This said, Russian power is in long-term decline. Compared to the Soviet Union in 1989, the Russian Federation has less than half the population, one-third the economic bulk, lower commodity production and vastly decreased industrial output. Demographically, Russia is both shrinking and aging at rates that have not been seen outside of wartime since the time of the Black Death. The educational system has stalled, so Russia is facing an impending slide in labor quantity and quality, which will make it difficult if not outright impossible for Russia to keep up with its advancing neighbors.
But “long-term” is the operative term. Russian power today must not be measured in the terms that will dominate its existence in the future. Instead, it must be assessed dispassionately in relative terms against its neighbors and competitors. Of those neighbors, only China as we suggested, can compare to Russia regarding military and economic capability, and the two states are bending over backward to avoid an adversarial relationship. True, in 2009 Russia faces the most dire economic challenges since the 1998 ruble crash and debt default, but so do all the states in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, Central Europe and the Baltics. And even with the global recession placing very real limits on what Moscow can achieve financially — both at home and abroad — Russia has myriad tools that place countries of interest to it at the Kremlin’s mercy. The Kremlin (rightly) fears that Russia’s days are numbered, but it has a simple plan: Re-establish as large of a buffer zone around the Russian core as possible while the balance of power remains in Russia’s favor.
For Russia, most of the post-Cold War era was a chronicle of retreat from previous prominence, culminating in the West’s decision in 2008 to recognize the independence of the former Serbian province of Kosovo — a decision that Russia campaigned long and hard to prevent. But in August 2008, Russia invaded its former territory of Georgia and proved to the world that Russian power was far from spent, marking the inflection point on the question of Russia’s resurgence. The year 2009 will be about Russia using its military, intelligence and energy might to extend its influence back into its periphery.
Russia’s primary target in 2009 is Ukraine, a country uniquely critical to Russia’s geopolitical position and uniquely vulnerable to Russia’s energy, intelligence and military tools — and then there is the influence Russia can wield over Ukraine’s large Russian-speaking population. Russia has many other regions that it wants to bring into its fold while it can still act decisively — the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Balkans, the Baltics and Poland — but Ukraine is at the top of the list.
Ukraine occupies a piece of territory that is completely integrated into Russia’s agricultural, industrial, energy and transport networks. Its physical position makes it crucial to Russia’s ability to project power. A Ukraine at odds with Russia constrains Russia’s position in the Caucasus, limits Russian power in Europe, threatens the entire Russian core and puts Moscow within spitting distance of a hostile border. A defiant Ukraine not only forces Russia to be purely defensive, but actually makes Russian territory indefensible from the west and south, as there are no natural boundaries to hide behind. In contrast, an acquiescent Ukraine allows Russia to project power outward into Central Europe and gives Russia greater access to the Black Sea and thus the Mediterranean and outside world.
Russia lost the territory in 1992 with the Soviet collapse, but managed to keep Ukraine a political no-mans-land. In 2004, however, the Orange Revolution brought to power a government not just oriented toward the West but downright hostile to Moscow. This sparked a panic in the Kremlin that prompted a foreign policy leading to Russia’s resurgence. That resurgence is now stable enough that the Kremlin feels it can return Ukraine to the Russian orbit — forcibly, if necessary.
Russia has no shortage of tools to use on Ukraine to mold it into a shape more amenable to Russian interests. Russia backs and bankrolls Viktor Yanukovich, Yulia Timoshenko and Rinat Akhmetov — three of Ukraine’s four most powerful political forces. Russia supplies Ukraine with two-thirds of its natural gas and four-fifths of its energy needs, and is not shy about using that control to damage the government. Ukraine is integrated into the Russian industrial heartland, and Russian firms directly control large portions of the Ukrainian metals industries. Russian control over several of Ukraine’s ports links several Ukrainian oligarchs — and some Ukrainian organized crime syndicates — directly to the Kremlin.
Ukraine is not well equipped to resist Russia’s efforts. The United States has been working with Ukrainian intelligence (which is currently under President Viktor Yushchenko), sparking a fierce battle within the Ukrainian intelligence services, which spun off from the KGB. Yushchenko is trying to purge ex-KGB forces and put in younger, American-trained staff members, but the Russian intelligence surge into the country since 2004 has been massive and is hard to counteract. Other Western intelligence agencies are simply too far behind to make much of a difference; only the Turks have made a notable effort. The rest of the “Western” moves are largely limited to bureaucratized American processes, largely financial and social, which simply are no match for the powerful, multi-vectored effort that Russia is making.
