#2
Reuters
November 25, 2015
Surviving Crew Member of Russian Jet Says No Warning From Turkey

MOSCOW - The surviving crew member of a Russian warplane shot down by Turkey said on Wednesday the plane received no warnings from the Turkish Air Force and did not fly over Turkish air space, Russian news agencies reported.

Turkey shot down the Russian plane near the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying it had violated its air space, in one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century.

Navigator Konstantin Murakhtin was rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces after ejecting from the plane but the pilot was shot dead by rebels as he parachuted to the ground.

"There were no warnings, either by radio or visually. There was no contact whatsoever," TASS quoted Murakhtin as saying at a hospital in the Syrian province of Latakia, where Russia has an airbase.

"If they wanted to warn us, they could have shown themselves by taking a parallel course. There was nothing. And the missile hit the tail of our aircraft suddenly, we did not see it in time to do an anti-missile maneuver."

Ankara has said the plane was repeatedly warned to change course after encroaching on Turkish air space but Moscow has denied that its warplane flew over Turkish territory.

Murakhtin also said his jet did not leave Syrian airspace.

"I could see perfectly on the map and on the ground where the border was and where we were. There was no danger of entering Turkey," he was quoted by Interfax as saying.

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 #3
Wall Street Journal
November 25, 2015
Russia's Putin Pushes Tough Stance on Turkey's Shootdown of Warplane Near Syria Border
Foreign minister calls strike 'planned provocation'
By EMRE PEKER in Istanbul and THOMAS GROVE in Moscow

Russia and Turkey issued strong warnings on Wednesday, stoking tensions between the two Black Sea neighbors a day after Turkey downed a Russian jet for what it said was violating its territory from Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, both took to the airwaves and outlined their positions, with Turkey vowing to protect its borders and Russia pledging to destroy any threat to its bombing campaign in Syria.

The barb-trading came as leaders from Germany, the U.S. and China urged the countries to de-escalate the situation following the first time since 1952 that a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member has shot down a Russian warplane.

"After what happened yesterday, we cannot exclude some kind of other incidents. And if they occur, we, in one way or another, will have to respond," Mr. Putin said.

The shootdown has raised fears of conflict between major powers entangled in the Syria conflict. But while Russian officials say the incident has severely damaged ties, they have so far announced few concrete responses, and their threats to Turkey appear mostly to be along economic lines.

Moscow sent one of its most advanced air defense systems to its air base in Syria, but there are no immediate signs it plans to take offensive action. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia does "not plan to go to war with Turkey."

While striking an uncompromising stance on border security, Turkish officials appeared to take a less hawkish position than their Russian counterparts.

According to Turkish and U.S. officials, the Russian jets briefly entered Turkey when flying over a point that dips into Syria. Russia denies its planes violated Turkish airspace.

Mr. Erdogan underlined that the nationality of the jet wasn't known until Russian authorities announced it was theirs, and he reiterated that Turkey's military had warned the warplane repeatedly before Turkish F-16s fired on it.

"We had been showing great effort for a long time to prevent such an incident from happening, issuing the necessary warning to all relevant countries," Mr. Erdogan said. "We have absolutely no intention of escalating this incident."

Mr. Lavrov canceled a visit with his Turkish counterpart, but the two had an hour-long phone conversation in which they agreed to share details about the shootdown through diplomatic and military channels.

Mr. Lavrov said the incident looked like a "planned provocation" but added that Turkish businesses and citizens wouldn't face "artificial problems" even as Moscow re-evaluated its relations with Ankara.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu outlined plans to ramp-up security at Russia's Hmeimim base in Syria with an S-400 missile system, one of Russia's most powerful air-defense weapons. He also announced the arrival of a missile cruiser to bolster Moscow's air campaign in support of Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

Despite diplomatic disagreements led by the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, Turkey and Russia managed until recently to compartmentalize their differences and forge a tight economic alliance.

But after Turkey first reported Russian violations of its airspace in early October, Ankara threatened economic repercussions-a warning reciprocated by Moscow on Wednesday. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said joint projects are at risk of being canceled, and Turkish businesses could lose access to the Russian market, though he didn't give specific details.

Trade between Turkey and Russia has doubled to more than $30 billion annually over the past decade. Turkish exports make up about 20% of the transactions, while imports from Russia, led by natural gas, make up the rest.

Mr. Erdogan has warned Moscow that Turkey could look to divert gas purchases from Russia, and that Ankara would seek another partner to build its first nuclear plant if Russia halts the project. But it wasn't clear how broad economic punishments from either could be.

Diverting the energy trade wouldn't be easy. Turkey buys some 60% of its natural gas from Russia, a large chunk that it can't immediately secure from other providers or the spot market.

Russia needs revenues from gas sales to Turkey, its second-largest customer after Germany, to fill its budget, which is already suffering from a recession caused by Western sanctions and low oil prices.

Russia's Federal Tourism Agency also advised tour operators to stop selling trips to Turkey. But Renaissance Capital pointed out that a fall in Russian tourist numbers by 25% this year would cost Turkey $500 million, less than 0.1% of gross domestic product.

Ankara and Moscow's deteriorating diplomatic ties also risk damaging a nascent effort by France to include Russia in the U.S.-led international coalition fighting Islamic State.

Turkey and its NATO allies, including the U.S., are pressing for the departure of Mr. Assad from power after a transition period to end the Syrian war, while Russia backs the current president's bid to stay in power.

Russia's ambassador to France, Alexandre Orlov, told the Europe 1 radio station Wednesday that Moscow was still keen on forging a broad alliance.

But Mr. Erdogan once again chided countries supporting Mr. Assad, without naming his principal sponsors, Russia and Iran. Turkish jets downed the Russian warplane after it briefly crossed into Hatay province, which borders the Syrian region where Russia has carried out airstrikes against Turkmen militants fighting the Assad regime.

Diplomatic efforts to end the Syria conflict must be safeguarded, Mr. Lavrov and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini agreed Wednesday following a phone call, the EU said.

-James Marson and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow, Nick Kostov in Paris and Laurence Norman in Brussels contributed to this article.

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#4
www.rt.com
November 25, 2015
Downing of Russian Su-24 looks like a planned provocation - Lavrov

The downing of a Russian warplane in Syria by Turkey appears to be a pre-planned provocation, the Russian Foreign Minister said. Ankara failed to communicate with Russia over the incident, he added.

"We have serious doubts that this act was unintentional. It looks very much like a preplanned provocation," Lavrov said, citing Turkey's failure to maintain proper communication with Russia, the abundance of footage of the incident and other evidence.

Lavrov added that many Russian partners called the incident "an obvious ambush."

Earlier in the day, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu slammed Russia for "attacks on Turkmen" in Syria, which according to Ankara preceded the incident with the downed Su-24.

The Russian FM said the region where the incident happened is not just home to Turkmen people. There are also hundreds of foreign fighters affiliated with known terrorist groups and elements of their infrastructure such as weapons depots and command points there, he said.

"I asked [Turkish FM Cavusoglu] whether Turkey's close attention to this region, including the calls to create a buffer zone there, was motivated by a desire to protect this infrastructure from destruction. I didn't receive any reply to this question," Lavrov said.

He added the downing of the Russian warplane occurred shortly after a series of airstrikes on terrorist oil convoys and facilities by the Russian Air Force. The incident "sheds new light" on the issue, according to the Russian foreign minister.

The Russian diplomat criticized NATO for failing to express condolences to Russia over the loss of its troops lives.

"Very strange statements were voiced after a NATO meeting called by the Turks, which didn't express any regret or condolences and in effect were aimed at covering up what the Turkish Air Force did yesterday," Lavrov said. "A similar reaction came from the European Union."

Lavrov reiterated the statements of the Russian Defense Ministry, which denied Ankara's allegations that the Russian warplane had violated Turkish airspace.

He added that even if Turkey's words were taken on face value, its actions contradict its own position expressed in 2012, after Syria took down a Turkish military plane. At the time, then-Prime Minister Erdogan told the Turkish parliament that a short incursion into another nation's airspace cannot justify an attack on it.

Russia's relations with Syria will change after the attack on the Russian plane, Lavrov said, adding that Turkey, which is now calling for dialogue, should have done more to communicate with Russia prior to and right after the incident.

Moscow will measure its response to limit the harm done to Turkish and Russian businessmen, who had nothing to do with the incident, and would decide on a proper action, Lavrov said.

"We cannot fail to react to what happened. Not because we must retaliate. It's just that there are too many issues in Turkey that pose a direct terrorist threat to our citizens. And not only ours," he said.

Lavrov said after canceling his planned visit to Istanbul that Moscow doesn't indent to send any senior officials to Turkey or receive any senior Turkish officials. At the same time, phone channels remain open, as evidenced by the call with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu.

The Russian minister said there was a question of American involvement in the downing of the Russian plane. According to his sources, the US demands all members of the anti-IS coalition led by Washington, who use US-made military aircraft, coordinate all deployments with the US military.

"I wonder if this demand of the Americans covers... Turkey. If it does, I wonder whether Turkey asked permission from the US to fly its US-made planes and take down - let's say 'an unidentified' - plane over Syrian territory," Lavrov said.

The senior Russian diplomat said the problems at the Turkish-Syrian border could be solved by simply closing it, as suggested by French President Francois Hollande during his meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington.

"President Hollande suggested measures to close the Turkish-Syrian border to stop the flow of militants and finances to terrorists. It's remarkable that President Obama didn't react to it. I believe it's a good suggestion and that during the visit tomorrow President Hollande will tell us details. We are prepared to consider these measures in earnest. Many people say that sealing the border would effectively eliminate the terrorist threat in Syria," Lavrov said.

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#5
Moscow's retaliation for downed Sukhoi-24M will depend on what Ankara does next
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Turkey's air-to-air missile that downed Russia's Sukhoi-24M frontline bomber over Syria on Tuesday morning also hit decades-long mutually beneficial trading and economic relations. Moscow's retaliation will now depend on what Ankara does next, polled analysts have told TASS.

On Tuesday, shortly after the incident Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Turkish F-16 fighters' attack against the Russian plane was "a stab in the back dealt by terrorists' accomplices" and warned that the effects of that tragic event would be very serious. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that "this criminal act by Turkey's Air Force may spell the end of a number of major joint projects and strip many Turkish companies of their gains on the Russian market." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov promptly canceled his visit to Ankara and advised Russian holiday-makers against travelling to Turkey.

Yaroslav Lisovolik, a member of the expert council under the Russian government, believes that the terrorist risks will cause a slump in the flow of tourists from Russia to Turkey. In January-September 2015 an estimated 3.3 million Russian vacationers enjoyed themselves at Turkish resorts to have spent two billion to three billion dollars in that country. "Turkey, which after the terrorist bomb attack against Russia's A321 over the Sinai Peninsula, looked a sensible alternative to Egyptian itineraries for many Russians, will now have to brace for a massive fall in revenues from Russian tourism," Lisovolik told TASS.

"Russia's refusal to import Turkish foods, first and foremost vegetables and fruit, may deal another painful blow on Ankara. Russia may easily compensate for the short fall with domestic produce," he believes.

Lastly, Moscow may seek alternative ways of cooperation in the region and this will cause the most serious effect on bilateral relations. "Russia will surely consider the possibility of building more economic alliances in the Middle East bypassing Turkey, for instance, those involving Iran as the nuclear program-related sanctions are lifted," Lisovolik said.

"Russia and Turkey had a vast potential for building up mutually beneficial cooperation up to $100 billion a year from the current $30 billion. There were plans for creating a bilateral free trade zone. The attack on the Russian plane, which had just dealt strikes against Islamic State militants and was of no threat to Turkey, has indefinitely postponed the implementation of the free trade zone idea and upset other joint plans," Lisovolik said.

The general director of the Russian Council for International Affairs, Andrey Kortunov, believes that Moscow and Ankara shared quite a few joint projects of fundamental importance to Turkey.

"Russia and Turkey have two major projects in the power industry. Firstly, the Turkish Stream gas pipeline. Now, after the attack against the Russian plane it may be suspended indefinitely. Secondly, there is what might become Turkey's first nuclear-powered plant Akkuyu. Russia's nuclear power concern Rosatom was to build that. Both are multi-billion projects. If they are frozen, Turkey may face major problems," Kortunov told TASS.

He speculates that Moscow may tighten the rules Turkish businesses have to abide by in Russia. This measure may concern Turkish building companies, repeatedly criticized in the past. Also, Ankara may suffer from the severing of trading relations with Moscow.

Political measures might constitute the core of Russia's response to the Turkish Air Force's provocation. "So far Russia has turned an attentive ear to Turkey's opinion and declined the pleas for help various Kurdish groups were addressing to Moscow. In the wake of the latest events Russia may reconsider its stance on the Kurdish issue. If so, Ankara's interests may suffer a lot," Kortunov said.

"It remains to be seen if Moscow will opt for an aggravation of relations with Moscow. This will depend entirely on what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will do after the Sukhoi-24M incident. If he tries to ease tensions and present apologies to Russia, there will be one type of response. If Erdogan dares escalate tensions with Moscow further and use NATO resources for the purpose, Russia's response will be harsh.

 #6
What's behind Turkey's provocative decision to shoot down Russian bomber?

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Turkey's reckless decision to shoot down a Russian bomber over Syria - an outrageously treacherous move towards Russia it was - may have been due to a variety of reasons, including internal political ones, Russian experts believe.

On Tuesday morning, a Turkish F-16 fighter launched a heat-seeking missile at Russia's unarmed front-line bomber that was returning to base. Russian President Vladimir Putin a short while later said that the plane crashed in Syrian territory, four kilometers away from the Turkish border, while the attack itself took place when the bomber was one kilometer inside Syrian airspace. He slammed the attack as a "stab in the back" and blamed Turkey's authorities of connivance with and support for terrorism. The Russian authorities are prepared to fundamentally reconsider relations with Turkey, until recently a rather close partner.

Tensions in Russian-Turkish relations over the situation in Syria had been mounting for months. Ankara responded with great annoyance to the start of an operation by Russia's air group in Syria against terrorist forces. The Turkish authorities, which have been pressing for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar Assad all along, claim that Moscow decided to intervene for the sole purpose of supporting the regime in Damascus. Ankara accused Moscow of attacking Turkoman villages. Turkey has traditionally provided backing for the ethnic Turks. Syria's Turkomans are a Turkic-speaking people and Syria's third largest ethnic group opposed to the Assad regime.

"Quite a few reasons have been offered as explanations of Turkey's behavior, including its allegations Russian aircraft have been bombing Turkomans," senior research fellow at the institute of the world economy and international relations IMEMO under the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Nadein-Rayevsky told TASS. "Of far greater significance, though, is the following. There's been proof that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son is involved in oil smuggling schemes. Russian planes have been successfully bombing oil caravans of Islamic State terrorists to have destroyed more than 1,000 tanker trucks."

"Turkey hates the idea Bashar Assad and his government may stay in power," the leading research fellow at IMEMO, Dina Malysheva told TASS. "Also, Turkey had its own economic interests in Turkey. Crude oil and oil products from Syria had been pouring in in a steady flow, so the bombing raids against these routes could not but annoy Turkey. Also, Ankara claims that it must provide protection for the Turkomans. In a word, there was a variety of reasons."

Malysheva believes it was a rather reckless step, but apparently Turkey had hoped for NATO's protection. "It is an entirely different matter that NATO hardly needs an aggravation of relations with Russia, but it is being pulled into this conflict."

Erdogan's move also has a purely domestic political side to it, she remarked. "It was taken to show muscle both inside the country and also to Turkey's neighbors to make it clear that Turkey is capable of making a harsh response to a country like Russia. The underlying idea was to bolster the prestige of the country's leadership in this way."

"Russian-Turkish relations have fallen victim to the internal political situation in Turkey," an adviser to the director of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, Yelena Suponina, told TASS. "President Erdogan feels that problems inside the country are going out of control. He is keen to demonstrate to his supporters and followers it is too early to write him off. At a certain point Erdogan decided to 'straighten his shoulders' but in doing so he looked more like a bull in a China shop. Turkey will now soon realize how very reckless it was."

