August 18, 2008
A Service of CIJR
Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
Prof. Frederick Krantz, Director

ISRAEL AND THE NEW SOVIET UNION
Frederick Krantz
CIJR Radio Shalom Briefing XXXVII
18 August 2008

Hello. Today’s Canadian Institute for Jewish Research’s Radio Shalom Briefing is entitled “Israel and the New Soviet Union”.

While the commentariate and blogocracy have, after some confusion, focused on Russia’s brutal invasion of Georgia and its implications for “Old” and “New” Europe, its serious consequences for Israel and the Middle East have been less remarked upon.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, an old KGB man and Russia’s real ruler despite its new figure-head President, Dimitry Medvedev, has successfully strengthened the Russian bear after the post-Gorbacev Soviet collapse. Buoyed by the ever-rising price of Russian oil and gas exported to Western Europe, Putin has rebuilt and modernized the Russian armed forces.

Aggressive Russian actions reach from Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabagh (Azerbaijan) Transnistria in Moldova, and now not only to the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but Georgia itself. Putin is reclaiming Russian influence in the “Near Beyond”, the formerly Soviet-controlled areas (including Ukraine) which became independent after 1991.

Very importantly, Georgia is of intrinsic importance because it provides access to the Caucasus and oil-rich Caspian Sea region, threatening the Russian monopoly on the supply of oil and gas to Western Europe through the crucially important east-to-west Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey and the West.

Georgia (with neighboring Azerbaijan) constitutes a key land corridor between the West and the so-called “Stans” of Central Asia, former Soviet colonies, and neighboring, importantly, Afghanistan. And linked to them—look at a map—are Pakistan, and Iran. The pipeline, crucially, bypasses not only Russia, but also Iran and the Middle East, and that Russia has reportedly bombed its Georgian section is no accident.

The Russian invasion, clearly long planned, is directed at destabilizing the young Georgian democracy, and placing it (and the contiguous Caucasus-Caspian Sea region) again under Russian influence. Very importantly, it also fires a warning shot across the bows of Ukraine, against joining NATO and, in the case of Warsaw, against cooperating with the U.S.’s planned anti-missile treaty (Poland, frightened by the invasion and defying Russian threats, has just signed the treaty).

Putin`s move also threatens Afghanistan, by cutting off access to its natural Central Asian trading partners; and Iraq, by strengthening Moscow’s relations with and support for the ayatollahs in Iran. Putin knows Bush hopes for Russian Security Council support for tougher Iran sanctions, and his Foreign Minister, Lavrov, has cynically urged the U.S. to choose Moscow, not Tbilisi, in the current crisis (Iran of course already relies heavily on Russian nuclear technology and aid, not least in the form of advanced SA300 anti-aircraft missile interceptors).

What we are looking at is a resurgent Russia seeking to re-create a kind of de facto Soviet Union. The implications for the West and the U.S. are clear, as they should be for Israel. Russia is back once again in the “Great Game” of political competition for influence in the region stretching southwards from the Caucasus to Iran’s frontier. This weakens Iraq and strengthens Iran, which in turn remains a key factor in Iraq and has growing strength in Gaza (Hamas). Lebanon (through Hezbollah), and in Syria,

Beyond this, if Washington winds up backing down over Georgia (whose democracy grew after 1991 under American political and military protection), and does not rally “Old” Europe (France, Germany, Britain) to the defense of “New” Europe (Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states), the Arabs will be encouraged and reinforced in their unending war against Israel. That this would occur just as Iran threatens to go nuclear (and Pakistan, already nuclear, becomes increasingly unstable). Is particularly ominous.

Israel, with America facing a potentially divisive Presidential election with associated political uncertainty, including the possible victory of a Democratic candidate totally inexperienced in foreign policy terms, must wake up to the fact that it cannot rely on the U.S., let alone Europe or, perish the thought, the UN, to guarantee its defense.

States, as the old saying goes, do not have friends, they have interests. Israel’s interest is, to put it bluntly, survival, and the fate of small, democratic Georgia—which, despite the weak French-brokered cease-fire, still hangs in the balance--should, finally, engender some clear thinking in Jerusalem. Democratic Israel, nuclear-armed and with the Middle East’s finest armed forces, is not, of course, Georgia—but it must now take responsibility for its own security, and use its very real assets intelligently and forcefully.

Thank you.

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