Russia is perfectly
capable of achieving its goals in Ukraine on its own. The natural gas crisis
at the start of 2009 is a testament to Russian capability, but Moscow has
shown that it is willing to accept a deal that will make Ukraine more malleable.
Specifically, the United States is attempting to forge a means of supplying
its growing troop commitment in Afghanistan without becoming more dependent
upon Pakistan. Russia is willing to allow American supplies to transit
Russia and Russian-influenced Central Asia. But the price is Yushchenko’s
ouster and an agreement that the United States will not parlay its transit
routes across Central Asia into actual influence over the region. And just
in case the United States decides to push for more, Russia has established
a network of options in the Middle East to complicate American efforts
there should the need arise (for more information, see the Middle East
section of the Annual Forecast), and is even putting some flags
in the ground in Latin America.
The US-Jihadist War
Stretching from Iraq to the Indian subcontinent, the U.S.-jihadist war will remain a dominant theme in 2009. The bulk of the war will be fought in South Asia, rather than the Middle East, in the coming year, yet the overall strategic threat posed by the transnational jihadist movement continues to wane.
Earlier US policy in Iraq was in convincing all players that the United States was involved for the long haul, and could not simply be out-waited. This split the insurgency in half and led the various Iraqi factions — a constantly shifting amalgamation of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish power groups — to hammer out a power-sharing deal that took into account the interests of the two major outside powers: Iran and the United States. The deal is fragile, informal and (above all) not fully implemented, but it has resulted in far lower violence levels, the opportunity for Iraq to develop its own security service and the opportunity for the United States to deploy its forces elsewhere. This last issue opens up an entirely new set of problems.
But first, Iraq. Assuming that the violence is not rekindled, that Iran is more or less pleased with Iraq’s security evolution, that Iraq’s internal factions do not break out into conflict and that there are no major policy mistakes by the new U.S. presidential administration, the United States will be able to draw down its military presence in Iraq significantly over the next two years. Yet even under the most dramatic drawdown estimate under discussion, some 40,000 American troops will likely remain in Iraq at least until the end of 2009. Fortunately for the United States, transnational jihadists have been significantly marginalized. This means that the single biggest challenge to the American withdrawal will be integrating the militias of the Awakening Councils, also known as the Sons of Iraq (former Sunni nationalist insurgents and tribal fighters who went from fighting U.S. forces to combating jihadists), into the security apparatus. Provincial and parliamentary elections in Iraq this year will be very revealing of the viability of the Shiite-dominated post-Baathist Iraqi republic. Success is far from assured, but it is safe to say that Iraq will not be the center of the American war effort.
This assumes that relations do not worsen with the second major player in the conflict: Iran. The year 2009 will be the most critical year for U.S.-Iranian relations since the overthrow of the shah in 1979. The rhetoric from Tehran may suggest otherwise, but Iran is increasingly compelled to deal with the United States, given Iran’s staggering economic difficulties and strategic interests in Iraq and Afghanistan. The logic for cooperation is there — Washington and Tehran both want American troops out of Iraq, both want Iraq’s power limited, both want the Taliban and al Qaeda destroyed, and both have a strategic need in balancing against Arab power — and progress made in negotiations in 2008 combined with the turning of the administrative page in Washington has laid the groundwork for a more constructive relationship. There may even be a basis for Iran to assist the United States somewhat in its efforts in Afghanistan. But this is hardly to say that we expect a full rapprochement; the two states’ overlapping spheres of influence alone show that anything more than a working relationship is simply too much to ask for.
On the far end of the crescent of conflict lies India. The November 2008 Mumbai bombings cannot go without reprisals, and India has identified a host of Pakistani links to the attackers. Should the current Congress government not retaliate, it runs the risk of losing power in general elections this year to a Hindu nationalist coalition that would be more prone to taking aggressive action against Islamabad, particularly in the event of another major attack.As we have shown in an early December case study p.1, 2, and 3, Retaliation is not a simple matter — Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and any decision cannot be taken lightly. But India cannot afford to do nothing while elements of Pakistan’s military apparatus are facilitating attacks that cut deep into the Indian economic lifeline. At the same time, India finds itself in the same dilemma as the United States: How do you coerce a Pakistani behavioral shift when the country runs a serious risk of becoming a failed state? India, therefore, will be restrained in any retaliatory measures it takes against Islamabad. Yet as the Pakistani buffer between India and jihadist-wracked Afghanistan further erodes, New Delhi will be forced into a position in which it will have to take more security responsibility for its restive western frontier.