Of late, Erdogan showed little ability to gauge the effects his moves might entail.

"He is a careless and impulsive decision-maker," Suponina said.

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 #7
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
November 25, 2015
Russian jet shot down by Turkey: What lies behind this action?
What are the implications for Moscow-Ankara relations after the Russian military jet was shot down by Turkey?
By Artem Kureev
Artem Kureev is an expert from the Moscow-based think tank "Helsinki+" that deals with protecting interests of Russians living in the Baltic countries. Kureev graduated from Saint Petersburg State University's School of International Relations.

The Turkish F-16 pilot who shot down a Russian Su-24, with one shot, wiped out Russian-Turkish relations, which in spite of the different points of view on the situation in Syria, were developing quite positively. Historically, there have been many cases in peacetime when one country shoots down the aircraft of another country over neutral waters or over its own territory - and each time this has been done for an important reason.

Such actions of pilots are not possible without the approval of senior leadership of the country, as one shot can turn peace into war. In Ankara, they surely understand this. The downed Su-24 has already added to the victim tally. According to the Russian General Staff, during the search operation to rescue the pilots, a helicopter was damaged and one Russian marine was killed. Why did the Turks pursue this action, which, in any event, would considerably complicate their relations with Russia?

Moscow and Ankara have different points of view on the situation. According to the Kremlin, the Russian bomber was shot down over Syria, one kilometer from the Turkish border, making this an undeserved act of aggression. Turkish authorities are saying the opposite. According to them, the Russian pilots had violated Turkish airspace and, after numerous warnings, the Turks opened fire.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that a pair of Su-24s had been flying over Turkish territory for about 5 minutes, but in a letter that Ankara sent to the UN Security Council, a different time was indicated - only about 17 seconds. This time is not sufficient to be able to issue 10 warnings, radio their home base for permission and receive approval from the commander to open fire. Does that mean that the Turkish pilots were already flying on a mission, with orders to open fire on any Russian planes approaching their borders?

Undeclared war in the sky through the lens of history

Undeclared war in the air, at one time was one of the components of the Cold War. During this era, almost a dozen aircraft of NATO countries and their allies were shot down over the ground and maritime territories of the U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union also suffered losses, even though Soviet pilots mostly operated near the country's own borders.

A number of these air incidents were very controversial in nature. Thus, on June 13, 1952, a reconnaissance plane from neutral Sweden was shot down over the Baltic Sea, and to this day, it has not been determined whether it had actually crossed into Soviet airspace.

In May 1954 an American Stratojet reconnaissance plane was engaged in a battle with Russian MIGs over Finland. Then, in August 1976, a Turkish F-100 fighter jet was shot down after invading Soviet airspace.

It must be said that, in almost all such cases, explanations of what happened differed according to Moscow and the West. Both the Kremlin and the White House took responsibility in only a few cases, where it was almost impossible to refute their guilt.

Such risky games were deemed necessary by NATO to test the defense capabilities of the U.S.S.R., the territory of which, incidentally, until the emergence of new anti-aircraft missile systems, was quite vulnerable to penetration by reconnaissance aircraft, coming from the south up to the Ural Mountains.
One such aircraft - the high-altitude reconnaissance plane U-2C was hit by an S-75 missile over Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960, which put an end to such flights, as they became too dangerous for American pilots.

For its part, the Soviet Union, through its tough responses to any encroachments into its airspace, clearly demonstrated the high degree of combat capability of its air force and anti-aircraft systems, as well as preparedness to react quickly to any threat coming from the air.

However, starting in the early 1970s, the number of such incidents decreased, and all decisions to open fire could only be made by "top" Soviet military officials. Another significant reason for the reduced number of air incidents was that reconnaissance aircraft were mostly replaced by spy satellites.

Aerial incidents between Russia and Western countries resumed in the mid-2000s. The Baltic States and Scandinavian countries have repeatedly made statements about frequent violations of their airspaces, and NATO fighter jets scrambled to intercept and accompany Russian aircraft patrolling their borders.

However, there was never any question of opening fire. Moreover, the "victims" themselves admitted that any boundary violations were very minor in nature.

What does the downing of this Russian jet by Turkey mean?

Against this background, the launching of an air-to-air missile against a Russian bomber appears to be a blatantly aggressive gesture. We should not forget that on October 17, it was reported that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed to shoot down any Russian planes invading his country's airspace.

At the same time, it appears to be obvious that Russian aerospace forces (ASF) operating in Syria had no intentions of carrying out any hostile actions against Turkey. Moreover, Russian military commanders themselves had previously stated that Turkish airspace might be violated in case of certain adverse weather conditions during the landing of aircraft involved in operations in Syria. Moscow has always acknowledged any violations and apologized for them.  

The most important thing to note, is that this Russian military operation would be of great benefit to Turkey. To bring back under control of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the territories currently occupied by radical Islamists, and the partial stabilization of the situation in the country, would allow tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, now living in camps in Turkey, to return back home.

The defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS) would remove the threat coming from the south-eastern borders of Turkey. Despite all this, the Turkish Air Force had actually issued a direct order to look for any opportunity to shoot down a Russian airplane. After that, the situation grows rather stranger.

Judging by the first statements issued by the Russian Defense Ministry, it seems that the search and rescue group, sent to try and save the pilots, was also ambushed. It is possible that this was a coordinated operation between the Turkish authorities and the Syrian rebels, which have recently been supported by Ankara.

One rather unusual version put forward by experts immediately after the Russian Su-24 was downed - was the desire of Ankara to "punish" Russia for its massive air strikes on oil refineries and columns of ISIS fuel tankers transporting oil products into Turkey.

After all, Ankara, while claiming to be supporting the NATO operation against ISIS, was in fact buying oil, at dumping prices, coming from areas controlled by radical Islamists. If indeed this flow was significantly large, then of course it was extremely beneficial for the state authorities of Turkey, and possibly for a number of senior officials and military personnel in President Erdogan's entourage. It is not surprising that the actions of Russian bomber pilots made them panic.

In addition, it is clear that Turkey is making every effort to remove Assad and bring to power the country's disparate "moderate" Islamist factions. Naturally, at the emergency meeting convened on Nov. 24, NATO had no choice but to voice support for its ally, Turkey, which in the short term could negate all Moscow's efforts to coordinate its activities in Syria with the North Atlantic Alliance.

How will the Kremlin respond?

Regardless of the reasons behind Ankara's decision to shoot down the Russian plane, it is clear that Moscow will have no choice but to take retaliatory actions. Many experts have expressed surprise at the Kremlin's quite soft position on the downed bomber.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the actions by Turkey a "stab in the back," but did not talk about any specific responses. However, Moscow holds enough aces in its hand that it doesn't need to make any loud statements to "put Ankara in its place." Some of their options include supplying anti-aircraft missile defense systems to the Kurds, who are fighting against ISIS and occasionally suffering from attacks by Turkish aircraft. This would greatly reduce the possibility of Ankara putting pressure on its separatists for many years to come.

Then there is the refusal to cooperate with Turkey in the field of tourism, as happened recently with Egypt. This would strike a significant blow to the Turkish state budget. Of course, this step would hurt many Russian travel agencies, already on the brink of collapse following the measures taken after the Russian airliner was blown up over the Sinai Peninsula.

In addition, no one could prevent the Syrian military from shooting down another Turkish aircraft near the border areas (such precedent was set two years ago) as a "symmetrical response." Incidentally, the Russian General Staff has announced that "all targets, representing a potential threat" to aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces will be destroyed.

How radical Moscow's answer will be, will become clear in the coming days. However, it is certain that by shooting down a Russian plane, Ankara has done itself a great disservice and destroyed the shaky agreement on military operations against the Islamic State, recently put into place between Russia and NATO.

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 #8
Valdai Discussion Club
November 25, 2015
COOLING PERIOD IN RUSSIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS
By Vitaly Naumkin
Vitaly Naumkin is Director of RAS Institute of Oriental Studies.

For Turkey, such priorities as curbing Syrian Kurds and support of the Turcoman population in the area where the Russian aircraft was shot down, still remain, and they will be certain obstacles for the normalization of Russia-Turkey relations.

The incident with the Russian aircraft will certainly have a serious impact on Russian-Turkish relations and the situation in the region and on the whole international situation.

One can predict that a cooling period, a period of crisis comes in the Russian-Turkish relations, in the economic, political, and especially in the military sphere.

It is obvious that none of the parties is ready to fully abandon the great advantages offered by the preservation of a certain level of cooperation, and is not ready to go on serious risks with sharp reduction or freezing of cooperation. There is a cooperation in the oil and gas sector, especially in the field of gas supplies, which is important for each of the parties. The same can be said about the regional political cooperation in which Turkey is still one of the most influential players, and without which it is still impossible to solve the Syrian crisis.

It is quite clear that Russia can't go further without measures aimed to prevent such incidents. And Russia has to respond adequately.

Such measures are already taken by the Russian military, and they are very constructive and serious: for example, the decision to accompany attack aircraft by fighters.

But it is also clear that Turkey, if it acknowledges a mistake (we hope that the Turkish side will be able to transcend their ambitions and apologize), major differences in any case willl remain.

For Turkey, such priorities as curbing Syrian Kurds and support of the Turcoman population in the area where the Russian aircraft was shot down, still remain, and they will be certain obstacles for the normalization of Russia-Turkey relations.

However, we can predict that both sides still have the will to normalize relations, which correspond to the interests of their national security and would be able to agree to avoid such crises in the future.

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 #9
Real News Network
http://therealnews.com
November 25, 2015
Turkey's Intentions Behind the Downing of a Russian Jet
Trent University's Baris Karaagac explains why Turkey would risk a close business relationship with Russia and assist Islamic extremists in Syria   

Baris Karaagac is a lecturer in International Development Studies at Trent University, in Ontario. He is also the editor of the book Accumulations, Crises and Struggles: Capital and Labour in Contemporary Capitalism.

JESSICA DESVARIEUX, PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.

On Tuesday Turkey shot down a Russian jet, claiming it violated Turkish airspace despite being issued several warnings. Russia denied that its aircraft entered Turkish airspace, and Russian president Vladimir Putin described the downing of the plane as, quote, as stab in the back committed by accomplices of terrorists. Strong words about America's ally Turkey. And at a joint press conference with French president Francois Hollande, President Obama used the incident to criticize Russia's air campaign in Syria. Let's take a listen.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I do think that this points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations in the sense that they are operating very close to a Turkish border, and they are going after moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries.

DESVARIEUX: Going after moderate opposition. Well, our guest today says that's just not true. And now joining us to put this all into context is our guest Baris Karaagac. He's a lecturer in international development studies at Trent University in Ontario. Thank you so much for joining us, Baris.

BARIS KARAAGAC: Thanks for having me, Jessica.

DESVARIEUX: So Baris, let's get into the intentions behind this incident. From a Turkish perspective, why would Turkey even attack a Russian plane?

KARAAGAC: Well, the immediate reason behind such an act by the Turkish state seems to be related to Turkish concerns about the Turkmen population in Syria. There have been several announcements by Turkish authorities that are pointing to the difficult situation the Turkmens have seen as a result of particularly the Russian strikes recently. And again, today, right after the downing of the Russian plane, Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, had a press conference in which he said Turkey was willing to first of all protect its own air space, but also it would protect, it would do everything to protect the Turkmens, the Turkish brothers living in Syria in addition to the Arabs of Aleppo.

So this might be the reason. But we don't know the exact, the real, the true motivation behind such an act which has increased the tension between the Turkish state and the Russian state. Right after the downing of the plane, first of all, the Russian foreign minister, Lavrov, canceled his trip to Turkey, which would take place tomorrow. And then Russians announced that they were freezing all their military relations with the Turkish state. And this is significant tension between two countries at--again, this is in a way a little bit unexpected, such a move by the Turkish state.

Because mostly what comes to my mind is the trade relations between those two countries. And Russia is one of the major trade partners of Turkey. When we look at, for example, the oil imports and the natural gas imports by Turkey, Russia is one of the main suppliers. Actually, Turkey is reliant, is dependent to a great extent on Russian natural gas. About 60-65 percent of the gas consumed in Turkey comes from Russia. Also in the case of tourism there have been a lot of interaction, and very actually close relationship between the two countries in the past years. After German tourists, Russian tourists constitute the second largest national group in terms of the tourists coming to Turkey. About 4.4 million tourists from Russia visited Turkey in the year 2014. Plus there are so many major Turkish construction companies doing business in Russia. And again, Russians doing business in Turkey.

So this is a major, this is a very important cause of tension which would jeopardize such relations between the two countries in the near future.

DESVARIEUX: And it's definitely going to jeopardize what happens in Syria. You know, there are talks that are going on about a political transition in Syria. So maybe we have to dig a little bit deeper, Baris, and talk about the Turkish objectives in Syria. What are they hoping to get out of whatever happens in the future in Syria?

KARAAGAC: Well, since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011 Turkey has been very clear. Turkey wanted, has wanted, Assad out. But on that point Turkey has been isolated, particularly in the past couple of years, by the international community. That it's been so stubborn on its demand that future Syria be constructed without Assad. And with the Russian involvement the picture has completely changed, to a great extent in favor of Assad. So Turkish foreign policy with regard to Syria has been a failure. It would not be an exaggeration to make that argument.

And here we--also I would like to talk about--I'm deviating from the question you just posed, but I would like to say a couple things about the press conference done by President Obama and President Hollande. In this press conference, Obama said that Russian strikes against the moderate forces were strengthening the Assad regime, and the Russian strikes should be targeting ISIS instead of the moderate parts of the Syrian opposition. This discourse is quite misleading. What we've been--look at the Free Syrian Army. Maybe, yes, it could be considered a moderate opposition force. But it is not the only actor on the ground today in Syria.

Another important actor which came to being in 2015 is the army of, the so-called Army of Conquest, which is a coalition of a number of Islamist groups in Syria. And they are also quite active around the Alawite heartland that is controlled by Assad. And this is a coalition that has been targeted by Russian strikes. These guys are anything but moderate. The two main components, elements of this coalition are Ahrar ash-Sham, an Islamist Salafist group, or a coalition, again, and the other one is Al-Nusra Front, which is Syrian Al-Qaeda. I cannot understand how these people can refer to such groups or actors as moderates. And this is the hypocrisy of the Western powers when it comes to the situation in Syria.

DESVARIEUX: All right, Baris. Let's pause the conversation there. In part two of our discussion we'll get into more about the West, as well as Russia's relationship now that this incident took place. Baris, thank you so much for joining us.

KARAAGAC: Thanks for having me.

DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.

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 #10
Counterpunch.org
November 25, 2015
Trigger Happy: Will Turkey's Downing of Russian Jet Backfire on NATO?
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Patrick Cockburn is the author of  The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution.

Turkey must have been eager to shoot down a Russian aircraft. Even going by the Turkish account of what happened, as illustrated by a Turkish map of the route of the Russian plane, it would only briefly have been in Turkish airspace as it crossed a piece of Turkish territory that projects into Syria.

Why would Turkey do this? Probably because Ankara has become increasingly furious, since Russian air strikes started in Syria on 30 September, that Russian jets were routinely invading its airspace. The Turkish government also knows that its policy since 2011 of getting rid of President Bashar al-Assad has failed and that it has a diminishing influence in events in Syria as Russia, the US, France and possibly, in the near future, Britain increase their military involvement in Syria.

Specific events on the 550 mile-long Syrian-Kurdish role may also have played a role. This year Turkey has seen the Syrian Kurds, whom it denounces as terrorists as bad as Isis, take control of half of the frontier and threaten to move west of the Euphrates. More recently, Syrian army units backed by Russian air strikes have been attacking towards the other end of the border near where the Russian plane came down and the pilots were killed.

