#2
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
November 18, 2015
The heat is on to meet the climate challenge
The UN climate conference in Paris later this month may determine Russia's policies for years to come
GLEB FEDOROV, RBTH

The largest flood in the history of Russia's Black Sea coast killed 171 people in 2012. In just two days five months' worth of rainfall hit the mountainous regions of the Krasnodar territory, where rivers overflowed and mixed with mud flows to seriously damage settlements.

In Krymsk, the most affected city, the water levels reached seven metres above normal. The flooding started in the early morning and took everyone by surprise.

After the floods, the authorities were criticized because the city's alarm system had failed in the disaster and the local storm sewer system and Adagum riverbed was not prepared for such volumes.

Three years later, Russian and German researchers proved that there was another culprit: climate change.

In an article published in the July 2015 issue of Nature Geoscience, scientists linked the flood in Krymsk to the two-degree Celsius increase in temperatures of the Black Sea since 1984. This is an example of the scientific data showing the need for cities to prepare for the impact of climate change. But most Russian cities are not prepared. St. Petersburg is the only city to date to have a plan for adapting to climate change.

St. Petersburg's strategy, adopted this year, took four years to develop and was based on plans from Finland, Denmark, the UK and India.

The strategy includes measures for mitigating risks and adapting to serious threats, especially floods.

By 2100, sea levels in the Gulf of Finland may rise by a meter and the city's flood-protection systems may not work.

Moscow, which suffered severe heat waves in 2010; the Far East, which in 2013 was struck by the heaviest flood in centuries; and the Arctic, which scientists say is losing territory at an alarming rate due to global warming and erosion, are all without plans for adapting to climate change.

According to Greenpeace Russia's energy expert Vladimir Chuprov, the federal plan for adapting to climate change, which was adopted in 2011, exists only on paper. Its implementation was handed to the Ministry of Regional Development, which was later disbanded. Now the plan's implementation is de facto in the hands of the regions themselves.

What to wait from Paris?

The main difference between the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which will most likely be signed at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which starts on November 30 in Paris, is that the emphasis at the conference will not be on limiting emissions but on ways of adapting to the changing climate.

The conference will be particularly relevant for Russia because its adaptation plans are only in the early stages.

Alexei Kokorin, head of WWF Russia's energy program, thinks the conference's focus will be on how the world's leading economies will give more vulnerable countries resources for adapting to climate change, and the time frame for that to happen.

Experts believe that the sum of the resources required will be about $100 billion by 2020. In other words, Kokorin thinks that Paris "is a 10 to 15-year pause in the real reduction of emissions, compensated by massive aid to weak countries."

Developed countries will try to lay the burden for adaptation on its private corporations, while the countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change will be given more resources.

Since Russia is part of an intermediate group of countries (that is, developing countries that do not need financial aid but are not strong enough to be major donors themselves), the conference's agenda will bypass Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia will try to figure out how it can become part of the low-carbon global trend without damaging its economy, which is very dependent on traditional energy sources.

The obligations that Moscow is ready to assume seem impressive: Russia is promising to cut emissions by 25-30 per cent by 2030 from levels in 1990. But Russia's emissions are already less than in 1990, so this commitment sounds more significant than it actually is.

Russia may cut its emissions more substantially, but at this stage, it is not making dramatic commitments.

Ecologists predict that Russia is likely to return to business as usual, although it may work harder at adaptation strategies and developing green-energy industries, which right now only produce one per cent of Russia's power.

Still, it is important to note that the Russian government has begun recognizing the reality of climate change. During his recent speech at the UN General Assembly, President Vladimir Putin said that climate change is one of the most important problems facing humanity.

According to the director of the ecology department at the Ministry of Economic Development, Vladimir Maximov, after Putin signed the decree On The Reduction Of Greenhouses Gases Russia began to address its climate issues.

The results of the Paris Convention and the signing (or not) of the Paris Agreement will determine how far Russia will go in developing its adaptation plans.

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 #3
Russian economy is quite stable, despite current conditions - PM Medvedev

MANILA, November 18. /TASS/. The situation in the Russian economy and financial sector is quite stable, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Summit on Wednesday.

"For Russia it may be one of the most difficult periods," he said. "The falling oil prices, the ruble collapse and also 1.5 years of the sanctions pressure on our country have a very serious impact on us."

"But despite this, the situation in our economy and financial system is stable enough, we are coping with the negative price fluctuations," Medvedev said.

Ruble weakening favourable to investors buying shares of Russian companies

In Russian PM's words, the weakening of the ruble allows foreign investors to buy shares of Russian companies at lower prices.

"Apart from the negative factors, there are also positive things for foreign investors," he said. "Maybe not all like them in our country, but this is good for foreign investors. I mean that the weakening of the ruble has created the opportunity for buying Russian assets at lower prices than some time ago, and many take advantage of this."

Russia cannot do without foreign investment in the development of Siberia and the Far East, the Russian Prime Minister noted.

"We are interested in making the Russian Far East and Siberia our national priority of the 21st century, because these are vast territories with a large number of natural deposits, and here we, actually, cannot do without foreign investment," the prime minister told an audience at the APEC CEO Summit.

Direct investments of Asia-Pacific region countries in Russian economy total about $10 bln

The volume of direct investments into the Russian economy from the Asia-Pacific region totals about $10 bln, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday at the APEC Summit.

He stressed that Russia's role in the formation of the Asia-Pacific agenda is growing, as evidenced by the increase in trade with the countries of the region, which accounts for over a quarter of Russia's foreign trade.

"But the direct investments in our economy from the Asia-Pacific region, and vice versa, respectively, do not grow as fast as we would like," Medvedev admitted. "Currently its volume is about $10 bln," he added. In order to increase the figure funds are actively establishing, he said. Such organizations already exist in China, Korea, etc.

"Virtually inexhaustible possibilities of cooperation are included in our project to accelerate the development of Siberia and the Far East. We launched a special mechanism for priority development territories with preferential tax and administrative regime," the Prime Minister said. Currently there are 9 such advanced development territories.

Medvedev has promised that residents of the free port of Vladivostok will receive even bigger set of preferences. Such mode is planned to be extended to several other ports in Russia.

Russia ready to adjust laws on Vladivostok free port on investors' proposals

The Russian government is ready to adjust the legislation on the regime of the free port of Vladivostok, responding to the wishes of foreign investors, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

"I hope that the work conditions in this place and, accordingly, the advantages of free port will be comparable to similar ports that are located in the Asia-Pacific region, and we'll be able to compete with our partners," he said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Summit. "But it's a creative process, we will respond to the proposals of our partners, foreign investors. If it is necessary to adjust something in the legislation, we'll think it over and introduce amendments," he said.

Russia plans to increase grain exports to 35-40 million tons by 2020

Russia plans to increase grain exports to 35-40 million tons by 2020, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said speaking at the at the APEC CEO summit.
"Russia currently produces plenty of grain, we export a lot of grain. However, we believe that by 2020 our export capacities will amount to about 35-40 million tons," the prime minister said.

He pointed to the fact that for many countries of the Asia-Pacific region cooperation in the food sector is of particular importance, and there are excellent prospects there. "The region is huge, growing, with the large population, and there is every reason to believe that the food security issues will be increasingly topical," Medvedev said.

According to him, the increase in the export capacities will contribute to the solution of the food security problem. "Moreover, we may talk not only about exports but also about the full-fledged cooperation in this area with our partners and with other Asia-Pacific market participants," the Russian premier said.

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 #4
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
November 18, 2015
Why is Russia's Central Bank planning to print 1 trillion rubles?
The regulator intends to inject $15 billion of cash into circulation
ANNA KUCHMA, RBTH

Russia's Central Bank is to inject 1 trillion rubles ($15 billion) in banknotes into circulation in December, allegedly to cover a seasonal demand for cash.

The regulator's first deputy chairman Georgy Luntovsky announced the upcoming cash issue on Nov. 12. According to the Central Bank, the amount of cash in circulation in Russia exceeded 7.7 trillion rubles ($115.7 billion) as of Oct. 1.

The head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, said that the decision on the issue has been made due to the growth in the demand for cash that typically occurs at the end of the year.

Where does the shortage of cash come from?

According to Central Bank statistics, the volume of cash in open circulation grows annually in December and then falls again at the beginning of the new year. For instance, in December 2014, the amount of cash increased by 914 billion rubles ($13.7 billion) to 8.8 trillion rubles ($132.3 billion), while by the end of January 2015 it had dropped to 7.7 trillion ($115.7 billion).

"Usually in December, the budget spends up to 40 percent," said Vladimir Tikhomirov, an economist with the BKS Financial Group, who attributes the increase in cash to a growth of budgetary spending. In addition, the population starts to withdraw money from accounts more actively in anticipation of the holidays.

"The further reduction of the ruble mass can be explained by capital outflows, the transfer of rubles to the currency and the transfer to accounts," explained Sergei Grigoryan, head of the analytical department of the Association of Russian Banks (ARB).

What will the issuance influence?

According to Nabiullina, the issuance will not lead "to any other effects" associated with monetary figures, as the regulator plans to take into account the parameters of the demand for cash. Earlier, the press service of the Central Bank said that the regulator was "not talking about an increase in the money supply" (the total amount of money in the economy, both in cash and non-cash form - RBTH).

However, experts interviewed by RBTH believe that this is impossible.

"To print more money and put them into circulation, while not increasing the money supply, is possible only if to withdraw part of the notes at the same time, such as the old ones. But the Central Bank's report does not talk about this," said Grigoryan.

"This is most likely about the replacement of one trillion bank deposits for cash," said Vasily Solodkov, director of the Banking Institute at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

As economist Sergei Alexashenko points out, the "concept of 'printing money' or of 'increasing issuance' in relation to the Bank of Russia has a figurative meaning."

According to him, the Central Bank always issues non-cash money first, which is allocated to bank accounts, and then banks exchange non-cash money for cash.

At the same time, Grigoryan notes that the increase in money supply (M2 is the denotation used by the Central Bank) could be beneficial for the Russian economy.

"The more money, the stronger the economy, while in Russia, the ratio of M2 to GDP is extremely low," he said.

The money supply equals almost half of GDP - 32 trillion rubles ($481 billion) against 70.9 trillion ($1.066 trillion) as of the beginning of the year. For comparison, in China, on the contrary, the money supply is twice the country's GDP.

"The Central Bank fears increasing the money supply, believing that it will accelerate inflation. However, studies by the ARB (the Association of Russian Banks) have shown that in Russia, inflation is not monetary, it depends on the tariffs of natural monopolies," said Grigoryan.

Easing the strain on Russia's banks?

The experts interviewed by RBTH also had other explanations. According to Alexander Abramov of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, the reason for the issuance is not a lack of cash, but a liquidity strain for banks.

Abramov cites Central Bank statistics: At the beginning of the year, the monetary base (bank liabilities) was 11.3 trillion rubles ($169.9 billion), but by Nov. 1, it had been reduced to 9.7 trillion rubles ($145.8 billion).

"Until now, to increase their own liquidity, banks borrowed through repo transactions [transactions with a promise of repurchase or sale after a certain period of time and at a certain price - RBTH]. However, due to high interest rates (11 percent), banks have stopped using this tool," said Abramov.

"To provide banks with enough working capital for deposits and lending, the Central Bank has decided to provide funds essentially for free," he said.

In March, the Central Bank's first deputy chairwoman Ksenia Yudayeva noted that the regulator did not see risks of the acceleration of inflation through the printing press.

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 #5
There are no systemic risks in Russian banking sector - Deputy Finance Minister

MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. There are no systemic risks in the Russian banking sector, the level of capitalization of banks and access to liquidity do not cause any concern, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev told TASS Wednesday.

"Carried out measures of anti-crisis support had a significant positive impact on banks and received positive feedback, including the IMF, as the appropriate in terms of design, size and timing. Accordingly, the level of capitalization and access to liquidity do not raise any fears," he said.

Earlier, the Head of Sberbank German Gref said that Russia is experiencing a large-scale banking crisis. According to him, next year will be no less difficult for the Russian banking system.

Deputy Economic Development Minister Nikolay Podguzov told TASS that Russia's banking system regularly performs all its assigned functions in lending to both the public and the real sector, and the level of capitalization of the banking system is acceptable after the implementation of the government's measures for additional capitalization.

The anti-crisis plan that started at the end of 2014, has 60 measures with estimated value of 2.332 trillion rubles ($35.94 bln). The document includes emphasizing seven key areas for the implementation of measures to combat the crisis. Among them - increasing stability of the banking system.

In particular, the plan included the point about additional capitalization of banks with funds provided by the State Corporation Deposit Insurance Agency through the federal loan (OFZ) mechanism in the amount of funding of 1 trillion rubles ($15.43 bln).

#6
Forbes.com
November 16, 2015
Putin's 'Strategic Blunder' In Syria May Be A Boon For Investors
By Kenneth Rapoza

Remember when Russia's entrance into the Syria crisis was a "mistake" and even a "strategic blunder", according to Washington? Following Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris, Russian air strikes on ISIS strongholds in Syria are no longer viewed as making the migrant crisis worse. Instead, they are viewed as a means to keep Syria from falling to the enemy. Under such dire circumstances, it will be hard to see European leaders agreeing to continue sanctions on Russia beyond July 2016. Russia has gone from foe, to friend.

"The Obama Administration will likely look to keep both issues separate," says Brettonwoods Research founder Vladimir Signorelli about the Ukraine-inspired sanctions and the Syria crisis. "Still, Washington can't ignore how 'well Russia's cooperation against ISIS will play in European capitals. Putin has an opportunity to build goodwill there, which will likely add heft and legitimacy to calls by nationalists and euro-skeptics to rescind Russian sanctions," he says.

While January is likely too early to see the end of Russian sanctions, which began last year due to Moscow's involvement in supporting separatists in east Ukraine, odds are high that Russia could see discussion on the rollback on sanctions soon. "Markets will discount that well before hand," Signorelli says.

The Market Vectors Russia (RSX) exchange traded fund closed 3.9% higher on Monday as investors weigh this sentiment shift. In fact, Russian equities beat out the S&P 500, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, and oil futures, all higher today.  Over the last 12 months, though, Russian investors have been hit by the double whammy of declining oil prices and sanctions, with equities down nearly 20% in dollar terms.

Prevailing winds are blowing in Russia's favor.

Even the Washington-backed Free Syrian Army has shared intelligence on ISIS hideouts with the Russian Air Force. Dare Washington say it (and they won't), but Russia is looking competent.

At the very least, Russia's strategy in Syria is being welcomed now with open arms.

Obama and Putin discussed Syria at the G-20 Summit in Turkey this weekend. The two leaders are finding they have more in common on ISIS than not.

U.K. leader David Cameron said the gap with Russia over Assad is narrowing. Washington's regime change policy is looking now as old as the think tankers in the Beltway that have been promoting it since 2001.

The potential for a single international coalition in the fight against ISIS, one that even includes Syrian leader Bashar Assad's army in that effort, is now emerging as the next evolution in the fight against jihadis. Back in September, Putin told Charlie Rose in a candid one-on-one interview outside of Moscow that like it or not, Assad was the leader of Syria and that leader was the only guy fighting the Islamic State. And he was losing. Meanwhile, U.S. backed groups, some who share a similar ideology to ISIS, were fighting and weakening Assad.

On Monday, President Francois Hollande called for the U.N. Security Council to discuss a joint response to the terrorist attacks, the worst attacks in France since World War II. This follows agreement over the weekend between Obama and Putin to task the U.N. with negotiating a peace-deal between the opposition and Assad's government.

Among Western nations, it is clear that the categorical rejection of allowing Assad any constructive role in Syria is breaking down. The rejection of Russia's direct cooperation with U.S. and European forces may also be about to shift.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said over the weekend that there cannot be two forces fighting ISIS in Syria, meaning one where the U.S. and Europe is on one side, and Russia and Assad are on the other. Look for the talking heads to go on the offensive in explaining how this is a bad idea.

Even hawkish former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul said Friday that he supported "joint efforts" that include Russia on hitting ISIS.

In addition, the Paris attacks may have permanently changed the European policy on Syrian migrants. It is easy for people to see this as a Trojan Horse, even though none of the jihadis have been proven to have come into the E.U. as recent migrants.

In France, nationalists and anti-immigrant politicians like Marine LePen are leading in the polls for April 2016 elections. She has urged an immediate halt to migrant intake.

A state finance minister in Germany, Marcus Söder, said over the weekend, "Paris changes everything. The time of uncontrolled immigration cannot continue."

It is easy to see how just one more jihadi bomb in the E.U. puts the passport-free Schengen travel regime in jeopardy within 22 E.U. countries. This suddenly becomes a security hole for Europe that could fragment the region and represents another headwind for the euro currency union, particularly in light of a more nationalist mindset in Europe, Brettonwoods Research believes.

With this in mind, any one seen as an ally in the fight against jihad will be a welcome voice in Europe.

For his part, Putin said on Monday that while bilateral relations with the West have deteriorated, a common enemy has helped. U.K. intelligence has helped Russian investigators with deciphering what caused the downing of a MetroJet passenger plane over the Sinai peninsula on Oct. 31.

"It is clear to me that we must work together to defeat this scourge of terrorism that is a threat to Britain," Cameron told Putin. "It's a threat to Russia. It's a threat to us all."

The European point of view on Russia may be drifting from Washington's and this bodes well for both economies. Since sanctions, Russia's economy has contracted by 3.5%. European companies like French dairy giant Danone, has been spending millions in the country in an effort to keep market share safe from retaliatory Russian sanctions on food exporters.

"It is difficult to fault Russia for its sense of timing," says Jan Dehn, head of research at the Ashmore Group in London. "They got themselves inserted into the ISIS situation in Syria just weeks before the Paris attack. The demand for action is so strong now in the West that Russia is absolutely in a stronger position than it has been in a long time. But I don't think the Syria situation will lead to the removal of sanctions, although it aligns the interests of Russia to the West," he says.

Russian sanctions are specifically linked to a political solution in eastern Ukraine, so ultimately there has to be improvement there for Europe to remove sanctions. There is risk that the sanction regime will remain in tact if Ukraine does not improve, even if a more inward looking political landscape took over important E.U. nations.

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 #7
Ekho Moskvy
November 17, 2015
Russian rights ombudsman voices concern at Justice Ministry charges against NGO

[Presenter] The human rights ombudsman, Ella Pamfilova, has called the Justice Ministry's allegations against the Memorial human rights centre unacceptable. She asked the ministry to back up its complaint with additional arguments or to withdraw it.

Andrey Gavrilov reports.

[Correspondent] Some of the points in the inspection report on the Memorial human rights centre are poorly argued and unsubstantiated, Ella Pamfilova stressed in her appeal to Justice Minister Aleksandr Konovalov. She asked the ministry to explain in more detail what was behind the allegations against the human rights organization, one of the oldest ones in Russia, as this could serve as a pretext for Memorial to be abolished, which would be unacceptable in a law-governed state, Pamfilova wrote.

She promised to do her utmost to protect the human rights centre against unlawful actions, arbitrary decisions and administrative pressure, [the appeal published on] the ombudsman's website said.

There have been reports in the media not so long ago that after inspecting Memorial, the Justice Ministry decided that the human rights activists had allegedly been undermining the foundations of the constitutional system and calling for the overthrow of the current authorities and the change of political regime in the country. Documents relating to the inspection were sent to the Prosecutor-General's Office.

The head of the Memorial board, Aleksandr Cherkasov, is convinced that the Justice Ministry equated criticism of the country's leadership to attempts to overthrow the authorities.

A group of human rights activists have expressed support for the organization. They have the backing of tens of public figures and representatives of the world of culture.

[Presenter] The presidential human rights council is also concerned about the Justice Ministry's complaints against Memorial and has promised to examine the validity of the complaints within two weeks.

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 #8
Interfax
November 17, 2015
Russian ombudsman probes into high-profile prisoners' complaints

Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Ella Pamfilova has sent an official letter to the Russian prison authorities asking them to provide urgent medical help to the brother of prominent opposition activist Aleksey Navalnyy - Oleg Navalnyy, who is serving his prison sentence after being convicted for embezzlement, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax news agency reported on 17 November.

"The commissioner for human rights has sent an official letter to the Director of the Federal Penal Service Gennadiy Korniyenko about the need to provide urgent medical assistance to Oleg Navalnyy," Pamfilova's press service told Interfax.

According to the press service, on doctors' recommendations, Oleg Navalnyy needs an urgent surgery.

Pamfilova also appealed to the prosecutor's office to thoroughly investigate whether Oleg Navalnyy had been disciplined and placed in a punishment cell on legitimate grounds.

In October 2013, Aleksey and Oleg Navalnyy were charged with the theft of thousands of dollars from the Russian division of the French cosmetics brand Yves Rocher. In December 2014, Navalnyy was given a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence; and Oleg was sentenced to a real prison term for the same period and fined R500,000.

According to the press service, in addition to Oleg Navalnyy's complaint, in late October and November the commissioner for human rights checked complaints from other high-profile prisoners - opposition activists Leonid Razvozzhayev and Sergey Udaltsov.

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 #9
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
November 18, 2015
Russia's doping scandal: Keeping politics out of the arena
With Russia currently at the center of an international outrage over the results of a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation alleging large-scale doping among its athletes, there is a very real possibility that the country may be barred from participating in the 2016 Rio Olympics. But while Russia's doping problem clearly needs to be addressed, punishing the entire nation would also deprive innocent athletes and fans alike.
SERGEI STROKAN, VLADIMIR MIKHEEV, SPECIAL TO RBTH

The latest scandal involving large-scale allegations of Russian athletes using performance-enhancing drugs in international competitions may end up not only with the culprits being named, blamed and stripped of their titles, but with Russia as a country being suspended and banned from participating in the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) vote 22-1 in favor of suspending the Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) - an unprecedented punishment for doping offences in the history of the Olympic movement - came as a warning to the Russian sports authorities, who are suspected of state-sponsoring doping.

