- tends to obscure one fundamental question:
Why does Britain persist in positioning itself as a rival of Russia? It is a
question which ought to exercise the mind of any prudent and critical observer.
Both
countries do not share a common border. Nor do they have any territorial
disputes. And Russia is not seeking to overthrow Britain’s political system,
impose an ideology upon it or to conquer it militarily.
Vladimir
Putin has consistently expressed the view that since the end of the Cold War
Russia has always wanted to foster closer ties with the West, but that this has
been consistently rebuffed. It is important to note that Britain’s Secret
Intelligence Service turned Sergei Skripal into a double agent in 1995 only a
few years after the end of the ideologically-motivated Cold War. This was at a
time when Russia was a pliable country undergoing the Western-managed
transformation from Soviet socialism into a laissez faire economy.
Espionage
directed at another nation state often denotes hostile intent and it is not
surprising that Putin amongst many Russians has sensed that the West has sought
to break up the country leaving it balkanised in a manner similar to what
happened in Yugoslavia.
Britain has
certainly worked towards effecting regime change.
In 2006, the
Russian authorities revealed an elaborate scheme in which British operatives
used a fake rock in Moscow to hide electronic equipment. The FSB linked the
item to a British secret service operation involved with making covert payments
to pro-democracy and human rights groups - the classic cover used by Western
intelligence services, notably the CIA, to foment so-called ‘colour
revolutions’. Putin responded by passing legislation restricting
non-governmental organisations from obtaining funding from foreign governments.
The perception
among many Russians is that these goals indicate that Britain, like rest of the
American-led West, has no intention of wanting to treat Russia as equals and
only seeks to co-opt Russia into the Western fold on the terms of a subordinate
partner.
Since Peter
the Great, many Russian leaders and thinkers have gazed westward, seemingly
fixated, but at the same time ruefully understanding, as implied by a famous
poem by Aleksandr Blok, that such yearning will never be reciprocated. Russia
represents the buffer between Europe and the Mongol hordes, is culturally and
racially distinct and thus is ultimately unassimilable. And while today the
goal of Western assimilation is held by a still influential group sometimes
referred to as the ‘Atlantic Integrationists’, the other faction, the ‘Eurasian
Sovereignists’, of which Putin is a representative, have been empowered by
Western policies which have caused Russia to look eastwards for increased
security and economic cooperation with China as well as to other parts of the
world.
This meeting
of minds between both powers and the policies they have begun to pursue, is to
an increasing number of intellectuals the beginning of a geopolitical trend
that represents the birth of a Eurasian project, one to which the political and
economic destiny of Europeans will increasingly become linked. It is a trend
which ought to make Britain re-evaluate its long-term strategy of binding
itself with the American goal of maintaining global hegemony. It is a
development which arguably reveals the self-defeating element and ultimately
the futility of British hostility towards Russia.
Such
hostility, represented by an escalating policy of demonisation, is geared
towards an inevitable outcome of war between the Western military powers and
Russia, a war which some would argue is already in progress. This is presently,
for the most part, informational but is also composed of an economic element,
the conduct of cyber warfare and is partly kinetic.
A ‘hot war’
with Russia would risk ending life on earth. It is thus incumbent on Britain’s
political, intellectual and security leadership to rethink this increasingly
fruitless rivalry.
© Adeyinka
Makinde (2018)
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