Nato countries will give some rhetorical support to Turkey as a Nato member, but many will not be dismissive in private of President Vladimir Putin's angry accusation that Turkey is the accomplice of terrorists. Turkey's support for the Syrian armed opposition, including extreme groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, has been notorious over the last three years. Its relations with Isis are murky, but it has been credibly accused of allowing the self-declared Islamic State to sell oil through Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in a strong domestic position because of his sweeping parliamentary election victory on 1 November. But he has seen what appeared to be a strong Turkish position in the Middle East in 2011 deteriorate year by year as leaders and movements he supported, such as President Morsi in Egypt and the opposition in Syria, suffer defeats.

At the same time, it is damaging for Turkey to have bad relations with Russia and Iran, two powerful neighbours close to its borders. Leaders of Nato countries will want to prevent further Russian-Turkish hostilities, so they can look for Russian cooperation in attacking Isis and ending the Syrian conflict.

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#11
Subject: Turkey
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015
From: Andrei Liakhov <gaffriloff@yahoo.co.uk>

Erdogan has chosen to support ISIS and is using his security service and party apparatus to facilitate his business with ISIS. ISIS was originally financed by Al Qadi, a known AL Qaeda financier who financed attacks on twin towers. Until 2010 Al Qadi was on every sanctions list possible from the UN to Russia, but his lawyers and exceptionally fat wallet did the trick and he was taken off the lists. He had several meetings with Erdogan in 2011-2014 (not aware of any meets this year) either at his residence or at private home of a trusted businessman with whom Erdogan's son (present in the meetings) had dealings for ever. 167 pipes were built along Turkish - Syrian border where the contraband oil was being pumped into the Turkish oil pipeline system and bought by Al Qadi at the port of Ceyhan.

Erdogan is also partly responsible for the Syrian crisis - his quarrel with Bashir contributed to the spin given by the local media to the initial incident at Homes where the troubles started.

What is to be done? EU and NATO should clearly side with us to stop this Hitler Mk2 from re-creating the Ottoman Empire with ISIS'd help. Defeat of ISIS and Islamic radicalism generally would take the the tools from Erdogan and he will not be able to fulfill his dream.

This is what MUST be done to avert a global disaster.

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 #12
www.rt.com
November 25, 2015
Putin will respond: Russians feel betrayed as Turkey stabs them in the back
By Bryan MacDonald
Bryan MacDonald is a journalist. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later re-named the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer.

Vladimir Putin, who has a reputation for speaking in measured tones and not being prone to rash outbursts, has never seemed as furious as he was following Turkey's shooting down of a Russian military jet over Syria. Make no mistake, Russians feel betrayed by Turkey.

Journalists on the Russia beat spend an inordinate amount of time watching, analyzing and listening to Vladimir Putin. He has been the central figure in Russian politics for 15 years now, 11 of them as President. "Playing chess while others play checkers," as many observers frequently note.  

I have never seen Putin as furious as he was during Tuesday's Sochi briefing. At least not since his brief 1999 stint as Prime Minister, when he promised to "waste terrorists in the outhouse" after a wave of Islamist attacks inside Russia.

The Russian president clearly feels that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has personally betrayed him. "Today's loss is a result of a stab in the back delivered by accomplices of terrorists. There is no other way I can qualify what happened today," he stated. It's not only Putin who feels double-crossed. For hours, #УдарВСпину, the Russian approximation for 'stab in the back' trended on Twitter. Russian people have long regarded Turkey as a friendly country. Millions of them holiday there and there is barely a large Russian city without a Turkish migrant worker presence, with over 20,000 in Rostov alone. That goodwill probably died on Tuesday.

Erdogan's lack of loyalty

Erdogan has a nasty habit of turning on long-standing partners of Turkey. Back in 2008, he kiboshed the famed alliance between Ankara and Tel Aviv, after Israeli President Ehud Olmert invaded Gaza. Bashar Assad once holidayed with Erdogan's family. However, since 2011, Erdogan has conducted airstrikes inside Syria and armed opposition groups. There have been frequent rumors of an escalation, including last year when an audio recording emerged on YouTube of leading Turkish officials discussing a potential invasion. Erdogan responded by blocking YouTube in Turkey, in a conspicuous example of shooting the messenger.

Erdogan's Syria strategy has been a disaster. Four years ago, Ankara gambled that Assad's days were numbered. After all, the 'Arab Spring' had swiftly removed anti-Western governments in Egypt and Libya so the odds looked appealing. Erdogan's punt backfired. Turkey's policies have incensed the Kurds, who already loathed Ankara, and Iran, which has been removed from isolation and is beginning to reassert its power. Meanwhile, after the Paris attacks, the West is no longer primarily focused on removing Assad. Instead, the main concern is destroying Islamic State.

Erdogan's conundrum is that Ankara has essentially created the conditions for ISIS to blossom. This why Putin slammed the Turks as "accomplices of terrorists." Turkey has made no serious attempts to seal its borders with Syria, leaving its territory the principle staging post for ISIS. Additionally, it has been well documented that most foreign jihadists fighting in Syria have arrived there via Istanbul or Adana.

Western media almost totally ignored the story, but last week at the G20 summit in Antalya, Putin dropped a massive bombshell. He alleged that ISIS has been being financed from 40 countries, including some G20 members. The dogs in the streets of Damascus knew he was referring to Turkey and Saudi Arabia as did the G20 participants involved.

Turkey's 'Double Game'

Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by ISIS. "I've shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," he said. "The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon," Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.

Late last week, the Russian Air Force began specifically targeting these convoys in an attempt to annihilate the terror group's main source of revenue. The General Staff reported that 500 fuel tanker vehicles were destroyed in the first few days and provided video evidence of some hits.

Of course, a US special forces raid in May had uncovered startling evidence that ISIS smugglers had been selling the oil to Turkish businessmen. According to UK newspaper the Guardian, "over the past two years several senior ISIS members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly."

Turkey's double game is well known to governments in the West. However, they are hamstrung by the country's NATO membership, which dates back to 1952, when Turkey was governed by Celal Bayar and was a genuine democracy. Turkey's geo-strategic importance is probably the main reason why other NATO participants and their media have turned a blind eye to Ergodan's rolling back of democracy. Nevertheless, journalists from non-NATO member states like Finland, Ireland and Australia have labeled Erdogan a 'dictator'.

The next steps

An example of the absurdity of America's continued support for Erdogan is the fact that Ankara is backing Turkmen rebels in Northern Syria who in turn work with Al-Qaeda. That's the same terror organization which, under the command of Osama Bin Laden, flattened New York's World Trade Centre towers in the 9/11 attacks of 2001. Thus, it appears apparent that Washington can't decide who is a bigger enemy, the ISIS and Al-Qaeda faction or Russia.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday morning, the US distanced itself from Turkey and its officials believe that Erdogan's forces destroyed the Russian plane in Syrian airspace.

With Francois Hollande scheduled to arrive in Moscow this week, there remains hope that a coalition can be formed between Russia and the West to bring down ISIS. However, it's abundantly clear that Turkey can't be part of that solution. That opens up a can of worms for NATO. Even aside from Turkey's close relations with the terrorists, it is simply impossible to imagine Russia and Turkey joining forces after Tuesday's events. Thus, if Russia and France want to establish a genuine anti-ISIS alliance, France will have to disregard Turkey, its ostensible NATO ally.

As for Putin's next move? It's unlikely, but not impossible, that Russia would seek to further escalate tensions, no matter how enraged the Kremlin may feel. Regardless, there will eventually be a response from Putin. Nothing is surer.

Russia is Turkey's second largest source of tourists (four million ever year) and its second biggest trade partner. Additionally, Russia accounts for a fifth of Turkey's entire energy supply. There were plans for Rosatom to build Turkey's first nuclear plant next year and Ankara and Moscow were supposed to team up for a new gas pipeline called Turkish Stream.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already advised Russians not to visit Turkey and the Federal Tourism Agency has called on Tour Operators to halt sales to the country. This is probably just the start. Russians feel betrayed by Turkey. Erdogan will, most probably, reap a whirlwind. Putin has many options.

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#13
The Guardian (UK)
November 24, 2015
Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'?
The relationship hinted at by Russian leader after warplane was shot down is a complex one, and includes links between senior Isis figures and Turkish officials
By Martin Chulov
Martin Chulov, who covers the Middle East for the Guardian, won the Orwell prize for journalism in 2015. He has reported from the region since 2005.

Since the earliest months of the Syrian war, Turkey has had more direct involvement and more at stake than any of the regional states lined up against Bashar al-Assad.

Turkish borders have been the primary thoroughfare for fighters of all kinds to enter Syria. Its military bases have been used to distribute weapons and to train rebel fighters. And its frontier towns and villages have taken in almost one million refugees.

Turkey's international airports have also been busy. Many, if not most, of the estimated 15,000-20,000 foreign fighters to have joined Islamic State (Isis) have first flown into Istanbul or Adana, or arrived by ferry along its Mediterranean coast.

The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on Tuesday, had claimed Turkey had enabled or even supported Isis. Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers.

From midway through 2012, when jihadis started to travel to Syria, their presence was apparent at all points of the journey to the border: at Istanbul airport, in the southern cities of Hatay and Gaziantep - both of which were staging points - and in the border villages. Foreigners on their way to fight remained fixtures on these routes until late in 2014 when, after continued pressure from the EU states and the US, coordinated efforts were made to turn them back.

By then, Isis had become a dominant presence in parts of north and east Syria. It had splintered non-ideological factions of the Syrian opposition as well as Islamist groups, both of which had been backed by Turkey, and ensured that whatever form of governance that emerged from Syria's ruins would have little to do with the revolution's original goals.

The steady stream of foreigners who passed through Hatay and Gaziantep made little effort to remain discreet, gathering regularly in local hotels, coffee shops and bus stations. European diplomats alarmed by the gathering threat concluded that the Turkish leadership was sympathetic to conservative Islamists travelling to fight Assad, who had, until his brutal response to pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011, been a friend of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. "After that he became an enemy," said one western official. "Erdoğan had tried to mentor Assad. But after the crackdown [on demonstrations] he felt insulted by him. And we are where we are today."

As Syria unravelled, Turkey doubled down on its commitment to a range of militant groups, while at the same time appearing to recognise that the jihadis who had passed through their territory were hardly a benign threat. The change in the dialogue with western officials was marked: security officials no longer insisted on the extremists being called "those who abuse religion". Labelling them "terrorists" in official correspondence was no longer the problem it had been.

Despite that, links to some aspects of Isis continued to develop. Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (£6.6m) per week to the terror group's coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client. Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly.

Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that "my enemy's enemy is my friend" and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf.

A trawl through Sayyaf's compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had "urgent policy implications".

Shortly after that, Turkey opened a new front against the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, with which it had fought an internecine war for close to 40 years. In doing so, it allowed the US to begin using its Incirlik air base for operations against Isis, pledging that it too would join the fray. Ever since, Turkey's jets have aimed their missiles almost exclusively at PKK targets inside its borders and in Syria, where the YPG, a military ally of the PKK, has been the only effective fighting force against Isis - while acting under the cover of US fighter jets.

Senior Turkish officials have openly stated that the Kurds - the main US ally in Syria - pose more of a threat than Isis to Turkey's national interests. Yet, through it all, Turkey, a Nato member, continues to be regarded as an ally by Europe. The US and Britain have become far less enamoured, but are unwilling to do much about it. The worry in both capitals is that to do so would introduce yet another variable into an already highly volatile region, where alliances, strategies, and implications are constantly changing.

"Turkey thought they could control it all," said one senior western official. "But it got out of their hands. It has come back to bite them in the heart of Ankara [a double suicide bombing in October that was claimed by Isis] and it will haunt them for a long time."

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 #14
Forbes.com
November 24, 2015
Turkey Just Shot Down A Russian Jet: What Happens Next?
By Mark Adomanis

Up until now, Russia's air campaign in Syria has, in purely military terms, gone relatively smoothly. The notoriously breakdown-prone Russian air force, which suffered an embarrassing string of disasters earlier in the year as it increased the tempo of its training, has managed to successfully sustain an intensity of operations that far exceeded even the most optimistic Western expectations. The Russians have racked up more than 4,000 airstrikes without any losses to mechanical failure or enemy fire. Security around Russian bases (a major concern in a country in the midst of a massive civil war) has also held up, and the various terrorist groups active in Syria haven't (yet!) been able to score any major successes targeting Russian ground and support forces. Yes, a Russian soldier was killed towards the end of October, but by the standards of these things Russia's war in Syria had been mostly cost free.

That all changed this morning when the Turks shot down a Russian Su-24 Fencer which had allegedly violated Turkish airspace. Turkey, of course, is a member of NATO, and this marks the first time since the Korean War that the alliance has shot down a Russian/Soviet jet. Yes there have been lots of airspace violations, and even more mutual recrimination, but this is the first live-fire incident in well over half a century. That's a pretty big deal.

Russian president Vladimir Putin reacted immediately, and harshly, calling the incident a "stab in the back" while also accusing the Turks of covertly aiding ISIS. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, immediately canceled a planned visit while also warning Russians to stay away from Turkey because of the heightened risk of terrorism. The Turks, for their part, requested an emergency meeting of NATO's North Atlantic Council, while simultaneously striking defiant notes about their willingness to defend their territorial integrity.

Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor and an expert on all things related to Russian security, is almost certainly right that this doesn't portend World War 3. Even if the Russians wanted to start an all-out war with Turkey (itself an extraordinary dubious proposition) they lack the resources to do so. The Russian military's highly constrained power projection capabilities are already being severely tested by the (small) intervention in Syria: there's simply no way they can also simultaneously fight a war against a peer competitor like Turkey. Expect a lot of angry talk, particularly from Putin who will undoubtedly interpret this as a challenge to his personal authority, but don't expect to see Russian fighter jets headed to Ankara.

But while the rational calculations suggest that this incident will be "de-escalated" relatively quickly and that tensions between Russia and Turkey will be quickly tamped down, the real danger is that we're already pretty close to (if not already outside) the boundaries of what is "rational." Yes the Russians should want this incident buried and yes the Turks should try to move past this as quickly as possible, but proxy wars have a way of bringing out the crazy in their participants, and both Turkey and Russia are neck deep in a proxy war of mind-bending violence and complexity.

So, no, don't expect this to escalate into a massive NATO-Russia general war: there's no appetite for that and even less of a capacity for making it happen. But also don't expect this incident to be quickly and neatly cleaned up without any long-term consequences. Both the Russians and the Turks are aiming for geopolitical influence and "international prestige" with their interventions in Syria: they're playing for keeps. Accordingly, this incident is likely to spark a slow-burning fire whose long term consequences will be as unpredictable as they are ugly. With tempers as hot as they are right now, it's not hard to imagine a future in which the Russians provide not-so-covert aid for the Kurds while the Turks return the favor by providing various forms of assistance for the insurgents in the North Caucasus.

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 #15
Consortiumnews.com
November 24, 2015
Turkey Provokes Russia with Shoot-down
By Robert Parry
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Exclusive: Turkey appears to have deliberately shot down a Russian warplane as a provocation designed to escalate tensions between NATO and Russia, a ploy that seems to have sucked in President Obama as he tries to look tough against Russia to appease his neocon critics, writes Robert Parry. (Update: Russia says one airman saved.)

President Barack Obama - always sensitive to neocon criticism that he's "weak" - continues to edge the world closer to a nuclear confrontation with Russia as he talks tough and tolerates more provocations against Moscow, now including Turkey's intentional shoot-down of a Russian warplane along the Turkish-Syrian border.

Rather than rebuke Turkey, a NATO member, for its reckless behavior - or express sympathy to the Russians - Obama instead asserted that "Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace."

It was another one of Obama's breathtaking moments of hypocrisy, since he has repeatedly violated the territorial integrity of various countries, including in Syria where he has authorized bombing without the government's permission and has armed rebels fighting to overthrow Syria's secular regime.

Obama's comment on Turkey's right to shoot down planes - made during a joint press conference with French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday - was jarring, too, because there was no suggestion that even if the SU-24 jetfighter had strayed briefly into Turkish territory, which the Russians deny, that it was threatening Turkish targets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin angrily called the Turkish attack a "stab in the back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists." He warned of "serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."