What is at stake after the unanimous decision by the IAAF council, taken on Nov. 13, is not only the participation of Russian athletes in the Rio Olympics, including those who have never taken performance-enhancing drugs. Such a ban would not deprive Russia's athletes of the right to compete in the most popular global sports event, but would also dismay the country's sports fans, who would be dispossessed of the joy of living through the thrill of the contest with their favorites.

Moreover, the whole story relates to the national pride of Russia as a global sports superpower, which hosted its own Winter Olympics for the first time in February 2014 in Sochi. While some described the Sochi Olympics as "$50 billion extravaganza," others saw it not only as a global PR exercise but also as an attempt to consolidate Russia's leading position in the sporting world.

In response, Russia's Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has showed a commendable determination to do his homework and tighten doping control to comply with IAAF rules so as not to miss the Olympics Games in Brazil: "In three months we will once again go to the international federation to present ourselves as compliant with its standards. We hope our team will be reinstated," he told Reuters.

It probably required personal courage on the part of Mutko not to get dragged into the blame game with the IAAF and assume the responsibility for removing this roadblock for Russia's athletes going to thrill Rio with their records.

He was echoed by Alexander Zhukov, Russia's Olympic committee head: "The Russian Olympic Committee is firmly convinced that honest athletes must participate in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. At the same time everyone who was involved in the use of illicit drugs, and contributed to this, should take full responsibility," said Zhukov.

While the pursuit to uphold integrity in sports is commendable, details of the doping investigation in progress raise questions about the validity of selective condemnation of Russia. First and foremost, why was Russia singled out, leaving other potential culprits in the shade, including the International Association of Athletics Federations?

The reason lies largely with the revelations made public last year by the German Das Erste documentary broadcast by ZDF/ARD and The Times of London. Titled "Top-secret Doping: How Russia makes its Winners," the exposé laid out in detail the institutionalized nature of doping in the country via recorded interviews, evidence of clandestine payments, and reference to what was termed as "highly suspicious blood-test data."

A barrage of righteous indignation in Western media in response to the documentary and subsequent investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) saw calls for Russia as a nation to be taken to task for allegedly "state-sponsoring" cheating at a certain laboratory whose functionaries were found to have been taking money to cover up positive tests.

Yet despite the seriousness with which the scandal is being taken by Russian sports officials, many in the country are looking at the snowballing doping scandal in the context of the decade-long debate on where exactly big sports ends and big politics starts. At the heights of the Cold War there were attempts to hijack sports and fit them into a political agenda of superpower rivalry. One of the textbook cases was the United States boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics with the formal justification of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan.

Three year later, U.S. President Ronald Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire" amid the tensest period in the Cold War. Consequently, Moscow retaliated by pulling out of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles with 16 Soviet allies joining the boycott.

It is unclear whether any of the sides scored any propaganda points as a result of this tit-for-tat. What is clear is that sports were victimized. "The Soviet boycott was an enormous disappointment because it meant that the athletes were taking a beating again. It was just like the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games: the athletes were the only ones to be penalized," Organizing Committee (LAOOC) Vice President Anita DeFrantz said at that time.

In a remarkable display of defiance, the British Olympic Association (BOA) chose to ignore the letter by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher calling on it to join the U.S.-led boycott. The BOA voted to send athletes to Moscow, including those sports where the British traditionally excelled, like swimming, yachting, equestrian, and fencing.

Today, 35 years down the road, the stance taken by the then BOA chairman Sir Denis Follows still constitutes a powerful message. Talking on the part of sports associations of Britain he said: "We believe sport should be a bridge, and not a destroyer."

However, on this occasion it is difficult to draw a link between the abuse of sports ethics and politics, as was emphasized in an interview with Troika Report by sports lawyer Valery Fyodoreyev of the international law firm CMS.

"It must be related only to sports. I can't say that Russian athletes have been subject to a biased attitude. In the past, sportspersons from other countries have been disqualified as well, for instance, athletes from Greece. However, given the ongoing sanctions against Russia in the economic and diplomatic field, one cannot shrug off the suspicion that there is a political context. Yet, as a lawyer who is dealing with sports issues, I would not see politics as the core motive of the decision to suspend our athletes."

Yelena Isinbayeva, twice Olympic champion and a renowned sports figure, has called on the international authorities to target the guilty but spare those athletes whose integrity has never been compromised. Is this a lone voice shouting in the wilderness?

"I would say that. After all, it is a 'temporary' suspension from all contests held under the jurisdiction of the International Association of Athletics Federations. By the time the Olympics are around the corner, the suspension could be lifted. If not, the athletes could participate in the games in Brazil but, unfortunately, not under the Russian flag. Only in their personal capacity under the Olympic flag."

There can be no doubt that the fraudsters who abuse the principles of fair competition, notably when it comes to using illicit substances to better their performance, should be penalized. Russia's Olympic Committee has pledged to collaborate with the IOC, WADA and national Olympic committees from other countries and sports federations in the drive to "eradicate doping," as it was worded in the official statement.

Yet the present scandal should not be used for any purposes other than uncovering the truth and cleansing sports from unbecoming practices. The Olympics are a hallowed shrine to sports and should remain free of political messages and reciprocal retaliations - practices that only make victims of athletes and sports fans alike.

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 #10
Wall Street Journal
November 18, 2015
Russia Still Has Time to Comply for Rio
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

Colorado Springs, Colo.-The chief investigator of Russia's alleged doping scandal left the door open for the country's track and field athletes to compete in the Rio Olympics Tuesday as long as its sports leaders follow the criteria that the international governing bodies set for them.

Speaking at the World Anti-Doping Agency's executive committee meetings here one week after he delivered a searing report on what he called systematic, state-sponsored doping and called for Russia to be suspended from the Rio Games, Richard Pound (pictured) said the Russians can find a way to build an anti-doping program that brings them back into compliance in time for the Olympics. The International Association of Athletics Federations voted 22-1 Friday to provisionally suspend Russia's athletics federation, an indefinite penalty that will prohibit the federation from sending a team to Rio unless it can establish a viable anti-doping program.

"Maybe it takes having someone sit next to the new lab director for six months," Pound said. "They have competent technology. Maybe it's going to take going out of the country to find a new lab director."

According to Pound's report, Russia's anti-doping scientists, government and sports officials, coaches and athletes conspired for years to cover up the use of performance enhancing drugs. At first, Russian officials denied the charges in the report, but later in the week Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russia had a problem and promised to fix it. "If they want to be there they have to act," Pound said of Russia.

Pound added that he hoped his report sent a clear message to every country in the Olympic movement to establish a legitimate anti-doping program or pay a steep price. He said the next shoe to drop would likely be Kenya, which has seen more than two dozen of its distance runners test positive for performance enhancing drugs in recent years, including the world marathon champion Rita Jeptoo, but has been slow to establish a national anti-doping program that meets WADA's standards.

"The evidence is too overwhelming," Pound said of the Kenyans. "The risk is the country is going to be found noncompliant and you won't have Kenyans in the Olympics anymore and you won't have Kenyan marathoners. That is a big deal for them."

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 #11
The Guardian
November 17, 2015
We accept that Russian bombs can provoke a terror backlash. Ours can too
Vladimir Putin's intervention in Syria would fuel radicalisation, David Cameron warned. The Paris attacks show western military action has the same effects
By Mehdi Hasan
Mehdi Hasan is the presenter of Al-Jazeera ­English's Head to Head. He was a senior editor at the New Statesman and a news and current affairs editor at Channel 4. He is co-author of Ed: the Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see," wrote Ayn Rand in her novel The Fountainhead. That there is a link, a connection, between the west's military interventions in the Middle East and terrorist attacks against the west, that violence begets violence, is "glaringly evident" to anyone with open eyes, if not open minds.

Yet over the past 14 years, too many of us have "decided not to see". From New York to Madrid to London, any public utterance of the words "foreign" and "policy" in the aftermath of a terrorist attack has evoked paroxysms of outrage from politicians and pundits alike.

The response to the atrocities in Paris has followed the same pattern. Derided by a former Labour minister as "west-hating fury chimps", the UK's Stop the War coalition removed from its website a piece that blamed the rise of Islamic State (Isis) and the Paris attacks on "deliberate policies and actions undertaken by the United States and its allies". The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, scrapped a speech in which he was due to say that Britain's "disastrous wars" have "increased, not diminished, the threats to our own national security". Such arguments are verboten in our public discourse.

Isn't it odd, then, that in the case of Russia, western governments have been keen to link Vladimir Putin's - and only Vladimir Putin's - foreign policy to terrorist violence? On 1 October the US government and its allies issued a joint statement declaring that the Russian president's decision to intervene in Syria would "only fuel more extremism and radicalisation". Yes, you heard them: it'll "fuel" it.

Moscow's bombing campaign will "lead to further radicalisation and increased terrorism", claimed David Cameron on 4 October. Note the words "lead to". Speaking at a Nato summit on 8 October the US defence secretary, Ashton Carter, warned of the "consequences for Russia itself, which is rightly fearful of attacks". Got that? "Rightly fearful".

And, in the days since the crash of the Russian Metrojet airliner in Egypt on 31 October, which killed 224 civilians, commentators have queued up to join the dots between Russia's actions in Syria and this alleged terrorist attack by Isis. On a BBC panel discussion the Telegraph's Janet Daley referred to the crash as "a direct consequence of [Russia's] involvement in Syria", adding: "[Putin] has perhaps incited this terrorist incident on Russian civilians."

Compare and contrast Daley's remarks on the downing of Flight 9268 with her reaction to the Paris attacks. Rather than accusing President Hollande of "inciting" terrorism against the people of France, or calling the carnage a "direct consequence" of French involvement in Syria, she took aim at anyone who might dare draw attention to the country's military interventions in Muslim-majority countries such as Libya, Mali and, yes, Syria.

"If there is any need to argue about these matters, it should come at some other time," she wrote, because "the French people did not deserve this", and "it is wicked and irresponsible to suggest otherwise". (To quote one of the leading foreign policy sages of our time, Phoebe Buffay of Friends: "Hello, kettle? This is pot. You're black.")

If Isis did bring down the Russian airliner, then of course it would be madness to pretend it wasn't linked to Putin's military campaign on behalf of the dictator of Damascus. Yet it would be equally insane to pretend that the horror in Paris had nothing at all to do with France's recent military interventions in the Middle East and west Africa.

Yes, the attackers in the Bataclan concert hall chanted Allahu Akbar as they opened fire on the crowd, but they were also heard saying: "What you are doing in Syria? You are going to pay for it now." Yes, Isis's official statement of responsibility referred to Paris as "the capital of prostitution and obscenity", but it also singled out the French government for leading a "Crusader campaign" and "striking the Muslims ... with their planes".

To understand political violence requires an understanding of political grievances; to blame terrorism only on religious ideology or medieval mindsets is short-sighted and self-serving. The inconvenient truth is that geopolitics is governed as much as is physics by Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." The CIA, back in the 1950s, even coined a term - "blowback" - to describe the unintended negative consequences, for US civilians, of US military operations abroad.

Today, when it comes to Russia, an "official enemy", we understand and embrace the concept of blowback. When it comes to our own countries, to the west, we become the child in the playground, sticking our fingers in our ears and singing "La la la, I can't hear you."

You can argue that French - or for that matter UK or US - military action in the Middle East is a legitimate and unavoidable response to the rise of a terrorist mini-state; but you can't argue that actions don't have consequences.

The former chief of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, told me in 2011 that "people are going to ... bomb us because they don't like what we've done". In an interview for al-Jazeera in July, the retired US general Michael Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency from 201315, admitted to me that "the more bombs we drop, that just ... fuels the conflict".

It is a view backed by the Pentagon's Defence Science Board, which observed as long as ago as 1997: "Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."

Let me be clear: to explain is not to excuse; explication is not justification. There is no grievance on earth that can justify the wanton slaughter of innocent men, women and children, in France or anywhere else.

The savagery of Isis is perhaps without parallel in the modern era. But the point is that it did not emerge from nowhere: as the US president himself has conceded, Isis "grew out of our invasion" of Iraq.

Yet we avert our gaze from the "glaringly evident" and pretend that "they" - the Russians, the Iranians, the Chinese - are attacked for their policies while "we" - Europe, the west, the liberal democracies - are attacked only for our principles. This is the simplistic fantasy, the geopolitical fairytale, that we tell ourselves. It gives us solace and strength in the wake of terrorist atrocities. But it does nothing to stop the next attack.

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 #12
Moscow Times
November 18, 2015
Russia Increases Pressure on Islamic State in Syria
By Anna Dolgov

Strategic bombers belonging to the Russian air force have conducted bombings and rocket strikes on Islamic State positions, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, the Defense Ministry reported on its website Tuesday.

"The number of flights has been doubled, which allows [us] to make powerful, precise strikes against Islamic State militants throughout the depth of Syria," Shoigu said.

During the course of the air strikes, Russia has been using Tu-160 supersonic bombers and Tu-95 propeller strategic bombers which fired 34 rockets to the objects in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

These strategic bombers were designed in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1980s and haven't been part of any conflict before, RIA Novosti reported.

On Tuesday, Russia used 12 Tu-22M3 strategic bombers in the Raqqua and Deir ez-Zor provinces. These bombers participated in the Soviet Union campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s and, according to some reports, in the war in South Ossetia in 2008.

The intensified response came after the head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov said that an examination of the Russian Airbus A321 wreckage and passengers' belongings revealed traces of explosives, and announced that the plane crash of Oct. 31 was the result of a terrorist attack.

Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for the downing of the Russian passenger plane "wherever they are hiding," according to a transcript released by the Kremlin on Tuesday.

While the FSB offers a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible, Russian security officials have convened for a flurry of meetings to plan Moscow's response to the downing that killed all 224 people aboard.

Egypt, however, insisted it was too early to call the downing a terror attack.

Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal said that while the investigation was ongoing, so far there has been no proof of a "criminal act" behind the crash, Egypt's Ahram Online news website reported Tuesday.

"If Russia has evidence that the plane was downed by a bomb, why didn't they show it to the Egyptian authorities?" Mahmoud Qasqosh, a researcher for the Regional Center for Strategic Studies, was cited as saying by Ahram Online.

Lavrov Critiques U.S. Military Operation

Russia has increased its air campaign, France is hitting Islamic State militants in response to a series of terrorist attacks in Paris and the U.S.-led coalition continues its bombing campaign.

While the three-pronged assault increases pressure on Islamic State, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has expressed skepticism over the aims of the U.S. military operation.

Lavrov accused the U.S.-led coalition of using the Islamic State to weaken the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to an interview that was broadcast on Rossia television late Tuesday night. The interview had been recorded on Nov. 2, according to the Foreign Ministry.

"The problem with the United States and the coalition it has created is that even though they have announced that the coalition has been created exclusively to fight the Islamic State and other terrorists, and would not carry out any military action against the Syrian army - and practice shows they have made good on those words - but the strikes they have made against terrorists' positions and an analysis of those strikes over the period of one year allow to reach the conclusion that they have struck selectively - I would say, sparingly - and in the majority of cases did not touch those units of the Islamic State that could have seriously push back the Syrian army," Lavrov said.

U.S. officials and analysts had previously accused Russia of using its air strikes, which began on Sept. 30, to bolster Assad's government by targeting his political opponents.

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#13
Expert: Involvement of long-range planes in Syria raids shows Russia's potential

MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. The involvement of Russia's strategic bombers in strikes against terrorist targets in Syria shows that Russia's Armed Forces have a really vast potential to use different types of armaments for coping with the identified tasks, the head of the Strategic Studies Centre, Ivan Konovalov, has said.

"We have demonstrated the way our frontline aircraft and Navy can operate. Now we've demonstrated that our long-range aviation is capable of participating in this type of operations. We have some other opportunities Russia has not put to use for now," Konovalov told TASS.

"It was a major show of strength and a wide range of capabilities the Russian Armed Forces possess for the terrorists and the international community to see," Konovalov said.

He emphasized the political importance of the latest strikes, because they were dealt against targets of the Islamic State, prohibited in Russia as terrorist, in the wake of a report to the president the A321 liner had been lost over Egypt due to a terrorist attack and also as a gesture of support for France's air strikes against Raqqah.

"This is symbolic. It indicates that Russia and the Western coalition have begun a joint operation in Syria," he said.

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 #14
www.thedailybeast.com
November 17, 2015
Russia Pounds ISIS With Biggest Bomber Raid in Decades
Putin's air force just used its nuclear bombers to lay waste to the capital of the 'Islamic State.'
By David Axe

The Russian air force just pulled off one of the biggest and most complex heavy bomber missions in modern history-sending no fewer than 25 Backfire, Bear, and Blackjack bombers on a coordinated, long-range air raid against alleged ISIS forces in Syria.

The Tuesday mission, which launched under the cover of darkness from a base in Ossetia in southern Russia, signaled a significant escalation of Moscow's air war in Syria-and heralded the rebirth of Russian heavy bomber squadrons that once had withered from a lack of funding.

Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia's general staff, announced the raid on Tuesday, calling it part of "a new plan [for] the air campaign."

"During a massive airstrike today, 14 important ISIL targets were destroyed by 34 air-launched cruise missiles," Gerasimov said, using an alternative acronym for the terror army. "The targets destroyed include command posts that were used to coordinate ISIL activities in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, munition and supply depots in the northwestern part of Syria."

Idlib and Aleppo are not ISIS strongholds. Indeed, U.S.-backed rebels hold much of both provinces. Russia has maintained all along that its roughly six-week-old intervention in Syria is aimed at defeating ISIS, but in fact many Russian air and missile strikes have hit rebel groups that oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ISIS.

Russian officials notified U.S. planners at a coalition headquarters in Qatar before the strike, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. It was the first time the Russians and Americans have put into action an October agreement to coordinate their countries' respective operations in Syria.

The raid came the same day Kremlin officials publicly announced that a "terrorist act" brought down Russian Metrojet 9268 last month over the Sinai Peninsula. ISIS has since taken credit for the attack.

The Russian Defense Ministry released a video depicting three types of Russian bombers arming, taking off, dropping munitions, and then returning to base, escorted along their flight paths by Su-27 fighters.

The swing-wing, jet-propelled Tu-22M Backfires apparently carried unguided "dumb" bombs. The video depicts airmen loading clusters of cruise missiles in the bomb bays of the propeller-driven Tu-95 Bears and the huge, swing-wing Tu-160 Blackjack jets, which at 177 feet long are the biggest combat planes ever built.

All three models of bomber can fly thousands of miles while hauling no less than 20 tons of weaponry. Only China and the United States possess similar heavy warplanes.

Launching 25 bombers on one mission is an impressive undertaking. Russia possesses just 70 Backfires, 58 Bears, and 13 Blackjacks. The 14 Backfires, six Bears, and five Blackjacks that reportedly struck Syria represent a significant portion of the overall fleet. The massive raid is evidence of improving readiness on the part of the Russian air force, which in the 1990s and early 2000s grounded most of its aircraft because it couldn't afford to fuel them or pay their pilots.

By comparison, on any given day 57 of the U.S. Air Force's 77 B-52s, 35 of its 60 B-1s, and nine of its 20 B-2 stealth bombers are even flyable, according to statistics from 2013.

The Tuesday mission signaled a significant escalation of Moscow's air war in Syria-and heralded the rebirth of Russian heavy bomber squadrons that once had withered from a lack of funding.

And when they do fly, America's bombers often sortie alone or in pairs, only rarely coming together in large numbers. Seven B-52s flew together to launch cruise missiles at Iraq in the early hours of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and a group of eight of the giant warplanes repeated the feat on the first day of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003.

In other words: This Russian attack was "shock and awe"-on steroids.

Russia's bomber raid was certainly impressive, and has propaganda value in addition to bolstering Moscow's operations in Syria. When 25 of the planet's most powerful warplanes attack at the same time, it's more than a mere air raid. It's a statement to the whole world.

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 #15
Washington Post
November 18, 2015
Why Russia is sending airstrike information to this military nerve center in Qatar
By Dan Lamothe

As Moscow's air war in Syria continues, Russia launched a series of attacks on Tuesday near Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State militant group. Unlike early strikes launched by Russia, however, it appears the U.S. military had more advance warning they were coming: prior notice was sent to the Coalition Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar, according to a U.S. defense official.

The official, speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the subject, said the Russian strikes included both cruise missile attacks launched at sea and long-range bombers. The strikes did not affect coalition operations, and notification was "intended to help prevent accidents and ensure safe separation during operations in Syria," the official added. It was part of an agreement reached by U.S. and Russian officials last month to deconflict air operations against the Islamic State, even though the countries remain at odds on myriad other issues.

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters on Tuesday afternoon that it marks the first time that Russia has notified the United States of a forthcoming air operation since they began launching airstrikes late in September. It draws attention to a little-known part of the war against the Islamic State: the U.S. military nerve center in Qatar used to manage air operations. Construction on it began in July 2002 and it was fully operational by February 2003, according to Air Force officials. That's just weeks before the U.S. military rolled into Iraq to topple the government of Saddam Hussein.

The air operations center, run from Al Udeid Air Base, is a logical place for the Russians to reach out. As detailed in a piece by CBS News last month from Qatar, the center allows the U.S.-led coalition to track air operations by the Russians, who are not a part of the coalition, and any country that is. It uses a combination of satellite imagery, radio communications and other transmissions to determine where aircraft are.

