Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America (14 page)

Some, like Georgy Mirsky, say that Russia’s anti-Western animus is like a reflex, a resurgence of the old Soviet mentality.
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It’s not all anti-Westernism, though. The Russians are pragmatic skeptics, contemptuous of American democratic aspirations. What they see in Assad is a secular (if brutal) dictator fighting off forces of radical Islam that, if they prevail, could destabilize the entire region. Its long experience with Islamists in Chechnya and elsewhere has motivated Moscow to protect Assad from that outcome. “In Moscow,” Pukhov wrote, “secular authoritarian governments are seen as the sole realistic alternative to Islamic dominance.”
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Finally, the Russians know that if Assad falls, then Iran, their most important ally in the region, will be weakened—as will Russian
influence. Moscow has already seen the ouster, over the last decade, of its allies Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi. It cannot afford to stand by and watch another Western intervention weaken its regional interests.

Beijing’s support for Assad, meanwhile, seems comparatively mysterious to outside observers. China enjoys a healthy $2.2 billion annual trade relationship with Syria—no match for what it does in trade with the other Gulf Arab states (roughly $90 billion annually). China’s Iran commitments dwarf its Syrian investments. But China opposes a repeat of the Libyan model as strongly as the Russians do, and Beijing vetoed the UN resolutions alongside Russia in order to stand in solidarity against the West generally and the U.S. more specifically. Beijing also worries about the repercussions of regime change in Syria, as an op-ed in the Chinese
People’s Daily
newspaper, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party, made clear:

       
Though China has a less direct stake in Syria than Russia, the collapse of Syria will result in the West further controlling the Middle East, and Iran taking direct strategic pressure from the West. If war broke out in Iran, China would have to rely more on Russia for energy, bringing in new uncertainty to the Sino–Russian strategic partnership.
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Like Russia, then, China backs Assad for self-interested reasons that have little to do with actual support for the Syrian president. But while Russia has major economic and strategic interests to protect in Syria, China’s stake is less vital. Rather, Beijing is standing in solidarity with Moscow in their mutual opposition to interventionism, while also supporting Russia’s notion of regional “stability.” Beijing knows what it’s getting in Assad, and it is content with his remaining in power. Finally, in blocking U.S. and Western efforts to intervene, the Chinese help support a regime that, at little cost to themselves, causes their American rivals nothing but trouble.

VENEZUELA

“I like kitties and puppies and little animals,” Vladimir Putin said matter-of-factly in 2012. It’s true: The Russian strongman has a soft spot for animals, as a trove of Web photo galleries makes clear. And so it stands to reason that he wouldn’t give puppies as gifts to someone unless he felt strongly about them—and Putin felt very strongly about Hugo Chávez, the longtime Venezuelan dictator. In the last year of their long partnership, Putin gave the Latin American strongman a three-month-old Russian black terrier puppy, along with a private message. When Chávez died in March 2013, Putin’s condolence telegram was striking for its heartfelt praise: “He was an uncommon and strong man who looked into the future and always set the highest target for himself.”

Although it’s too early to predict the shape of post-Chávez Venezuela, the early signs are for continuity—and that means a strong Venezuelan relationship not only with Russia but also with China. Both countries have sent signals that they wish to work closely with Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro. The feeling seems to be mutual.

“We are not going to change one iota of the fundamental themes of President Chávez’s policies,” Venezuela’s energy minister, Rafael Ramirez, told a local TV station not long after Chávez’s death. “We have a very important strategic relationship with China, which we’re going to continue deepening and cultivating. It’s the same with our cooperation with Russia. . . . Chávez’s policies are more alive than ever, and we will push ahead with them.”
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During his tenure, Chávez made Venezuela an archenemy of the U.S., and he possessed the means and the motivation to harm the United States like few others could. He built strategic alliances not only with Russia and China, but also with Cuba, Iran, and Syria. While much of the international community was busy condemning Bashar al-Assad for massacring his own people, Chávez sent large shipments of
oil to the Syrian leader, in defiance of international sanctions. Venezuela became deeply involved in drug trafficking and money laundering while providing staunch support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Chávez severed ties with Israel in 2009 to protest its offensive against Hamas, and in 2010, he hosted an extraordinary secret summit in Caracas for senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
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“Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America is growing significantly with the support of the Chávez regime in Venezuela,” Roger F. Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs under President George W. Bush, told the Committee on Homeland Security.

