19.12.2014, 00:03
'The interests of the Russian Federation and the United States in relation to Ukraine are incompatible with each other'
Stratfor head George Friedman on the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis
The famous American political scientist GEORGE FRIEDMAN has paid a visit to Moscow. The private intelligence and analytical agency Stratfor, which he heads, is often called the "shadow CIA" in the United States. In an interview with Kommersant, he described the US goals in Ukraine and explained why these goals are incompatible with Russia's interests.
- In your analytical works, you talk about the process of European fragmentation. What does it manifest itself in?
- During the Cold War, the borders within Europe were mothballed. It was understood that if you started to change them, it would lead to destabilization. As soon as the Cold War ended, the redrawing of Yugoslavia's borders began. Later, in fact, the borders in the Caucasus were changed. And more recently, 45% of Scots voted for independence. Catalans are striving for independence.
Against this background, I do not consider the Ukrainian situation (when one part of the country seeks closer ties with the EU, while the other gravitates towards Russia) as something completely unique. The Ukrainian situation fits into the centrifugal tendencies that we have been observing in Europe for some time now. After all, not so long ago no one thought that the British-Scottish issue, seemingly settled 300 years ago, would reappear with all its acuteness. In other words: the Ukrainian crisis is connected with Russia, but not only. It is also connected with the processes in Europe, with the crisis of Europe itself.
- European politicians say that it is Russia's actions in Ukraine that destabilize Europe.
- Europeans are very proud of what they call their "exceptionalism": supposedly they have gotten rid of wars and have been living in a world of stability and prosperity for more than half a century. But
until the early 1990s, Europe was essentially occupied by the USSR and the US. Then came Yugoslavia, then the Caucasus. The European continent was never truly peaceful.
- But representatives of the U.S. administration, as well as the leadership of the EU member states, explain their tough policy toward Russia by the fact that by annexing Crimea, Russia "redrew its borders by force" for the first time since World War II.
- Americans know this is nonsense. The first example of redrawing borders by force was Yugoslavia. And Kosovo was just the culmination of that process. And the US is directly involved in these events.
- What is the goal of the U.S. policy in the Ukrainian direction?
- The Americans have had a very consistent foreign policy for the last 100 years. Its main goal is to prevent any power from concentrating too much power in Europe.
First, the U.S. sought to prevent Germany from dominating Europe, then to prevent the USSR from strengthening its influence.
The essence of this policy is as follows: to maintain the balance of power in Europe as long as possible, helping the weaker side, and if the balance is about to be significantly disturbed - to intervene at the very last moment. This is how the U.S. intervened in World War I after the abdication of Nicholas II in 1917, preventing Germany from strengthening. And in World War II, the U.S. opened the second front only very late (in June 1944), after it became clear that the Russians were gaining the upper hand over the Germans.
At the same time, the U.S. considered a potential alliance between Russia and Germany to be the most dangerous. It would be an alliance of German technology and capital with Russian natural and human resources.
- Who do you think the U.S. is holding back now?
- Now they are engaged in blocking a number of potential regional hegemons - Serbia, Iran, Iraq. At the same time, the U.S. authorities resort to diversionary strikes. Say, in battle, when your opponent is about to defeat you, you can hit him in the side to throw him off balance.
The US is not looking to "defeat" Serbia, Iran or Iraq, but they need to create chaos there to prevent those from getting too strong.
- What tactics are they using against Russia?
- The fragmentation of Europe is accompanied by the weakening of NATO. In fact, European countries do not even have armies. The United States is the only militarily strong country within the North Atlantic Alliance. Against the backdrop of Europe's weakening, Russia's comparative power has grown substantially.
Russia's strategic imperative is to have as deep a buffer zone as possible on its western borders. That is why Russia has always given special treatment to Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltics and other Eastern European countries. They are of great importance to Russia's national security.
Earlier this year, Ukraine had a slightly pro-Russian but badly shaken government. It suited Moscow:
Russia does not want to completely control or occupy Ukraine - it is enough that Ukraine does not join NATO and the EU. The Russian authorities cannot allow a situation in which Western armed forces would be located a hundred kilometers from Kursk or Voronezh.
The US, on the other hand, was interested in forming a pro-Western government in Ukraine. They saw that Russia was on the rise and sought to prevent it from consolidating its position in the post-Soviet space. The success of pro-Western forces in Ukraine would help contain Russia.
Russia calls the events of the beginning of the year a U.S.-organized coup d'état. And it was indeed the most blatant coup d'état in history.
- Are you referring to the termination of the February 21 agreement or the entire Maidan?
- All together. The United States openly supported human rights groups in Ukraine, including with money. But the Russian security services missed these trends. They did not understand what was happening, and when they did, they were unable to take measures to stabilize the situation, and later misjudged the mood in eastern Ukraine.
- So the Ukrainian crisis is the result of the confrontation between Russia and the United States?
- Here you have two countries. One wants Ukraine to be neutral. And the other wants Ukraine to be part of the line of containment of Russian expansion. We cannot say that one of the parties is wrong: both are acting on the basis of their national interests. It's just that these interests are not comparable to each other.
For the Americans, as I have already said, it is important to prevent the emergence of a hegemon in Europe. And recently, they have become seriously concerned about Russia's potential and its intentions. Russia, on the other hand, has begun to move from the defense posture it has held since 1992 to rebuilding its sphere of influence. The point is the fundamental mismatch between the national interests of the two great powers.