The air war is growing more complicated by the day. France has launched a series of airstrikes in and around Raqqa since terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday that killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more. The French selected the targets, but coordinated with the United States, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

When the Russians first began launching airstrikes, they were criticized by the United States for targeting rebels who are fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad remains a close ally of Russian President Vladamir Putin, even as the United States pushes for his removal as part of any political settlement to the Syrian conflict.

In these most recent strikes, however, Russia struck a known hub of Islamic State activity. A senior defense official told the Wall Street Journal the strikes Tuesday hit militants. The strikes were launched after Moscow confirmed that a Russian airliner was downed last month by a bomb claimed by the Islamic State.

French President François Hollande will travel to Washington next week to meet with President Obama and to Moscow the following week to seek a "grand coalition" to battle the Islamic State, the French government said Tuesday.

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 #16
Kremlin.ru
November 17, 2015
Meeting on Russia's Armed Forces actions in Syria

Vladimir Putin visited the National Defence Control Centre where he held a meeting to discuss the actions of Russia's Aerospace Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Commander-in-Chief heard reports from Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and commanders of the different branches of the armed forces on the operation.

The President issued instructions to establish contact with the French naval group to carry out joint actions against terrorists.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Shoigu, please.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu: Comrade Commander-in-Chief,

In accordance with the task you have set of enhancing combat action by our aviation against terrorist groups, as part of today's airborne mission, we delivered the first massive air raid on ISIS facilities on the Syrian territory.

The number of missions has been doubled, which makes it possible to deliver powerful and precise strikes against ISIS targets across Syria's entire territory. To support airstrikes against militant groups delivered by the operational and tactical aviation performing missions from the Khmeimim airfield, long-range Tu-160, Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers have been brought into the operation from the Russian territory.

Today between 5 and 5.30 am Moscow time, twelve Tu-22 long-range strategic bombers delivered air strikes on ISIS positions in Raqqah and Deir ez-Zor.

From 9 to 9.40 am, 34 air-launched cruise missiles were fired from Tu-160 and Tu-95MC strategic missile carriers to hit terrorist targets in Aleppo and Idlib.

All strikes are delivered at previously developed targets. Overall, for the first day of the air operation we have planned 127 combat missions to hit 266 terrorist positions.

By now we have carried out 82 flights, destroying 140 terrorist positions. The operation continues.

Further massive air raids will be made in accordance with the air operation plan submitted to you. We have enough manpower and materiel.

Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has more details about the actions of Russian aviation.

Vladimir Putin: Mr Gerasimov, please.

Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov: Comrade Commander-in-Chief, pursuant to your instructions, since September 30, our Armed Forces' combat aviation has been carrying out air strikes targeting international terrorist organisations in Syria.

Over these 48 days, the Russian aviation group has made 2,289 sorties and delivered 4,111 missile strikes on the terrorists' main infrastructure facilities, munitions depots and manpower locations.

In the course of combat action, 562 command centres have been destroyed, along with 64 terrorist training camps, 54 arms and ammunition production plants and other facilities.

The actions by Russian aviation have made it possible for the Syrian Armed Forces to take the offensive along the entire frontline in the provinces of Aleppo, Lattakia, Idlib, Homs and Damascus, liberating large territories from the terrorists.

In the north, in the province of Aleppo, the Syrian army has liberated 40 residential areas, with the government forces deblocking the Kweiris airbase and currently expanding the security zone around the airport.

The offensive at Idlib is developing successfully: Syrian troops are currently conducting active offensive operations 20-30 km from the city.

In the coastal province of Lattakia, militants have been chased out of 12 residential areas.

Government forces and militia assault teams are involved in fierce fighting for the city of Salma.

On the divide between Gbana and Gmam, they have managed to secure a number of tactical heights and residential areas.

Despite the militants' heavy resistance, the Syrian troops continue their advance.

In the centre of the country, an offensive by government troops and militia units resulted in the capture of the village of Haddad and the blockade of the militants in the town of Mhin.

The Syrian army continues its offensive towards Palmira. Since the beginning of active operations, the assault teams have advanced up to 4 km, blocking terrorists in the village of Maksam, and are currently fighting for the high points on the city's fringes.

Near Damascus, fierce city fighting continues to liberate the districts of Jaubar and Eastern Guta from the militants.

For the first time in the four years of combat action, the Syrian army has liberated 80 residential areas, taking control over a territory of more than 500 square kilometres.

Acting on your orders to raise the number of strikes on ISIS targets and other extremist organisations, the General Headquarters developed the plan of an air operation. Along with increasing the intensity of sorties from the Khmeimim airbase in Syria, the plan envisages using an additional 25 long-range aircraft, 8 SU-34 strike fighters and 4 SU-27SM fighters from the territory of the Russian Federation.

To increase the pace of hits at enemy facilities and improve strike precision, we continue reconnaissance of the Middle East territory. We are using 10 imagery and radio electronic reconnaissance satellites, including those of non-military nature. We have retargeted and adjusted the orbits of a number of satellites, which makes it possible to cover Syrian territory at the required pace. We are planning to further strengthen the orbital grouping by using reserve space vehicles and launching new ones.

Today, in the course of the first massive airstrike, 34 air-launched long-range cruise missiles hit 14 important terrorist positions, including illegal armed groups' command centres that coordinate the actions of ISIS militants in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo; major munitions and other materials depots in the north-west of Syria set up in protected hide-outs, militant training camps where newcomers to the terrorist organisations were trained, including suicide bombers; three major plants producing explosives, suicide bombers' belts and unguided missiles.

Today, the aviation group deployed at Kheimim airfield performed 65 missions of the 98 planned. The airstrikes resulted in destruction of 6 command posts, 8 munitions depots, 12 terrorist training camps, 4 plants producing landmines and missiles, and 6 fuel storage facilities. SU-34 aircraft hit 2 fuel convoys, destroying about 50 vehicles. Considering the earlier strikes on vehicles transporting petroleum products (a total of 410) and individual infrastructure sites, the militants' capabilities to illegally export energy resources have been significantly reduced.

The air operation is being controlled from the Russian National Defence Control Centre through long-range aviation control points and aviation groups in Syria. We notified air force commanders of the United States and other coalition countries of the strikes at a reasonable time. We continue hitting terrorist positions in line with the approved plan. All the tasks you have set us, Comrade Commander-in-Chief, will be achieved.

This is the end of my report.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. Strategic Aviation Commander Anatoly Zhikharev, please.

Commander of Strategic Aviation Anatoly Zhikharev: Comrade Commander-in-Chief,

This is strategic aviation commander, Lt. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev reporting.

As of today, our strategic bombers set on a mission to hit ISIS positions in Syria. To perform this mission, we are using all types of strike aircraft at our disposal: TU-160 and TU-95MS strategic missile carriers and TU-22M3 strategic bombers. Their crews were instructed to hit positions, and they are acting in full compliance with the plan of the first massive air strike.

After the mission, the TU-160 and TU-95MS strategic missile carriers landed at their home fields for maintenance, preparation for new flights and recorder analysis. A reinforced TU-22M3 strategic bombers squadron conducts two group air strikes a day from the airfield in Mozdok, targeting ISIS positions in eastern Syria - the provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa. During just one mission that lasted 5 hour 20 minute, the TU-22M3 bombers cover 4,510 km in distance. The TU-160 and TU-95MS bombers covered 6,566 km in the course of their missions that lasted 8 hours 20 minutes and 9 hours 30 minutes accordingly.

The rocket missile attacks have destroyed 7 munitions depots and personnel locations, 5 major ammunition storage facilities and 5 terrorist infrastructure facilities.

Comrade Commander-in-Chief, the moral and psychological condition, professional qualifications of aircrews and technical personnel, the condition of aviation equipment and air weapons and fuel stock make it possible to perform all the tasks set by the strategic aviation command as part of the air operation with precision and in a timely fashion.

This is the end of my report.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Captain First Rank Oleg Krivorog, missile cruiser Moskva in the Mediterranean.

Captain First Rank Oleg Krivorog: Comrade Commander-in-Chief,

This is senior officer, Captain First Rank Oleg Krivorog reporting.

As part of the naval task force in the eastern Mediterranean, the Moskva missile cruiser is ensuring combat stability of ships and vessels delivering cargos to the Syrian Arab Republic, covering from the sea the deployment location of the Russian air strike group and point of unloading for sea cargos.

On the current mission, the ship has covered 10,300 nautical miles. We have convoyed and covered 27 vessels carrying cargo to the Syrian Arab Republic.

We have located and identified the nature of actions of 53 vessels and 2,375 flights by foreign Armed Forces conducting combat operations in the eastern Mediterranean.

Currently, the Moskva missile cruiser is controlling air, sea and undersea situation in the assigned area to create favorable conditions for actions by Russian armed forces in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The cruiser's armaments and equipment are in full readiness, the personnel are in good health, and morale is high.

This is the end of my report.

Vladimir Putin: Mr Krivorog, a French naval group will soon approach your area, headed by an aircraft carrier. You need to establish direct contact with them and work together as allies.

The General Chief of Staff and the Defence Minister have already received appropriate instructions. You will have to develop a joint plan of action with them both in the air and at sea.

Thank you.

Let us hear from Mozdok airport. Mr Konovalov, please.

Lieutenant General Anatoly Konovalov: Comrade Commander-in-Chief,

In line with your decision, today a group of TU-22M3 strategic bombers delivered a group night strike from the Mozdok airfield on six ISIS targets in Syria.

After landing, they prepared for a new mission. At 2 pm, the crews took off to carry out another air strike. In the period of time from 4.30 pm until 5 pm, they hit 6 targets. Currently, the crews are on their way to their base.

The crews and equipment are functioning properly. We communicate with the crews throughout the entire mission. Control is stable.

Comrade Commander-in-Chief, the task group personnel are ready to perform your tasks to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and protect its citizens.

This is the end of my report.

Vladimir Putin: Comrades, I would like to follow up on what we have just heard from Mr Konovalov.

As you perform combat missions to fight terrorists in Syria, you are defending Russia and its citizens.

I would like to thank you for your service and wish you luck.

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 #17
Kremlin.ru
November 17, 2015
Meeting on investigation into the crash of a Russian airliner over Sinai

Late last night Vladimir Putin held a meeting in the Kremlin, where Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov reported on the causes of the crash of a Russian airliner over Sinai on October 31, 2015.

Taking part in the meeting were Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Service Director Mikhail Fradkov.

Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov: Mr President, we have studied the passengers' personal belongings and luggage and fragments of the plane that crashed in Egypt on October 31. An expert examination of all these objects has found traces of foreign-made explosives.

According to our experts, a self-made explosive device equivalent up to 1 kg of TNT was set off on board, which explains why the aircraft broke up in mid air and its fragments were scattered over a large area.

We can say with confidence that this was a terrorist act.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Let's once again pay tribute to the crash victims.

A minute of silence.

This is not the first time Russia experiences barbaric terrorist crime, usually without any obvious internal or external causes, the way it was with the explosion at the railway station in Volgograd at the end of 2013. We remember everything and everyone.

The murder of our people over Sinai is one of the bloodiest crimes in terms of the lives it claimed. We will not dry our tears - this will remain forever in our hearts and minds. However, this would not stop us from finding and punishing the perpetrators.

We have to do it without any period of limitation; we need to know all their names. We will search wherever they may be hiding. We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them.

In these efforts, we need to rely on people who share the moral values that lie at the basis of our policy, in this case our foreign and security policy, our counterterrorism policy.

Our aviation should not simply continue military operations in Syria, but enhance them so as to make it clear to the criminals that vengeance is inevitable.

I would like to ask the Defence Ministry and the General Staff to make their proposals. I will check the progress of this work.

I would like the Russian Foreign Ministry to turn to all our partners. We rely on all our friends in these efforts, including our search for and punishment of the perpetrators.

We will act in compliance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which envisages the right of a state to self-defence.

Whoever tries to help the perpetrators ought to know that they would bear full responsibility for any attempts to harbour them.

I would like all our special services to focus on this work.

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 #18
Foreign minister says terror act downing A321 is equivalent to attack against Russia

MOSCOW, November 18./TASS/. The terrorist act on board the Russian airliner is equivalent to an attack against the state, the right to self-defense will be exercised through all available means, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

"As to our action - as the president has emphasized it will be based on Article 51 of UN Charter. The article envisages the right of individual or collective self-defense for any state in case of an attack against it," Lavrov said.

"The act of terror over Sinai was an attack against Russian nationals, which is equivalent to an attack against the state. The right to self-defense will be exercised through all available means - political, military, security services, intelligence and so on," he added.

Moscow expects common action targeting IS financing

Lavrov stressed that Moscow expects common action of the world community to crack down on financing of terrorist groups.

"As for a commentary of President Vladimir Putin on sources of financing to terrorist organizations made at a news conference in Antalya, I think everything was said," he continued.

"Besides, we presented satellite pictures showing endless flows of oil and petroleum products from the territories seized by Islamic State abroad, where this all is sold," Lavrov said.

"Islamic State is financing its criminal activity to a great extent through these sales," he said. "These issues are a source of most serious concerns for all our partners. I think we will be able to jointly arrange such work that will not depend on some populist geopolitical considerations, and will let all of us concentrate on the main task - prevent IS moves, undermine its financial and material base and in the long run destroy this terrorist organization," he said.

President Putin said on Monday that he had told his G20 colleagues what he knew about channels of financial support for terrorists.

"I discussed it with my colleagues. I hope that we will continue this work which is extremely important for fighting terrorism," Putin told a briefing on results of the G20 summit.

Putin stressed it was necessary to prevent the receipt of revenues from illegal sale of oil and petrochemical products by terrorists.

"I also showed our colleagues the space images and aerial photos which clearly show the scale and extent of this illegal trade in oil and petrochemical products. Filling trucks are stretching to dozens of kilometers beyond the horizon from an altitude of 4,000-5,000 metres. They look like oil transportation systems," Putin stressed.

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 #19
Sputnik
November 18, 2015
A321 Crash in Egypt: Bomb Apparently Planted by Airport Employee - Media

The explosives that caused the October 31 crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt could have been placed on board by airport personnel at Sharm el-Sheikh, a Russian newspaper wrote on Wednesday.

The bomb could have been placed under a window seat of the doomed Airbus A321, Kommersant newspaper reported, citing aviation and Federal Security Service experts in Moscow.

According to them, a section of the plane examined by FSB investigators featured a hole with the edges curved inside-out, indicating that the explosion happened inside the plane.

"The bomb apparently went off in the rear part of the cabin, close to the tail compartment. As a  result, the tail broke off and  the rest of the pane fell apart, resulting in the immediate death of all those on board due to a dramatic drop in air pressure inside the plane," one of the experts said.

The specialists the newspaper talked to also said that the bomb could have been brought on board by some of the airport's baggage handlers of cleaners.

The Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, earlier announced that the crash of the Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on October 31 was the result of a terrorist attack - an improvised explosive device equivalent of up to one kilogram of TNT detonated on board shortly after take-off.
Experts from the security agency are taking part in the investigation and analysis of the crash site in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, where the Airbus A321 came down 23 minutes into the flight to St. Petersburg. All 224 of those on board were killed.

The FSB, which made the statement on Tuesday, has already announced a reward of $50 million for any information about the terrorists.

All members of the airport staff in Sharm el-Sheikh are being questioned by police, but no arrests have been made so far, Reuters reported.

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 #20
The National Interest
November 18, 2015
What Does Russia Really Want in Syria?
By demonstrating boldness, Moscow is forcing the rest of the Middle East to act decisively.
By Nikolay Pakhomov
Nikolay Pakhomov is a political analyst and consultant in New York City. He is a Russian International Affairs Council expert. You can follow him on Twitter @nik_pakhomov.

International analysis of Russia's military action in Syria has been mostly focused on the main goals of the campaign. Reporters, politicians, experts and pundits have argued whether Russia is trying to rescue Assad or whether it is fighting ISIS and other terror groups in the area. These debates are often politically significant, but tend to be quite divisive and do not contribute much to understanding the background, broader context or consequences of the Russian operation. It seems that there could be a more promising analytical approach. Experts can spend years studying doctrines of foreign policy and speeches of decision makers, yet remain unable to decipher how the country in question would act in various circumstances. In this regard, Russia's actions towards Syrian crisis speak volumes, providing significant amount of food for thought for those trying to understand Russian foreign policy.

Whether one thinks that Russia is rescuing Assad, which tends to be the Western perception, or fighting ISIS, several things are very difficult to argue with.

First of all, Syria is considered Russia's ally in the Middle East: President Assad asked Moscow for help, and Russia has stood by its ally in very difficult circumstances. American pundits and politicians, especially Republicans, during the last month have often mentioned that the Russian military campaign represents Moscow's return to the Middle East. According to these statements, Moscow has been absent in the area since Anwar Sadat switched Egypt's loyalty from the Soviet Union to the United States. It is far from the truth.

Further, we must look at the current state of Russia's relationships in the Middle East. Russia is not returning to the Middle East: Syria was a Soviet ally during the Cold War and so it was very logical for Bashar al-Assad to ask for Russia's help.

Many observers have argued that the Russian military operation in Syria is a bold challenge to the United States in the region. In this regard, Russia's decision to stand with its ally is especially important. Obama's administration abandoned Mubarak, a long-time American ally, yet the Kremlin, in even more complicated circumstances, is helping Assad. This situation gives regional leaders something to think about.

Second, military involvement in Syria is a very serious test for Russia's ties in the region. Middle Eastern affairs are in a state of constant flux, and grow even more so every year. It is very difficult in this situation to pretend that there are sustainable alliances or long-time friends that an outside power can rely on in the Middle East. To form the coalitions necessary for varied goals and changing crises, one of the most important things for an outside power is the breadth its connections in the region. It is hard not to notice that despite various amounts of criticism and concerns from regional capitals regarding Russia's operation, Moscow is talking to almost all of them. During the last month, Russia held channels of communication wide open with Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Russia's position on Syria is very close to that of Iran. Iraqi officials also demonstrated a strong interest to cooperate with Russia in fighting with ISIS. One cannot be wrong to suggest that some of these talks are difficult, but their continuation significantly strengthens Russia's strategic stance in the region. Here we can again compare the Russian and American positions: for example, it is rather hard for Washington to deal with many issues in the region without talking to Tehran-yet the latter is difficult in terms of domestic U.S. politics.

The decision to intervene in Syria allows us to make several conclusions about Russian foreign policy beyond the Middle East. The most important of them is that Moscow is not afraid of making bold decisions. One may argue that the decision to intervene in Syria was too risky, but in the current age of global public scrutiny, information overload and universal political procrastination, in the fast-changing and perplexing environment of the Middle East the Kremlin made a bold choice for action. The jury is still out on what Moscow is trying to achieve and how its decision to intervene in Syria will be executed, but the strategic courage of Russian foreign policy is beyond doubt. And by demonstrating this kind of boldness Moscow, whatever its goals, forces other players in the Middle East to react-whether or not they are ready. Even some American pundits have noticed that Obama's decision to send fifty U.S. special forces to Syria could be considered a response to Russia's actions.

Moscow's courage includes its military capabilities and its readiness to use them. After the collapse of the Soviet Union many domestic and international skeptics doubted that the level of Russia's military is adequate to its claims to play a bigger role in the world affairs. Not that Russia has used military threats as foreign policy instrument, but from time to time, one could hear critics asking: why exactly Russia should be regarded as a main power?

Today these skeptics have been presented with an answer. If the Caspian Fleet, considered by some as a "backwater navy," is capable of using cruise missiles to strike targets thousands of miles away, what else Russia could have in store-especially when it is ready to use its military capabilities? Of course, there are enough critics speculating that not all Russian cruise missiles reached their targets. But no military or technology is perfect, and so far nobody can prove how many missiles failed. It is also important to consider that Russia used these missiles, almost routinely, not during an existential battle or a fight for vital national interests, but in a faraway campaign of choice. Again, from this perspective, it seems to be a very serious move.

In general, the Russian military is operating, in many senses, on unfamiliar terrain. Even the 2008 operation in Georgia was close to its borders and fought against a well-known enemy. That has not been the case with Syria, where Russia is conducting a type of campaign lately seen executed only by the United States or under American leadership. Airstrikes from a foreign base, cruise missiles, different types of space and electronic reconnaissance, no land force units involved, drones, close coordination between navy and air force, cooperation with foreign military: these are all signs of an operation typical to modern warfare. Soon, the world will have more evidence by which to judge Russia's readiness for this type of fight.

The next crucial issue to follow, while analyzing the Syrian intervention's significance for Russia's foreign policy, is Moscow's capability to account for past negative experience, whether its own or that of others. The first thing to note here is a more consistent effort by Russia to make the operation in Syria transparent. The ministry of defense, the foreign ministry and the Kremlin are communicating with their counterparts and the international media, more than anybody familiar with Russian officials could expect.

Considering the chilled relations between the Kremlin and the White House, the September meeting in New York between Putin and Obama seemed more an attempt by the Russian president to explain his country's position personally than an effort to get American support. Similar reasons might be behind the current consistent consultations with Middle Eastern powers, and invitations by the Russian defense ministry to military attachés in Moscow and Western brass, especially American, to create communication channels to avoid accidents. We also see that the Russian Ministry of Defense opened an information center to provide official information, including videos of strikes, in a timely manner. One can argue the effectiveness of this PR effort, yet it is a big step forward compared to Russia's actions during the 2008 Georgia campaign, when Moscow sluggishly reacted to Georgia's moves to win over international sympathies. This time, the Kremlin has even demonstrated efforts to reach to the anti-Assad opposition.

