Not The Old Superpower. Still...

The crisis in Ukraine, which has culminated in the ‘accession’ of its Crimean Province to the Russian Federation, is not just a victory for Vladimir Putin. It marks the return of a resurgent Great Power to the international stage

Russia’s annexation of Crimea, following a controversial referendum in the peninsula that has been deemed illegitimate by the United States, the European Union and the incumbent Government of Ukraine, has expectedly stoked fears of another Cold War. While some of these concerns maybe over-stated, there is no looking away from the fact that the political crisis in Ukraine, which has culminated in the accession of its Crimean Province to the Russian Federation, marks the return of a resurgent Great Power to the international stage in a manner that it has not been seen since the end of the Cold War. On the other end, it also highlights the limits of Western powers which have struggled to respond to the crisis in an effective and cohesive manner, and have found themselves on the backfoot every step of the way. The crisis should perhaps also force a re-think on Nato’s mandate and purpose.

That the US-EU-Nato combine clearly failed to assess Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to the ouster of Mr Viktor Yanukovich, the democratically elected President of Ukraine ,who was also Kremlin’s man in Kiev, goes without saying. This, at least partly, seems to be because the West never cared to put itself in President Putin’s position — as is evidenced from the international community’s entirely anti-Russia rhetoric on the issue. The entire blame is being laid at President Putin’s doorstep for ‘invading’ Ukraine and ‘violating its territorial integrity’, when, in fact, the West is just as much responsible. After all, aggressive Nato expansionism was bound to rankle Moscow. Yet, successive regimes in Washington, DC, continued with its eastward movement in a manner that has only served to incite Russia.

As Mr Malcolm Fraser, the former Prime Minister of Australia, notes in The Guardian: “The then (Soviet Union) President, (Mikhail Sergeyevich) Gorbachev , in negotiating with US Secretary of State, James Baker, had insisted that Nato should not move one foot east — this was an area of traditional Russian influence. President (Bill) Clinton pushed to expand the Nato alliance to the very borders of Russia. There was talk of Ukraine and Georgia being included.” True, Ukraine eventually turned down offers to join Nato but as Mr Fraser explains, “The move east... was provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia: We are not willing to make you a co-operative partner in the management of European or world affairs; we will exercise the power available to us and you will have to put up with it.” And that is not all: “The message was re-emphasised years later, when President Bush sought to place elements of the anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. America said this was aimed at Iran. Russia would not have believed that. The West was acting as though the Cold War still persisted”.

Similarly, the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, which happened in Russia’s backyard and despite Moscow’s reservations, is yet another example of Western high-handness. That President Putin used the example set in Kosovo to justify his annexation of Crimea shows how things are now coming full circle. In his victory speech at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Mr Putin said: “The Crimean authorities referred to the well-known Kosovo precedent — a precedent our Western colleagues created with their own hands in a very similar situation, when they agreed that the unilateral separation of Kosovo from Serbia, exactly what Crimea is doing now, was legitimate and did not require any permission from the country’s central authorities.” 

In response, some Western experts have sought to distinguish the Kosovo case from Crimea on the ground that the secession of the former was necessitated by enormous bloodshed. While a high death toll may make for a compelling argument for it, secession is still very much a violation of the principal of territorial integrity that the West now seeks to uphold against Russia — a fact that Mr Putin has also underlined. 

For now, it seems like there is little to stop Mr Putin, who is possibly looking to flesh out his dream of the Eurasian Union, essentially a vast trade block to rival the EU, which up until now had received little international attention. The West, on its part, has begun imposing sanctions on individual Russian leaders and threatened additional ‘costs’ amidst loud protestations of “land grab” and “theft on an international scale”. But none of these seem to have perturbed President Putin much.

Russia does only limited business with the US; its main trading partner is the EU which buys Russian gas. It is unlikely that Europe, hamstrung by its own financial troubles, will be willing to bear a high cost. Indeed, as we decide to what extent the West will be willing to convert its high-pitched talk against an ‘aggressive’ Russia into punitive action, it is important to remember that neither the EU nor definitely the US has the kind of interests which Russia has in Crimea. Not only does Russia have historical ties with the penninsula that goes back centuries, Crimea has also been the base for its Black Sea Fleet for 200 years at Sevastopol. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lease agreement valid till 2042 allows the Russian fleet to continue operating in Sevastopol in exchange for discounted natural gas. This lease also allows Russia to station 161 aircraft, 388 warships and 25,000 armed men in Crimea (which Mr Putin used to justify the presence of his armed forces during March 16 referendum).

Indeed, India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon had also mentioned “legitimate Russian interests” in Crimea — and his statement did raise some eyebrows around the world. The statement, even if carefully couched in diplomatese, showed Indian support for Russia, a long-standing friend, at a time when the latter has been virtually isolated. This must also be viewed alongside the official statement from the Ministry of External Affairs, which not only refrained from condemning Moscow’s actions but also kept out the routine mention of “respect for territorial integrity” etc. It is no surprise then that President Putin has not only thanked India for “showing restraint” but also later telephoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to apprise him of the developments.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on March 20, 2014)

A Taste of Your Own Medicine

The terror attack in Islamabad has hit the Pakistani Establishment in its home turf, and raised questions over how long the Government will be able retain control over its own backyard even. Still, course correction seems unlikely

Terror attacks in Pakistan these days hardly grab headlines elsewhere, as they happen on a near daily basis across that country. Nevertheless, the bloodbath in Islamabad on Monday deserves attention. For one, it was a rare incident even by Pakistan’s standards. Though other urban centres, such as Karachi and Peshawar, have come under attack and repeatedly so, the capital city has been largely insulated from the onslaught of terrorists in recent years. Indeed, this was the first major attack since June 2011 and the deadliest since 2008 when the Marriott Hotel was bombed.