Chávez called Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his “brother,” partnered with him in a joint Iranian-Venezuelan bank, and declared that he would consider any attack on Iran an attack on Venezuela. And indeed, should the U.S. take military action against Iran, the quickest route of retaliation would be through Venezuela—close enough to the U.S. that intercontinental missiles wouldn’t be needed. Ahmadinejad placed agents from the Iranian intelligence apparatus in Venezuela to advise the army as well as the intelligence service. For years, Venezuela operated a weekly flight from Teheran to Caracas, bringing untold numbers of Iranians into the country.

Chávez’s Venezuela had few stronger allies than Putin and Russia. The two countries forged a joint Russian-Venezuelan bank venture in 2009 to pursue bilateral projects, especially involving energy; Pdvsa, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, partnered with Russia’s Gazprom. The bank was headquartered in Moscow with an office in Caracas. On military matters, cooperation was close. Before Chávez died, Russia granted Venezuela a $4.4 billion loan to purchase Russian weaponry and “defend its sovereignty,” in Chávez’s words. Venezuela pursued a separate $6 billion loan for infrastructure. Russia also sold Chávez battle tanks and missile systems.

Russia’s investment in the Venezuelan oil industry grew steadily during Chávez’s tenure. In May 2013, two months after Chávez died, Venezuela and Russia formed a joint venture to produce 120,000 barrels of oil a day by 2016 in two fields of the Orinoco Belt of heavy oil, regarded as the one of the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves. That agreement came with another Russian loan, this one for $1.5 billion, to finance the development of the field. Some critics are skeptical that the relationship can survive post-Chávez, but Russia has much to lose in Venezuela by allowing the alliance to languish and everything to gain by remaining committed. The projects that Moscow signed with Chávez are worth at least $30 billion. Venezuela has reason to stay close to Moscow, too: It is Russia’s largest importer of arms, and Moscow promises to maintain its arms deals with Caracas.
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“As for our future relations with Venezuela,” Putin said, “they will depend primarily on the Venezuelan people, the future president, and the country’s leadership.”
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Time will tell, but don’t bet on this relationship breaking up.

Meanwhile, China has pledged to continue its “strategic alliance” with Venezuela, post-Chávez, which includes increased oil exports to China and massive Chinese investment in Venezuelan oil-producing infrastructure. Without question, oil is the key driver of this relationship, though it is not the only one.

As late as 2005, Venezuela was sending only a few thousand barrels of oil per day to China. But China’s thirst for oil and Chávez’s hunger for loans drew the two nations closer. After getting a $36 billion loan from Beijing, Chávez stepped up shipments drastically. Venezuela now provides 500,000 barrels a day to China, a total projected to reach 1 million barrels per day by 2015. In addition, China National Petroleum is a key player, along with the Russians, in developing the Orinoco oil field. After a series of deals with the Chinese that would help him expand Venezuela’s oil production, Chávez said, “Never before has
Venezuela had such a fruitful and positive relationship with a great power like China.”
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At the same time, China has also stepped into the breach left by the U.S. ban of arms sales to Venezuela. Beijing has sold Caracas new military transport planes as well as Chinese-built trainer jets and ground radar. The two countries have hundreds of other bilateral agreements not involving military technology specifically, but a wide range of infrastructure projects. These include mining deals, satellite construction, irrigation systems, agricultural-processing plants, housing complexes, and railway infrastructure.