Further provoking the Russians, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels then killed the Russian pilot riddling his body with bullets as he and the navigator parachuted from the doomed plane and were floating toward the ground. (Update: On Wednesday, the Russian defense minister said the navigator was alive and was rescued by Syrian and Russian special forces.)

Another Russian soldier was killed when a U.S.-supplied TOW missile brought down a Russian helicopter on a search-and-rescue mission, according to reports.

But Obama, during the news conference, seemed more interested in demonstrating his disdain for Putin, referring to him at one point by his last name only, without the usual use of a courtesy title, and demeaning the size of Putin's coalition in helping Syria battle the jihadist rebels.

"We've got a coalition of 65 countries who have been active in pushing back against ISIL for quite some time," Obama said, citing the involvement of countries around the world. "Russia right now is a coalition of two, Iran and Russia, supporting [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad."

However, there have been doubts about the seriousness of Obama's coalition, which includes Sunni countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which have been covertly supporting some of the jihadist elements, including Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and its ally, Ahrar al-Sham.

Syrian rebels, including jihadists fighting with Ahrar al-Sham, have received hundreds of U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles, apparently through Sunni regional powers with what I've been told was Obama's direct approval. The jihadists have celebrated their use of TOWs to kill tank crews of the Syrian army. Yet Obama talks about every country's right to defend its territory.

Obama and the U.S. mainstream media also have pretended that the only terrorists that need to be fought in Syria are those belonging to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh), but Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and its ally, Ahrar al-Sham, which was founded in part by Al Qaeda veterans, make up the bulk of the Turkish-and-Saudi-backed Army of Conquest which was gaining ground - with the help of those American TOW missiles - until Russia intervened with air power at the request of Syrian President Assad in late September.

The SU-24 Shoot-down

As for the circumstances surrounding the Turkish shoot-down of the Russian SU-24, Turkey claimed to have radioed ten warnings over five minutes to the Russian pilots but without getting a response. However, the New York Times reported that a diplomat who attended a NATO meeting in which Turkey laid out its account said "the Russian SU-24 plane was over the Hatay region of Turkey for about 17 seconds when it was struck."

How those two contradictory time frames matched up was not explained. However, if the 17-second time frame is correct, it appears that Turkey intended to shoot down a Russian plane - whether over its territory or not - to send a message that it would not permit Russia to continue attacking Turkish-backed rebels in Syria.

After shooting down the plane, Turkey sought an emergency NATO meeting to support its attack. Though some NATO members reportedly consider Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a loose cannon, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that the allies "stand in solidarity with Turkey."

Further increasing the prospect of a dangerous escalation, NATO has been conducting large-scale military exercises near the Russian border in response to the Ukraine crisis.

Erdogan's government also appears to have dabbled in dangerous provocations before, including the alleged role of Turkish intelligence in helping jihadist rebels stage a lethal sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, with the goal of blaming Assad's military and tricking Obama into launching punitive airstrikes that would have helped clear the way for a jihadist victory.

Obama only pulled back at the last minute amid doubts among U.S. intelligence analysts about who was responsible for the sarin attack. Later evidence pointed to a jihadist provocation with possible Turkish assistance, but the Obama administration has never formally retracted its allegations blaming Assad's forces.

One motive for Erdogan to go along with the sarin "false flag" attack in 2013 would have been that his two-year campaign to overthrow the Assad government was sputtering, a situation similar to today with the Russian military intervention hammering jihadist positions and putting the Syrian army back on the offensive.

By shooting down a Russian plane and then rushing to NATO with demands for retaliation against Russia, Erdogan is arguably playing a similar game, trying to push the United States and European countries into a direct confrontation with Russia while also sabotaging Syrian peace talks in Vienna - all the better to advance his goal of violently ousting Assad from power.

The Neocon Agenda

Escalating tensions with Russia also plays into the hands of America's neoconservatives who have viewed past cooperation between Putin and Obama as a threat to the neocon agenda of "regime change," which began in Iraq in 2003 and was supposed to continue into Syria and Iran with the goal of removing governments deemed hostile to Israel.

After the sarin gas attack in 2013, the prospect for the U.S. bombing Syria and paving the way for Assad's military defeat looked bright, but Putin and Obama cooperated to defuse the sarin gas crisis. The two teamed up again to advance negotiations to constrain Iran's nuclear program - an impediment to neocon hopes for bombing Iran, too.

However, in late 2013 and early 2014, that promising Putin-Obama collaboration was blasted apart in Ukraine with American neocons playing key roles, including National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman, Sen. John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland.

The neocons targeted the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych, recognizing how sensitive Ukraine was to Russia. The Feb. 22, 2014 coup, which was spearheaded by neo-Nazis and other extreme Ukrainian nationalists, established a fiercely anti-Russian regime in Kiev and provoked what quickly took on the look of a new Cold War.

When the heavily ethnic Russian population of Crimea, which had voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych, reacted to the coup by voting 96 percent to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, the neocon-dominated U.S. mainstream media pronounced the referendum a "sham" and the secession a Russian "invasion." Cold War hysteria followed.

However, in the nearly two years since the Ukraine coup, it has become increasingly clear that the new regime in Kiev is not the shining light that the neocons and the mainstream media pretended it was. It appears to be as corrupt as the old one, if not more so. Plus, living standards of average Ukrainians have plunged.

The recent flooding of Europe with Syrian refugees over the summer and this month's Paris terror attacks by Islamic State jihadists also have forced European officials to take events in Syria more seriously, prompting a growing interest in a renewed cooperation with Russia's Putin.

That did not sit well with ultranationalist Ukrainians angered at the reduced interest in the Ukraine crisis. These activists have forced their dispute with Russia back into the newspapers by destroying power lines supplying electricity to Crimea, throwing much of the peninsula into darkness. Their goal seems to be to ratchet up tensions again between Russia and the West.

Now, Turkey's shoot-down of the SU-24 and the deliberate murder of the two Russian pilots have driven another wedge between NATO countries and Russia, especially if President Obama and other NATO leaders continue taking Turkey's side in the incident.

But the larger question - indeed the existential question - is whether Obama will continue bowing to neocon demands for tough talk against Putin even if doing so risks pushing tensions to a level that could spill over into a nuclear confrontation.

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 #16
Downing of Russian Plane has Serious Consequences for Putin at Home, in Central Asia, and in Ukraine
Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 25 - The shooting down of a Russian military plane by Turkish forces after Kremlin ignored repeated warnings from Ankara not to violate Turkey's airspace not only increases the risks of a clash between Russia and the West but has serious consequences for Putin at home, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and in Ukraine.

            The consequences inside Russia could prove to be the most fateful. While Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up the bellicosity of the government-controlled media in response to what Turkey has done, the steps he has taken simultaneously annoy Russians - now, they won't be able to vacation in Turkey - but highlighted how isolated Russia is and how few levers its possesses.

            Any Russian move against Turkey militarily or via hybrid war involving the Kurds would backfire. On the one hand, Turkey is a NATO member and can count on Article 5 guarantees. And on the other, Ankara could end Russia's hopes for a pipeline west and even block the straits to Russian shipping; and any Russian support for the Kurds would undermine Syria's Asad.

            These have all been the subject of intense discussion in the Russian-language Internet media over the last 24 hours. (See among others dsnews.ua/politics/putin-vnutrennego-polzovaniya-24112015173000, charter97.org/ru/news/2015/11/25/180031/ and
kavpolit.com/articles/chto_rossija_mozhet_protivopostavit_turtsii-21606/.)

                These discussions suggest that Russians can see an increasing gulf between the bombastic assertions by Putin about Russia's power in the world and the real limits on the Kremlin leader's ability to act when the chips are down, a gap some observers say may trigger greater opposition to Putin and his regime (forum-msk.org/material/power/11148230.html).

            That the Russian government is worried about at least some of its citizens drawing such conclusions including in the first instance millions of Muslims and Turks inside Russia is suggested by the words today of the Supreme Mufti of Russia, Talgat Tajuddin, who said Turkey must apologize for what it has done (interfax-religion.ru/?act=dujour&div=299 ).

                That represents a bridge to the second set of consequences of the Kremlin reaction to the shooting down of the Russian plane.  Moscow has failed to see that its harsh words against Turkey have an impact on the much larger Turkic world that includes not only Turks inside Russia but those in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

            While Kremlin propaganda has sought to portray the downing of the plane as the result of American opposition to Moscow's line, Russian outlets have focused much of their anger on Turkey with articles talking about Russian-Turkish wars in the past and Turkey's supposed duplicity regarding the Soviets.

            That may play well with most Russians, but it is already having a negative impact in the Turkic areas of the Caucasus and Central Asia, something that is likely to become even more important because Ankara has explicitly positioned itself as the defender of the Turkmens of Syria (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2015/11/25/eto_svoeobraznaya_mest_turok_rossii/ and .

            At a minimum, that will make the populations of these countries less well-disposed to Russia and likely make their governments more inclined to oppose Moscow and even ally themselves with Western countries, if the latter are clever enough to take advantage of the situation (nr2.com.ua/News/politics_and_society/Politolog-Zapad-nachal-gibridnyy-konflikt-s-Rossiey-112133.html).

                And the third set of consequences of the plane shoot down are likely to involve Ukraine.  Many analysts have been suggesting that Putin's involvement in Syria will limit his ability to expand his aggression in Ukraine. But there are at least two reasons to think that such optimism may be misplaced.

            On the one hand, the only resources Putin has are those of hard power - that is to say military force.  He cannot use that easily against NATO: the risks are too high. But using force against Ukraine could give him a victory, especially if he decides to use Russian forces to obtain a land bridge to Crimea, currently suffering from an energy and products blockade.

            If he used land forces to do that, he might be able to once again change the subject and come out looking like a winner, especially as he might even be able to avoid tougher sanctions given that some in the West would accept a Kremlin argument that he had no choice but to engage in such a "humanitarian" operation given Ukrainian policy.

            And on the other, Putin may conclude that now that his conflict with the West has escalated because of Russian violations of Turkish and thus NATO airspace has escalated, he has nothing to lose by increasing his aggression in Ukraine and getting the land bridge to Crimea many have said all along he wants.

            Consequently, Moscow's reaction to the shooting down of its airplane is likely to send shockwaves far beyond the incident itself and the countries immediately involved. And it may even force Putin to double or quit his aggressive behavior, attacking not those he most opposes but rather those whose defeat he thinks he can achieve and thus do him the most good.

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 #17
Christian Science Monitor
November 23, 2015
Is Russia's intervention in Syria a 'holy war'? Russian Orthodox Church: 'yes'
The church fully supports the Kremlin's decision to intervene in Syria, both as a 'war on terrorism' and to protect Middle Eastern Christians it sees as its responsibility.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - For many in the West, the idea that a church would take an overtly hawkish stance in the conflict in Syria is an utterly foreign concept.

But then, the Russian Orthodox Church is not of the West, says Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the church's most recognizable spokesperson, in his spartan downtown Moscow office.

"The idea that church and state should be alienated from each other is not a characteristic of Orthodox civilization," insists the wispy-bearded senior cleric, whose eyes almost seem to burn. "It's a characteristic of the West."

Not well known or understood in the West, the Russian Orthodox Church has been Russia's chief source of spiritual identity for most of its 1,000-year existence. Though it was nearly destroyed by the communists, it has since rebounded sharply to become once again the Kremlin's ideological bulwark.

As that relationship has solidified, the church has also integrated with the military.  Russian media frequently run photos of priests blessing weaponry, including war planes, while Orthodox chaplains are embedded in most military units. And now, it is underscoring its enthusiastic backing for Russia's military intervention in Syria - a fight Father Chaplin dramatically describes as "a holy war against terrorism."

"Russia has been attacked [by terrorists] many times," says Chaplain. "This is not a religious war, not a Christian-Muslim conflict, but for us, the struggle against terrorism definitely has a spiritual dimension."

The 'Third Rome'

The Orthodox Church, which has deep historical connections with the dwindling Christian communities of the Middle East, was deeply alarmed by mass flight of Iraq's Christians following the US invasion of that country. When the conflict in Syria began almost five years ago, the church began lobbying the Kremlin to take a strong stand in defense of Syrian Christians, who are about 10 percent of the population. Experts say the church's insistence certainly played a role in President Vladimir Putin's decision to intervene directly in the conflict.

Christianity came to Russia via Byzantium, the eastern half of the old Roman Empire, which survived until the Muslim Turks overran it almost 600 years ago. The Russian Orthodox Church subsequently took up the mantle of eastern Christianity, and Moscow styled itself as the "Third Rome" with a special duty to protect the faithful of the Middle East, now living under Muslim rule. An 1853 proclamation by Czar Nicholas I claiming Russia's right to support Christians living in the Turkish Ottoman empire - which then included Syria and the Holy Land - actually precipitated the Crimean War, which pitted Russia against Turkey, Britain, and France.

"Russian czars and church for centuries maintained close relations with Middle Eastern Christians, and declared the right to support them. That's part of our historical consciousness," says Iosif Diskin, chair of the inter-religious affairs commission of the Russian Public Chamber, a semi-official civil society assembly. "But today it's not just the church, but much of Russian society that has become agitated about the fate of Christian minorities in Syria."

It's difficult to gauge how much the church's vocal support accounts for the public's backing of the war. But polls show that nearly two months into the Russian intervention, more than half still back the air war, though more than two-thirds say they would oppose sending in Russian ground troops.

"The level of trust in the church is very high," says Grigory Kertman, an expert with the state-linked Public Opinion Foundation. "It's not only religious people who say they trust the church, but even non-believers" tend to view it as a positive force in society.

'The origin and end of things'

When asked by pollsters, Russians overwhelmingly aver to be religious believers; in fact, over 80 percent say so. About 70 percent of Russians identify themselves as Orthodox Christians. The remainder come from one of the constitutionally-defined "founding" religions of Russia: Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism.

Few Russians bother to go to church on a regular basis. Chaplin says it's as many as 30 percent, other experts say the figure is more like 5 percent.

Whether they go to church or not, Chaplin argues, religious faith does shape people's consciousness, particularly with regard to the Middle East. "Many Christians, not just Russians, see the Middle East as the crossroads of world history, as the origin and end of things," he says. "There is a very deep interest in things that happen there."

The church maintains dialogue with Russia's other religious minorities about the war in Syria through the country's official inter-religious council and other avenues. Chaplin insists that they are all on the same page about the threat posed by Islamist extremism and the need to fight it.

The recent downing of a Russian airliner by a terrorist bomb over Sinai is a terrible tragedy, he adds, but it will not change the course. "It's not possible to fight the war against terror as if it were a computer game. It's a real war, and it will not go on without losses," he says. "This fight has become the reality of our times."

A church, speaking out

Chaplin denies the church is seeking to return to its czarist-era role as main arbiter of state ideology. But he does admit that the church openly lobbies for policies it wants: not just the war in Syria, but issues closer to home, such as abortion, religious teaching in schools, and the "wayward mores" of Russian women. The church demonstrated its political muscle recently by compelling the Kremlin to postpone a lavish state burial of members of the last czar's family over clerical doubts about the authenticity of the royal remains.

Under Putin the state has bent over backward to accommodate the church, handing over thousands of religious buildings and artifacts confiscated by the former Soviet Union, including many architectural gems, some of which had been state-run museums for decades.

Dozens of public organizations have sprung up to carry the church's views into public political debate, and their activities contribute to the growing conservative shift in Russian society on issues as diverse as LGBT rights and artistic standards.

"Some people say the church is only about matters concerning clergy, and should not speak out on secular issues," says Chaplin. "But we have overcome that Soviet legacy."

Critics say that whether the issue is war in Syria, or priests running hospitals, the growing political clout of the church is a big source of worry.

"In most of Russian history, the church was junior partner of the state, and served the state's interests. It's starting to look a lot like that again," says Nikolai Svanidze, a historian and leading TV personality.

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#18
Washington Times
November 24, 2015
France and Russia join forces to fight terror
Now is the time for Washington to join in as well
By Edward Lozansky
Edward Lozansky is President of the American University in Moscow.