But Russia had even more homework to do before the Syrian operation. It included the lessons of its and other countries' foreign military campaigns that went wrong. Many observers are now making parallels between Syria and the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. Obviously, not all comparisons are correct. The terrain, culture and politics of modern Syria and of Afghanistan almost 40 years ago are very different. More importantly, for the Soviet Union, the Afghan war became a full-blown proxy war against the United States, Pakistan and the Gulf states, which provided crucial support to the Afghan opposition. Today the United States is struggling to understand who are "mainstream rebels" and who is in the "democratic opposition" in Syria, not to mention whether to provide the "good guys" with the most sophisticated weapons. Although Syria is not Afghanistan 40 years ago, Russia still has enough to study beyond the Soviet negative experience, or even the doomed American transition in Vietnam-from the bombings to the land campaign.

At this point, it is too early to say if Russia did its "homework". But as we have shown above, some important facts of Russia's behavior in the international arena are already obvious during its military campaign in Syria.

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 #21
Wall Street Journal
November 18, 2015
Global Anti-ISIS Alliance Begins to Emerge
Paris attacks spur cooperation between Russia and U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State
By NATHAN HODGE in Moscow, WILLIAM HOROBIN in Paris and PHILIP SHISHKIN in Washington

France, Russia and the U.S. moved beyond talk of cooperation and into the far more difficult realm of action, as the "grand and single coalition" French President François Hollande called for to combat Islamic State began coming into view.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that if Russia shifts its military strategy in Syria to focus on Islamic State, the U.S. would welcome cooperation with Moscow on an intensified military campaign. He said he conveyed that message to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a meeting in Turkey earlier this week.

"That is something that we very much want to see," Mr. Obama said while in the Philippines for a summit of Asian nations.

Mr. Hollande telephoned his Russian counterpart Tuesday to discuss possible joint plans, and made arrangements to visit Washington and Moscow next week to pursue the formation of a major new alliance. France launched a third round of airstrikes Tuesday night against Islamic State's de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, while waves of Russian warplanes and cruise missiles struck the same area in the daytime.

The effort could yet dissolve, as major problems-especially the legacy of Russia's involvement in Ukraine and discord over Syria's future-haven't gone away. The involvement of Arab allies with overlapping and uneven agendas complicates regional diplomacy.

But among the signs of potential progress, Russia gave Washington advance notice of its airstrikes Tuesday-the first time it had done so since the Russian bombing campaign started Sept. 30. U.S. officials said Russia conducted between 12 and 20 strikes Tuesday-some cruise missiles from Russian ships and some strikes by TU-22 backfire bombers.

Moscow's determination on Tuesday that a bomb had destroyed a Russian jetliner last month over Egypt accentuated the appearance of common cause.

Mr. Putin now is looking less like a global pariah and more like the indispensable man for a combined global effort to tackle Islamic State.

A short time ago, cooperation was nearly unthinkable. Following Russia's move last year to annex the Crimean peninsula, the U.S. and its European allies imposed economic sanctions on Moscow. Ever since, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been in the midst of refocusing its energies on countering the potential military threat from Russia.

Starting in September, Mr. Putin has played an aggressive hand to shift the geopolitical balance.

Days after he called for a unified front against Islamic State at the United Nations, the Russian military launched its own airstrikes in Syria, angering Washington. The Obama administration said Russia's military efforts appeared primarily aimed at propping up the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and focused little on hitting Islamic State. The U.S., France and other Arab and Western allies want Mr. Assad out.

The Paris attacks on Friday, with their Sept. 11-style resonance for France, created an opening for Mr. Putin.

Aleksei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, said they were forcing Moscow and the West closer together.

"We have had disagreements in the past, in the 1930s, but that didn't stop us from creating a coalition against Hitler, and it was effective," Mr. Pushkov said Tuesday in Brussels, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. "Today, we also need to form a new coalition against this qualitatively new challenge."

In the U.K., Prime Minister David Cameron said he would lay out the case to his Parliament in the coming days for joining international efforts against Islamic State in Syria. In Germany, a threatened terrorist attack forced the cancellation of a soccer game Tuesday, and likely will add to a national discussion over that country's role in the counterterrorism campaign.

"What's happening is precisely what we've wanted to happen: more contributions from allies like France to the counter-ISIL campaign, and more of a focus on ISIL from Russia in its air campaign," a senior Obama administration official said, using an acronym for Islamic State. "As to going forward, we'll want to make sure this is coupled with continued cooperation from Russia on the Vienna process."

Leaders of more than a dozen countries have been meeting in Vienna to plot a possible political resolution to the crisis in Syria. Mr. Obama said Russia has been a "constructive partner" in diplomatic talks in Vienna about Syria, although the two leaders still disagree on the future of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.

But some Western military and political leaders remain uneasy about Mr. Putin. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday sounded notes of caution.

"Russia can play a constructive role in Syria, but what we have seen so far is most of their military actions have been targeted not in ISIL controlled areas," he said. "The effort should be about fighting ISIL, not supporting the regime, which is what Russia has done so far."

Current and former Obama administration officials expressed a similar sentiment, cautioning that obstacles to meaningful cooperation remain, chief among them the issue of Mr. Assad's future.

"As long as Putin's theory of the conflict is inverse of what the rest of the world thinks, it's impossible for me to see that there would be any military cooperation with the Russians," Derek Chollet, former assistant secretary of defense, said Monday. "What could happen diplomatically is Russia could deliver Assad, get him to agree to a process that would lead to his departure."

A Russian diplomat familiar with the Middle East said the Paris attacks opened the door toward a U.S.-Russian rapprochement, but also cautioned that Moscow's cooperation proposals are "suspended in the air" without a formal U.S. response.

Washington's Mideast allies have split over whether to cooperate with both the U.S. and Russia.

Countries most supportive of Syria's moderate, anti-Assad rebels-Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar-still want an exit date set for Mr. Assad, even if he's allowed to stay in power during a transition, according to U.S. and Mideast diplomats.

Other American allies, including Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, have become more accepting of the role Russia is playing.

"For a political solution in Syria, Moscow is key," Jordan's King Abdullah II said in an interview with Euronews last week. "They are the ones that can give the guarantees to the regime that they have a stake in the future."

Iran is another potential wild card, for Western countries and their Arab allies, but also possibly for Russia.

Iranian diplomats have said in recent days that they have blocked efforts by the U.S. and others to prevent Mr. Assad from running for re-election.

Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, told state media on Sunday that during talks in Vienna, Iran "stressed unequivocally that only Assad himself can decide on his participation or nonparticipation in the elections."

The position seems to signal an emerging fissure in the Iranian-Russian alliance on Syria, U.S. and European officials said. Moscow has shown more willingness to accept a settlement that blocks Mr. Assad from running for re-election, they said.

"There are signs that they don't share long-term interests," said a senior European diplomat who attended the Vienna talks.

-Carol E. Lee in Antalya, Turkey, and Jay Solomon in Washington contributed to this article.

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 #22
The BRICS Post
http://thebricspost.com
November 17, 2015
We may be about to witness a big Western narrative shift on Russia's Syria policy    
By Danielle Ryan
Danielle Ryan is an Irish journalist and media analyst currently based in Moscow. She focuses on US foreign policy, US-Russia relations and media bias. You can follow her on Twitter @DanielleRyanJ

A year ago, Vladimir Putin left the G20 summit in Brisbane early after a "barrage of criticism" and "browbeating" by Western leaders.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper only barely deigned to shake his hand. UK Prime Minister David Cameron openly mocked him to reporters. The host, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott made a big show of how he planned to "shirtfront" him.

Mainstream media, predictably delighted by this apparent confirmation of Russia's successful "isolation" quickly patted themselves on the back. Job done. No one needs to listen to Russia, right?

Fast forward to this year's G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey. What a difference a year makes. Gone are the carefully-timed snaps of a forlorn looking Russian president with no one to talk to at the breakfast table. Instead, this week, Western leaders have been forced by a series of their own geopolitical miscalculations, to treat Russia as a partner, rather than a full-time villain, whether they like it or not.

With that, we are likely now to see a similar shift in thinking in mainstream Western reporting and analysis of the Syria conflict.

Paris attacks a wake-up call for the West

Like a house of cards, the Western narrative began to crumble after the tragic terror attacks in Paris last Friday.

On Sunday, former CIA deputy director Michael Morell told CBS it was "crystal clear" that the US strategy vis-à-vis ISIS "is not working". Further, he said it was time to consider that Bashar al-Assad might be "part of the solution" whereby the US and Russia, along with the Syrian army and other international partners, would all fight ISIS together.

On Monday, current CIA chief John Brennan said during a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, that it was imperative the US and Russia strengthened their counterterrorism cooperation.

A few hours later, positioning himself as a go-between for US-Russian cooperation in Syria, French President Francois Hollande told his parliament that while France was still opposed to Assad, "our enemy in Syria is Daesh [ISIS]". That followed earlier comments from Barack Obama and David Cameron which suggested a new openness to compromise with Moscow - a veritable sea change after four years marked by glacial to non-existent progress for Syria.

How will the media react?

This no doubt is a confusing moment for many in mainstream media who have spent years parroting the line that Russia's foreign policy motives are always sinister and malicious, relentlessly and unquestioningly bashing any utterance that comes from the Kremlin, regardless of how confrontational or benign.

Recall that during the first weeks of Russia's bombing campaign in Syria, many influential Western outlets deliberately misled viewers and readers by claiming that Russia was not targeting ISIS at all. Some went as far as to make the utterly absurd suggestion that in targeting non-ISIS rebel groups, Russia was acting as ISIS's de facto air force.

When it became clear that Russia was bombing both ISIS and a number of other anti-Assad groups, the result was a flurry of awkward op-eds attempting to defend Al-Qaeda-linked rebel groups as "moderates" - with little attention given to the fact that at least some of these so-called moderates have a similar fondness to ISIS for beheading enemies and caging women to be used as "human shields". We might have reached the low point when a piece in the New York Times defended the "relatively secular" Free Syrian Army for fighting alongside Al Nusra - the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda - simply because they felt a little bit bad about it.

The 'Russia is helping ISIS' narrative was thrown into further disarray after a Russian airliner was tragically downed just over two weeks ago over Sinai ago by a suspected ISIS bomb. But even then, the West wasn't willing to budge much. While there was an outpouring of sympathy for the victims by regular people, there was a sense in the media that Russia was just getting what was coming to it for interfering in Syria. Interestingly, no such sense was felt after the Paris attacks, despite France's own interference. Note that when ISIS attacks Russia, this is simply retaliation they should expect for their meddling - but when they attack the West, it's a terrible act of terrorism for which there is no basis.

Now, after the latest string of attacks in Paris and the apparent new willingness to work alongside Putin, the tireless efforts to paint Russia as the eternal bad guy of the Syrian crisis will have to be re-evaluated. While it's likely that we will see a significant shift in the coverage, probably involving some new cheerleading for the proposed international coalition against ISIS, don't expect mainstream outlets to remind you that Moscow has been proposing a coalition for nearly two months, with those calls falling on deaf ears, turned down outright by Washington and sneered at by the same journalists and analysts who are now suddenly finding the whole idea of teaming up more palatable.

There is also the not unlikely possibility that Western outlets will try to spin these latest developments as led by an in-control West which has decided to 'let' Russia come in from the cold. In fact, that very line has been trotted out already - but it's such a desperate attempt at face-saving spin that it's almost unworthy of a mention.

Winning the PR war, or just appealing to common sense?

Before the Paris attacks, some analysts had been worriedly warning that Putin was winning the "PR war" in Syria. In the aftermath, Moscow's articulation of its position looks less like PR and more like an appeal to common sense.

To risk an understatement, it's depressing that 132 innocent people had to die in Paris before Obama, Cameron et al realized that Russia could be an indispensable partner in the fight against ISIS, and that disagreements over the fate of Assad should not be "the altar on which the country of Syria is slaughtered".

If only this realization could have been made in 2010, when the Syrian government offered Western powers a chance to join up and fight ISIS together. Or in 2012, when Russia is rumoured to have offered the West a proposal which would have seen Assad step down as part of a broad peace deal.

Instead, a bullheaded insistence that "Assad must go" lingered on; a desire for regime change at all costs masqueraded as humanitarian concern, while the Syrian death toll rose into the hundreds of thousands and ISIS used the chaos to spread its poisonous tentacles far and wide.

The progress made at the G20 summit this week in Antalya looks promising, at least insofar as it is the first ray of hope that all sides now see enough at stake to prompt significant compromises. If this all holds after the G20 leaders leave Turkey and fly home, it will be a huge foreign policy and diplomacy win for Russia - but whatever happens, trust that the media narratives will swing back and forth along with the official line.

It has become clear that defeating ISIS will require international cooperation and that Russia is a crucial party. What is less clear, and what no analyst can really predict, is whether a massive, coordinated bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq will be any more effective than the disjointed ones we've seen so far. That is a question which is far more difficult to answer.

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 #23
Russian, foreign partners' lists of terrorists in Syria largely coincide - Lavrov

MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. Proposals of Russia, the United States and other countries as to who should be considered terrorists in Syria coincide to a large extent, and the list will finally be drawn up by Jordan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

"Under an agreement reached in Vienna, participants in the Syrian Support Group will send their considerations as to who they consider as terrorist organizations apart from Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra. The process will be coordinated by Jordan," the foreign minister said.

"We have relayed our proposals to the partners quite a long time ago, a couple of weeks ago we received proposals from our American colleagues and some others. They coincided to a large extent," he said.

He said the difficulty in drawing up the list was that terrorist organizations were often changing their colors, trying to appear in the eyes of the world community as moderate opposition.

"I hope our American colleagues will be able to coordinate this process so that to draw up the list and submit it to the UN Security Council," he continued.

"Participants in the Syrian Support Group have an understanding that when we reach consensus, it will be necessary to put these organizations on the terrorist list of the UN Security Council along with IS and Jabhat al-Nusra on which the general consensus was reached, ," the top diplomat said.

Moscow expects West to stop linking fight against IS with Assad's fate

Russia hopes that the West will now stop linking the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group with the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

"I hope that the change in the position of our Western colleagues, which, unfortunately, has been caused by the terrible acts of terrorism, will be also observed among our other Western partners; hopefully, they will abandon their stance that a real fight against IS and similar groups is possible only when the fate of Bashar Assad is decided," the minister said.

"We have discussed this in detail with our American colleagues who actively promoted this logic. Now, in my opinion, there is no doubt that it is simply unacceptable to put forward preconditions for uniting in the fight against terrorists, first of all represented by the so-called Islamic state," Lavrov said. "This, of course, is not an Islamic state at all."

"Our common responsibility is not to let it become a state, as it is trying to create its caliphate that would threaten a great number countries and the entire human civilisation," Lavrov said.

Russia hopes political process in Syria to get underway by January 1

Russia hopes that the political process in Syria will get underway within the deadline identified at the Vienna meeting, by January 1, 2016, Sergey Lavrov said.

"The Vienna document expresses the hope that the launch of this process will take place on a date close to January 1, 2016. This is not an ultimatum but a benchmark, but we hope to stick to it," Lavrov said.

"The more we delay the launch of the political process between the Syrian government and the opposition, the worse for the Syrian people," he added.

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 #24
The Brookings Institution
www.brookings.edu
November 17, 2015
The U.S. plan to counter Russia in Syria
By Jeremy Shapiro and Laura Daniels
Jeremy Shapiro is a fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy and the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. Laura Daniels
Research Assistant, Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy

The Russian intervention in Syria launched a new and even more complicated phase in the Syrian civil war. The U.S. response to Russia's bold move, according to critics and even many allies, has been dangerously listless. Observers have described the U.S. response as "flat-footed" or simply offering "no pushback," a view which has only intensified since the Paris attacks. President Obama's own rhetoric has consistently reinforced this sentiment of minimal pushback since the Russian strikes began, taking pains to emphasize that he has no intention of transforming Syria "into a proxy war between the United States and Russia."

Despite such reticence, however, a closer look at U.S. policy reveals, for better or for worse, a subtle but more assertive U.S. reaction to confront what Washington perceives as a challenge from Russia. That challenge is not just about Syria, but also about the U.S. role in Middle East and the very concept of U.S. leadership abroad. The Russians have demonstrated this challenge both by striking directly at U.S.-supported groups on the ground in Syria (rather than ISIS or even the Nusra Front) and by combining their offensive in Syria with an outreach to the Sunni powers in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, all traditional U.S. allies. The U.S. desire to avoid getting drawn into a proxy war with Russia in Syria is genuine. But this broader challenge tugs at the American impulse for leadership and demands a response. And there has been a response.

That reaction requires nuance. Too public or too forceful an approach risks sparking a broader conflict with Russia and sucking the United States into the Syrian quagmire. Too weak a response will play badly in U.S. domestic politics and reduce U.S. leverage with regional allies. The middle way seeks to challenge Russia indirectly, to capitalize on Russia's many weaknesses in Syria, and to ensure that Russia cannot succeed there. It also looks to draw Russia into a diplomatic process that will offer Moscow a face-saving way out of the morass of Syria.

A military tit-for-tat

Inside Syria, the United States has quietly countered the Russian buildup to keep Russia from any major gains on the ground that could translate into leverage at the negotiating table. Indeed, it is remarkable, after over a month of sustained Russian air strikes and ground offensives by the regime and its allies, just how little ground has been gained and how little the military balance has changed. In very little time, the sense of impending regime victory provided by Russia's dramatic moves has evaporated and the prospect of a quagmire looms.

The inertia on the ground has in no small part resulted from a clear counter-escalation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States and allies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have funneled arms into Syria in increasing quantities. Most important has been the dramatic increase in BGM-71 TOW (anti-tank) missiles. According to our colleague Charles Lister, there has been a nearly 850 percent rise in their use since the Russian intervention and they continue to be replenished. Commanders on the ground attest that TOWs have proven critical in blunting Russian-supported offensives. Many of the TOW missiles are probably provided by Saudi Arabia and other countries. But, as The New York Times notes, all of these states need at least tacit U.S. approval to ship such weapons to Syria.

At the same time that the United States is helping to ensure that Russia does not succeed in western Syria, it is seeking to up its game in the anti-ISIS war in eastern Syria and Iraq. This is sending a message to its regional allies and to Russia that the United States remains the critical extra-regional actor in the conflict. Since the Russian intervention, the U.S. government has placed U.S. special forces on the ground for the first time, dropped 50 tons of ammunition to Kurdish fighters in northern Syria (despite vociferous Turkish objections), and provided air support for a major offensive toward Sinjar in Iraq as well as an offensive toward Raqqa in Syria.

The ISIS war and the Syrian civil war are often portrayed, even by U.S. policymakers, as separate struggles. But they are in fact closely intertwined. If the United States makes progress against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, it will relieve pressure on the non-ISIS Syrian opposition and free them to present an even greater challenge to the Assad regime and their external supporters.

And indeed, some of what the United States is doing in the name of the anti-ISIS war is only a very thinly-veiled challenge to Russia. The United States has also sent F-15Cs to Turkey officially to fight the ISIS war. But as David Axe of The Daily Beast notes, F-15Cs "only have air-to-air weapons, and ISIS has no planes. Which means the real adversary is Russia." This puts Russia on notice that the United States will not concede the airspace over Syria to the Russians. At least, the Russians saw it that way, as they quickly announced their intention to deploy an anti-aircraft missile system to their base in Syria.

Diplomatic maneuvers

Meanwhile in Vienna, the United States has deployed its most fearsome diplomatic weapon: Secretary of State John Kerry. He has plunged full-force into a negotiating process that most analysts of the Syrian war see as hopeless. The Russian intervention has not brought the sides closer together or induced major concessions from supporters of the opposition. The biggest sticking point remains the question of Assad's guaranteed departure, a U.S., Turkish, and Saudi demand to which Russia and Iran firmly object.

But seen from a broader perspective, the Vienna talks can serve U.S. purposes even if they do not produce any sort of agreement. They demonstrate the U.S. power to convene all sides and they provide a forum, when the time is ripe, for the Russians to seek a face-saving way out of what may become a Syrian quagmire.

In the meantime, the U.S. is seeking to alienate Russia from traditional U.S. regional allies. Consistent with this, the United States has been subtly promoting the idea that Russia is exacerbating the sectarian conflict in the region by siding with Iran and other Shiite forces. Russia has pushed back furiously at this notion, but it is starting to have wide currency in the region.

Dumb luck?

As we write this, we can almost hear our colleagues contesting the notion that the United States has a plan to counter Russia in Syria (or indeed that the United States has any foreign policy strategies at all). You Obama-loving simps, they'll charge, you've just strung together a bunch of random bureaucratic belches and called it a strategic symphony.

Indeed, symphonic harmonization is not a hallmark of U.S. foreign policy, under Obama or any other president. Nowhere is this clearer than in Syria. Obama has long made a habit of outlining a broad approach of masterly inactivity in Syria and then hedging against his own strategy by authorizing parts of the U.S. government to undertake more forward-leaning experiments. For this reason, the United States has long been more active in Syria than broadly understood. Thus, for example, the United States had only trained five Syrian rebels, but when the Russian airstrikes began they somehow managed to find more than enough U.S.-supported rebels to bomb.

And regardless of its actual coherence, Russia likely sees these American efforts as a response to their intervention. This is evidenced by their military engagement structured to face U.S. force and diplomatic maneuvering framed to counter U.S. rhetoric.

