Is the offer to support Afghanistan by Russia a problem to the USA?

Is the offer to support Afghanistan by Russia a problem to the USA?


Is the offer to support Afghanistan by Russia a problem to the USA?

On 2-4 April, 2008 in Bucurest in Romania Vladimir Putin will take part in a NATO summit. It will be the first such conference with Russia as a participant. NATO is going to put off – at least for a year – the issue of accepting the Ukraine and Georgia as its members. It might be a turning point in the relations between NATO and Russia. It will be possible if Russia will actually offer its participation in the peace-making process in Afghanistan. Besides, a meeting of the Ministers of Defense of Russia and the USA in Moscow is coming – the meeting proposed by Dimitrij Rogozin, the Russian ambassador with NATO.

To start with, the thing is about allowing to pass through Russia some ‘non-military shipments’ for NATO as a token of Russian support for NATO’s fight against Talibans and Al-Queida as well as their effort to re-build Afghanistan. Russia offers an access to that country via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Putin has mentioned that possibility while talking to Angela Merkel and has pointed out that Afghanistan is ‘far away from the borders of NATO’; he has also criticized the expansion of NATO towards the east as well as the American attempts to vest to NATO some functions designed for the UN.

So, Russia may help NATO but only as an equal partner and a representative of the pact with the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and with China.

Russia does not recognize NATO’s monopoly imposed by the USA in Afghanistan, and is trying to make use of the difficulties which the USA is meeting in Pakistan, currently undergoing a shift towards leftist ruling by the party of Pashtuns. The Pashtuns support peace-making talks with the Talibans and do not want to take part in ‘the war against terrorism’; instead, they want to negotiate with Russia and China.

Thus, Russia’s offer to help is attractive to the European members of the NATO treaty who look apprehensively at the prolonging process of peace-making in Afghanistan, where they are threatened by a defeat. Some Western analysts assess that it takes half a million of troops to stabilize the mountainous Afghanistan.

The Russian ambassador with the UN, Vitalij Czurkin, proposed NATO a cooperation of Russia and its allies in the fight against drug trading and smuggling from Afghanistan. The USA does not want such a cooperation, especially with the Cooperation Organization from Shanghai, in which Russian and Chinese are official languages.

The global strategy of the USA does not want an agreement with the Russian-Chinese alliance; on the contrary, they want to use NATO as a political organization against Russia and China. The USA is defending its control over NATO in the XXI century.

France and Germany support good relationship between Russia and the European Union. Recently in Berlin Mrs Merkel has said to the German top military commanders – and in the presence of NATO’s chief commander General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer – that she is against the expansion of NATO over the Ukraine and Georgia, especially before the NATO summit in Bucurest because ‘the countries entangled in regional and internal conflicts cannot be accepted to NATO when there is no unanimity and full support as to it within them.’ As for now Germany actually are blocking the Ukraine’s and Georgia’s access to NATO and act according to the will of Russia.

In the face of Putin’s offer of Russia’s cooperation with NATO in stabilizing Afghanistan it is difficult for the USA to reject that offer, considering American difficulties in Pakistan and in Europe. In the meantime the USA is facing a serious economic crisis and the rising price of fuel, from which Russia is benefiting.

It is not easy for the USA to impose their will on NATO when Russia’s daily fuel export exceeds 1 billion dollars. A standard barrel of crude oil from Ural has exceeded 100 US dollars and is now reaching $110, while the calculation of the Russian budget is based on the price of $65 for a barrel, which strengthens the position of Russia even more.

In the times when Putin was taking over the power, one barrel of oil cost 9 dollars. Due to the rise of demand from China and India as well as the warfare in Iraq, the oil process have drastically gone up. It is possible that – thanks to Putin’s clever policy – Russia will organize a cartel for distribution of petroleum gas from Central Asia. It may be successful despite the neo-conservatist policy of Bush’s government. Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are planning to sell fuel for the euro not for dollars starting from 2009.

Non-dollar fuel exchange in Teheran is ready for such transactions by now. Meanwhile the exchange rate of the euro exceeded a dollar and a half long ago. And so far the end of the depreciation of the dollar is not to be seen.

The cartel for sale of petroleum gas will strengthen the economic bonds between Russia and Central Asia and will allow Russia to coordinate the strategy of the sale of fuel on the world market, which has a huge importance for such importers as the USA and the European Union. Especially that Russia has managed to block the American project of trans-Caspian pipeline.

At the moment the Russian offer to cooperate with NATO in the stabilizing mission in Afghanistan is hard to reject. It came at the time when the peace-making in Afghanistan by NATO is not going well, and it is logical that France and Germany will want to use that offer.

The political difficulties in Pakistan are strengthening the position of Russia and help in her ambition to become a geo-political partner for the European Union, with Russian participation in the alliance with China and ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia at the same time. Now the Russian help would diminish difficulties in providing supplies to Afghanistan which occurred due to political unrest in Pakistan.

A NATO summit to be held in Bucurest at the beginning of April is coming. We will see if Putin will manage to get approval for his offer. In that way Russia might become the most important global partner for NATO and conveniently stabilize the position of Russia in Europe. It may happen simultaneously with Putin’s arrival at Bucurest to celebrate NATO’s 60th anniversary and to finish up his term as a President of Russia.


By Prof. Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski

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