It's been a couple of weeks that shook the world - a world that watched in horror a series of tragic acts in Russia, Lebanon, France, Nigeria, Mali, and other places perpetrated by terrorist organizations. ISIS and Al-Qaeda claimed to have carried out these atrocities, and the claim does not seem to be spurious.

The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from these horrific acts is that in the terrorist's philosophy anyone opposed to a future radical Islamist World Caliphate is to be destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth. What happened in Paris will also be the fate of Washington, New York, and other cities around the world, say the Islamists, and no doubt that threat is real enough.

This means that East and West must pool their forces and in turn annihilate their common enemy. Anyone cognizant with basic facts about Islamist terrorism is certain to view Russia as the most invaluable ally in the fight against that evil - simply because Russia has had more experience in dealing with the threat from this quarter. After all, it has had a sort of Islamist state Chechnya on its territory in the 90s which is now one of the most prosperous and peaceable entities of the Russian Federation; its population strictly adheres to the tenets of traditional Islam implacably opposed to fanaticism and radicalism.

Having experienced a spate of terrorist attacks in a number of its cities on a much greater scale than the latest massacre in Paris - Russia has learned to cope with this threat, as far as it is humanly possible.

Presently its air force unit in Latakia and cruise missiles from other points has done more in a few weeks to crush the military infrastructure and generally the military potential of ISIS than the U.S.-led coalition forces in the area achieved in almost eighteen months.

Cooperation with Russia in beating back the tide of terrorism simply begs to be put into reality, and certain moves - alas, merely on the level of vague statements of intent and rhetoric - are currently being made. What stands in the way of vigorous implementation of such cooperation is Washington's inertia that may be summed up in its attitude toward two figures - Putin and Assad.

The inertia is great indeed, especially regarding Putin. Billions of dollars have been spent by politicians and the media on demonizing Russia's president as the embodiment of all evil. Why? Explanations may vary, but the Russian people believe it is simply because Putin stands up for his country's national interests; refuses to follow Western dictates; objects to NATO expansion to Russia's borders; helped Crimea and Donbass, where ethnic Russians make up most of the population, in their opposition to the coup in Kiev sponsored by the West, and so on.

The US and EU may have different positions on all these points. The question is, though: are these differences greater than those between Roosevelt and Churchill, on the one hand, and Stalin, that proponent of the world proletarian revolution, on the other? Surely the West and Russia can form an anti-Islamist coalition, just as they were allies in the war on Nazism. The parallel is all too obvious and convincing to any unprejudiced mind - and yet Putin's repeated offers to join forces in a world-wide coalition are senselessly rebuffed. Well, maybe the latest Paris atrocity will produce a highly desirable change in the minds of Western political classes. One sign of this shift is French President Hollande's decision to play at a sort of shuttle diplomacy, consulting first Obama, then going to Moscow to discuss things with Putin. Bravo, Monsieur le President.

As for Bashar al-Assad, no question he is a dictator in the same league as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Hosni Mubarak - all of them definitely not pleasant fellows who became the victims of "democracy promotion," that Neoconnish (a la Trotsky's strategy communism promotion) covering up naked lust for power over the whole world. In the Middle East, this democracy march left hundreds of thousands dead and wounded, including brave American men and woman, and millions displaced. That's unimaginably worse than what all these dictators have committed. In addition, trillions of US taxpayer dollars have been spent, with the most visible result being the chaos, devastation and rise of many terrorist groups.

It is interesting to note that even so loyal a friend of America as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted that G.W. Bush's invasion in Iraq (with Tony's enthusiastic support) contributed to the rise of terrorism throughout the world. George's brother Jeb once said that "taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal." But he has now changed his mind and also says that it was a mistake. Even their father admits the same but conveniently shifts the blame from his son to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Historians will eventually sort out who is to blame for this monumental disaster but the most important thing is to figure out what to do now. One thing is certain, we need a real and not the current 60+ fake anti-terror coalition which includes such dubious "democracy promoters" as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Are we sure on whose side they are fighting?

Obama should support Hollande's initiative to welcome Russia as a partner and urge other willing nations to join the coalition whose members are committed to real deeds and not just empty rhetoric.

As for Syria, the most logical way is first to wipe out the terrorist groups and bring peace to that land with a millennia-long history. Then let its people be free to elect their government without foreign interference. In case some folks have not noticed, World War III is already on. It's a non-classical war as its main weapon is terror unleashed on peaceful citizens by suicidal fanatics, and unless all civilized nations pledge to defeat this enemy through a concerted effort of both East and West, the threat of terror will be ever present in every corner of the world.
 

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 #19
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
November 24, 2015
THE CLASSIC RULES FOR COMBATTING TURKISH AGGRESSION
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Test with links, footnotes, and photos here http ://johnhelmer.net/?p=14645]

A generation ago, a Greek prime minister, whom the Soviet Politburo in Moscow underestimated, defeated a Turkish attack on Greek territory. That was Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou; the victory was the battle of the Aegean of March 26, 1987. Before that, no Russian had defeated a Turkish attack for more than a hundred years. Since 1991 Russians say Turkey has been "not merely a close neighbour, but a friendly state."

Papandreou prepared for his fight with the knowledge his enemies judged him a coward. He also had the hope that if he struck hard and fast enough, his enemies would be confounded and retreat. The decision also included Papandreou's private wager that one way or another, he might not have long to live himself. So he moved the Greek air force, targeted and fully armed on 90-second order for take-off. He planned with the Bulgarian President Todor Zhivkov, an enemy of NATO, to order his tank columns towards the Turkish border, allied against the common historical enemy. He ordered the electricity supply cut to US command-and-control headquarters in Greece. Not a spark, not a signal from foreign spy or Greek traitor warned the Turks, the Americans, or the Russians of Papandreou's war plan.

Papandreou had decided the previous January that if he didn't go on the offensive, the Turks would advance in the Aegean airspace, and on the seabed, taunting his weakness. The US would then overthrow him in Athens, he expected. In the outcome of the battle, there were no casualties. The Turks withdrew their forces without the Greeks firing a shot. Except for the Turkish prime minister, Turgut Ozul - he had to be evacuated to Houston, Texas, suffering from a weak heart. Ozul's survival was one salvage the Reagan Administration could manage at the time. Papandreou's agreement to switch on the lights at the Nea Makri communications base was another.

That victorious episode has not been repeated by any of Turkey's historical adversaries, including post-Soviet Russia. Igor Sechin, the former deputy to President Vladimir Putin, was a leading advocate of forgetting Russia's historical lessons for dealing with the Turks, and disdaining to learn new ones. Putin was reluctant to learn them until yesterday.

Here they are:

1.    Turkey never makes a military move without getting Pentagon approval first. In order for yesterday's shoot-down of the Su-24 to take place as it did, a battery of signals intelligence and other electronic warfare means would have been deployed by a joint US-Turkish command unit, giving the Turkish F-16 pilot confidence he was taking the Russian pilot unprepared. It was not, as the Turkish Government has announced [1], "an automatic response to our airspace being violated" because the airspace was Syrian, unilaterally claimed by the Turks to be their "exclusion zone". Nor was it, as Putin has announced [2], a "stab in the back" from the Turks. Nor was it, as Putin added, "despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents". What happened was full frontal - it was because of the agreement the Turks have with the US military command. Nor can Putin have been genuinely surprised that "instead of immediately establishing contacts with us, as far as we know Turkey turned to its NATO partners to discuss this incident." Had Putin said he suspected that Turkey turned to "its NATO partners" before the "incident", he would have been closer to the truth.

2.    Aggression by Turkey and the US can be defeated by a smaller force, but it must be in constant readiness, employing every form of early warning and disguising its force by surprise. Putin has said the Russian Su-24 was struck by a missile fired by a Turkish F-16 when the Russian aircraft was one kilometre inside the Syrian side of the border. That being true, Russian air defence support for the fighter must have been tracking the Turkish aircraft from the second it started its take-off roll. It ought to have tracked its course upward, and monitored its missile-arming electronics and such fire orders as came from elsewhere. The Russian warning and control operators and the Su-24 crew should have detected the hostile fire-radar, and had the option to jam it. If none of these things was done on the Russian side, alerting the Su-24 crew to their peril, the Russian forces weren't ready, and the Su-24 was taken by surprise. The consequences cannot be explained by the commander-in-chief telling a visitor - the King of Jordan pretending to call the Russian president his "brother": "we will never turn a blind eye to such crimes as the one that was committed today." Blind is the word for it - before, not after.

3.    In western Europe, in the Balkans, and in the Middle East the Turks have no durable friend or ally. For Russian strategy not to be ambushed by the Turks, it must have strong allies like Iran, weak ones like Cyprus and Serbia, and vacillating ones like the Bulgarians, and listen to their experience of warfighting with the Turks. It is a waste of breath to try reassuring Ankara that Russia's "plane and our pilots were in no way a threat to the Turkish Republic in any way." That's because the Turks know we know they are threatening, as well as financing the break-up of the Russian Caucasus. It's because they know Russia is committed to blocking Turkish expansion, and to protecting Shiite Iraq and the Kurds from Turkish attack. If these aren't the new strategic commitments, then Russia should hasten to withdraw its forces before it falls into more bloody ambushes. If they are the new commitments, then the consequences are as obvious as they are immediate.

All Russians are now at risk if they travel to Turkey, so President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's exclusion zone should stop all Russian flights and all Russian nationals from entering the country.

Time, too, for the Turks to warm their houses and cook their dinners with someone else's gas.

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#20
The Nation
November 23, 2015
No, It's Not 1937: Getting Our Words About Russia Right
What Masha Gessen and other journalists get wrong about Putin's Russia.
By Matthew Dal Santo
MATTHEW DAL SANTO Matthew Dal Santo is a Research Fellow at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he works on contemporary Russia.

At the annual "Valdai Club" gathering of Russia experts at Sochi on Russia's Black Sea coast a month ago, an earnest Western journalist asked Russian President Vladimir Putin whether Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in Ukraine's Donbass could be explained by fear of "democracy moving closer to [Russia's borders]."

Putin's reply got to the heart of problem: "What kind of democracy is this [i.e., in Russia]?"

The obvious answer to that question in much of the Western world is that Putin wants Russia to be anything but a democracy. Though the situation is in fact far more complex, mainstream Western reporting depicts Russia as a dictatorship or a police state-or worse.

Writing in The New York Times two weeks ago, for example, Masha Gessen (author of a widely cited biography of Putin), asserting a view taken by many US commentators, alleged that recent events confirmed that Russia was on the road to becoming a "totalitarian" state and, pointedly, one addicted to war. "A totalitarian society seeks to be mobilized," she writes: "The more Russia reverts to its totalitarian habits, the more comfort it will derive from a constant state of war."

In one form or another, Putin has ruled Russia for 15 years. Russia fought its first foreign war since the break-up of the Soviet Union seven years ago (while Putin was prime minister rather than president), when in 2008 the Georgian army launched a surprise attack on Russian "peacekeepers" in the break-away Georgian province of South Ossetia.

Not quite six years later, Russia annexed Crimea-bloodlessly-in March 2014. Though the Kremlin denies direct involvement, Russia has at the very least helped sustain an armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine against the US-backed Kiev government since May of that year. Russia is now carrying out an air campaign against terrorist forces in Syria-at the invitation of that country's government.

Gessen explains all this by arguing that Putin and the system he heads cannot survive without war: "The strategic purpose of his wars is war itself.... Both conflicts [Ukraine and Syria] are wars with no end in sight because, in Mr. Putin's view, only at war can Russia feel at peace."

Now, Gessen is a Russian living in the United States. That she could title her essay "Putin's forever wars" and publish it with a straight face in a country that has been constantly at war-in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and, yes, also in Syria-for well over a decade and, to the great frustration of many foreign policy commentators in the United States itself, still with no end in sight, says something about her sense of proportion, or perhaps political bias.

Though she has lampooned Putin's reading of history, her own is open to serious question. ("For its part in defeating Hitler," Gessen once sniffed, "the Soviet Union's reward was becoming a superpower," implying that the USSR's rise to superpower status was due to Stalin's bamboozling of Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta rather than the Red Army's defeat of German Nazism. In any case, the real "reward" was surely the survival of Europe and its peoples?)

Gessen quotes with astonishment Putin's statement that "peace as a state of world politics has never been stable," but seems unaware that he is expressing a scholarly political theory (it's called realism, and its practitioners usually counsel against unnecessary, open-ended, ideologically driven wars) based on the study of the world's real history with many distinguished practitioners in US universities.

Instead, she seems herself to believe world history-outside Russia-a tale of undisturbed Elysian innocence before Putin arrived in the Kremlin in Boris Yeltsin's slipstream on New Year's Eve 1999: "In other words, peace is an anomaly, a fragile state of equilibrium," she gasps. (Would you like a reading list for that, Masha?)

Gessen is a journalist, and her work is deeply imbued with an awareness of the power of words. (Her book on the Russian punk band Pussy Riot is called Words Will Break Cement.) But why is she so casual in the use of them herself?

After the murder of Boris Nemtsov in Red Square earlier this year, she wondered aloud whether Russia stood on the brink of a wave of mass political repression, a repeat of Stalin's Red Terror. "Is it 1937 yet?" she asked. The humble "yet" is telling, suggesting as it does Gessen's determination to strain her interpretation of every event to equate Putin with Stalin and Russia with a totalitarian state.

Admittedly, having posed the question, "Is Mr. Putin as bad as Stalin?," Gessen then runs through a list of reasons that leads her to the conclusion: "so, no, Mr. Putin isn't as bad as Stalin." But again, what she seems to mean is "yet." "While Mr. Putin has done much to restore the ideological mechanisms of the totalitarian system, Russia is not run by means of total terror," she writes: "At least until the next...trial, deportation or murder happens." (There are other things, too, Gessen seems not to know-or care to mention: the approval in August by the Presidential Council for Human Rights of a bill for a new law on remembering the victims of political repression; the opening in Moscow last month of a massive new State Museum and Monument to the GULAG; and the announced construction in Moscow's Garden Ring of a permanent "Wall of Grief" by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan dedicated to Stalin's victims-all projects Putin has backed or decreed.)

Interestingly, Gessen doesn't believe the Kremlin ordered Nemtsov's killing. Rather, she thinks it was a case of eager henchmen trying to please their boss's unexpressed wishes.

True, Stalin didn't personally order all of the murders that took place during the Terror either. But there's still something irresponsibly careless with the analogy. According to conservative estimates, in 1937 and 1938 some 750,000 people were shot to appease Stalin's paranoia and strengthen his grip on-or more correctly, destroy-the Communist Party and command of the Soviet Union. Post-Soviet Russia, by contrast, has not executed anyone since 1996.

Though the death penalty exists in theory, a moratorium forbids its use in practice. This was again upheld by Russia's Constitutional Court in 2009. This moratorium on the death penalty is something Putin is on record as supporting (and despite the fact that polls suggest that a majority of Russians would welcome the return of capital punishment). A long list of zeros appears next to "Executions" and "Number of individuals currently held under sentence of death" on the Russian page of Cornell's World Death Penalty database. (In Gessen's adopted country, on the other hand, between 2001 and 2014 the State killed 683 people and so far in 2015 a further 25 executions have taken place-with another 3,000 on death row-though, as courts hand down more death penalties, this figure is constantly growing. In fact, the United States executes around 1 in nine million of its citizens every year by all manner of "legal" methods: lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, firing squad.)

Consider, too, Russia's prison population.

In 1953, the year Stalin died, around 2.5 million Soviet citizens were "living" (barely) in the prison camps of the GULAG. In 2000, the year Boris Yeltsin resigned as president, Stalin's GULAG was gone and Russian prisons housed around a million inmates. Remarkably, according to the World Prison Brief published by the University of London's Institute for Criminal Policy Research, by September 2015 that figure had dropped to somewhat fewer than 645,000. (In 2014, around 1.5 million Americans are in prison.)

As a proportion of the population, then, Russia has never imprisoned so few of its citizens as it has under Putin. Those wanting to label Russia a police state or a revived totalitarianism have to explain how the rate of imprisonment has almost halved (from 729 to 446 per hundred thousand) during Putin's "dictatorship." In the United States, the figure is 698 per hundred thousand.)