On Monday morning, gunmen ran into a district courthouse complex, located in the posh F8 Sector of Islamabad, firing indiscriminately at bystanders. After about 45 minutes of utter mayhem, two of them blew themselves up inside a courtroom while others reportedly fled. Eleven people, including a judge, were killed in the attack that bore a striking resemblance to the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.

The attack has hit the Pakistani elite on its home turf, and raised questions over how long the Government will be able retain control over its own backyard even. Many believe that Islamabad, specifically the Government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has struck a devil’s deal with terror groups: Keep your hands off Islamabad and the surrounding Punjab Province (by far, Pakistan’s most prosperous region and Mr Sharif’s stronghold) — and, in return, the state machinery will look the other way as you wreak havoc in other parts of the country. Monday’s attack shows that any such deal which may have been in place is now unravelling.

According to the Pakistani Government, the attack also shattered the ceasefire agreement that it had entered into with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan less than 24 hours ago. On Sunday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had announced that the Government would halt ongoing airstrikes against the militants in response to the latter’s offer to hold fire for a month, that came the day before. On Saturday, the military had targeted the hideouts of Taliban leader Hazrat Nabi, also known as Mullah Tamanche, who Government officials hold responsible for a March 1 attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province that claimed the lives of 11 policemen guarding polio workers. The state’s retaliatory response resulted in the killing of least five militants and, although it remains unclear if Mullah Tamanche was one of them, it seemed to have forced the TTP to call for truce.

Given the Taliban’s long history of violating ceasefire promises, it was assumed that the peace would not hold for long but few could have predicted a massacre the very next day — and this seemingly includes the TTP itself. On Tuesday, the group’s spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid washed their hands off the attack, while making vague accusations about foreign involvement to derail peace negotiations with the Government that could have been re-started. The talks had been suspended weeks ago after militants killed 23 Frontier Corps soldiers it had been holding in its custody since 2010, despite promises of ceasefire during negotiations.

Instead, a little known group, Ahrar-ul Hind, has taken responsibility for the attack. Now, few in Pakistan seem to believe that the TTP was not involved in the attack. By most accounts, it is using the new group to give itself the advantage of plausible deniability. Interestingly, it is precisely this that has been the Pakistani Government’s strategy with regard to anti-India attacks and activities emanating from its soil. But that is a different story altogether. For now, there is reason to believe that the TTP may not have actually been directly involved in courthouse attack.

The Ahrar-ul Hind claims to have separated from the Pakistani Taliban network in February, after the latter began peace talks with the Government which were supposed to be premised on two pre-conditions: First, that the Taliban accept and honour the Constitution of Pakistan and second, that any potential peace deal cover only ‘violence-hit areas’ (code for restive tribal areas that are safe havens for militants). The Ahrar-ul Hind is opposed to both and has made clear it will accept nothing less than the implementation of sharia’h law across Pakistan.

Another interesting aspect of the group is that while its spokesman has claimed that it is led by one Maulana Omar Qasmi, Pakistani media has reported that security agencies believe the ‘Kashmiri fighter’ Mast Gul, is probably its driving force. The former commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen led the 1995 siege of the Charar-e-Sharif shrine in Jammu & Kashmir. After a two month long standoff that gutted the  14th century shrine, the Indian Army eventually flushed out the militants but Mast Gul escaped. According to Former Union Minister Jaswant Singh, he received a hero’s welcome across the border as he drove to Muzaffarabad from Chakothi on August 2, three months after the arson. For a while, Gul was supposedly the ISI’s blue-eyed boy but later went off the radar. Then, this February, he resurfaced in Northern Waziristan with a TTP commander claiming responsibility for the hotel bombing in Peshawar.

But irrespective of the nature of the TTP’s ties with the Ahrar-ul Hind, the fact remains that this is not the first time that it has distanced itself from a terror attack. For example, last year the group refrained from taking responsibility for two high-profile incidents — the Nanga Parbat shooting in June and the Peshawar church attack in September, both of which were claimed by lesser known groups. Viewed along with the TTP’s refusal to take ownership of the Islamabad courthouse attack, it highlights the highly amorphous nature of the Pakistani Taliban and is indicative of the fact that the top leadership of the network does not have direct charge of every jihadi foot soldier.

This effectively dooms any peace dialogue that the Pakistani Government undertakes with the TTP. Unfortunately, Islamabad has chosen to persist with the talks. On Wednesday, Government negotiators met TTP representatives at a seminary in the northwestern city of Akora Khattak where the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Omar, and several of his top commanders are said to have studied. This was inspite of the fact that earlier in the day, a roadside bomb in Hangu had killed six soldiers.

The only way to contain terror, at least in the short term, is to use military action and purge terrorist safe havens from that country. And in this effort, Pakistan cannot afford to cherry-pick its targets — cracking down on those who are detrimental to Pakistani interests while protecting ‘assets’ it hopes to use against India or Afghanistan.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on March 6, 2014)