As a hedge, this response continually tests the possibility that the overarching U.S. strategy might need to change and serves to experiment with the means to improve it. True, this doesn't pass any sort of test of strategic coherence. But it may serve the more prosaic purpose of countering the Russian challenge to U.S. leadership in the region, while avoiding the Russian mistake of getting sucked into an unwinnable war.

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 #25
www.rt.com
November 17, 2015
US intentionally spare ISIS in Syria, want terrorists to weaken Assad - Russian FM

The US and its allies are playing a dangerous game in Syria as they count on Islamic State to weaken President Bashar Assad, but at the same time don't want the terror group to seize power in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Despite announcing ambitious plans for its coalition against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), "the analysis of those [US-led] airstrikes during over a year lead to conclusion that they were hitting selectively, I would say, sparingly and on most occasions didn't touch those IS units, which were capable of seriously challenging the Syrian army," Lavrov told the Rossiya 1 channel.

The Russian FM called Washington's actions in Syria a "dangerous game," making it hard to determine America's true aims in Syria.

"Apparently, it's a kind of a 'honey is sweet, but the bee stings' situation: they want IS to weaken Assad as soon as possible to make him leave somehow, but at the same time they don't want to overly strengthen IS, which may then seize power," he explained.

The US stance "seriously weakens the prospects of Syria to remain a secular state, where the rights of all ethnic and religious groups will be provided and guaranteed," Lavrov added.

According to the minister, Russia's assessment of the US-led anti-terror operation in Syria "is based on observations of specific results and there are little results, not to say there are none - except the fact that during this period [since August 2014] the Islamic State has grown on the territories they control."

He also said that Western claims that Russia's air forces have been hitting peaceful civilians in Syria are "groundless."

"We... are doing this (conducting air-strikes) in a step-by-step manner and don't divide terrorists into those that could help us solve some tactical problems in the hope that they would be dealt with later, but hit everybody, who profess and preach the terrorist ideology," Lavrov stressed.

Also on Tuesday, the Russian foreign minister visited the French embassy in Moscow to express condolences over the Islamic State attacks in Paris last week, in which at least 129 lives were lost and over 350 people were wounded.

"The barbaric Islamic State plots must be prevented. Our sorrow, our anger should help put aside all secondary issues and unite the efforts of Russia, France and all other countries in the merciless fight against terrorism, forming a truly global military coalition," Lavrov wrote in the Book of Condolence.

Earlier in the day, Russia's security services confirmed that the crash of the Russian A321 jet over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in late October was caused by a terror attack, as traces of explosives have been found in the wreckage of the plane.Islamic State has claimed responsibility for downing the aircraft, in which 224 passengers and crew were killed.

Moscow announced that it is now going to use its fleet of 25 long-range bombers to double the number of airstrikes against IS and other terror groups.

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 #26
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
November 18, 2015
Syria breakthrough: An end to the slaughter in sight?
The country's future depends on balancing interests among regional players.
GEVORG MIRZAYAN, SPECIAL TO RBTH

Foreign ministers and representatives from 20 countries agreed a road map to peace in Syria in Vienna on Nov. 14. With the terrorist attacks in Paris the night before giving the second round of talks fresh urgency, there was agreement on setting up a transitional government within six months and elections within 18 months.

As positive as that result is, the success of subsequent rounds of talks to resolve a bitter civil war that has claimed the lives of more than 310,000 people over the past four years depends on the ability of the parties to achieve a balance of mutual interests.

"No one is lying to themselves about the difficulties we are facing but the determination to find a solution has progressed in the 14 days since the first round of talks," said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Whether President Bashar al-Assad has a role to play in the future of Syria - a key Russian demand - remains a sticking point. Many in the international community see his departure as a precondition for progress.

John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, said the "political process has to be accompanied by a ceasefire. That will help to end the bloodshed as quickly as possible."

He added: "This war cannot end so long as Bashar al-Assad is there."

Diplomats plan now to meet again in December and bring the Syrian government and opposition representatives together by 1 January next year.

Here, RBTH explains the interests of the main regional players, gauging where their main red lines lie.

Russian agenda

According to the official Kremlin line, its primary interest in the Syrian campaign is to weaken and destroy Islamic State (ISIS). Russian President Vladimir Putin says that Russia intends to "fight and destroy the militants and terrorists on the territories they already occupy and not wait until they come to our house." This suggests he believes they are a direct threat to the former Soviet Central Asian republics and to the indigenous Muslim population in Russia.  Although Moscow became involved militarily in the Syrian conflict only after it became clear ISIS was turning into an uncontrollable threat, some believe the Russian bombing was triggered because Assad was cornered.

ISIS is not the only threat Moscow wants to extinguish. Ivan Timofeev, program director at the Russian International Affairs Council, says: "The aim of the Russian operation is to help end the civil war, which is turning Syria into a failed state, a gray zone of world politics and a refuge for all kinds of terrorists and extremists."

At the same time the Kremlin has its own pragmatic interests, notes Dmitri Abzalov president of the Center for Strategic Communications. By supporting Assad, Russia is trying to strengthen its international positions and demonstrate to its real and potential allies and partners the reliability of Russian guarantees. Moreover, it is important for Russia to show its military and political capabilities in carrying out local anti-terrorist operations and, for the first time since the Cold War, bring its foreign to a global level.

Analysts say this will stop Assad's opponents pushing Moscow to back away from Syria, since what is at stake is Russia's claim to a great-power role. A global agenda also gives the Kremlin room for maneuver; it is ready to make local concessions that do not contradict its wider aims - for example, to discuss the options for Assad's legitimate departure or conduct a dialogue about Syrian federalization.

No change in U.S. strategy

America's initial enemy in Syria was Assad's authoritarian regime and Washington's strategy continues to be the removal of Assad by supporting the secular opposition, says Dmitri Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive and International Studies at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. And even though the appearance of ISIS - a by-product of the fight against Assad - makes this strategy practically unrealizable, Washington cannot change it. But ISIS is now the key threat. Alexei Malashenko, of the Scientific Council at the Moscow Carnegie Center, says the U.S. has not only agreed with the Kremlin that "Assad's regime is the true alternative to the Islamists," but has also acknowledged Russia's right "to carry out military activities and, broadly speaking, the legitimacy of its military-political presence in the Middle East."

"Russia's unilateral military operation in Syria has become yet another symptom of America's weakening role as the stabilizing factor in the Middle East," writes former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, calling this operation "a challenge that America's Middle East policy has not faced for at least four decades."

Saudi symbolism

Saudi Arabia is playing tough at the Vienna talks. "For Riyadh the Assad issue has a good deal of symbolism. If Saudi diplomacy fails in Syria, the Arab world will consider it a strategic victory for Teheran and will doubt Saudi Arabia's guarantees in confronting Iranian expansion in the region," says Leonid Isaev, an Arabic scholar and professor at the Higher School of Economics. Moreover, Riyadh negatively views the American-Iranian dialogue and the invitation to Iran to participate in the Vienna talks. In the opinion of Henry Kissinger (in the same article), the American-Iranian nuclear deal is seen in the Middle East as a symbol of the U.S. agreeing to Iranian hegemony.

For Iran, control of Syrian territory basically has an existential nature, says Matthew McGuinness, a former senior Iran analyst at the U.S. Armed Forces Central Command. If Assad loses the civil war and a Sunni regime comes to power, then a cordon sanitaire from Azerbaijan to Kuwait will stretch along Iran's western border and Iranian-controlled Iraq, depriving the Iranians of the Levant and the Mediterranean Sea. That is why Teheran is the main sponsor of Assad's regime, supplying him with money, weapons and even fighters. At the same time Iran is not ready for full-scale support of Assad and sending, for example, an expeditionary force, since that risks a regional war between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

Recognizing its limited possibilities, Teheran is ready for constructive dialogue. Vladimir Sazhin, a senior research associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Middle East Studies, says the Ayatollah may agree to the formation of a temporary coalition government with Assad as transitory president. Moreover, Iran is ready to discuss the federalization of the country, provided there are concrete guarantees on preserving the rights of religious minorities and Syria's territorial integrity.

Turkish lines

Turkey's position on Syria is still determined by the most painful problem for Ankara: the Kurdish issue. Local Kurdish militias have already gained control of a number of northern Syrian towns. Analysts do not rule out the possibility of the creation of an independent Kurdish state in the region, which would act as a base for Kurdish separatism in Turkey. After President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) increased its majority after the general elections November 1, a resurgent AKP will "stress that it is the only force in Turkey capable of fighting terrorism," says MGIMO professor and Turkey expert Vladimir Avatkov.

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 #27
Russia Beyond the Headlines/Gazeta.ru
www.rbth.ru
November 18, 2015
'After ISIS loses its support base in Syria, all these people will scatter'
Vladimir Akhmedov, a senior fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies and an Arabist and diplomat who has worked in Syria and Saudi Arabia, spoke about Russia and Iran's goals in Syria and what awaits the country in the future.
ALEXANDER BRATERSKY, GAZETA.RU

Q: Some experts believe that the main role in the Syrian events is being played today by Iran, rather than by Russia. Do you agree?

Vladimir Akhmedov: The Iranians have been involved in the Syrian events from day one, they are well versed in the situation and are helping the Syrian government economically; it involves big money. Besides, Iran is interested that a branch of the Iranian gas pipeline goes via the territory of Syria, instead of the Qatari one.

This example is often cited as the cause of the outbreak of the conflict. Iran has significantly strengthened its presence in Syria over the past decade. Recently, a statement was made by the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who said that Russia "may not be as worried about whether Assad will remain in power as we are."

And since the head of the IRGC is appointed by the supreme leader of Iran, it is clear that such a statement would not have appeared if it ran counter to the Iranian policy.

Iran also easily comes to agreement with different forces, with the very same Muslim Brotherhood, which was shown by the events in Egypt.

The military did not like all this at all, and this is one of the reasons why the Muslim Brotherhood's regime fell. It is known that [Mohamed] Morsi, one of the Brotherhood's leaders, who became the president of Egypt, wanted to oust the military from power and replace them with his people. It is also known that Iran was negotiating with the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood through European channels to replace the country's government with an Islamic regime.

The rivalry factor between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the global scale also plays a major role in the Syrian events, as both these countries see themselves as leaders of the Islamic world.

Iran purposefully supports the Shiite communities that exist in the small Gulf monarchies, where they are located in areas densely populated with Sunnis.

In Saudi Arabia, the Shiites live in the eastern part of the country where oil fields are located and this factor causes constant anxiety for the country's leaders.

Q: What do you think caused the situation in Syria to get out of control and turn into a bloody civil war?

V.A.: The design which was built by President Hafez al-Assad and which was inherited by his son Bashar was good for the conditions that existed in the region before the outbreak of the revolutions in the Arab world.

Syria was the last country where a revolution was to happen, and it proved simply not ready for this - neither the authorities nor the people - in short, no one was preparing for a revolution. The system worked well and justified itself, but then it started to fail.

Even before the revolutionary events, the authorities made a huge number of mistakes - in the religious, economic and social spheres.

Bashar disrupted the system of checks and balances that was built and fine-tuned by Hafez al-Assad, who was able to manage it.

Bashar did not meet the expectations of many Sunnis and, in crisis conditions, placed governance in the hands of the Alawite military officers.

Therefore, organizations that featured many Sunnis, such as the civil structure of the party and trade unions, found themselves out of business.

For the first time in the history of Syria, the minority took power, because Sunnis were removed from the government. For Syria, this was an unusual situation - under either the Turkish Caliphate or the elder Assad, Sunnis ruled alongside Alawites. Even if they were not on top, they were partners of the ruling regime.

Now the Sunnis, who constituted a considerable number of the military, are not taking part in the hostilities and, according to some reports, are in the barracks. This indicates that, in addition to the Alawites, units of the Iranian militia and Lebanon's Hezbollah are taking part in the fighting today. This means that the fate of Syria is effectively being decided by foreigners.

Q: Why were Sunnis removed from power under Bashar al-Assad?

V.A.: In 2004, Syria carried out a large-scale change in the leadership of its security forces. The army went through a very serious purge as well.

In turn, Hafez al-Assad acted tough in such crisis situations, taking reprisals against his own relatives.

In the early 1980s, his younger brother Jamil tried to revive the so-called al-Murtada association [which contained a militia wing of Alawite Muslims and so angered the secular Baath party that was in power at the time - Gazeta.ru], when Assad was ill and briefly stepped away from operational governance.

However, when the president recovered, he closed down the association, and exiled Jamil to France for a while. I think that if the elder Assad had continued to remain in power, there would have been no revolution, or it would have been nipped in the bud, as it was when there was an armed uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in 1982.

Q: But Assad Sr. acted tough enough in the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood.

V.A.: On the one hand, yes. In the same Hama - I was there after the events, when the city laid in ruins - they just sent the tanks, and that's it. But they used different methods there.

On the other hand, when, in 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood barricaded themselves in the underground markets of Aleppo under the fortress of Salah El-Din, the only possibility to smoke them out was to use gas, which could have had a wide public reaction.

But Assad Sr. did something much simpler; he gathered local merchants in Aleppo and said, I give you 24 hours - either they get out without any hindrance, or you will lose your business for good. So the problem was solved without the use of gas.

Q: How do you see the political solution to the conflict in Syria?

V.A.: Through Syria, we are projecting strength in the entire Middle East. I think that in the worst-case scenario, we can greatly fortify the area of Latakia and Tartus and provide serious security for our base.

For the first time, the president used the word "base," because we used to call it a "material and technical support facility." But the big question is how long we decide to hold out there, and the region is such that if we have such a foothold, then they will always send suicide attackers there.

Therefore, to prevent such a development, we are trying to negotiate and resolve the problem by political means. But it is not possible to do it without the Americans.

Q: Is it possible to defeat ISIS in Syria?

V.A.: I think it is possible - everything that is called ISIS today is a gang composed of disparate groups who have no future in Syria, where the majority of the population - by the very structure of Syrian society - rejects them. After ISIS loses its base of support in Syria, all these people will scatter in different directions.

But the main task today is to find channels that can be used to return opposition groups who fight with both ISIS and President Assad to peaceful life.

There are many people of civilian professions there who have taken up arms for various reasons. What is needed are renewed political structures that would be able to give these people the opportunity to express their political interests. Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is essentially a political structure, can be used as an example here. Such a political fabric should be created in Syria, too, but this is not yet visible.

First published in Russian by Gazeta.ru

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 #28
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
November 18, 2015
ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST KEEPING BASHAR AL-ASSAD AS SYRIA'S PRESIDENT
By Georgy Mirsky
Georgy Mirsky is Professor of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations.

The system of power in Syria will collapse without al-Assad, including the army. At the same time Al-Assad's legitimacy is questionable. He is part of a dynasty, like in North Korea. A free expression of will is impossible in conditions of a civil war.

Arguments for

1. We don't demand that al-Assad keep the post of Syrian president. We insist that Syrians have the right to freely elect their leader. We are against the United States or any other country usurping the right to decide who will stand at the helm in any country. As of now, Bashar al-Assad is the legitimate president of Syria.

2. The system of power in Syria will collapse without al-Assad, including the army, which is the only effective, combat-ready force capable of fighting the global evil, ISIS. If al-Assad is forced to step down, terrorists will take over Syria.

Arguments against

1. Al-Assad's legitimacy is questionable. He became president not through his service to the people or public trust, but because he is the son of the previous president, who seized power in a military coup. So, Bashar al-Assad is part of a dynasty, like in North Korea.

2. A free expression of will is impossible in conditions of a civil war. First, the totalitarian Baath system will ensure al-Assad at least 90 percent of the vote in the 20 or 25 percent of the national territory controlled by the government. Nobody will try to or will be able to organize elections in the remaining 75-80 percent of the territory. About 7,000 armed groups are fighting five wars in Syria, with 50 percent of houses and 60 percent of industrial facilities destroyed and the number of refugees exceeding four million people. How can these Syrian citizens, including those who have fled to Europe, cast their votes? Does al-Assad hope that the government army will resume control of Syria in a year and a half, in time for the presidential election? But what is the basis for these hopes? The Russian air force has been bombing targets in Syria for six months, but the Syrian army is still advancing at a snail's pace. It hasn't won a single major victory or taken a single ISIS fighter prisoner, although it is alleged that the terrorists are fleeing in panic, leaving their weapons behind. It's clear that the Syrian army won't defeat the government's enemies on time, meaning ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Free Syrian Army and Ahrar ash-Sham. So, there won't be any free elections in Syria.

3. The government army is not the only force in Syria capable of fighting ISIS. So far, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah Shi'ite forces and Kurdish militia have been the best fighters against ISIS. But ultimately, ISIS can only be defeated, if not routed, and prevented from spreading into the western and southern provinces of Syria by a combination of Russian air raids with a coalition of all anti-terrorist Syrian forces. These include the Free Syrian Army and the armed groups that were created by the Muslim Brotherhood and that are viewed as moderate Islamists, including Ahrar ash-Sham. But they have been fighting the government for the past several years and would never accept al-Assad as the head of state or even a transitional leader who would go later. This is why the idea of a coalition will hardly ripen, even if the United States and France agree to meet Russia halfway by withdrawing their demand for al-Assad's unconditional resignation. Another reason is Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have been arming and financing the opposition forces. Al-Assad is not an option for them, and they are unlikely to change their stance.

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 #29
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
November 16, 2015
Moscow paper blames US policy "mistakes" for ISIL growth
Mikhail Rostovskiy, How ISIL will pay for Paris. Or not

How should we respond to Paris? How should we respond to the loss of the Russian airliner in Egypt, which with a high degree of probability was the result of the same insane ideas that provoked the slaughter in the French capital?

The bloody drama in Paris came as a powerful shock to the civilized section of humanity. There were more than enough signs that we were building up to something dreadful. Remember the recent incident on a train in northern France, when it was only pure chance that averted massive loss of life among the passengers. Remember the awful terrorist attacks in Turkey, Lebanon and other countries.

Yet the Western world - or at least its leading stratum - has been living in a strange state of complacency. Here is a striking fact: a matter of hours before the Paris nightmare Barack Obama was proudly declaring in an ABC television interview that ISIL had been successfully "contained" within the borders of Syria and Iraq.

Following the carnage in the French capital not a trace of that complacency remains. The statements of Western politicians and the commentaries of Western journalists suggest that a reset is occurring in their minds in real time. The confidence that everything is going on according to a plan in the Middle East - that they will soon overthrow dictator Al-Asad just as they recently overthrew dictators [Saddam] Husayn and [Mu'ammar] Al-Qadhafi - is receding.

It is being replaced by the awful recognition that what could happen in the Middle East is not the restructuring of the region on the Western model. What could happen in the Middle East is the emergence of a new global threat - no less a threat, as a minimum, than was represented by Bin Ladin's Al-Qa'idah.

Has the world come up against a new 11 September? In some sense - yes, in another sense - no. After 11 September 2001 the civilized world - the West, Russia, other countries that do not employ the mass murder of entirely innocent citizens as a method of achieving political aims - was united. Today it is divided as never before. After 11 September 2001 the global fight against terrorism was something new. Today the world is psychologically very tired from 14 years of battling terrorists without a break and finding that for some reason the number of terrorists only increases as a result.

It is being claimed that those involved in the terrorist attacks in Paris were 15- to 18-year-old youths - people who would have been either still in the cradle or else in kindergarten at the moment of Bin Ladin's attack on America. Is it possible to imagine a more visible symbol of the ineffectiveness of the methods of fighting terror employed since 11 September?

I say these words not in order to sow a sense of hopelessness in those around me. People certainly are tired of all this. But that in no way cancels out the need to fight terror. We cannot take seriously the option of putting our hands up and waiting passively for them to come and kill us all. I say these words in order to point out the utterly grim and even dispiriting fact that one of the main causes of the current growth of terrorism are mistakes made in the fight against terror since 11 September.

I am a person who is absolutely not infected with anti-Americanism. I like the country, its people and its economic and cultural achievements. Unlike many people in Russia I categorically do not believe that America wants to enslave the world. I think that America's problem, or rather the American political elite's problem, lies elsewhere - in a fulminating blend of ignorance, aggressive confidence it is own rightness, extreme intellectual arrogance and shocking incompetence.

That has not always been the case, of course. There have been times when that great power has been led by shrewd foreign policy strategists of the likes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or George Bush Sr. But since 11 September the world has been very much out of luck. In a period in which the world has faced a completely new, multifaceted, and in many respects incomprehensible danger, the strongest country on the planet has been led by people who do not possess sufficient breadth of thinking.

To begin with, George Bush Jr invaded Iraq, who knows why, and destroyed a harsh yet secular regime in that country, thus creating fertile soil for the emergence of movements of the ISIL type. Then Barack Obama, in an effort to correct his predecessor's mistakes, withdrew American troops from Iraq, effectively casting the weak and inept regime created there by the United States on the mercy of fate.

What was likely to emerge on an Iraqi territory purged of the harsh, secular regime? Nothing good or bright, naturally. What emerged was a breeding ground for chaos, which soon crossed the border and took hold of the neighbouring country. A country that even quite recently had been absolutely stable and where refugees from Iraq could wait out the unsettled times at home.

It offends and upsets me to keep repeating these things a hundred times over when they seem to me self-evident to the point of banality. And the only reason I do so is this: America stubbornly refuses to see or to acknowledge the consequences of its own actions. And that in turn leads to more and more mistakes.

The Soviet Union was home to Boris Nikolayevich Ponomarev, a long-standing secretary of the CPSU central committee and head of the central committee international section, who played an active role in the decision to send our troops into Afghanistan. Boris Ponomarev was not an unintelligent man. On some issues, on the contrary, he displayed remarkable clarity of mind. Suffice it to say that Ponomarev was one of the very few active anti-Stalinists in the Brezhnev Politburo.