Then, of course, there are all the other freedoms today's Russians possess that Soviet citizens could only dream of-including the right to own property, travel overseas, and read pretty much whatever they like whether in print or on the Internet.

Gessen is not alone in her recourse to overblown rhetoric.

To take another prolific example, writing in Foreign Affairs last month, Gregory Feifer pulled out all the stops to portray Putin's Russia as an aggressive, expansionist, ideologically driven empire on a par with Stalin's Soviet Union in 1946 when Soviet troops stood on the Elbe across from the beating heart of Western Europe. (Today, NATO troops rotate through an Estonia that used to be part of Stalin's Soviet Union, two hours' drive from what used to be known as Leningrad: To ascertain whose empire-building is to blame for the "New Cold War," a lot depends on where you're standing.)

Truly remarkable, however, is that Feifer contrives to twist George Kennan's famous "long telegram" as both evidence for his thesis-since Syria, "Moscow's first significant military offensive beyond the old borders of the Soviet Union," proves that Putin's Russia "poses a growing threat to global security" in just the same way, we are to believe, the descent of the Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe did in the late 1940s-and as a template for a Western policy response designed around sanctions, sending weapons to Ukraine, and increasing NATO's troop presence on Russia's borders.

This is despite the fact that Kennan in the 1990s publicly opposed the post-Cold War expansion of NATO as a provocative affront to Russia's legitimate and entirely knowable interests, and despite the fact that, had Kennan's advice been followed, none of the countries where Feifer would currently like to see NATO escalating war games would even be members of the alliance.

Balance, proportion, a sense of perspective-all seem to have fallen by the wayside in Western and particularly American reporting on Russia. This may help sell newspapers. Russia is not a democracy either in the proper sense of that word or in the way that idea is practiced in North America or Europe. But what appears to amount to a deliberate campaign by the Western press to present Russia in as bad a light as possible by way of careless historical analogies and lazy caricature is dangerous, for many reasons.

Of these, the most important is that if Putin or any future Russian leader really were to wind the clock back to 1937, if Russia really were to become either a one-party dictatorship or a totalitarian state and its leader a real autocrat like the historical Stalin, even as millions eventually perished by bullet to the back of the head and the earth thrown over their limp bodies in thousands of ditches, or worked to death in the GULAG, we would have no words left to describe it.

The words we would use to describe that exceedingly unlikely possibility have already been emptied of meaning by the very people-journalists and other commentators-whose sacred duty it is to protect them.   

 

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 #21
The Independent (UK)
November 19, 2015
Winter Is Coming by Garry Kasparov, book review: A flawed yet vital look at Russian politics
The former world chess champion turned Russian opposition leader recognises only light and dark, right and wrong
By Mary Dejevsky
One of the country's most respected commentators on Russia, the EU and the US, Mary Dejevsky has worked as a foreign correspondent all over the world, including Washington, Paris and Moscow. She is now the chief editorial writer and a columnist at The Independent and regularly appears on radio and television. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham.

There is a sense in which the subtitle to Garry Kasparov's book - "Why Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped" - tells readers all they need to know. This is an exposition - forcefully and passionately argued, yes - of a view of contemporary Russia that comes straight from the playbook of those US Republicans who still feel more at home with the verities of the Cold War than with the shifting political sands of today.

This is a world in which Ronald Reagan is a hero because in dubbing the Soviet Union "the evil empire", he told it how it was - in stark contrast to the shilly-shallying compromising leaders who came after. And Kasparov leaves you in no doubt about who he means. Barack Obama is high on his list, as is Bill Clinton and the former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder .

The book is written from what the former world chess champion turned Russian opposition leader hopes will be his temporary exile in New York, and espouses a worldview that fits right in with that of his friends on that side of the Atlantic. He recognises only light and dark, right and wrong, and very little, if anything, in between.

He makes known, in an aside, that he dislikes being called a former Russian presidential candidate, because, he says, in order to be a candidate, you have to have a real electoral campaign, and that is something Putin's Russia has never had. From time to time, he introduces some superficial allusions to the world of chess - could this perhaps have been the misfired genesis of the book? - but what makes it his book, rather than a Republican tract, are the massive doses of personal venom he injects, based on his experiences in Russia.

This is what makes Winter is Coming more interesting - in both positive and negative ways. To start with the negative, a thread running through the book is a propagandistic parallel between Putin and Hitler, which is not valid and comes across as naive. Kasparov offers a pre-emptive defence of the comparison - saying that he means the Hitler of the Thirties, the repressions, the Berlin/Sochi Olympics, the expansionism etc - and certainly not the Holocaust. But this thread cannot but cast doubt on the soundness of Kasparov's judgement, and in demonising Putin as he does, he needlessly narrows his argument. The flaws in Russian democracy go far beyond the shortcomings of this one man.

Kasparov's views on the Soviet and Russian past he has lived through, and his campaigning for the opposition, are the reasons to read this book. He was an early fan of Boris Yeltsin - who he sees, like himself, as a bit of a rebel but someone who tried, however inadequately, to make Russia a democracy. On the other hand, he has little but contempt for Mikhail Gorbachev whom he sees as weak, tossed around by events, and foolishly lionised by the West.

His accounts of how his (and other) opposition campaigns were thwarted - the lack of media access, the bookings not honoured, the mysterious power cuts, the intimidatory policing, the beatings, the nights in a prison cell - are familiar, but offer a salutary reminder nonetheless. If even someone of Kasparov's fame has his political ambitions so thwarted, how much more difficult must it be for others?

Born in the then Soviet republic of Azerbaijan to a Jewish father and an Armenian mother, Kasparov succeeded through hard work and raw talent, then made a conscious - and courageous - decision to join the opposition. There will be many who disagree fundamentally with the politics he now espouses as his own - and I am one of them. But his voice is one that needs to be heard in a democratic Russia.

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 #22
Politico.com
November 24, 2015
Putin Is Testing Our Resolve
A former senior Pentagon adviser says recent Russian incursions into NATO airspace are evidence of the Kremlin's growing aggressiveness.
By EVELYN FARKAS
Evelyn N. Farkas served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia from 2012 until the end of October, and is the author of Fractured States and U.S. Foreign Policy (Palgrave, 2001/2008).

If the Turkish military shoot-down of a Russian SU-24 fighter aircraft is a "stab in the back," as President Vladimir Putin characterized it on Tuesday, then the knife wound came after some very loud footsteps from behind and shouts of "Here I come!" Following recent Russian incursions into Turkish airspace, in other words, no one should be surprised.

On October 3 and 4, Russian fighter jets first veered into Turkish airspace. Both incursions were met with sharp warnings from Ankara, as well as from NATO headquarters and Washington. In one official explanation, the Russian military blamed weather conditions-which an Internet search demonstrated were excellent. And Tuesday, according to the Turkish government, the Russian pilots were warned 10 times before their plane was dispatched to the ground.

We may never learn definitively whether the pilots strayed into Turkish airspace accidentally or whether this incursion was a test of Turkish and NATO resolve. But considering Putin's past behavior, we should go on the assumption that it is the latter.

In the end, it is Russia that is wielding the knife here-shredding international law and conventions that have held firm for decades. The hard cold truth is that the sum of Russia's agenda, not just in Syria but globally, runs counter to the values and interests of the United States, its allies and partners.

Russia's challenge is so fundamental to the international system, to democracy and free market capitalism that we cannot allow the Kremlin's policy to succeed in Syria or elsewhere.

As regrettable as it is to go back, in a sense, to a Cold War-type confrontation, it will be increasingly difficult not to do so as long as Russia continues on its current course. As a former senior State Department official said to me recently, "The only thing worse than bilateral escalation is unilateral escalation." If we fail to counter Russia's actions, deterring and responding to Russia will become more difficult over time and we will be forced to do so having already lost the initiative. For this reason, even while the coalition expresses genuine interest in cooperating with Russia to fight ISIL, Turkey's shoot-down of the Russian SU-24 makes sense.

The problem we in the West have, apart from ISIL, is Russia. While we must do everything to avoid miscalculation or conflict with the Russia, we must demonstrate resolve on small probes or even what may be accidental air incursions. If we don't do so, in an excess of caution, the result could well be that we only embolden Russia. Let's keep the stakes low.

The confrontation between Turkey and Russia comes at a time when Putin is already testing transatlantic unity over Syria policy by attempting to forge a new coalition with France to respond to the ISIL attacks specifically on Paris and on the Russian Metrojet airliner over the Sinai. It remains to be seen what action Putin may take to retaliate against Turkey for the downing of the aircraft. There are potential targets; the two countries have strong trade and economic ties, with Turkey providing a major tourist destination for Russians and Russia providing over half of Turkey's natural gas. But relations were already soured because of the fundamental difference between Russia and the U.S.-led coalition's policy toward Syria.

In Syria, Russia's main objective-despite occasional official comments indicating that Moscow is not wedded to Bashar Assad per se, or to his staying in power indefinitely-is to keep Assad in power. The one indicator of this intent is Russian military action; the fact is, Russian airstrikes have mainly targeted Syrian opposition forces, not ISIL. Meanwhile, try as Putin might to fracture coalition or NATO unity, the United States, Turkey and France are adamant that the dictator who used chemical weapons and barrel bombs against his citizens be removed.

So even if Russia starts targeting ISIL increasingly as part of bilateral cooperation with France or an arrangement with the U.S.-led coalition, we'll still have a big gap in overall objectives, as President Barack Obama made clear at his news conference with French President François Hollande on Tuesday. "We've got a coalition: 65 countries," Obama said. "Russia right now is a coalition of two: Iran and Russia supporting Assad." The world and the Syrian people are crying for a political compromise, but an arrangement acceptable to Russia and the coalition, as well as Syrian opposition leaders, Saudi Arabia and Iran, is not in sight.

The chief obstacle, again, is Russia.

Russia's objectives in Syria are driven by Putin's overall political objectives. Those include: 1) Retaining his position as the leader of the Russian Federation and preserving the autocratic political system and mafia-style crony economy that together comprise "Putinism"; 2) restoring Russia's status as a great power, prospering economically and militarily and capable of not only balancing but checking U.S. and Western power; 3) rewriting the international rules and norms to prevent interventions in sovereign affairs of states to protect its citizens; 4) maintaining political control of Russia's geographical periphery (Europe/Eurasia and Central Asia) to ensure economic access and to provide a geopolitical buffer zone against purported NATO encirclement; and 5) breaking NATO, the European Union and transatlantic unity.

To achieve these objectives, Russia has invaded neighboring countries, occupied their territory, and funded NGOs and political parties not only in its periphery but also in NATO countries. It has exerted economic pressure through its near monopoly of oil and gas supply and through its corrupt ties with elites worldwide. And it has used lies and propaganda to influence ethnic Russian populations and the international community and to confuse policy debates. In Syria, as in Ukraine, military force is being used to set the diplomatic table; much as Slobodan Milosevic did in the 1990s during the war in Bosnia, the map created by the fighting will determine the new baselines for negotiations.

While the United States and its allies intervene to try to save Syria's citizens from further abuse from their dictator, the Russian government intervenes to save the ruthless leader. True, we can forge a temporary alliance with Russia against ISIL, and we should. Retribution should rain down, and ISIL should be eliminated. This is one important element of any Syrian settlement. But let's not lose sight of the fact that Assad can never be regarded as a legitimate leader again.

Meanwhile, Russia is not finished in Ukraine; its military equipment and forces in Ukraine and over the border can and may be moved into renewed action. It is not finished in Georgia or Moldova, and if Belarus continues to resist the new base Moscow wants to build there, what will happen next? Kremlin officials are making noises about Afghanistan and putting pressure on the Central Asian states. Putin likes to surprise his opponents and keep them off balance. If Russia's Syria intervention stalls, the temptation to strike again elsewhere will be that much greater.

So we must look up from Syria and beyond Syria and forge a consistent policy that prioritizes political, economic and military assistance to allies and partners globally in the face of Russian pressure. Senior U.S. officials must be present in the vulnerable Russian periphery-as Secretary of State John Kerry was recently (in Central Asia). And diplomats must focus again on the former Yugoslavia, where Russia is attempting to take advantage of existing political tensions to undermine the existing central governments and integration with NATO and the EU. In the NATO context, we must continue to build our ability to deter Russia militarily, and we must provide assistance to allies to break their dependence on Russian military hardware. The Defense Department should also continue to provide training for territorial defense to Ukraine, but also to Georgia and Moldova. Defensive lethal assistance (mainly anti-tank weapons) should be provided to those countries so they have a chance at deterring the larger, more ready Russian forces. We must also devise additional economic means to pressure Russia. We cannot take for granted the low oil prices that have fortuitously assisted us so far. At some point, the price of oil will increase.

If the MH-17 tragedy in 2014, where Russian separatists shot down a commercial airliner, didn't demonstrate the fact that Russia's challenge is international, Moscow's actions in Syria have. We must continue to work with the international community-non-transatlantic allies and partners, including Japan, Israel, Australia and Malaysia, among others-to hold Russia accountable for the MH-17 crash, the violation of the Budapest memorandum, which offered political assurances to Ukraine in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons, and for failing to implement the Minsk agreements in Ukraine. Finally, Russia must answer for its violations of and poor compliance with arms control agreements-first and foremost the INF Treaty-and come into compliance or face consequences.

We need to steel ourselves and outmaneuver Moscow so that U.S. national security interests and objectives prevail.

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 #23
The Independent (UK)
November 20, 2015
Isis: In a borderless world, the days when we could fight foreign wars and be safe at home may be long gone
Isis was quick to understand a truth the West must now confront: that the national borders imposed by colonial powers 100 years go are becoming meaningless
By Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk is The Independent's multiple award-winning Middle East correspondent, based in Beirut    
    
Early in 2014, Isis released one of its first videos. Largely unseen in Europe, it had neither the slick, cutting-edge professionalism of its later execution tapes nor the haunting "nasheed" music that accompanies most of its propaganda. Instead, a hand-held camera showed a bulldozer pushing down a rampart of sand that had marked the border between Iraq and Syria. As the machine destroyed the dirt revetment, the camera panned down to a handwritten poster lying in the sand. "End of Sykes-Picot", it said.

Like many hundreds of thousands of Arabs in the Middle East, for whom Sykes-Picot was an almost cancerous expression, I watched this early Isis video in Beirut. The bloody repercussions of the borders that the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, drew in secret during the First World War - originally giving Syria, Mount Lebanon and northern Iraq to the French, and Palestine, Transjordan and the rest of Iraq to the British - are known to every Arab, Christian and Muslim and, indeed, every Jew in the region. They eviscerated the governorates of the old dying Ottoman empire and created artificial nations in which borders, watchtowers and hills of sand separated tribes, families and peoples. They were an Anglo-French colonial production.

The same night that I saw the early Isis video, I happened to be visiting the Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt. "The end of Sykes-Picot!" he roared at me. "Rubbish," I snorted. But of course, I was wrong and Jumblatt was right. He had spotted at once how Isis captured symbolically - but with almost breathtaking speed - what so many Arabs had sought for almost exactly 100 years: the unravelling of the fake borders with which the victors of the First World War - largely the British and the French - had divided the Arab people. It was our colonial construction - not just the frontiers we imposed upon them, but the administrations and the false democracies that we fraudulently thrust upon them, the mandates and trusteeships which allowed us to rule them - that poisoned their lives. Colin Powell claimed just such a trusteeship for Iraq's oil prior to the illegal Anglo-American invasion of 2003.

We foisted kings upon the Arabs - we engineered a 96 per cent referendum in favour of the Hashemite King Faisal in Iraq in 1922 - and then provided them with generals and dictators. The people of Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt - which had been invaded by the British in the 19th century - were subsequently blessed with mendacious governments, brutal policemen, lying newspapers and fake elections. Mubarak even scored Faisal's epic 96 per cent election victory all over again. For the Arabs, "democracy" did not mean freedom of speech and freedom to elect their own leaders; it referred to the "democratic" Western nations that continued to support the cruel dictators who oppressed them.