- What in Russia's actions could have alerted the United States?
- Russia began to take certain steps that the U.S. found unacceptable. First of all, in Syria. There, the Russians demonstrated to the Americans that they are able to influence the processes in the Middle East. And the U.S. has enough problems in this region without the Russians.
The Russians intervened in the Middle East, among other things, because they hoped to gain a tool to influence U.S. policy in other areas. But they miscalculated. The U.S. considered it an attempt by Russia to harm them. It is in this context that the events in Ukraine should be viewed. The Russians apparently simply did not calculate how seriously the U.S. would take their actions or that they would easily find countermeasures. In the current situation, the U.S. looked at Russia and thought what it wants the least - instability in Ukraine.
- Do you see Ukraine as revenge for Syria?
- No, not revenge. But the Russians intervened in Syria while the U.S. was dealing with problems in Iraq, negotiating with Iran... Many in Washington had the impression that the Russians wanted to destabilize the already unstable U.S. position in the Middle East, a region of key importance to America.
There were two views in Washington: that the Russians were just fooling around, or that they had found a weakness in the U.S. and were trying to exploit it. I am not saying that Russia's intervention in the Syrian conflict caused the Ukrainian crisis, that would be a stretch. But that meddling has caused many in Washington to decide that the Russians are the problem. And in that case, what to do? Not confront them in the Middle East. Better to divert their attention to another problem in another region.
I'm simplifying things a bit, it's clear that it's more complicated than that, but the cause-and-effect relationship is like this.
The bottom line is that it is in the strategic interests of the United States to prevent Russia from becoming a hegemon. And it is in Russia's strategic interests to keep the United States away from its borders.
- And what, from your point of view, is the point of the U.S. sanctions? The Russian authorities say that the U.S. wants to achieve regime change.
- The purpose of the sanctions is to hurt Russia with minimal damage to the U.S. and somewhat more to the EU so that it capitulates to U.S. demands.
Sanctions demonstrate US power. And the US willingly uses that power against countries that have nothing to adequately respond to it. It is also an opportunity to "build up" the Europeans. I don't think the main goal of the US is regime change in Russia. The main goal was to limit the maneuvering space of the Russian authorities, which is what we are witnessing. But other factors have also played a role here, such as the decline in the Russian economy and the fall in the price of oil.
- In Russia, many people say that oil has fallen in price because of the U.S. conspiracy with the Persian Gulf countries.
- Trouble is always easier to explain by someone's deliberate actions. But a number of countries, including China, India and Brazil, have cut their economic growth forecasts. Europe has zero growth. But there is an oil revolution underway, and the amount of oil available is growing.
The fall in oil prices was imminent. What else did you expect? But you built your economic strategy not only on high oil prices, but on energy exports in general. This made you vulnerable! You should have used the last 10-15 years of high revenues from the sale of energy resources to diversify your economy, but your authorities did not do that.
- Should we expect an improvement in U.S.-Russian relations after the next U.S. presidential election?
- Russia over-personalizes American politics. In the US, the president is just one of the institutions of power, he is not all-powerful.
Obama is also bound hand and foot like his predecessors. If groups like the Islamic State are dramatically gaining ground in the Middle East, it doesn't matter whether the U.S. president is a Democrat or a Republican - he will have to strike at them.
And no American president can afford to sit idly by as Russia becomes more and more influential. Russia's actions in the Middle East and, for example, in the case of granting asylum to Edward Snowden, were perceived in the US as being against American interests. Any U.S. president would have had to react to that.
I predicted three years ago in one of my books that as soon as Russia started gaining strength and demonstrating it, there would be a crisis in Ukraine. That was obvious.
- How realistic do you consider Russia's rapprochement with China?
- China itself has a lot of problems right now - economic growth is shrinking, inflation and unemployment are high. We should not expect any gifts from Beijing. And the construction of a pipeline to China, on which the Russian authorities will have to spend substantial sums, is unlikely to have any tangible effect on the Russian economy.
- How do you see the further development of events around Ukraine?
- Russia will not make concessions on Crimea, that is obvious. But I believe that it may face serious problems with the peninsula's supplies. At the same time, Moscow cannot retreat from a number of its demands regarding Ukraine. It cannot allow Western military forces to appear on Ukrainian territory. This is Moscow's nightmare, and it limits its room for maneuver.
The U.S. will need to make a strategic decision, not now, but in the future: either to intervene more actively in Ukraine, which is fraught with difficulties,
or to build a new alliance - inside NATO or outside NATO - involving Poland, Romania, the Baltic states and, for example, Turkey. This is already happening, slowly, but it is happening. And it will be something Russia does not accept: a "sanitary cordon". It is not that the U.S. needs to control Ukraine itself; it is important to them that it is not controlled by Russia.
Much will depend on Kiev. The Kiev government is Ukraine's weak point. If it splits, which is surprisingly absent at the moment, Russia will try to turn it in its favor.
But the main question is whether Russia itself will be able to resist. It now faces many of the factors that led to the collapse of the USSR: the lack of an efficient transportation system; the skepticism of the capital in many regions from the Caucasus to the Far East; but most importantly, an economy that only functions under certain circumstances, namely high energy prices. You have only one product, and it is now in oversupply on the world market.
Interview by Elena Chernenko and Alexander Gabuev
