US, Russia face-off in Middle East | Is Putin Playing Puppetmaster in Greece? | Greece is quickly becoming a pawn between NATO and Russia - Wednesday July 8th, 2015 at 1:36 PM
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US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a hotel in Vienna, June 30, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
Author: Paul J. Saunders Posted July 7, 2015
For those who believe that what governments do is related to what they say, Moscow’s and Washington’s statements about one another are increasingly troubling. While actually rather cautious in its language, the United States' National Military Strategy is the latest example of evolving official threat assessments that describe new risks of direct conflict between the two countries. As a strategic region — and one of enduring competition and instability — the Middle East may well experience some of the consequences.
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US-Russian relations involving the Middle East could be affected by the new US National Military Strategy, which sees a low but growing risk of an "interstate war with a major power."
Signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the strategy states “the probability of US involvement in interstate war with a major power is assessed to be low but growing,” implicitly referring to a potential military conflict with Russia or China. While this comes approximately one page after a disclaimer that “none of these nations [Russia, Iran, North Korea or China, described as nations challenging the international order] are believed to be seeking direct military conflict with the United States or our allies,” it nevertheless reflects — and is intended to convey — a change in the US military’s thinking.
Why does it matter to people in the Middle East that America is rewriting a government report that few people outside the US national security establishment actually read? Because the reports and Russia’s analogous documents provide formal guidance to military leaders and planners in both countries. A sense that direct conflict might be more likely makes planning and preparing for that contingency more important, even when considered improbable. Geopolitics, geography, energy and other factors could quickly involve the Middle East in any such contest. As the Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky once reportedly said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Even robust competition short of war could have serious implications for the region. Operationally, a “growing” probability of armed conflict between the United States and Russia encourages US military planners to reassess America’s global force posture. If there is a conflict with Moscow, are US troops, ships and aircraft deployed in the right places? Should America move some of its military assets from the Middle East or other regions to Europe, which many assume would be the focus on any such confrontation?
Russia’s military leaders have to consider similar questions, though Moscow’s limited international deployments and its constraints in projecting power produce a different emphasis. During the Cold War, for example, one key question was the Soviet Union’s access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporus, controlled by Turkey, which is of course a NATO member. Could Russian naval vessels currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea become trapped there? What about Russia’s small presence at the Tartus naval facility in Syria? Similarly, in any serious conflict, could Russia sustain its arms shipments to Syria?
Likewise, these reports also have a part in shaping the overall tone and direction of the US-Russia relationship. And a more confrontational tone can quickly become self-reinforcing, producing more substantive changes.
Although the US National Military Strategy recognizes Moscow’s contributions to counternarcotics and counterterrorism efforts, it goes on to assert that Russia “does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbors” and “is willing to use force to achieve its goals.” (The latter is a somewhat curious comment from the US military, which America’s political leadership also employs “to achieve its goals.”)
Unsurprisingly, Moscow noticed this and the reference to a “growing” risk of conflict. Indeed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov promptly expressed “regret” at the report’s “confrontational mood, devoid of any impartiality toward our country” and said that Russia is revising its National Security Strategy, adding that “all national security threats are being taking into account and scrutinized and the corresponding countermeasures devised.”
The following day — just one day after the Pentagon released the National Military Strategy — Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of his country’s Security Council, during which he reiterated Peskov’s message (without connection to the United States), saying, “We must make a rapid analysis of all the potential challenges and risks we face — political, economic, information risks and others. Based on this analysis, we then need to make changes in our National Security Strategy.” This process will move Russia’s military and security bureaucracy toward contingency planning for conflict even as the US report moves America’s.
Moreover, as the United States and Russia consider direct conflict to be increasingly possible, even if still very unlikely, they impose this new context on their existing relationships around the world, intensifying existing competition for influence. Russia’s efforts to court Egypt, for example, have a different meaning in the White House and the Kremlin if the risk of a US-Russia conflict is “growing,” as does Moscow’s new naval access agreement with Cyprus. Russia’s arms sales to Iran — and US pursuit of the nuclear agreement — similarly take on additional flavor.
Over time, this dynamic could increasingly lead Washington to lobby its partners in the Middle East to choose sides by limiting their cooperation with Moscow. (Since Russia is the weaker party and has comparatively limited leverage, it has little to gain from this approach and would more probably continue its attempts to exploit frustration with America to cultivate individual governments.) The United States would be in the strongest position to discourage interaction with Russia in dealing with the governments most dependent on its protection, for example, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and theUnited Arab Emirates. That said, if the United States looks less willing to exercise its power, its partners will be less dependent and less subject to such pressure.
Conversely, as US military planners see a greater risk of conflict with Russia, they will generate pressure inside the US government to place greater value on existing alliance relationships and partnerships around the world. Here, governments hosting major military bases might find that they have new influence in dealing with Washington. In the Middle East, this would apply especially to countries with US naval and air bases that would be necessary to interdict Russian forces in any conflict (also the Arab Gulf nations) — again, recognizing that this is currently a remote possibility. During the Cold War, this dynamic generally reduced official US scrutiny of its partners’ domestic practices, something both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush have denounced.