But at the same time, Boris Ponomarev was prone to ideological oddity. He perceived all world events exclusively through the prism of the ineluctable principles of mankind's inexorable advance towards Communism and the struggle of the working class and the advanced peasantry against the exploiters. So the leader of the central committee international section sincerely did not understand how anyone could object to such an obvious and natural decision as the decision to send the troops of the land of developed socialism into Afghanistan.

The contemporary American foreign policy elite reminds me horribly of a "collective Boris Ponomarev". When abstract issues are under discussion, the members of that elite are more than capable of arguing sensibly. But when it comes to ideological taboos, the people at the top in America suddenly lose all ability to conduct a substantial argument. They start endlessly and mechanically repeating mantras that, from the American viewpoint, are self-evident, are not subject to doubt and do not require to be proved.

Three of these mantras, in my view, have very seriously hampered, are hampering and will continue to hamper the process of enabling the international community to formulate an appropriate response to ISIL. The first mantra: Al-Asad must go. Why must Al-Asad go? What exactly has that not especially bloodthirsty ophthalmologist done that he absolutely has to go? Why has America decided for everybody else that Al-Asad absolutely has to go? No answer.

Second mantra: I quote from a New York Times article actually published since the terrorist attacks in Paris: "Russia states that it is fighting against SIL. But it looks as though in reality its actions are aimed at reinforcing Bashar al-Asad's regime."

Why do Americans persist in considering these two objectives to be mutually exclusive? Why is the USA trying to destroy the secular regime in Damascus? Does it want to set up a "calque" of the Iraq situation in Syria - to sweep away "the entire old world to its foundations" and only then think about what to do next?

Are Americans themselves willing to take military action on the ground in Syria? Not for one minute. If that is the case, why are they insisting on the destruction of a real military force that for four years now has resisted the onslaught of numerous enemies, including ISIL? Granted, there is an answer to that specific question. Americans have their own favourites in Syria. But it surely cannot be denied that those favourites either possess limited military capability or are discredited by having links to ISIL.

Third mantra: Russia is no ally of the Western world; Russia is as much the enemy of the Western world as ISIL. Here comment really is superfluous. I do not think this dangerous and foolish ideological branding is ever going to disappear entirely. But it is starting - under the impact of reality - to be actively eroded. In fact this active erosion is a process no longer of the future but of the present. The scale of the challenge from ISIL is driving Russia and the West into each other's embrace.

But the question is which will prove the stronger: the objective strategic need for close coordination of efforts or the accumula ed store of prejudices and contradictions. Perhaps I am giving way to an excess of pessimism. But, while I hope with all my heart for the first outcome, I cannot yet completely rule out the second.

It is clear to everyone that the root of the evil lies in Syria. But will it be possible to secure accord on how precisely it should be exorcized? Will the United States and Europe be able to formulate a clear strategic line with regard to Syria that is based on the realities and not on their fancies. Is the shock of the slaughter in Paris strong enough to make countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia set aside the narrow understanding of their national interests and consequently abandon a policy that tends to strengthen ISIL?

I am not certain of anything, except that ISIL is not going to sit around with its arms folded. The kind of radical rethink of policy that has become necessary following the Paris slaughter usually does take time. But something tells me that ISIL is unlikely to give us the breathing space. We had better not make any more mistakes by delaying our response.

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 #30
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
November 17, 2015
Translation: Egor Kholmogorov - A Cruel French Lesson
By Anatoly Karlin

A Cruel French Lesson, by Egor Kholmogorov appeared in the November 14 issue of Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the leading Russian dailies. It outlines what is pretty much the standard right-wing conservative Russian position on the #ParisAttacks.

Some context: After the terrorist strikes, many outspoken Russian liberals rushed to wrap their digital selves in the French flag; a status signalling action made easy by Facebook's provision of a French flag avatar coloration app (one could cynically add: To mark the most significant event in the world since the US legalization of gay marrage). This is in stark contrast to the relative silence over the Russian victims of the terrorist downing of the aircraft over the Sinai - and for that matter, the silence in regards to Lebanon, and for that matter, for Syria pretty much nonstop since 2011. (The Egyptians at least were commendably consistent, bathring the Pyramids in the flags of all four of the aforementioned nations).

To be sure, many Russians who adopted the French flag did so on the fly, with no intentions of making any overtly political point. However, some of the more ideologically pro-Western Russians were more to the point in justifying increased attention for French versus Russian victims of jihadi terrorism. For instance, the Russian liberal "hipster" publication GQ was very explicit in defending its decision to feature the Paris Attacks over KGL9268 on the grounds that they idenfied with the City of Lights as a "permanent festival," whereas for them their own homeland was a permanent "territory of woe" and thus unworthy of any particular attention (this binary characterization might seem rather optimistic to anyone actually familiar with the Parisian banlieues). An English language illustration of this phenomenon is this Foreign Policy piece by Julia Ioffe, which bizarrely justifies the discrepancy in terms of the better performance of French special forces at Bataclan relative to Nord-Ost (no mention being made of the fact that the Chechen terrorists in 2002 were ten times as numerous and far better equipped).

Bearing this in mind, the patriotic and conservative types - seeing such widespread attitudes in the Russian media as an implicit endorsement of the theme that Westerners are first-rate peoples and the center of civilization, as opposed to disposable Russians in peripheral Eurasia - have not been overly concerned with sensitivity right now, which is clearly expressed in Kholmogorov's article. He is not writing for Westerners, but for Russians on his side of the domestic culture war.

To be sure, translation ≠ endorsement, and there are several points one can take issue with him on. There is too much butthurt over Charlie Hebdo, which - contrary to its high media profile - is in reality a very low circulation publication in France itself. Furthermore, the French state obviously has no obligation to apologize for it. Tying the emergence of ISIS to France's Levantine policies between the wars is far too radical a causal stretch and besides the point in relations to current French policies anyway. Perhaps most critically of all, the Russian obsession with the West - most prominent amongst the Westernists, of course, but still making itself felt, if in an inverted form, amongst nationalists like Kholmogorov - is perhaps unseemly and even maladaptive, since ironically one could say that this merely reflects and confirms Russia's status as a peripheral country.

Nonetheless, I believe the vast majority of the points Kholmogorov makes are fair and to the point, and moreover the fact that something so "politically incorrect" can be published in a major Russian daily - can one imagine anything similar in The New York Times? Or even The Daily Mail? - testifies to the fact that Putin's Russia, ethnically blank slatist as it might formally be, is nonetheless as good ally as any to those Europeans who still support European civilization and self-determination.

-----

Komsomolskaya Pravda
November 14, 2015
A Cruel French Lesson
by Egor Kholmogorov
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26458.7/3328330/

The hideous acts of terrorism in France strongly resemble a fast-forward video of the decades long terrorist war that has been waged against Russia. The massacre at the Bataclan theater is basically a French version of Nord-Ost...

So we in Russia understand what is now happening with the French like few others.

But this tragedy occured at a rather inconvenient time in relations between the two countries. It came on the heels of a French magazine's vulgar lampooning of the victims of the terrorist attack on our aircraft over the Sinai. I have not seen a single public apology from the French. Our officials are the only people who have tried reassuring us that real French people are ashamed about this... Thus, all expressions of sympathy, alas, have to begin with a caveat: "Regardless of your mockery of the terrorist attack against us, we do really feel for you."

We feel for you because we ourselves have felt such tragedies on our shoulders. We sympathize, and we sympathize sincerely.

But approaching this with a cool head, one can't deny that this case is also a matter of France paying the bills, and for multiple accounts at once.

The terrorists shouted, "This is for Syria!" And this is, at some level, "For Syria" - not in the sense that French aviation is bombing ISIS, but in that when France after the First World War received a mandate to govern Syria, it first divided that territory into five states along confessional lines: Christian, Alawite, Sunni, Druze, and Armenian. Then it took them and used them to glue together two states - Syria and Lebanon, thus laying the foundations for civil war in both countries. Had they either kept Syria unified, or properly divided, there would have been no ISIS.

Two years ago, President Hollande rattled his sabre harder than anyone else in pushing for an American intervention in Syria [against Assad], and was only narrowly stopped at the last moment by Vladimir Putin.

It was Hollande and his predecessor Sarkozy who supported the overthrow of Gaddafi, who welcomed the Islamic Revolution in Egypt, who seeded the flames of war in Syria and in so doing became directly responsible for the creation of ISIS, Al-Nusra, and similar demons, for the spread of their activities to France and all Europe, and for the overwhelming waves of refugees.

When in January murderers took care of the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, instead of a sane adjustment to security and migration policy, Hollande was only interested in preventing Marine Le Pen from getting any political kudos and kickstarted the hysterical tolerance campaign "Je suis Charlie."

Moreover, the objects of sympathy should not have been a bunch of talentless hacks, but those French citizens who were in danger of becoming victims of terrorism in the future!

Migration policy should have been tightened, and border controls strengthened. A campaign should have begun to fight against terrorist organizations globally and against the Islamist underground in France itself.

Instead of this, the orgy of "tolerance" continued, as Hollande occupied himself with weightier matters, such as saving the Kievan junta and clamping down on Mistral sales. France became a best friend of Qatar - one of the main sponsors of radical terrorism, including ISIS.

And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you...

The most horrifying fact of this strategy is that the killers in the Bataclan spoke good French with no accent. This means that they are not recent immigrants, recently arrived from the Middle East. These are French high school graduates, perhaps - French citizens, to whom they tried to teach the lessons of tolerance.

There is a hard-hitting film from 2008 starring Isabelle Adjani called La Journée de la Jupe. A female teacher in an immigrant quadrant of Paris, despairing of the thuggery and unwillingness to learn of her students, and tired of their barbaric morals, finds a gun in the possession of one of them. She grabs the gun and proceeds to take the class hostage, and force the impudent rascals to study the biography of Molière and respect women at gunpoint. The police and bureaucrats dance about in the background, convinced that the "intolerant" teacher is the main threat. Special forces prepare to storm the classroom. But in the end, the gun ends up in the hands of one of the pupils, and there begins a bloody massacre. This is a very enlightenening film that everyone should watch today.

So it is impossible to say that the French themselves are unaware of what is happening with them. And it is no accident that the Front National of Marine Le Pen is France's leading party. But the political system there has been specially arranged in such a way that even with a plurality of the votes, the National Front still get the smallest amount of seats in Parliament. This means that the situation will only change when the Front National starts getting more than 50% of the total votes.

Dictatorships can always be excused away by the fact that the incompetence of the man in power is paid for by the sufferings of people who never elected him. But France is a democratic country. It has political leaders who were ready to rearrange politics in a way that could avert tragedy. They could have voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002 and 2007, and for Marine Le Pen in 2012. They not only could have, but should have, voted for Marine in 2012. But instead, the French elected Hollande and his party of tolerant hypocrites.

Today has revealed the frightful cost of that decision. The streets of Paris have been stained with blood, as mobs of fightened and bewildered people rampaged through the city.

But will even this shock change anything? If, regardless of the newly introduced State of Emergency, the regional elections of December 6th go ahead - will the French finally be ready to put a stop to all this, or will they continue to vote for freedom for terrorists, and equality and brotherhood with bandits?

I am afraid that the answer to this horror will be a continuation of the same old, same old. Western propaganda has already adapted an essentially totalitarian tenor: "We will rally all the more closely around the values of multiculturalism, we will not allow any expressions of extremism, this is all Assad's fault, if only he had stepped down - none of this would have happened..."

Unfortunately, it has become clear that what we are seeing is a live translation of the fall of the Roman Empire under the onslaught of the barbarians. The same stubborn refusal to understand what is going on, the same unpreparedness to take serious decisions, the same vacillation and buffoonery in the moment of mortal danger. It would be great if wonderful France were to finally find its Jeanne D'Arc.

But that is hard to believe.

Therefore, Russia's main task is to learn its lesson - and to defend itself. To defend its territory. Its people. Its aircraft.

To support its allies. To remove the contagion of terrorism from the Middle East and everywhere else. To be prepared to settle accounts not just with its perpetrators, but also its sponsors.

And to avoid hoping that either the French state or Europe will learn any lessons from this. That they will change their politics, join us in fighting our common enemy, or stop behaving like an elephant in a china shop in the East. To plan our moves on such hopes would be nothing more than self-deceit.

But with the French, we sympathize. Stay strong!

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 #31
RFE/RL
November 18, 2015
Parsing Putin: Russia Sends Signals To The West In Statement On Jet Attack
by Steve Gutterman

A few hours after French President Francois Hollande called for Moscow and the West to fight Islamic State (IS) militants together in the wake of deadly attacks in Paris, Russia abruptly announced it was now certain a terrorist bomb blew a passenger jet to pieces over Egypt on October 31.

The timing of the announcement was clearly no coincidence. When the Federal Security Service chief reported on national television that the Sinai crash that killed 224 people was a terrorist act, President Vladimir Putin was ready with a solemn moment of silence, a stern vow to punish the culprits, and an order to step up Moscow's military campaign in Syria.

Putin's tough but tightly scripted talk was meant to warn militants worldwide and reassure Russians that they are being protected, but his statement also contained several messages to the West -- some coded, some clear as a bell. The main message: Fight terror together, on our terms, or step aside.

Here are some of Putin's key remarks in the statement, recorded late on November 16 and televised the next morning, and what they meant in terms of signals aimed at the United States and Europe:

Putin: "It is not the first time that Russia has faced barbaric terrorist crimes, most often without any visible reason, external or internal."

What he means: Russia is no less a target and victim of Islamist militancy than Western countries, and nothing in the state's conduct at home or abroad can justify attacks. The West must drop what Putin has frequently called double standards and join Moscow in an unequivocal battle against terrorism.

Putin: "We will seek them out everywhere, no matter where they are hiding. Will find them any place on the planet and punish them."

What he means: The West should be aware that Russia reserves the right to conduct antiterrorist operations anywhere in the world, and may not limit such actions to Syria.

Putin: "[Russian air strikes in Syria] must be strengthened in such a way that the criminals understand that retribution is inescapable. I ask the Defense Ministry and the General Staff to submit corresponding proposals."

What he means: Russia will step up its military operations in Syria, but will remain vague for now on the details. The degree to which Russian strikes target IS militants may depend on the willingness of Western states to accept Moscow as an ally in the battle against terrorism.

Putin: "I ask the Foreign Ministry...to appeal to all of our partners. We are counting on all of our friends during this work, including in searching for and punishing the criminals."

What he means: After two years of escalating tension over Russia's aggression against in Ukraine, the Kremlin is ready to call Western countries "friends" again -- but only if they join Moscow, on its terms, in the fight against Islamist militants.

Putin: "We will operate in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for the right of states to self-defense."

What he means: Don't question Russia's actions, at home or abroad, that are stated to be aimed to decrease the threat of terrorism -- they are grounded in international law.

Putin: "All those who try to lend support to the criminals should know that the consequences of attempts to harbor them will lie wholly upon their shoulders."

What he means: Moscow may regard states that do not accept it as an ally in the fight against terrorism as conniving with militants, something Putin has in the past accused the United States of doing with regard to insurgents in Russia's North Caucasus.

Missing Words

What Putin didn't say also sent a message. By declining to refer to the extremist IS group by name, the pragmatic Russian president left the door wide open for Moscow to continue targeting other enemies of its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- some of which are backed by the West.

And by making no mention of Assad, Putin indirectly repeated one of Russia's key positions in the global diplomatic tussle over the Syrian civil war: that Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for any solution -- and that the West's desire to see him out of power is hindering efforts to defeat IS.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated that argument in overt terms on November 18, saying that it is "simply unacceptable to put forward any preconditions for joining forces in the fight against terror."

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 #32
G20 summit promotes unanimity in struggle with terrorism
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. The Paris massacre with hundreds of casualties and the confirmed terrorist bomb blast that caused Russia's A321 passenger jet carrying dozens of holidaymakers back home from Egypt to fall apart over the Sinai Peninsula may prove an argument strong enough for the political elites to present a common front against terrorism. This trend unmistakably manifested itself at the G20 summit in Antalya, polled pundits have told TASS.

The director of the military-political studies centre at the institute of international relations MGIMO, Aleksey Podberyozkin, pointed to the easing of tensions in Russian-Western relations, but with certain reservations.

"Regrettably, as before the United States refuses to regard Russia as an equitable partner in ensuring the system of international security," Podberyozkin has told TASS.

At the same time he voiced the hope that the common threat which the G20 summit identified in its final statement - the Islamic State - will cause secret services around the world to cooperate in the information field in resistance to extremism on a common platform.

"Attaining victory over terrorists will require not so much air bombardments as the establishment of control of the global information space," he believes.
Plugging the loopholes being used for financing radical Islamists is another major task to be resolved in fighting against the Islamic State, Podberyozkin said.

"Stripping the terrorists of support they enjoy from the big business tycoons of Saudi Arabia or Qatar would be no problem, provided the United States, which controls the main financial world flows, displays goodwill," Podberyozkin said. "To call a spade a spade, the terrorist Islamic State is a brainchild of the United States and an immediate result of the Washington-initiated Arab Spring chain of government coups in the Middle East. CIA Director John Brennan last Monday said that the Arab Spring contributed to the growth of instability in the region. A belated acknowledgement. The United States is obliged to assume far greater responsibility in the struggle against the Islamic State," Podberyozkin said.

MGIMO's political analyst Kirill Koktysh believes that the G20 summit heralded certain shifts in realizing the common threat to the whole of humanity. "The summit's final statement makes no distinction between "bad" and "good terrorists." At a meeting in Antalya with Russian President Vladimir Putin British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed Britain's readiness for cooperation with Russia in the struggle against the Islamic State. President Francois Hollande, of France, who was absent from the summit, issued a call from Paris for expanding the international anti-terrorist coalition and declared his intention to fly to Moscow for consultations over what should be done together to resist radical Islamists," Koktysh told TASS.

"In Antalya, the summit's participants walked part of the political road. A certain potential has been built up and opportunities identified for joint efforts in the war against the Islamic State. In the second phase it will be quite possible to achieve an agreement on joint military operations and exchanges of information to forestall common threats," Koktysh believes. "I would describe the main outcome of the G20 summit in this way: there has emerged a political situation in which refusal from joint struggle against terrorism dooms politicians to losing credibility with the public at large and the electorate with all the ensuing consequences."

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 #33
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
November 17, 2015
The ghost of Paris haunts the G20
The recently concluded G20 Summit in Turkey took place against the backdrop of the terrorist attacks in Paris that shocked the world. As a result, even economic issues appeared to take on an inherently different quality at the summit.
By Ruslan Kostyuk
Ruslan Kostyuk is a professor at St. Petersburg State University, Doctor of Historical Sciences. His research interests include the history and current state of the international left-wing movement, European foreign policy, political processes of European construction, and the phenomenon of transnational political parties in Europe.

This year's G20 Summit was held in Antalya, Turkey against the background of tragic and dramatic events - the war in Syria, the unceasing flow of migrants into Europe, and finally, the terrorist attacks in Paris on the evening on Nov. 13. It is fully understandable that, in this context, it was simply impossible to ignore issues related to world politics.

"We are now at a point where words end in the fight against terrorism. We are now at a stage where this should be put at the forefront," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters ahead of the summit.

All the leaders of the G20 countries unanimously condemned the series of bloody terrorist attacks in Paris. In fact, the struggle against international terrorism became almost the central issue of discussion at the summit.

Testimony to this fact is that on the final day of the summit, a special statement was adopted that called on all G20 participants to work together on strengthening aviation security and combatting channels that finance terrorism. A special role in this area was entrusted to the international group on combating money laundering and terrorist financing (FATF, or Financial Action Task Force).

"The attacks in Paris remind us that it will not be enough to defeat ISIL in Syria and Iraq alone. Here in Antalya, our nations, therefore, committed to strengthening border controls, sharing more information, and stepping up our efforts to prevent the flow of foreign fighters in and out of Syria and Iraq," U.S. President Barack Obama told the press at the end of the summit.

Economic issues at the forefront

The G20 Summit, held Nov. 15-16, officially ended the year of Turkey's G20 presidency, which was dedicated to the slogan "Openness, implementation and investment." Naturally, seeing that the G20 is a structure primarily focused on economic issues, the world's leaders focused on "strong, sustainable and balanced growth" at this year's summit.

As the host country, Turkey prepared a draft general communiqué, which contained theses on the need to strengthen macroeconomic cooperation, create new jobs, reform international financial regulations, introduce international taxes and strengthen the fight against corruption.

Turkey proposed more active assistance to developing countries, and a more vigorous encouragement of international investment. A few days before the G20 Summit in Antalya, the Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davitoglu noted that, "The global economic infrastructure needs investments of $70 trillion over the next 15 years. There are three main areas for investments: trade, energy, and the fight against climate change."

In this regard, it is not surprising that during the summit the G20 in their discussions specifically debated topics related to sustainable energy development, as well as financial cooperation aimed at countering climate change.

In addition, they discussed the creation of such entities as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - a trade agreement among the U.S. and twelve Pacific Rim countries, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, the goals of which are to promote multilateral economic growth.

Refugee crisis and climate change

In many ways, given the fact that the G20 Summit was held in Turkey, the summit's participants also could not avoid the issue of the migration crisis, which today has become practically the most severe problem faced by the European Union.

This topic is also of serious importance to Turkey, which has already spent about $8.5 billion on the support and care of refugees in its territory. In general, the G20 communique expressed the need to "create conditions for the return of refugees to their homes."

With the approaching climate summit in Paris, the discussions also turned to the theme of global climate change, most of the blame for which is placed on the most industrialized countries on the planet.