Thus the Arab revolutions that consumed the Middle East in 2011 - forget the "Arab Spring", a creature of Hollywood origin - did not demand democracy. The posters on the streets of Cairo and Tunis and Damascus and Yemen called for dignity and justice, two commodities that we had definitely not sought for the Arabs. Justice for the Palestinians - or for the Kurds, or for that matter for the destroyed Armenians of 1915, or for all the suffering Arab peoples - was not something that commended itself to us. But I think we should have gone much further in our investigation of the titanic changes of 2011.

In my own reporting of the uprisings, I attributed them to increased education and travel by the Arab communities throughout the Middle East. While acknowledging the power of social media and the internet, something deeper was at work. The Arabs had woken from a deep sleep. They had refused any longer to be the "children" of the patriarchal father figure - the Nassers and the Sadats and the Mubaraks and the Assads and the Gaddafis and, in earlier years, the Saddams. They awoke to find that it was their own governments that were composed of children, one of whom - Mubarak - was 83 years old. The Arabs wanted to own their towns and cities. They wanted to own the place in which they lived, which comprised much of the Middle East.

But I think now that I was wrong. In retrospect, I woefully misunderstood what these revolutions represented. One clue, perhaps, lay in the importance of trade union movements. Where trade unions, with their transnational socialism and anti-colonial credentials, were strong - in Egypt and Tunisia - the revolutionary bloodshed was far less than in the nations that had either banned trade unionism altogether - Libya, for example - or concretised the trade union movement into the regime, which had long ago happened in Syria and Yemen. Socialism crossed borders. Yet even this does not account for the events of 2011.

What really manifested itself that year, I now believe, was a much more deeply held Arab conviction; that the very institutions that we in the West had built for these people 100 years ago were worthless, that the statehood which we had later awarded to artificial nations within equally artificial borders was meaningless. They were rejecting the whole construct that we had foisted upon them. That Egypt regressed back into military patriarchy - and the subsequent and utterly predictable Western acqiescence in this - after a brief period of elected Muslim Brotherhood government, does not change this equation. While the revolutions largely stayed within national boundaries - at least at the start - the borders began to lose their meaning.

Hamas in Gaza and the Brotherhood became one, the Sinai-Gaza frontier began to crumble. Then the collapse of Libya rendered Gaddafi's former borders open - and thus non-existent. His weapons - including chemical shells - were sold to rebels in Egypt and Syria. Tunisia, which is now supposed to be the darling of our Western hearts for its adhesion to "democracy", is now in danger of implosion because its own borders with Libya and Algeria are open to arms transhipments to Islamist groups. Isis's grasp of these frontierless entities means that its own transnational existence is assured, from Fallujah in Iraq to the edge of Syrian Aleppo, from Nigeria to Niger and Chad.

It can thus degrade the economy of each country it moves through, blowing up a Russian airliner leaving Sharm el-Sheikh, attacking the Bardo museum in Tunis or the beaches of Sousse. There was a time - when Islamists attacked the Jewish synagogue on Djerba island in Tunisia in 2002, for example, killing 19 people - when tourism could continue. But that was when Libya still existed. In those days, Ben Ali's security police were able to control the internal security of Tunisia; the army was left weak so that it could not stage a coup. So today, of course, the near-impotent army of Tunisia cannot defend its frontiers.

Isis's understanding of this new phenomenon preceded our own. But Isis's realisation that frontiers were essentially defenceless in the modern age coincided with the popular Arab disillusion with their own invented nations. Most of the millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees who have flooded into Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan and then north into Europe do not intend to return - ever - to states that have failed them as surely as they no longer - in the minds of the refugees - exist. These are not "failed states" so much as imaginary nations that no longer have any purpose.

I only began to understand this when, back in July, covering the Greek economic crisis, I travelled to the Greek-Macedonian border with Médecins Sans Frontières. This was long before the story of Arab refugees entering Europe had seized the attention of the EU or the media, although the Mediterranean drownings had long been a regular tragedy on television screens. Aylan Kurdi, the little boy who would be washed up on a Turkish beach, still had another two months to live. But in the fields along the Macedonian border were thousands of Syrians and Afghans. They were coming in their hundreds through the cornfields, an army of tramping paupers who might have been fleeing the Hundred Years War, women with their feet burned by exploded gas cookers, men with bruises over their bodies from the blows of frontier guards. Two of them I even knew, brothers from Aleppo whom I had met two years earlier in Syria. And when they spoke, I suddenly realised they were talking of Syria in the past tense. They talked about "back there" and "what was home". They didn't believe in Syria any more. They didn't believe in frontiers.

Far more important for the West, they clearly didn't believe in our frontiers either. They just walked across European frontiers with the same indifference as they crossed from Syria to Turkey or Lebanon. We, the creators of the Middle East's borders, found that our own historically created national borders also had no meaning to these people. They wanted to go to Germany or Sweden and intended to walk there, however many policemen were sent to beat them or smother them with tear gas in a vain attempt to guard the national sovereignty of the frontiers of the EU.

Our own shock - indeed, our indignation - that our own precious borders were not respected by these largely Muslim armies of the poor was in sharp contrast to our own blithe non-observance of Arab frontiers. Saddam was among the first to show his own detestation of such lines in the sand. He cared nothing about international law when he invaded Iran in 1980 - with intelligence help from the Americans - or Kuwait in 1990, when he tore up the old frontier of the emirate and claimed it as an Iraqi province. But the West has now launched so many air strikes across the Middle East's borders since the 1991 liberation of Kuwait that we scarcely need to search for precedents now that Arab air forces are regularly criss-crossing the Middle East's national boundaries - along with our own fighter-bombers.

Quite apart from our mournful Afghan adventure and our utterly illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, our aircraft have been bombing Libya, Iraq and Syria along with the aircraft of various local pseudo-democracies for so long that this state of affairs has become routine, almost normal, scarcely worthy of a front-page headline. The Saudis are bombing Iraq and Syria and Yemen. The Jordanians are bombing Syria. The Emiratis are bombing Yemen. And now the French are bombing the Syrian city of Raqqa even more than they bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa two months ago - when President François Hollande did not tell us that France was "at war". The point, of course, is that we had grown so used to attacking Arab lands - France had become so inured to sending its soldiers and air crews to Africa and the Middle East to shoot and bomb those whom it regarded as its enemies - that only when Muslims began attacking our capital cities did we suddenly announce that we were "at war".

There were no code reds or code oranges in Arab capitals. They existed in a permanent state of code red, their people cringing beneath "emergency laws" imposed by dictators supported by the West, legislation even more iniquitous than those our European political masters now wish to impose on us. Of course, since the Iraqi catastrophe, we like to use local militia forces to do the dying for us. So the Kurds become our foot soldiers against Isis, or the Iraqi Shia militias or the Iranians or - though we must not admit this - the Syrian army and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Isis has weirdly replicated this gruesome policy. However many atrocities in Europe have been committed by men who have supposedly been "radicalised" in Syria, the killers have usually been local proxies; British Muslims in the UK, French Muslims who were citizens of France or residents of Belgium. The significance of this - that Isis clearly intends to provoke a civil war within Europe, especially between France's huge Algerian-origin Muslims and the police and political elite of France - has been spoken of in whispers. Indeed, much of the media coverage of the Paris massacres has often avoided the very word Muslim.

Just as any incomprehension we express about the borderless world into which the Arabs think they are moving carries no reference to that most borderless of Middle East nations, Israel. Arthur Balfour's declaration, which gave the UK's support to a Jewish homeland in Palestine during the same war that Mr Sykes and M. Georges-Picot were plotting to divide up the Arab world, anticipated new frontiers within Palestine itself, borders which, to this day, are largely undefined. Israel's internationally recognised frontiers are ignored by the Israeli government itself because it will not even say where its eastern border lies. Is it along the old Jerusalem frontline? Is it along the grotesque Israeli wall that has effectively stolen West Bank Palestinian land? Does the state of Israel include every Jewish colony built on land thieved from the Palestinians of the West Bank? Or does it run along the entire length of the Jordan river, thus destroying any Palestinian state that might ever exist? When Israelis ask their critics to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, they should be requested to state which particular Israel they are talking about: the legal one recognised by the UN - or "Israel proper" as we call it - or an Israel that includes the entire West Bank, or "Israel improper" as we assuredly do not call it?

Our support for an Israel that has not told us the location of its eastern border runs logically alongside our own refusal to recognise - unless it suits us - the frontiers of the Arab world. It is, after all, we who are allowed to draw "lines in the sand" or "red lines". It is we Europeans who decide where civilisations begin and end. It is the Prime Minister of Hungary who decides exactly where he will draw up his forces to defend "Christian civilisation". It is we Westerners who have the moral probity to decide whether national sovereignty in the Middle East should be obeyed or abused.

But when the Arabs themselves decide to dispense with the whole fandango and seek their future in "our" lands rather than "their" lands, this policy breaks down. Indeed, it is extraordinary how easily we forget that the greatest frontier-breaker of modern times was himself a European, who wanted to destroy the Jews of Europe but who might well - given his racist remark about Muslims in Mein Kampf - have continued his holocaust to include the Arabs. We even have the nerve to call the murderers of Paris "fascislamists", as the great French pseudo-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy has just written in the press. Nazis Isis undoubtedly are - but the moment we utilise the word "Islam" in this context, we are painting the swastika across the Middle East. Levy demands more assistance to "our Kurdish allies" because the alternative is that "no boots on their ground means more blood on ours".

But that's what George W Bush and Tony Blair told us before marching into the graveyard of Iraq in 2003. We are always declaring ourselves "at war". We are told to be merciless. We must invade "their" territory to stop them invading ours. But the days are long gone when we can have foreign adventures and expect to be safe at home. New York, Washington, Madrid, London, Paris all tell us that. Perhaps if we spoke more of "justice" - courts, legal process for killers, however morally repugnant they may be, sentences, prisons, redemption for those who may retrieve their lost souls from the Isis midden - we would be a little safer in our sceptered continent. There should be justice not just for ourselves or our enemies, but for the peoples of the Middle East who have suffered this past century from the theatre of dictatorships and cardboard institutions we created for them - and which have helped Isis to thrive.

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#24
Harriman Magazine (Columbia University)
Fall 2015
From Stanford to Spaso House
In Conversation with Michael McFaul
By Masha Udensiva-Brenner
[http://harriman.columbia.edu/news/newsletter/harriman-magazine-fall-2015]

In January 2009, Michael McFaul, a renowned Stanford political scientist and author of several influential books on Russian politics, joined President Obama's National Security Council. The war between Georgia and Russia had just sent U.S.-Russia relations to their lowest point since the Cold War, and McFaul's job was to advise the President on all Russia- and Central Asia-related matters. For three years he guided the President in designing a strategy known as the "reset" policy, and it appeared to narrow the rift between the two countries.

    In 2011, tired of the chaotic lifestyle that comes with working in the White House, McFaul decided to return to Palo Alto. The President had other plans. That September, he nominated McFaul as the second non-career U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation in thirty years. McFaul was excited to return to Russia. He had fallen in love with the country as a Stanford undergraduate studying abroad in the 1980s, and has been returning there ever since-while writing his dissertation on a Rhodes scholarship in the 1990s, while researching his numerous books on democratization and revolution, while working at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and during his various roles as a political adviser. Throughout the years he had established relationships within the Russian government and he was looking forward to building on the foundation of his "reset" policy. But when he got to Russia in January 2012, the atmosphere had shifted. A series of street protests against the fraudulent December 2011 parliamentary elections and the corrupt practices of the ruling United Russia Party resulted in a backlash from the authorities and a general distaste toward foreign influence.

    McFaul's appointment to the ambassadorship quickly elicited suspicion from the Kremlin, as he was a known critic of the Putin regime and proponent of human rights and democratization in Russia (he had published books with titles like Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin). To further complicate things, his second day on the job coincided with a visit from Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, whom, according to protocol, he had to accompany on a meeting with human rights activists and members of Russia's political opposition. The Russian media jumped on the story and within days of arriving, McFaul was portrayed as the agent of Western-imposed revolution.

    McFaul stayed for two years, during which relations between Russia and the U.S. continued to sour. The day after his departure in late February 2014, Russia annexed Crimea. Since then, the Ukraine crisis has persisted, the West has imposed economic sanctions on Russia, and Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was murdered. I met with McFaul twice-once in early April 2015, in a conference room at the Harriman Institute the day after he addressed Columbia University at the annual Harriman Lecture, and again a month later over tea at the Omni Berkshire Place hotel in midtown-to discuss his career and this turbulent time in U.S.-Russia relations.

Masha Udensiva-Brenner: What was it like to make the transition from academia to the National Security Council?

Michael McFaul: I'll tell you honestly I was very nervous. I had interacted with people in government for decades. Often times, at the end of those conversations, they would say, "Well, you don't really understand how government works." My first day was the day after the inauguration. I had worked with the president on his campaign, so it was an exciting time, but the challenges seemed big.

    Ultimately, it wasn't as overwhelming as I anticipated. I think there's something of a mythology about the black box of government. There were adjustments to make. Three computer systems, depending on the security level and bouncing back and forth, and learning how to deal with classified information. I briefed the President and prepared him for everything he did related to Russia and Central Asia, but within the government I ran the IPC [Interagency Policy Committee for Russia], which means I chaired a meeting for all the people at the Assistant Secretary level involved in policy making and coordination for Russia. I held meetings often, I wanted the engagement, and I ran it sort of like an academic seminar-challenging assumptions and asking for data. I found it to be less difficult than I expected. The part I learned more bitterly was that everyone would formally agree on something at the meeting, but then go back to their agencies and use different bureaucratic policies to unravel it.

Udensiva-Brenner: The Obama Administration came into office on the heels of the Russia-Georgia war and started the "reset" policy. How did you negotiate getting out of that bitter situation and into a policy of cooperation and engagement?

McFaul: The war, which was in August 2008, gave us a jumpstart on formulating the reset policy. Much of the first presidential debate was about Russia and it was a major campaign issue for a few weeks. When we got to day one of being in government, we weren't starting from scratch. The essence of the reset is that it wasn't a strategy about Russia, per se; it was integrated with other issues we were working on. In our assessment, our interests overlapped with the Russians on most big security and economic issues, and the argument for the reset was, that if we had Russia with us, it would make it easier to achieve our objectives. We sought to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, to develop our supply routes to Afghanistan, to increase trade and investment in the world, and to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which was the one issue directly related to Russia. For the rest we had our own strategy, our coda, and if Russia was with us, with respect to the strategy for achieving each objective, it would be easier.

Udensiva-Brenner: How did Medvedev react to the policy?

McFaul: The first meeting with Medvedev took place in London in April 2009, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting. It was the first "bi-lat"-as we call it in the government-that I had to prepare, and that's when the President really laid out his approach. Going into it, I had told him not to expect much. We were still just months away from the major confrontation over Georgia-Georgia, of course, remained a very difficult issue between us not just in that first meeting, but for the entire time I was in the government-but, Medvedev came ready to engage with us. And, if I'm not mistaken, he even used the word "reset."

Udensiva-Brenner: How was the reset received by your Republican colleagues?

McFaul: When I arrived and met my new staff at the National Security Council, all of those people had worked for George W. Bush the day before. The same went for all the other entities, too, because the political appointees who needed Senate approval didn't come into their jobs until several months into the Obama administration. We had to tell them: "Okay, now we're going to have a different policy." And I remember one senior person in the Bush administration, who is a good friend of mine, saying, "we all start off with this big head of steam that we're going to change things with Russia and it always ends in failure." I think about that often, given where we are today. And that was certainly the case in the Bush administration, too. They started out pretty strong because September 11th really brought Russia and the United States together, and they ended with the war in Georgia. So, there was that kind of skepticism.