Perhaps perversely, an environment in which Washington and Moscow see a growing possibility of conflict — but still consider it to be unlikely — can actually be more dangerous than many might think, in that it encourages intensified rivalry (to create the most favorable possible balance of power in advance of any potential confrontation) while maintaining the sense that actual conflict is very improbable (thus reducing incentives for self-restraint to avoid unnecessary risks). From this perspective, it is worth considering that the Middle East is already more than sufficiently volatile based strictly on tensions within and among regional states. Reigniting major power competition could pose even greater dangers to peace and stability.
Thankfully, a US-Russia conflict is still quite unlikely. Unfortunately, however, it is more likely than it was one year ago, five years ago or 10 years ago. And without an unexpected diplomatic breakthrough, next year could be worse.
Read More: <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/military-strategy-us-russia-direct-conflict-threat-assessmen.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/military-strategy-us-russia-direct-conflict-threat-assessmen.html</a>
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The weekend’s stunning repudiation of further European bailouts by a strong majority of Greeks shocked Brussels and beyond. That 61 percent of Greek voters want nothing to do with European Union “fixes” to their country’s grave fiscal crisis, which has preoccupied the EU for five years, represents a shocking development to Eurocrats.
What happens next is on everyone’s mind. Unless Athens comes up with a revised—and more plausible—finance plan very soon, expulsion from the Eurozone appears imminent. While that could cause financial instability for Europe, and may bring bad tidings far beyond, there’s one country that seems to be savoring this crisis.
That’s Russia. To the surprise of no one who pays attention to Vladimir Putin’s persistent efforts to undermine the EU and NATO, Moscow is poised to reap political benefits from Greece’s financial collapse.
The morning after the referendum, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke with Putin to discuss the fallout—a full day before Tsipras spoke with President Obama.
Read the rest at The Daily Beast …
Reuters/Alexander Zemlianichenko/PoolRussian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a signing ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, April 8, 2015. Tsipras did not ask for financial aid at talks in Moscow on Wednesday but Russia could provide credits for large joint projects in the future, Putin said.
As the cash in Athens begins to run out following the rejection of European Union-led austerity measures Sunday, funding for Greece’s bloated military is also quickly disappearing, inadvertently turning the country into a political pawn in the growing standoff between the Western-led NATO, of which Greece is a member, and Russia.
Just one day after Greece's historic referendum on a new debt relief plan, Russian President Vladimir Putin contacted Greece’s left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to express support for the Greek people, cementing the growing relationship between the two that has been building since Tsipras was elected more than six months ago.
For Western leaders looking on, the budding friendship has raised eyebrows and accusations that Moscow is driving a divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at bringing Greece under its sphere of influence and undermining the EU and NATO.
Russia, still reeling from EU-led sanctions for its annexation of Crimea last year and continued influence in the east Ukraine war, will likely not be able to help Greece financially.
“There is this new relationship with Moscow and Athens, so there is concern from NATO about how it might evolve in the future,” said Thomas Wright, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings, a Washington-based think tank. “It’s become part of the geopolitical frame around what’s happening in Europe right now.”
While Greece has been a less active member of NATO than its allies since joining in 1952, it has still regularly been one of the highest-spending countries among the 28-member alliance, mostly because of its fear of neighboring Turkey.
This year, Greece put aside 2.4 percent of its $238 billion GDP to spend on defense, making it the second-highest NATO spender behind the United States with 3.6 percent of GDP. It has even defied the European trend and its financial collapse by increasing defense spending this year by 0.1 percent, according to NATO.
Around 74 percent of its military spending has been for personal expenses, such as pensions and salaries, a clear example of the country’s bloated public sector, and it's unlikely that Athens will be able to sustain such spending.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that Greece had “not a matter of weeks but of a few days" to save itself from collapse, suggesting that those high-level military costs will either come down with self-inflicted cuts or just when the country runs out of money.
"Without new money, salaries won't be paid, the health system will stop functioning, the power network and public transport will break down, and they won't be able to import vital goods because nobody can pay," Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, told the Telegraph last week.
ReutersA U.S. Airforce B52 bomber is watched by onlookers as it lands at RAF Fairford February 21. The B52s arrived from the U.S. as part of NATO's preparation for possible air attacks on Serbia.
Amid the debt crisis, NATO has said it will stick by Greece.
“The secretary-general has made clear that Greece is a committed ally, and the Greek government has stressed that they stand by their commitments to NATO and do not make any link between the debt crisis and Greece’s NATO membership,” a NATO official said Monday.
However, while Greece claims that it will meet its NATO commitments, it's unclear whether the economic crisis could affect the operation of its other NATO partners.
The United States currently operates a small naval base on the island of Crete, known as Souda Bay, where U.S. forces run many of their North African operations from, including the Special Forces attacks on Tripoli in the aftermath of the U.S. Embassy attacks in 2012. But those operations could be halted if Greece cannot pay the hundreds of locals that help run the base.
Read the original article on International Business Times. Copyright 2015. Follow International Business Times on Twitter.
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