The Kremlin promotes its diplomacy at the G20

Forums such as the G20 are always interesting also due to their "semi-formal" formats; where on the "sidelines" of the conferences or summits are held brief but very important bilateral and multilateral meetings. In Antalya, President Vladimir Putin made the maximum use of this format in the interests of Russian foreign policy.

First of all, there was the personal meeting on Nov. 15, which lasted more than 20 minutes, between Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama. The conversation was mainly about the situations in Syria and Ukraine. Judging by the first comments published by the Russian media, there is hope for possible progress in the convergence of approaches by Moscow and Washington on the "Syrian dossier."

Secondly, meetings were held between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and there were informal conversations among leaders of the BRICS countries. In a joint statement, the BRICS leaders called for the strengthening of the role of the G20 in responding to the global financial and economic challenges, while expressing "their readiness to support China during its future presidency of the G20."

Finally, in third place, the important fact was that positive communications took place between the Russian president and the prime ministers of Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan, as well as a brief personal meeting between Putin and the King of Saudi Arabia.

It is well known that bilateral relations between Russia and these countries in recent years have clearly been in need of a lift. As Putin pointed out in his press conference at the end of the summit, he did see that in some way there is clear interest in renewing work in many areas, including the economy, politics and security: "We never renounced good relations with our partners in the East or the West. And the unilateral measures limiting our cooperation in various areas were initiated by our partners, not us. If our partners now feel that the time has come to somehow change our relations, we welcome this; we never renounced joint work or closed our doors."

The Turkish Stream project back on track

In addition, it is very interesting that after Putin talked with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, hastened to tell the press that the two leaders had agreed to continue work on the development of the Turkish Stream project.

"The Turkish Stream remains an ongoing project between Russia and Turkey. An instruction was given to revive the negotiations between corporate and ministerial levels after the formation of the new government in Turkey. Before the end of this year, a high council on Russia-Turkey cooperation will take place and the Turkish Stream will be included on the interstate agenda before the end of the year, in December." Miller said.

Putin, for his part, is convinced that the Turkish Stream has not lost any momentum. Speaking about the potential of Turkey-Russia bilateral projects, he told the press after the summit that he did not see any problems in general. "In any case, Turkey is interested, as we were told, in maintaining and increasing the sales of our goods on its market, and in this case, we are talking about gas deals. And we looked at various options for resolving the issues that are of mutual interest to us," he said.

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 #34
Atlantic Council
November 17, 2015
Putin Transformed from Stubborn Holdout to Star at G20
BY ANDERS ÅSLUND
Anders Åslund is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of "Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It."
   
At the G-20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, on November 16, Russia's President Vladimir Putin proposed that Russia could restructure the $3 billion Eurobond that he lent former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in December 2013. It comes due on December 20.

This was a sudden change of policy. Until that moment, the Kremlin had insisted on being paid on time and in full. The reason for the change is that the Kremlin had been outwitted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has had an old practice of not "lending into arrears," that is, not lending to a country that has not serviced its debt to sovereigns.

If Ukraine had not paid on December 20, that would have been the case. However, this practice is not written into the IMF articles of agreement and is only a policy decided by the IMF Executive Board, which can change it at any time with a simple majority. The IMF was about to change the policy before December 20 with the support of its Western majority. Then the IMF could have continued lending to Ukraine, while Russia would have been isolated.

Instead, Putin proposed that Ukraine should pay Russia back $1 billion each year from 2016 to 2018, and that the United States, the European Union or other international financial institutions should guarantee these payments.

This is unacceptable for at least three reasons. First, this would give Russia much better conditions than the other bondholders that accepted a debt restructuring reducing the nominal value of their bonds by 20 percent, while receiving a guarantee that no other bondholder would obtain better conditions. Second, the IMF lending program, the Extended Fund Facility of $17.5 billion, is valid for four years, and it contains no financing covering the Russian claim. Finally, the West has no reason to pay for Putin's attempt to keep Yanukovych in power.

Yet, Putin's move is very clever. He avoids being ostracized as a stubborn holdout, opening up for international negotiations. Once again he has become a star at a G-20 summit by making a surprising new proposal. Last time he did so was in St. Petersburg in 2013, when he suddenly proposed to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. While his proposal is unacceptable, Russia has become a central player in the G-20, after having been isolated as an aggressor against Ukraine at the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, a year ago, when he left early.

Putin has changed the G-20 agenda from being dominated by Ukraine to having been taken over by Syria. He has done so by ordering Russian warplanes to bomb Syria's peaceful regions, compelling Syrian refugees to flood Europe leaving the continent's politicians clueless. Coincidentally, ISIS instigated the mass killings in Paris, so that a number of Western powers now want to fight with Russia against ISIS, ignoring everything else about Russia's policies. That Russia has escalated its military aggression in Ukraine in the last weeks apparently does not matter much to the West.

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 #35
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
November 18, 2015
THE BARBARIANS ARE AT THE GATE OF CIVILIZATION, BUT WHICH EMPIRE IS FALLING?
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Text with links, footnotes, and photos here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=14594]

The university that taught generations of American leaders that their manifest destiny is to make war on uncivilized people around the world is having a bad time of it, now that the US has lost the last four straight; and the losers are streaming in for their take of the manifest. Streaming into Europe, that is, but not into Harvard University, nor the state of Massachusetts, nor the United States.

It was comical when Timothy Colton, Harvard's professor of Russian studies, turned out, a year ago, to be paid by a branch of the Pentagon to spy [1] on the body movements of President Vladimir Putin. It was laughable last week when the Harvard Centre of European Studies, financed by the Seagram businesses, engaged Radoslaw Sikorski [2], the ousted Polish foreign minister, to teach. "The pursuit of 'Veritas,' as in Harvard's motto, is always exciting," the university quoted Sikorski as saying.

But now comes Professor Niall Ferguson, on Rupert Murdoch's tab, to declaim that the reason for the terrorism which has stormed the boulevards and entertainments of Paris is that the French, and the European Union (EU), deserve it because they have let their guard down, inviting the barbarians in by "complacency", "secularism", and "decadence". Like the Romans deserved the Visigoths and the Vandals, according to this Harvard version of the history of civilization, the Europeans deserve "the uncannily similar processes destroying the European Union today."

Ferguson is titled the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. The Tisch endowment at Harvard which fills Ferguson's pay packet came from the Loews conglomerate of New York; it made its money selling cigarettes (Kent, True), CBS media, insurance, hotels, and Bulova watches. Ferguson was appointed to his Harvard job after proclaiming that moderately successful as the British empire had been in the past, it was up to the US "to do a better rather than worse job of policing an unruly world than their British predecessors... I believe the world needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best candidate for the job." We Americans, the Harvard Gazette reported [3] him as saying, not only can afford to "play a more assertive global role, but [can]not afford not to."

Opinions like these are common, and as cheap as True cigarettes and Bulova watches. Ferguson didn't qualify for his Harvard chair by believing them or broadcasting them. It's when the professor identifies the university's title and tribune for claiming that it's his historical research which makes the views credible that one of the gates of our civilization has been opened, then shut. Call that gate Enlightenment, science, objectivity, evidence.

The London Times published [4] Ferguson's essay on Sunday, charging a subscription fee. The Boston Globe [5] gave it away for free. The title gives Ferguson's game away: "Like the Roman empire, Europe has let its defences crumble."

Never mind Ferguson's raid on two hundred years of research into ancient Rome since Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Ferguson knows the research - not even Harvard hires ignoramuses and nincompoops. So for a university professor to write as Ferguson claims to write about Gibbon's lesson for today requires a deliberate falsification of the record.

What is missing from Ferguson's version are two large pieces of evidence, one ancient, one contemporary. The first is that in purporting to explain why Rome fell to the barbarians, Ferguson omits to explain why Constantinople succeeded in defeating them. The history of the Byzantine empire is an 1,100-year success story - more than double the length of the Roman empire or the British empire; the longest-running empire in civilized history as Harvard University knows it. And the Byzantine trick had next to nothing to do with Christianity, Islamophobia, sexual continence, or heavy military spending. It had everything to with disbelief in the doctrine of manifest destiny.*

The second piece of evidence missing from Ferguson's version of history is the 70-year record of the US Government wars which financed and armed the jihadists, and deployed them for regime change from Afghanistan to Bosnia, Kosovo, and Russia, and then to Egypt, Libya, Syria. As each of these wars has been defeated, their mercenary armies, camp followers, and baggage trains have moved on. They are now at the gates of Europe, as Ferguson reports unoriginally. How the failures of Washington warmaking despatched them there is missing from his tale, and so from the lesson he draws.

Since the US is the supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mounting the defences of Europe, and the military occupier still of Germany, how is it possible not to define the jihadist war against Europe as a NATO threat under Article 4 and Article 5. These are the treaty provisions requiring the signing states to act in concert when an attack against one means an attack against all [6]. This makes the jihadist war in Europe a US responsibility, as well as a charge on American taxpayers. But they don't want to pay, and if opinon polls were reported of what they, as well as the Europeans really think, they know where the blame lies. How is it possible to ignore the fact that half of the states of the US have publicly announced they refuse to accept refugees from Syria?

According to the governor [8] of Ferguson's state, the Syrian stream is an unacceptable security risk. "'I think at this point in time we would have to be very cautious about accepting folks without knowing a lot more about what the federal government's plan looks like,. I would certainly say no until I know a lot more than I know now. The safety and security of the people of the commonwealth of Massаchusetts is my highest priority,'' he said. ''I'm always going to be willing to at least hear what the federal government has to say. As a public official, that's my job. Hearing what they have to say does not mean saying yes.''

What Ferguson is ignoring is that the weakness of Europe's defences reflects the US priority that NATO should be attacking Russia, and bringing down the Kremlin. This was the war which the Obama Administration launched in the early weeks of last year, when it changed the regime in Kiev, and announced "Fuck the EU [9]". It's not Gibbon's lesson to be learned now, according to Ferguson's version of history, but the lesson the Roman legions, consuls, and emperors taught in their time- you lose the war, you pay for it. Only that's not exactly what is happening now either. Chancellor Angela Merkel wants Germans to pay - they won't; she's lost. President Barack Obama wants the Europeans to pay, and Russia too.

This is a military and political campaign which is being lost now just as certainly as its predecessors. It's also a doctrine which is as doomed to fail as ancient Rome's was, when the Byzantine doctrine went on to prosper for a millennium. Now, and for the foreseeable future, Europe has a choice which the manifest destinonians of Harvard and Washington don't want to mention, or their paymasters allow - it's the Byzantine choice.

Let the last line be Jugurtha's, one of the greatest barbarians of North Africa, the king of Numidia (Algeria, Tunisia) who fought the Roman empire between 112 and 106 BC. "Rome's a city for sale and bound to fall as soon as it finds a buyer," he said. For Rome insert Berlin, London, Paris, Brussels, The Hague, or Washington, DC."

FOOTNOTE: Ferguson needs to study Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, published in 2009 by Harvard University Press [10].

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 #36
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
November 17, 2015
Someone Wants War with Russia
Victoria Nuland is not alone
By PHILIP GIRALDI
Phil Giraldi is a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and the Middle East working terrorism cases.

Something very odd is going on in Washington. I recently attended and spoke at a conference in Washington on "realism and restraint" as a broad formula to reform U.S. foreign policy. Most presentations reflected that agenda more-or-less but oddly one of the speakers said that it was necessary for the United States to mark its place in the world while "carrying a big stick" while another panelist asserted that it was a core mission of the American people to "help other countries striving to be free." Both were referring to how the U.S. should comport itself vis-à-vis Russia and one had to suspect that they had wandered into the auditorium by mistake, intending instead to visit the nearby American Enterprise Institute.

That such views should be forthcoming at a conference featuring "restraint" might not in fact be regarded as particularly surprising if one bothers to listen to either the Republican or Democratic so-called debates. Nationalism and American "exceptionalism" are easy products to sell at any time, but recently there has been a strain of bellicosity that is quite astonishing to behold, particularly as only one candidate has ever served in the military, and he was a lawyer. One might call it "Chickenhawks on Parade."

It is useful to consider in their own words what the GOP candidates said last Tuesday night. Carly Fiorina led the baying pack with "One of the reasons I've said I wouldn't be talking to Vladimir Putin right now is because we are speaking to him from a position of weakness brought on by this administration, so, I wouldn't talk to him for a while, but, I would do this. I would start rebuilding the Sixth Fleet right under his nose, rebuilding the military - the missile defense program in Poland right under his nose. I would conduct very aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States so that he understood we would protect our NATO allies...and I might also put in a few more thousand troops into Germany, not to start a war, but to make sure that Putin understand that the United States of America will stand with our allies... We must have a no fly zone in Syria because Russia cannot tell the United States of America where and when to fly our planes. We also have a set of allies in the Arab Middle East that know that ISIS is their fight...but they must see leadership support and resolve from the United States of America...we have the strongest military on the face of the planet, and everyone has to know it."

Ben Carson added his two cents, "And what we have to recognize is that Putin is trying to really spread his influence throughout the Middle East. This is going to be his base. And we have to oppose him there in an effective way... What we've been doing so far is very ineffective, but we can't give up ground right there. But we have to look at this on a much more global scale. We're talking about global jihadists. And their desire is to destroy us and to destroy our way of life. So we have to be saying, how do we make them look like losers? Because that's the way that they're able to gather a lot of influence... And I think in order to make them look like losers, we have to destroy their caliphate. And you look for the easiest place to do that? It would be in Iraq. And if - outside of Anbar in Iraq, there's a big energy field. Take that from them. Take all of that land from them. We could do that, I believe, fairly easily, I've learned from talking to several generals, and then you move on from there."

And Senator Marco Rubio added his own insights, saying that "I believe the world is a stronger and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world... I've never met Vladimir Putin, but I know enough about him to know he is a gangster. He is basically an organized crime figure that runs a country, controls a $2 trillion economy. And is using to build up his military in a rapid way despite the fact his economy is a disaster. He understands only geopolitical strength. And every time he has acted anywhere in the world, whether it's in Ukraine or Georgia before that, or now in the Middle East, it's because he is trusting in weakness... our allies in the region do not trust us. For goodness sake, there is only one pro-American free enterprise democracy in the Middle East, it is the state of Israel. And we have a president that treats the prime minister of Israel with less respect than what he gives the ayatollah in Iran... And we do have a vested interest. And here's why. Because all those radical terrorist groups...they are coming to us. They recruit Americans using social media. And they don't hate us simply because we support Israel. They hate us because of our values. They hate us because our girls go to school. They hate us because women drive in the United States."

Governor John Kasich demonstrated why it would have been best if he had stayed in Ohio, saying "In the Ukraine, arm the people there so they can fight for themselves. In the eastern part of Europe, make sure that Finland and the Baltics know that if the Russians move, we move. In Syria, yes, a no-fly zone in the north on the Turkish border, a no-fly zone on the south on the Jordanian border. Anybody flies in the first time, maybe they can fly out. They fly in there a second time, they will not fly out... in the countries of the Gulf States of Bahrain, the Cleveland Clinic is opening an operation. Clearly we see the same with them. And in Israel, we have no better ally in the world, and no more criticizing them in public, we should support them."

Governor Jeb Bush, running fast to make up for his lackluster campaign, added "I'd say it [the number one threat facing the U.S.] is Islamic terrorism, and, back to the question of what we are dealing with in Iraq, when we pull back voids are filled. That's the lesson of history, and, sadly, this president does not believe in American leadership. He does not believe it, and the net result is that we have a caliphate the size of Indiana that gains energy each and every day to recruit Americans in our own country, and the threat to the homeland relates to the fact that we have not dealt with this threat of terror in the Middle East. We should have a no fly zone in Syria. We should have a support for the remnants of the Syrian Free Army, and create safe zones... Without American leadership every other country in the neighborhood begins to change their priorities. It is tragic that you see Iraq, and other countries now talking to Russia. It wasn't that long ago that Russia had no influence in the region at all. And, so, the United States needs to lead across the board."

I can almost picture the lads and lassies from the various neocon entities including the John Hay Initiative, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the American Enterprise Institute grinning as they brief the GOP candidates on foreign policy. What a treat to have a gaggle of perfect tabulae rasae possessing the combined intellectual curiosity of an aardvark dutifully waiting in line to have their empty heads filled with nonsense. Carly wins the prize for sheer venom and willingness to start a war. She would be firing at Russians on the ground and in the air. Why? So we can fly wherever we want.

But I think that Ben Carson wins the dummy prize for his brilliant plan to destroy the "Caliphate" by taking away their "big energy field." And Rubio comes close with his claim that Putin is nothing but a gangster plus his George W. Bush-like assertion that terrorists hate us because of our "values," allowing women to go to school in our country and also drive cars. Kasich meanwhile sees the Cleveland Clinic as a barometer of civilization while I challenge anyone to make sense out of what Jeb Bush said. He has apparently inherited the gift of tongues from his brother.

And then, of course, it never hurts to give the nod of approval to Israel, which is the only "pro-American free enterprise democracy" in the Middle East as well as "no better ally in the world." Amen.

The outlier Donald Trump actually made some sense, saying "...If Putin wants to go and knocked the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100%, and I can't understand how anybody would be against it... Assad is a bad guy, but we have no idea who the so-called rebels - I read about the rebels, nobody even knows who they are. So, I don't like Assad. Who's going to like Assad? But, we have no idea who these people, and what they're going to be, and what they're going to represent. They may be far worse than Assad. Look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Look at the mess we have after spending $2 trillion dollars, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over the place..."

There was also some pushback from Senator Rand Paul who counseled a defense policy linked to national interest as well as affordability, but many of the other candidates sought to outdo each other in terms of vilifying Russia and Putin while talking tough about how they would deal with him.

Indeed, the willingness to fight Russkies and Persians simultaneously has surfaced more than once in the current series of debates. But consider for a moment how a war with second rate power Iran would be something less than a cakewalk even if everything went perfectly, and one knows that in war little goes to plan. Iran has sophisticated air defenses and naval resources that could wreak havoc in the narrow waters of the Straits of Hormuz. An American carrier could easily be destroyed. It would be a replay of the worst experiences in Iraq combined with the worst of Afghanistan, given Iran's terrain, size, resources and willingness to fight.

But Iran aside, the focus is invariably on Moscow. Backing Russia's Putin into a corner where he felt that he had to strike first with his available military resources, to include tactical nuclear weapons, would be something on quite a different level and the word catastrophic comes immediately to mind. Even if Russia were only limiting itself to military targets, it could, in short order, sink all of America's vaunted and highly vulnerable air craft carriers and destroy the satellite communications systems that the modern U.S. armed forces depend on. One leading military analyst even believes that the Russian Army is better designed to fight an actual ground war than is the vastly more expensive version fielded by the United States, which should surprise no one. Colonel Douglas Macgregor postulates that U.S. forces would likely be annihilated.

Many of those inside the beltway doing the pushing for confrontation argue that Washington and Moscow have long been restrained, in theory, by what is known as "mutually assured destruction," meaning that a nuclear war is unthinkable because it would destroy both countries and possibly the world. But there might be some high up in both governments who think that a limited exchange could actually be somehow controlled, even while understanding that if a nuclear tit-for-tat were to escalate the targeting could easily shift to cities. Certainly the GOP candidates are flirting with entertaining that possibility, even if they are not completely aware of what they are implying.

In truth, the dangerous Washington consensus that Russia must for some reason to be confronted and even destabilized truly boggles the mind, particularly as it has become dogma for both political parties and even for many critics of the global war on terror and all its tainted fruit. And the brinkmanship game with a nuclear weapon armed adversary that is being played is, as veteran diplomat William Polk has observed, "...moving closer to the danger point of provoking their use." It is difficult to understand why it is so. Russia is, if anything, helping in Syria and could even broker some kind of negotiated settlement, while the situation with Ukraine and Crimea is far less Manichean that the U.S. media has depicted it to be. Russia does not threaten the United States and it does not threaten Western Europe, but push hard enough and long enough and a nightmare scenario could easily arise, driven by carelessly stoked fear and the thoughtless language employed by an array of presidential wannabes as well as their punditry enablers.

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 #37
US Department of State
November 17, 2015
Remarks at the Berlin Security Conference
Victoria Nuland
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Berlin, Germany

(As Prepared)

Thank you, Reimer for that introduction.

Thank you to: Mr. Uwe Proll; BSC Congress President, Ambassador Jiri Sedivy; Behorden Spiegel; and of course, Ambassador Emerson and the U.S. Embassy staff in Berlin for hosting us today. Ambassador Philippe Etienne, thank you for joining us today. Our deepest condolences go out to your country and your people. Our hearts are with all those who have lost loved ones in recent weeks: in France, in Turkey, in Lebanon, and over the Sinai en route home to Russia.

As others have said, our gathering here takes on increased meaning in the wake of the heinous terror attacks in Paris. When madmen with guns and suicide belts can kill at will in our restaurants, our concert halls, and our sports stadiums, our first thought is of course to withdraw, to hug our own loved ones close, to retreat behind the walls of our homes and fight for civilization only in our immediate environment.

In every generation, it now feels, our common humanity has been tested by those who seek to impose their will through fear, violence, and eradication of free choice -- by those who resort to violence because they can't succeed in open, tolerant, democratic societies. No one knows that better than the people of this city, who worked for decades to restore unity, dignity and democracy after the bloodiest of wars ripped Berlin in two.

So if our own hard fought Transatlantic unity is to mean anything -- if we are to live the words of the North Atlantic Treaty, the Treaty of Rome, and the UN Charter -- let the terror in Paris call us once again to unite in defense of our security, our freedom, our democratic values.