The questions for the Chinese post-Chávez are the same the Russians are asking: Can the relationship survive the leader’s death? Early indications show a strong commitment by both countries to keeping the alliance going. In May 2013, the Chinese vice president, Li Yuancho, visited Caracas to meet with Maduro and discuss a host of ongoing and future projects, including ventures involving telecom and other technologies. “This visit has been very fruitful,” Maduro said. “We will never forget the loving support that China gave to our Comandante [Chávez]. We will be loyal to the work that has been done.”
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Like the Russians, the Chinese have strong incentives to keep a good thing going.

CONCLUSION

While much of what we’ve discussed in this chapter has a gloomy cast, we’d like to close on a somewhat more hopeful note. The U.S. should recognize that when it takes concrete action—even if insufficient and not sustained—it has produced results. Not dramatic results, necessarily, but results: American pressure convinced the Chinese to rein in the North Koreans in the spring of 2013, at least to some degree, defusing what had been an increasingly tense situation. Dogged American diplomatic efforts persuaded the Russians to agree to a Geneva conference
to mediate the Syrian conflict. More recently came the UN resolution requiring Assad to turn over his chemical-weapons supply. As we’ve made clear above, we’re skeptical that these efforts represent genuine changes in Russia’s and China’s postures toward these rogue regimes, but in all cases, they were better than nothing. Broader and more sustained action should prove even more effective. (Of course, U.S. engagement doesn’t always lead to positive outcomes, as indicated by the nuclear accord reached with Iran in November 2013. As we noted previously, by all indications, this accord is likely to prove hugely beneficial to Tehran but disastrous for the United States, Israel, and the Western democracies. We share the views of other observers who see the deal as part of a long-term strategy on Tehran’s part to “concede to interim demands in order to secure principles that will favorably define a final, comprehensive agreement.”
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Still, America’s moderate recent successes should remind us of a timeless lesson: Applying pressure is the
only
way to achieve positive results. Russia and China are not to be persuaded by American “resets” or other conciliatory postures, but they will listen, because they must, when they understand that we are committed to actively defending our positions. There is no substitute for what Hillary Clinton called “coercive diplomacy,” or what might be called muscular multilateralism: American efforts, sometimes in concert with others, to defend our interest and principles around the world. There is no substitute, in the end, for American engagement. “Leading from behind” just doesn’t cut it.

Up to now, unfortunately, our leaders in Washington have not yet fully absorbed this lesson; they show intermittent signs of reengaging, but then they pull back again. Russia and China never pull back. They have always got the pedal down, full throttle, and we lose precious time and squander options with our dithering.

Russia and China are, to put it bluntly, playing a double game: They work with the United States and the international community
on broad efforts and thus preserve their political deniability and their economic and political relationships with the United States; at the same time, they thwart the will of the international community by backing the world’s most dangerous regimes. Neither Iran nor North Korea could long survive without Axis support. Russia, Iran, and Syria are close partners economically and militarily, and their alliance only grows closer as the United States backs off from confrontation and engagement. American passivity not only emboldens our adversaries; it also leaves our partners unsettled and prompts them to look elsewhere for support or blame us for their troubles. President Putin has made himself an ally of General al-Sisi, Egypt’s top military officer, who will run for president in May 2014. Putin encouraged him to do so. It would be a “very responsible decision,” he said, “to undertake such a mission for the fate of the Egyptian people.” He made his support explicit: “On my own part, and on behalf of the Russian people, I wish you success.” Putin made these comments during al-Sisi’s February 2014 visit to Moscow, which was accompanied by news of impending arms deal with Russia worth $2 billion, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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Meanwhile, feeling betrayed by American dithering on Syria, Turkey blamed Washington for its domestic unrest.

At every juncture, we seem to be losing, and it is not clear what we’re actually negotiating—let alone what our goals are. We will discuss specific steps that the United States can and should take in our concluding chapter. But more important, even, than our particular policies is the mindset behind them. Until Washington’s foreign-policy apparatus once again embraces America’s central role in the world, the United States and its allies will operate at a disadvantage.