    Others wanted us to be more strident vis-à-vis the conflicts we had with Russia, Georgia being the most important but not the only one. Our attitude was that the reset policy was a deliberate attempt to stop linking unrelated issues. We can have progress on arms control here and we can disagree on Georgia over here, but we're not going to link those two discussions. And that was controversial in our government and in the Russian government, because we were not going to allow them to link things they wanted to link. They would say," if you want to get sanctions in Iran, stop talking about democracy and human rights." And we militantly said, "let's talk about Iran here, let's talk about democracy here. We're not linking them, and we expect you not to link them either."

Udensiva-Brenner: And this is controversial with the human rights community as well-they would like to link these issues.

McFaul: That's right; some wanted to link the new START treaty with human rights issues. And it came into major focus for us during the WTO accession deliberations, when human rights activists wanted us to take the position that until Russia got better on democracy we shouldn't let them into the WTO. Those are not the rules of the WTO, obviously. China is in the WTO, lots of countries that don't meet the standards for democracy are in the WTO. Our argument was: We're not credible on adhering to the rules of the game, including the rules of the WTO, if we try to link membership to unrelated issues.

    That was a big debate. You can imagine that for me, given my reputation as a human rights activist and advocate and democracy promoter, this was difficult. I know that community well, and they told me: "You're a sellout McFaul, you've abandoned us." Now I never thought that. We also practice what we call dual-track engagement where we simultaneously engage with the government about democracy and human rights, and, in parallel, engage with society, the political opposition. That's what we always did. And I think we did that more aggressively than many previous administrations. But, you know, they pushed back on us. And that's their job, by the way. If you're working at Human Rights Watch or Freedom House, all those organizations, your job is to beat up on people like me. Sometimes I took it too personally, I think in retrospect; I regret that, but their job is to keep us honest.

Udensiva-Brenner: How would you respond to the criticism that dual-track diplomacy marginalizes human rights issues, that the meetings take place in inferior rooms with lower-level officials?

McFaul: It is true that when I worked in the NSC and when I was ambassador, I did not have the luxury of just thinking about human rights. I had to think about Iran, I had to think about Syria, I had to think about supplying our troops in Afghanistan. And, oh, by the way, there's not a way to supply your troops in Afghanistan without working with some authoritarian regimes. So whether I wanted to or not, that was my job. The luxury you have if you're working at a democracy NGO is you get up every morning and the only thing you have to think about is democracy and human rights, you don't have to deal with the Pentagon asking you to supply your troops in Afghanistan. You don't have to deal with trying to get the Russians to support sanctions on Iran. So it is fair to say that democracy and human rights might not get the same amount of attention as other issues. I think that's a fair criticism. But it's structural and not something specific to the Obama administration.

    When I was in government we met with the opposition when President Obama went to Russia. It was the President of the United States, not lower level officials like me, who met with the opposition-and in the Ritz Carlton, by the way, not some dingy office. He was the only leader at the G20 who met with civil society. Nobody else did. And there's more to it than just meetings. We had the policy, we tried to execute it, and I most certainly tried to execute it when I was ambassador.

Udensiva-Brenner: Throughout his first term in office President Obama was cautious about pushing Russia too much on the democracy issue. For instance, he did not use the word "democratic" during his 2009 speech at the New Economic School. Yet, knowing your history as a human rights activist and democracy promoter, he decided to appoint you Ambassador to Russia. Why?

McFaul: I'd say two things. One, with respect to his speech, he said "America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia," and he didn't want to say, we didn't want to say, the word "democratic." However, if you look at the five themes of the speech, one of them was about what we call "universal values." So, it's there, but in a different way, in a less in your face way.

With respect to me, you know, I was Mr. Reset. I was the guy who steered this new policy in place; first within our government, and then with the Russians. So, when he asked me to become ambassador, months before the demonstrations, in spring 2011, his pitch to me was "we got too much going on, we got too much momentum, how can you leave me now?" And he knew my views on democracy. I had given him my latest book, Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should and How We Can, as a Christmas gift-my first Christmas gift at the White House. It wasn't that he didn't know my views.

Udensiva-Brenner: Did President Obama know your history in Russia during the late '80s and early '90s? Did he know that some KGB officers thought you were a CIA agent, for instance?

McFaul: That's interesting. I don't ever recall talking about the CIA piece. He most certainly knew of my relationships with some of these opposition leaders, because he met them in July 2009.

Udensiva-Brenner: Would you have gone to meet with the political opposition on your second day as Ambassador to Russia had Deputy Secretary of State William Burns not been visiting?

McFaul: Probably not, no.

Udensiva-Brenner: Do you think your time in Russia would have been different had that meeting not taken place?

McFaul: Well . . . I probably wouldn't have done that on my second day, but we always met with civil society and I wouldn't have avoided them for the entire time I was ambassador. At the time I wasn't that enthusiastic about the meeting; my only contribution in terms of the invitation was, ironically, to invite a communist. Then of course the media portrayed it the way they did on national television because it happened at the same time there were massive demonstrations on the street. It was definitely not the start I wanted, but I knew that this was eventually going to be a complicated moment in our relationship. Even the previous ambassador, who did not have the same reputation I had, was already beginning to experience a bit of a tension because of things happening inside Russia, not because of us. It's important to understand: we didn't change our policy. What changed was politics inside Russia, and the rise of the opposition and the regime's fear of them.

Udensiva-Brenner: How did you feel about coming to a diplomatic role with no experience as a diplomat?

McFaul: I was nervous of course, Moscow is a big embassy not traditionally run by political appointees. The last political appointee actually hired a Russia specialist to be his special assistant so that he could help him navigate the embassy, and obviously I didn't have that. So, I had to learn the ways of an embassy, but I think it's exaggerated how hard that is. I mean, it's listening, it's leadership, it's management. I've been a manager of other things. But, you'd have to ask my staff how they felt about it.

    The big advantage I had that many career ambassadors did not have when they went to Moscow, is that I knew a lot about Russia. I'd written tons about Russia, I spoke Russian, I'd lived there several times, so I was not needing the political officer to tell me who Surkov is, who Dvorkovich is, who Nemtsov was. We had very talented people, but in terms of analysis of Russia, I was more up to speed than your average person who comes in. And I didn't want to be the traditional American ambassador in Russia; I had a different agenda. I wanted to be more engaged with society, I wanted to be more public. I was on Twitter; I was in the Russian media way more than my predecessor, even in a more constrained environment.

Udensiva-Brenner: So you wanted to be in the Russian media?

McFaul: I did. I spoke Russian, sometimes very badly, but I wanted to engage with society and working with the media was one way to do it. We wanted to explain our policy, which was distorted by others in the media. And we wanted to show chto takoe America, what is America? And I wanted to use my own biography to say that. That was part of our public diplomacy strategy. Somebody told me something very wise before I went: "the best way to be an authentic ambassador is to be yourself." And if you try to be what you think is the right way to be an ambassador, that won't be authentic. And I took that to heart.

    We had more guests at Spaso House, where I lived, than in any other period in history-20,000 guests in two years. We did things like throw concerts. One of the first was a country western band. I'm from Montana, my father is a country western musician and in Montana you don't just sit on your hands and listen to music, you dance. So we did that, and that was radical. It hadn't happened in thirty or forty years and it was against protocol and all that. And the Russians loved it.

Udensiva-Brenner: Some might say your strategy backfired. Would you go back and do it the same way?

McFaul: I don't think it backfired. I think conditions changed. As I was on my way out, there was an outpouring of goodwill towards me, even by people who had been critical of me before. Thousands, no tens of thousands, Twitter messages, Facebook messages, saying, "Oh, we're losing this guy, he understands us, he likes Russia."

    One colleague of mine said, "you know what really drove the Kremlin nuts about you was that you criticized the regime but you demonstrated through public diplomacy that you loved Russia." It would have been much better if I had just been a cold warrior. I do love a lot of things about Russian culture, I know Russian history, and I'm very respectful and admiring of what happened. Some of my best friends in life are Russian. It's not because they're Russian, they're my friends. I know thousands of Russians, thousands. Not just a handful of people I got to know in a few years.

    Then, with the annexation of Crimea, the intervention in Eastern Ukraine, everything became extremely polarized again and all that goodwill that I felt dissipated quickly. Especially on social media now, it's very nasty and a lot of it is organized to be that way, but it's depressing.

Udensiva-Brenner: Can you tell me about your time in Russia during the '80s and '90s?

McFaul: I went there as a Fulbright scholar to finish my dissertation about the international effects on national liberation movements in Southern Africa. I went there several times, but the pivotal time was in 1990, 1991. And, obviously, that was a time of great social upheaval in the Soviet Union and my thesis was looking at different theories of revolution. So, I was interested in what was going on in Russia. I came into contact with a group called the National Democratic Institute (NDI). I met them because one of my former students worked for them and she just delivered a letter, this is pre-email, she delivered a letter through one of the members of an NDI delegation that came to Moscow. It was by chance, right. And when they found out I was living there, they needed help, so they hired me as a consultant. It was an extraordinary, exciting time.

There's this common misperception we were coming to impose something, to pressure the government. But, in those days, it was exactly the opposite. We were special guests trying to help them build a new society and it was incredibly exciting and heady. I was a young guy and I had a pass to the parliament-I met Boris Yeltsin-and it felt like we were helping to end the Cold War and make democracy in Russia. People who come into this story later forget that the Russian government greeted us as friends and colleagues and partners. All these newly elected officials in the Russian parliament and the Mossoviet, the Leningrad City Council-Popov, Sobchak, and all these new democrats-they wanted us there, they invited us.

Udensiva-Brenner: How did your past in Russia influence your present there?

McFaul: I think what is probably frequently misunderstood about my time as ambassador is that I've been interacting with the Russian political and economic elite for thirty years. So, despite the kind of cartoonization of me in the Russian media, people would still meet with me and talk with me. And people have changed their views, some people have become more powerful, some people are more marginal, but I know a lot of these people and even when we disagree, we're still interacting. I have very good contacts with many senior Russian government officials. For instance, Minister Ulakayev, the Minister of the Economy, used to work for Gaidar. We had him come to Stanford for a conference on defense conversion in 1992 or 1993. These contacts remain. Partly because of my job, and partly because they knew I was close to the White House and to Obama, and partly because I've known some of these people for a very long time.

Udensiva-Brenner: How did it feel to be vilified by the Russian media?

McFaul: At times I was frustrated by that of course. I was the guy pushing for closer relations and perezagruzka [reset], so early on in my ambassadorial times, I wanted to say, "Don't you understand that, guys? That's who I am." But then I understood that it was much bigger than me, that it wasn't about me personally. But sometimes it felt very personal. And I'll tell you honestly, in the early days of my tenure as ambassador I was reporting about how the Russian regime was changing, how Putin was different than Medvedev and how we had to adjust our expectations. That we weren't going to be able to continue with the reset. The reset was over, as far as I'm concerned, in 2012. But not everybody back in Washington agreed with me and my team at the embassy. And, tragically, I think history has proven that we were right, even more so than we thought at the time. The trend started in 2012; it started way before the current crisis.

Udensiva-Brenner: You mentioned during your Harriman Lecture that you don't think we should push Russia too much or test Russia too much because Putin is testing us. But you also said that you're in favor of arming Ukraine. How do you reconcile those two attitudes?

McFaul: First of all, Ukraine is a sovereign country. The whole world recognizes it as a sovereign country, including Russia. Countries have the right to defend themselves and to have a monopoly on the use of force within their territories. This is IR 101. United Nations 101. Those are the norms and therefore Ukraine has the right to defend itself and should be able to purchase weapons from other countries. Russia purchases weapons from other countries, why is it not provocative when they do it, but provocative if Ukraine does? That's how I feel on the level of principle.
 
    On the level of policy, the debate is that if we arm Ukraine, Putin will respond. And I agree-I think there will be a response. But who is eliciting that response? It's the same people who are asking for arms. They are the ones who will bear the burden. They are the ones who have decided in the cost-benefit analysis, that it's better to obtain these arms than not, and I think it's a bit presumptuous of us to think that we know better than Ukrainians what is in their own security interests.

    The third piece, I would say, is that there is a way to provide weapons that are designed for deterrence and defense, not offence. If you install a new alarm in your house, and the neighbor says, "Well, that's provocative, why are you doing that?" You would respond, "It's only provocative to those who want to break into my house; if you have no ambition to break into my house this is not a provocation." I think of defensive weapons in the same way. I'm not a military expert, but I think there are certain ways to prevent more conflict by making escalation costly. That said I do believe it's a very difficult issue. I'm not dismissive of the opposing arguments. My prediction, knowing where the Obama administration stands on this, is they're not going to provide arms-lethal arms-unless it is in response to a Russian escalation.

Udensiva-Brenner: The U.S. is currently conducting joint military exercises with Georgia, do you think that's in the same vein?

McFaul: Yes, I do. Georgia's not going to invade Russia. Ukraine is not going to invade Russia. These countries are not a threat to Russia's national security. They're not fools. Do you know how many countries joined NATO while I was in government during the Obama Administration? One. We were not expanding NATO. We were not pushing missile defense against Russia. We were taking actions very deliberatively to try to build security relationships with Russia, not against Russia. It's Putin who changed that, we didn't change that.

Udensiva-Brenner: Some people see Kerry's recent visit to Sochi as a new mini-thaw, how do you see it?

McFaul: I think it's interesting that Putin, who is extremely protocol conscious, agreed to meet with somebody who is not his equal for four hours. Barack Obama didn't come to see him. The vice president didn't come to see him. The fact that this meeting took place kind of signals how eager he is to be reengaged with the Americans. From what I've heard about the meeting, there was a desire to be better understood, so that's a good sign. I don't think it will lead to any breakthroughs. And even signaling that it will is, in my view, extremely dangerous. This is not a moment for reset 2.0, because there's no way that's going to happen.

Udensiva-Brenner: One might argue that the sanctions against Putin have actually given him a convenient excuse for the already declining economy in Russia-now he can blame Russia's economic turmoil on the West. This has strengthened his position at home and made his propaganda campaign much stronger. What's your response?

McFaul: Yes, it's a big source of his popularity. My ne vinovaty, oni vinovaty [we're not to blame, they're to blame]. Certainly, that's there for those who watch and believe the propaganda on television. To those who are involved in the international economy and are losing money because of the sanctions, some of them billions of dollars, it is perfectly clear what's going on and they're not convinced by this kind of argumentation. I mean, they don't like the sanctions, they think we went too far, they're doing whatever they can to revoke them, but they know precisely why they were put in place.

Udensiva-Brenner: One year after you left Russia, Boris Nemtsov was murdered. Could you have foreseen something like this?

McFaul: When I was ambassador I had death threats against me. There are a lot of kooky people out there who get wrapped up in weird ideas, nationalism. I don't know what happened with Nemtsov, and I don't want to speculate, but I do know that he feared for his safety and he was nervous about these things. Although now that I think about it, I was totally shocked that he was killed the way he was. It's important to understand that Nemtsov was not just an opposition figure-the Western press says he was killed because he was an opposition politician and the regime didn't like him. Well, some people in the regime didn't like him, that's true, but a lot of people in the regime were close to him. A lot of people in elite circles were close colleagues of his. He had been deputy prime minister. He was a two-time governor. He was friends with Prokhorov, he was in that tussovka, he was in that milieu. He was, as my colleague phrased it, part of the nomenklatura of post-Soviet Russia. And so, his assassination was not just a shot across the bow to the opposition, it was a shot across the bow to all of these people. And that's important to remember, so that's what's shocking to me. He actually used to say to me, "I'm too important, they would never go after me."

Udensiva-Brenner: When you were leaving Russia you told the journalist Julia Ioffe that you were more optimistic about Russia after spending two years there than you had been when you came in. Does this still hold true given recent events?

McFaul: I'm still optimistic about Russia in the long run. Though I'm much more pessimistic about it today as a result of what happened in Ukraine; this pivot has gone farther than I expected. Having always been a great believer that Russia could become a normal, democratic, market-oriented, boring country-this debate has been going on for more than thirty years-I find this current phase to be without question the most depressing. I even felt better about the Soviet Union when I was there in 1985 as a student than I do today. But I believe in modernization theory: property, education, urbanization, and globalization. The Putin regime can retard that, they can slow it down, but they can't stop it.

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