As our leaders underscored yesterday, we can neither hide from today's threats nor face them alone.

We must stand together in defense of the same principles that have united us every time we have been called to defeat tyranny together: our right to live together in peace, in security, and in freedom, in open and tolerant societies. We must advance those principles in our own space and wherever victims of oppression and violence seek our help in defense of their own dignity and their right to live democratically.

To many, that aspiration will feel too broad. They'll say "it is hard enough to protect ourselves." But again, Berlin and Germany know better than most that building walls is not the answer. In a 21st century world, we cannot protect ourselves from mayhem by building our own exclusive fortress. It just won't work. As we have seen, the viciousness of Da'esh, the suffering in Syria, the violence in Eastern Ukraine, the implications of climate change, the risk of infectious disease -- sooner, rather than later, they can show up on our streets. So we must act, and we must do so together.

It is precisely in times like these when the challenges to our free, democratic world order come at us from every direction and threaten to overwhelm us - financially, militarily, even emotionally - that our unity is most vital, and our democratic values are our best guide. America's approach to protecting our values and to advancing a Europe whole, free, and at peace will remain constant, as it has for 70 years: we will use our military when we must; diplomacy whenever we can; innovation and free-market economies to advance new solutions when we find them, and we will build communities of common action to add to our traditional Alliances whenever possible.

The fight against Da'esh requires all of this. An evil on this scale must be fought on the battlefield, where it seeks to dominate whole populations. And it must be eradicated from our own streets with law enforcement and intelligence collaboration. We need a holistic response, using all the tools at our disposal -- from the work we are doing together to deny Da'esh territory and to support local forces in Iraq and moderate opposition groups in Syria, to stopping terrorists' ability to profit from illicit oil sales or other forms of finance, to the delicate balance we must strike in law enforcement at home between security and privacy.

In this regard, the work NATO and EU nations are doing together in the Counter-ISIL Coalition, in the International Syria Support Group talks on a diplomatic solution, in New York and through our banks to cut off terrorist financing, and even in the US-EU data privacy and Safe Harbor discussions, should all be seen as aspects of the same fight. And as the victims of Da'esh terror make their way to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Europe's shores, we must remember our common humanity, and work together on safe, secure, affordable, and just ways to offer refuge, and to share that burden equitably among us.

In that regard, we applaud Germany's and Chancellor Merkel's leadership as you seek to live the values on which our Transatlantic community was forged. Rather than rebuilding walls in Europe, the EU is strongest when it implements a common policy of in-take and processing, and by supporting legitimate refugees with the same solidarity it has shown in addressing other crises - from the financial crisis to the Balkan wars. The U.S. stands ready to support the emerging EU policy, and to continue to assist the countries on your periphery that have sought our help.

America remains the single largest contributor to the humanitarian effort inside Syria with $4.5 billion devoted to the cause. And we are supporting Turkey's efforts to care for its 2.2 million refugees, with $325 million to help operate over 100 schools and provide shelter, essential supplies, mobile registration centers, medical centers, and safe spaces for children to learn and play. The U.S. is also providing $26.6 million to UNHCR to assist in the care of refugees transiting Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia to the rest of Europe.

This crisis, like others we have weathered, reminds us that we are strongest as a Transatlantic community when we live our values, share the burden and expense of leadership, and balance our diplomatic, military, and economic tools.

That was true in the Balkans in the 1990's, in Afghanistan after 9/11, in tackling Ebola, and now as we seek to support Ukraine and defend against Russian aggression to our East.

Even as we focus on ISIL, we must not forget that barely two years ago, almost one million Ukrainians stood for days and weeks in the snow on the Maidan to demand that their government give them what we have: human dignity, democracy, clean government, justice. When Yanukovich turned his back on Europe, Ukrainians would not be denied their choice. But that was unacceptable to both Yanukovich and to the Kremlin, which met the Ukrainian people's demand with occupation, tanks, Buk missiles, support for the separatists, sabotage, and propaganda.

Today, 93 percent of Ukraine survives as a democratic state in association with Europe because Ukrainians fought and died for their rights, and our nations stood with the people of Ukraine. We have given political, economic, and security support; we imposed successively harsh rounds of sanctions to bring Russia to the negotiating table; and we supported a diplomatic resolution to the conflict via the Minsk agreements and the Normandy talks led by Germany and France.

Now we have to help Ukraine see it through. We must maintain pressure on Russia and its separatist proxies to complete the unfinished commitments of Minsk, including: the return of all hostages; full humanitarian access for UN agencies, NGOs, and government relief agencies; free, fair elections in Donbas under the Ukrainian constitution monitored by ODIHR; the removal of all foreign forces and weapons; and the return of the international border to Ukraine. Sanctions are an essential tool for holding Russia accountable: they must be rolled over until Minsk is fully implemented. And we must keep our Crimea-related sanctions in place until Russia returns the peninsula to Ukraine.

And, because the best antidote to Russian aggression and malign influence is Ukraine's success as a democratic, prosperous, European state, the Ukrainian government must continue to live up to its promises to its own people and maintain the trust of the international community.

Much difficult work remains to clean up endemic corruption throughout government and society, at every level; to stabilize the economy; break the hold of corrupt state enterprises and oligarchs; and reform the justice system.

But, the will is there. Ukraine's own people are demanding a faster pace of change. We help them most when we make clear that our own sustained support depends on Ukraine continuing to clean up its own house.

As NATO Allies, we are also supporting those countries on the Alliance's Eastern edge that worry they could be the Kremlin's next victims.

Our persistent military presence on land, sea, and air in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Baltic states sends a powerful message of deterrence. We call on all Allies to continue to contribute generously to this mission - 28 for 28 -even as we call on Allies in the East to show solidarity with those countries facing security challenges from the South.

Unfortunately, none of this is cheap. The threats we face today demand that we meet the pledge we made to each other in Wales to reverse the slide in defense budgets, and build back to 2 percent of GDP. Almost 70 percent of Allies are keeping their word; the other 30 percent know who they are and need to dig deeper before our next summit in Warsaw in July.

The U.S. is doing its part through our $1 billion European Reassurance Initiative and Operation Atlantic Resolve, which help us maintain a persistent, rotational U.S. presence in the region. We are also assisting Turkey, which has been on the frontlines of our shared struggle for years, in protecting its own citizens and its space.

More broadly, all our joint efforts become un-affordable when our economies are flat or contracting. Europe's unity -- again led by Germany -- in tackling the Eurozone crisis demanded solidarity, rigorous economic analysis and an honest, democratic debate to find the right balance between fiscal discipline and pro-growth strategies. Even as most European economies are growing again, the financial burdens on governments and budgets are growing too, notably as the refugee and migrant crisis brings intense new demands.

That is why the U.S. considers it a security issue, as much as an economic issue, that we conclude negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in 2016. Not only will TTIP bring jobs and growth on both sides of the Atlantic, it will strengthen our open, free-market model, and our leadership position in setting the global gold standard in environmental protection, in labor protection, in protection of consumers and workers, and in trade agreements.

As Europe has recognized, energy policy is also a security issue. America's own growing energy independence has liberated us from the whims of OPEC and other efforts by outside powers to use energy as a lever of influence. We applaud Europe's own work to diversify its sources and types of energy supply, and to implement a common strategy.

The U.S. is closely coordinating with the EU to advance crucial energy projects that will turn Europe into the energy-rich powerhouse it deserves to be. These include investments in Krk Island LNG in Croatia, key interconnectors to Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia, and offshore exploration all along the Adriatic.

As we redouble our efforts to bring more energy options to our neighborhood, we must also be vigilant defenders of our security. Any effort to drag Europe back into single source energy dependence undercuts our strength and our sovereignty. From Nord Stream to Turk Stream, the risks are the same.

Democratic values are no less important inside our own space as we make sure that our own governments are clean, transparent, and open. From the Balkans to Central and Eastern Europe, we must accelerate our fight against corruption and democratic backsliding.

And across the Transatlantic community we must resist the siren song of politicians who pit so-called traditional values against universal values, running on fear, exclusion and closed markets, rather than expanding the community of peace, security, free markets and tolerance. We can only beat today's evils when people everywhere stand up and reject extremism, violence as a weapon of politics, and walls of any kind - physical walls, trade walls, racial or ethnic walls.

Whether we're talking about Ukraine, strengthening NATO, improving global security, defeating terror, or strengthening our prosperity and our free market way of life, the United States, Canada, and Europe need each other more than ever. We -- the Transatlantic community -- are strongest, safest, and most prosperous when we stand together against today's evils and challenges, and when we live our values at home, and support them globally.

Friday's victims in Paris -- the latest in our decades-long struggle together for human decency and dignity -- deserve no less from us.

Thank you.

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 #38
www.rt.com
November 18, 2015
NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps to test 'simulated' troop deployment near Russian borders

NATO is conducting its first-ever test deployment of troops in the Baltic from a UK-based command center. The simulated build-up close to Russia's borders is aimed at checking the capabilities of the organisation's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) to control large formations 'within a challenging security crisis.'

A large-scale command exercise named Arrcade Fusion 15 (AF15), lasting two weeks and involving over 1,700 troops from 20 NATO countries plus Sweden, is underway in three Baltic states - Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. AF15 is a command-post exercise by the ARRC, which is based in Gloucestershire, UK. Arrcade Fusion exercises have taken place annually since 1992.

This year the ARRC is deploying its headquarters for the exercises to the Baltics for the first time at Latvia's Lielvarde air base, with elements working concurrently in Lithuania, Estonia and the main HQ in the UK.

Official statements say the scenario for the maneuvers is "fictitious" with "realistic global security threats" played on computers only.

"My aim is to evaluate our deployability, test key emerging concepts that can be used to develop NATO's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), and strengthen our partnership with our allies, especially those in the Baltic region," said Commander of HQ ARRC Lt Gen Tim Evans.

The exact details of the scenario remain undisclosed, though it is known the simulated problems range "from formal military aggression to political decisions, from economic disruption to humanitarian crisis," according to NATO.

The ARRC can command and control NATO forces ranging from the size of a brigade numbering thousands of troops to a corps of up to 60,000 soldiers. An official video on NATO's YouTube channel adds the ARRC is a "deployable command center" available in case NATO needs "run the world at high readiness", moving troops "on 48-hour notice."

Over the past year, NATO has dramatically increased the number and pace of its military drills across Europe, most intensively near Russia's borders. Earlier in November, the alliance launched massive "Trident Juncture 2015" exercises involving 36,000 troops as well as more than 60 warships and around 200 aircraft from all NATO member states. Seven more partner nations were involved: Australia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Macedonia, Sweden and Ukraine. This made Trident Juncture the biggest drill since 2002, when about 40,000 troops took part in NATO's "Strong Resolve" exercise.

Additionally, to boost what it calls its "deterrence" of Russia, NATO has moved a remarkable amount of heavy weapons including tanks and self-propelled artillery to Baltic states on a "rotational" basis.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has repeatedly criticised NATO's military build-up in neighbouring states, saying it is being carried out "under the false pretext of alleged 'aggressive behavior' by our country" and has been accompanied by "unfriendly and malicious" rhetoric.

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 #39
www.nato.int
November 17, 2015
Deterrence for the 21st Century
Opening remarks by NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow at the Berlin Security Conference 2015

It's always a pleasure to be in Berlin, and I'm glad to be with you today to address the security challenges facing our Euro-Atlantic community - challenges that have been driven home anew by the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris over the weekend.

For much of the twentieth century, Berlin symbolised the Cold War between the liberal democracies of the West and the Communist dictatorships of the East.  The Wall, which for so long divided this great city, was the physical embodiment of that confrontation - the Iron Curtain rendered in concrete.

During that time, NATO existed to perform one function: to keep our people and our territory safe from Soviet attack, and thereby provide the security that underpinned our freedom and our prosperity.  We did this by being strong militarily and united politically, preventing any possible threat from the Soviet Bloc.  This was demonstrated through NATO's doctrine of deterrence, the subject I would like to focus on today.

Deterrence is a relatively simple idea.  It's about convincing your opponent that the costs to him of attacking you will outweigh any potential gain - that the costs will be so high, in fact, as to make any attempt not only not worthwhile, but a terrible mistake.

During the Cold War, deterrence worked.  The Soviet Union knew that any attempt to attack NATO would be met by a swift and overwhelming conventional response and, potentially, a nuclear one.  The cost would be failure at best and potential annihilation at worst.  NATO was able to convince Soviet leaders of this due to a number of vital factors that we had in place.

First, there was the clear political will on the part of all the Allies to act together as one.  There was no doubt that if one Ally were attacked, then all the Allies would respond.  Soviet leaders couldn't just pick off one or two smaller nations without fear of consequences; they would always have to deal with every Allied nation, and that included the United States.

Second, it was obvious that we could back up our words with deeds.  We had the troops, we had the equipment, we could demonstrate their quality through exercises, and ultimately, we had our tactical and strategic nuclear forces to make up for any perceived asymmetry in conventional capabilities.  We were not limited to one action or another; we could choose, from many, the most appropriate and most effective response - a response that could increase in severity if that were needed.

This flexibility, this ambiguity of our response, produced uncertainty in the minds of Soviet generals and political leaders, making any calculations significantly more difficult.

And third, we communicated a clear and consistent message: that we were ready, willing and able to act to defend our Alliance.  There was no ambiguity about that.  This message was delivered through diplomatic channels, in public announcements, and in our military exercises, demonstrations and force posture.

Each of these three pillars of our deterrence was essential.  Without the political will to act in unity, all our equipment and declarations would have been pointless.  Without a strong and capable military, our solidarity and clear communications would have been of no value.  And without making the unacceptable costs clear in the minds of the Soviet leadership, our deterrence would have failed.

It was only by having all three parts in place, at all times, that our deterrence succeeded.  Moreover, it not only prevented the Cold War from descending into World War III and contained Soviet expansionism; deterrence also created a level of stability that, even with the ideological conflict of the Cold War, enabled us to engage in dialogue and cooperation in certain areas, including arms control and confidence-building measures.

In short, deterrence paved the way for détente, and introduced predictability into a still-competitive relationship.

Then, in the late 1980s, history moved into fast forward, with the arrival of glasnost and perestroika, and with the possibility of moving beyond containment and beyond traditional notions of deterrence.

If a divided Berlin symbolised the Cold War, a newly united Berlin symbolised the optimism and hope of the post-Cold War period - a hope that was crystallised when thousands of people came out onto the streets to cross newly opened borders and smash that terrible wall 26 years ago this month.

When Communism collapsed across the Eastern Bloc, the enemy we had been so vehemently deterring suddenly no longer posed a threat.  Our efforts switched from deterring Russia and its involuntary allies in Eastern Europe, to welcoming them as friends and partners.  The two Germanys became one and many members of the old Warsaw Pact sought and found membership in NATO.

The world had changed.  This did not mean that deterrence was no longer important.  But the specific threat had subsided - from a real and present danger, to a more abstract notion of a potential threat from an unknown aggressor.

This more benign security environment in Europe enabled NATO to gradually shift the focus of our forces away from deterrence and collective defence towards greater flexibility and being able to deploy our forces quickly around the world.  NATO exercises and NATO operations dealt increasingly with conflicts beyond our borders in places such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.  The nature of our equipment, our training, and our expertise shifted too.

This shift in focus was reflected in our updated Strategic Concept, agreed at our Lisbon Summit in 2010.  It spoke of the continued importance of deterrence and collective defence.  But it also emphasized, in the age of globalisation, the need to protect our interests further afield - be it by deploying our forces beyond our borders to protect our security at home, as we did in Afghanistan; or by supporting our partners in their efforts to maintain stability through cooperative security.

The 2010 Strategic Concept codified what the Alliance had been busy doing for the previous two decades in response to a changed security environment.

And now our security environment has changed again.  In just a couple of years, our neighbourhood has been plunged into turmoil and violence by many varied causes.  The promise of the Arab Spring has turned to dust, leaving a trail of failed or failing states in its wake from Libya to Syria.  Terrorist groups like ISIL have been quick to fill the vacuum, spreading bloody violence across North Africa and the Middle East - and even onto our streets.

And as ISIL's reign of terror continues and as Syria collapses, millions have been forced to flee for their lives, prompting a humanitarian catastrophe and the greatest refugee crisis Europe has experienced since World War II.

And now Russia has also entered the conflict.  Russia's military build-up in Syria, its air strikes and its cruise missile strikes, are not mainly aimed at ISIL, as the US-led coalition's forces are.  They focus instead on supporting the continuation of the Assad regime.  Russia still has the ability and the opportunity to make a constructive contribution to ending the war in Syria and destroying ISIL.  But as things stand now, its actions are only pro-longing the war and the suffering of the millions of people caught up in it.

In Ukraine, it is now almost two years since Russia deployed its "little green men", denying their activities until Crimea was illegally annexed and brought fully under Russian control.  Since then, it has continued to support so-called "separatists" in eastern Ukraine with soldiers masquerading as "volunteers" and "vacationers," with weapons - including heavy weapons - and with command and control.  

While we have seen some progress in implementing the Minsk agreements, the risk remains of a resumption of violence by Russia and its proxies at any moment.

Through its aggressive actions in Ukraine, Russia has ripped up the international rule book which we had all worked so hard for so many decades to write:  rules that ensured the sovereignty of nations and the sanctity of borders; that ensured that disagreements would be solved through diplomacy and negotiation and not on the battlefield; that stated that every nation had the right to chart its own course and to choose its own destiny.

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO worked hard to include Russia, and not to isolate her. Our aim was a strategic partnership where we could work together. As a result, borders were opened, trade flourished and, over time, trust increased.

We signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act and created the NATO-Russia Council.  We cooperated on counter-terrorism and counter-piracy, and on helping Afghanistan.  And we offered to work together on areas such as missile defence.

All of this benefitted us, and it benefitted Russia.  But today, the choices made by Moscow have taken our relations with Russia to their lowest point in decades.  We are not back to the Cold War, but we are far from a strategic partnership.

In recent years, Russia's military activity at the Alliance's borders has increased significantly.  We have seen a military build-up in Kaliningrad, in Crimea and now in Syria.  Russia has the ability to move massive numbers of forces quickly along its borders, and their anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles cover huge areas of NATO territory.  This so-called "anti-access and area denial" (A2AD) capability is designed to restrict our freedom of movement and navigation.  It is something we are paying close attention to in our planning.

Our security environment may have evolved in the last couple of years, but so has NATO.  Since our Summit in Wales last year, Allies have been busy implementing the biggest increase in NATO's collective defence since the Cold War: the Readiness Action Plan (or RAP).  This has strengthened our ability to respond with great speed and tremendous power to any kind of attack - threatened or actual - from any point on the compass.

In the run-up to our next Summit, in Warsaw next July, we will continue adapting and bolstering our deterrence posture.

Our security environment today is complex and fast moving.  It is more dangerous and less predictable than it has been for decades.  We face threats from state and from non-state actors; from the south and from the east; from conventional military forces and from unconventional terrorist, cyber or hybrid attacks.

So we must modernise our deterrence with better intelligence and early warning.  We have to speed up how we take decisions, and how we implement them.  We must significantly improve our cyber defences. And we must strengthen coordination with other organisations that have a role in countering cyber and hybrid threats - the EU in particular.  

Militarily, modernising deterrence means building on the RAP with greater mobility, with cutting-edge capabilities, and better integration of our land, sea and air forces.  We need to be sure we have the capacity to reinforce our Eastern Allies now and in the future in the face of Russia's growing A2AD capability, especially in the Baltic and Black Sea regions.  And we need a realistic assessment of our requirements for the pre-positioning of equipment, enablers and forward stationing of combat units on a rotational basis so that we can counter even the most devious hybrid attacks.

And beyond strengthening our forces and our procedures, we must ensure that our political unity remains rock solid; that our militaries are strong and capable; and that all potential adversaries understand, loud and clear, that every square metre of this Alliance is defended.

All in all, we need to make clear that, if attacked, we can and will defend every Ally. But it is better to deter those who would attack us from doing so in the first place.  Prevention is always better than cure.

Prevention may also be the key to countering the threats from the South, where our adversaries - non-state actors like ISIL - may not be susceptible to traditional concepts of deterrence.  We must prevent ISIL from capturing more territory and roll back the gains it has already made.  And we must help build the defence and security capacity of our neighbours in the Middle East and North Africa so that they can prevent their nations from becoming ISIL's next victims.

Coming back to Europe, let me say that I know deterrence is not always a popular word.  For some it contains echoes of the Cold War that we would rather not hear in the modern world - as if to deter is in some way an act of aggression or belligerence.  I disagree entirely.

Being strong enough to prevent others from attacking you is not an act of aggression.  NATO Allies have never had strong military forces because we wanted to fight a war, we have them because we want to prevent a war.  Deterrence is not a concept for a bygone age.  It is as relevant today as it has always been.

And by ensuring effective deterrence against a revisionist Russia, we will have a more solid basis on which to engage Moscow - to bring it back into compliance with international law and, in time, begin to rebuild the trust and partnership that Russia has destroyed.  

Ladies and gentlemen,

Today's challenges are very different from the ones we faced when this city was divided.  And they are very different to those in the decades since it has been reunited.

But NATO continues to evolve as NATO always has.  What remains unchanged are our central goals:  to protect our territory and our people; to preserve our values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law; to project stability in our neighbourhood; and to preserve our vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace, within a safe and strong Euro-Atlantic community.

With a strong and effective deterrence, NATO has maintained our security since the Second World War.  With a modern, 21st-century deterrence posture, it will maintain that security for many more decades to come.

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