But this is not “just” about India and Pakistan anymore. As the Mumbai attack in India revealed, the gradual unraveling of command and control within the Pakistani military establishment has enabled many more of Islamabad’s Islamist militant proxies operating in Pakistan and India to team up with transnational jihadists, resulting in deadlier and more strategically targeted attacks in the region. Pakistan clearly does not wish to go after its own people, as these Islamists have long served as Islamabad’s most effective foreign policy tools, first against the Soviet Union and later against India. Ironically, the Indians have now given the Pakistanis an excuse for being even less enthusiastic about fighting the Islamists in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region who are fighting the Americans: Pakistan has to defend itself against India instead. Add in the fact that the supply routes for American forces in Afghanistan go through Pakistan, and the need for a refocused Pakistan becomes obvious.
This greatly complicates matters for the American war effort in Afghanistan. Barring a complete reversion to the violent days of 2006 that would force troops to remain in Iraq, the United States will be sending around 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Combined with NATO’s total of about 30,000, this will push the total of U.S. and NATO forces to about 95,000. But even nearly 100,000 troops would be insufficient to control Afghanistan’s sprawling, mountainous territory. The plan is to repeat the Iraqi surge strategy, concentrate forces in and around Kabul, then gradually expand outward to reduce Taliban-controlled territory until all players — including the Afghan Taliban, but not including al Qaeda — sit down at the table and hammer out a deal. But to do this, the United States must have Pakistan’s undivided attention — which includes Pakistan hunting not just al Qaeda, but also those Pakistani elements that assist it. Additionally, the Obama administration will need Pakistan to bring those Afghan Taliban that are still under its control to the table. But Islamabad’s influence over the Taliban has waned because of the insurgency within its own borders. So this process will be a very messy one, to say the least.
The United States plans to force Pakistan to refocus by denying Pakistan the leverage it gets from the supply routes. This will involve refining and shipping fuel and equipment into Afghanistan from the north, through Russia proper or at least through Russia’s sphere of influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia. That route comes with its own costs — concessions to Russian interests in the former Soviet Union — but it is the only way to convince the Pakistanis that they have no room to maneuver. Pressed between an energetic new American administration with an independent supply route on one side, and angry Indians on the other, Pakistan will — in theory at least — have little choice but to take a stronger stance against jihadists, especially those that are also challenging the Pakistani state. Still, even if Pakistan develops the will to crack down more forcefully, it remains unclear whether Islamabad has the capacity to crack down effectively.
Many parts of this plan — betting on Iraqi stability, betting on an understanding with Iran, betting on an India that can be restrained, betting on a compromise with Russia, betting that the actual war in Afghanistan does not spin out of control — involve a high element of risk. But there is one more risk that is on our radar: the possibility of a military coup in Pakistan. With the global recession in full swing, any state with limited exports, weak social bonds, a crippled government or high debt is skating on the very edge of oblivion. Pakistan faces all of these problems and more. And since Pakistan tends to be ruled either by the military directly, or by the military in league with a weak government, the Americans likely feel that should push come to shove, they would gain more of what they want from a different governing structure.
The year 2009 will certainly not see the endgame for the jihadist war, but it is worth taking a step back and looking at where years of war have led. Al Qaeda’s goal on 9/11 was to induce the United States to chase it into the Islamic world — the theory being that the willingness of the region’s secular governments to cooperate with the Americans would trigger mass uprisings that would overthrow all of the region’s rulers and replace them with Islamist regimes. A transnational caliphate would be reborn.
Eight years later, the only governments that have been overthrown are Iraq and Afghanistan — both of which were overthrown by the Americans. The Shia of Iran — who are apostates in al Qaeda’s mind — are sliding toward a more cooperative relationship with the United States, a development which could lessen the relative power of Sunni Arab states. And the country that is the global headquarters of al-Qaeda — Pakistan — is far more in danger of reverting to a military dictatorship than an Islamist government. While the jihadist thrust is in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the al Qaeda core that pulled off the world’s deadliest terrorist attacks is now struggling just to issue timely videos and audio statements to stay in the picture.
