Leonid Ivashov: Both the West and East Need Russia

Neither Obama nor Romney nor anyone else is going to halt the deployment of the European missile shield, according to politician, historian and reserve Gen. Ivashov. His statement was in response to the comments of Patrick O’Brien, chief of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. O’Brien recently testified before Congress that the U.S. will conduct the most high-powered tests of the missile defense system to date. In an exclusive interview with Voice of Russia, Ivashov touched on many pressing issues concerning Russia’s foreign policy and national defense.

“What is modern Europe? It is a satellite of the United States and the global financial order, standing on its knees. A few years ago there were powerful figures in European politics — people like Jacques Chirac or Schroeder or Kohl. Now, there’s nobody like that. The Americans have installed their own weakling proteges as European leaders, and they’ve taken control of Europe. When you ask the average European politician or general, ‘What do you think is the purpose of the missile defense system, and do you believe that Iran is planning to attack you?’ they know the answer perfectly well. They know that Iran only wants entry into Europe, into European markets, access to technology. They don’t actually believe in the American version of events, but they throw up their hands, since they can’t actually affect the situation.”

“Nowadays European independence basically consists of the right to (with American permission) hold football matches and use their own players on their national teams. That’s the whole extent of their self-governance. It’s no longer useful to talk with them, no longer useful to talk with the Americans about anti-missile defense. Neither Obama nor Romney nor anybody else is going to halt the deployment of the missile system. [Bill] Clinton originally started to withdraw from the agreement on missile defense, George W. Bush continued to broach it and now Obama is finishing their work. They’ve spent huge sums of money — hundreds of billions of dollars — and this money keeps whole corporations working. This is one of the programs of economic reconstruction to shift the U.S. toward an industrial footing, and no one is going to stop the European missile shield. Doing so would cause big problems for any American government. We don’t need to talk with the Americans or the Europeans; we need to talk with our own defense-industrial people, with our military establishment. We certainly need to talk with the Chinese, since they are very interested in the opportunity to neutralize NATO. For example, this could be done with an agreement wherein if one of our countries is attacked, we’ll jointly respond, work together to kick things off. This would be pretty serious.”

Leonid Grigorievich, enormous sums of money are currently being spent on the development of defense systems. Please tell us, what is the current condition of our own national defense industry?

Someone in power has finally realized that we don’t have any counterpart in Western civilization, that we’re an entirely different civilization. The West milks us, robs us and isn’t going to approach us in any other way. On the other hand, it’s obvious that if you look at a map — here is Russia, here is Europe — that integration into Europe is going to be wild. How will Russia enter Europe? Europe could fit into Russia, but Russia can’t fit into Europe. And of course, there’s an awareness of the threats, not only to the government, but also to the thousands, millions, billions of dollars of assets we’ve earned through unbelievable labor. All these factors have led to the realization that we need to defend our financial capital and Russia, itself. We have returned to the formula of Alexander III — the only allies Russia has are its army and its navy. But to actually achieve this in the modern day will be very complex. During the years of privatization and reform we listened to the Americans’ fairy tales and destroyed many of our unique enterprises, especially those that had back-ups. For example, we produced tanks in Omsk and in Nizhniy Tagil, but also in Ukraine. These unique industries were among the first to be destroyed.

Getting our military to a new technological level is going to be very difficult. Practically all the schools for preparing military construction brigades have been destroyed. The system of advanced research and development institutes where military technology is developed has been destroyed. The network of construction bureaus, all the experienced defense-industrial companies, and many others — all destroyed. We need to actively work on what’s left — the things that survived the Chubais reforms — and continue to develop this system. Only then will we be able to provide our army with modern weapons.

Lately there have been many discussions surrounding the government’s defense procurement and acquisition. Why do you think the government’s programs have been, year in and year out, so ineffective?

The leadership of the country thinks that the prices of defense procurement and acquisition are too high. This doesn’t mean that the defense-industry people have artificially raised prices. It’s because of the universal corruption that developed during the reform years and because of the round-about nature of our defense procurement. In the past it went like this: You had the military, and in the military you had a department that organized missile forces, artillery, engineer brigades, etc. This department had a research and development sub-division, which served as the purchaser of weapons. The department worked jointly with universities, with construction bureaus, with defense-industry organizations and made direct agreements with them. They didn’t haggle about prices because there were standards.

Today, a lot has gone into making sure that departments of the military don’t contact the defense industry. They say, “Oh, it’s not your responsibility, work through intermediaries. There’s one middleman and then another, give him the order, they’ll take care of it for you.” Every middleman adds something to the price. And, as the chief of military procurement has said, every fourth ruble assigned from the budget to the Ministry of Defense is stolen. That is, a fourth of the budget devoted to weapons purchases is simply gobbled up by corruption. Prices rise as a result and it’s not the military-industrial companies fault. Vladimir Putin had a good phrase in a pre-election article about national defense: Corruption in the defense sphere needs to be seen as betrayal of the motherland. We need to put this into our criminal law and take a tougher approach.

India recently tested their Agni-5 ballistic missile. Indian authorities have stated that they now can strike major Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Do you think China has a reason to be worried?

India fears China, but China shouldn’t fear India. China has certain territorial and civilization-based aspirations for the leadership of Asia. India’s successes help balance and contain China’s efforts. There is no threat to anyone. It’s quite the opposite; testing missiles with a range of 5,000 kilometers balances an uncertain security situation.

The approach here is not an arms race but, rather, recognition of the fact that an alternate path of human development is needed, one that differs from the Western way. There is a whole bloc of naval powers with their own values and anti-values, with their own aggressive plans for expansion and global power. We should create an answer to them by creating a different bloc, one that would resemble the developing Shanghai Cooperation Organization. We should certainly include Russia, China, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and so on. On a lower level there will be the bloc that Putin has named the Eurasian Union. It will combine the various post-Soviet countries into a coalition and then form them into a union not of governments, but of nations. Kind of a return to the Soviet system, but in a different form.

Of course, the process of changing our own Russia is very important. Leaving the Western course of development that we’ve been following, renewing Russia on new principles of power and on a new organization of the economy and social sphere, creating a Eurasian Union with post-Soviet countries that are united into a single continental bloc. There is a balance of power in this approach, in our internal security and, of course, in our security from Western aggression.

NATO has asked Russia to provide financial help to the Afghan army. Should Russia do so?

The modern role of Russia, the one that Western society assigned, has changed. We remember the beginning of the ‘90s, when people were saying that Russia was not a partner, but a client. That the future world will be built on the carcass of Russia, on Russia’s bill, against Russia. Now we see, once again, opposition along the axis of East-West: On one end, the West (headed by the U.S.) and the East on the other end (headed by China. Both sides need Russia. If the West is in a battle with the East, no one wants to expose themselves to the attack of Chinese rockets or from the Chinese diaspora in these countries. They want to give Russia a push and hope we cooperate in financing Afghanistan.

I categorically oppose our involvement in this, because we don’t understand and won’t see the inner workings of this process. The Americans will leave and the Taliban will most likely return. The Taliban will take us to be an American ally since we helped supply their troops. This means that we will be an enemy of the Taliban. We will be an enemy of Pakistan and China because they have blocked off the southern supply route to Afghanistan. We absolutely cannot participate in something with unclear outcomes.

We need to remember a certain historical moment. When we left Afghanistan, the Americans stabbed us in the back. They armed, financed and trained the mujahedeen against us, intending to cause us damage. Even if we just considered this, I wouldn’t hurry to rush into Afghanistan. We need to discuss the problem of Afghanistan in the confines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and invite India, Iran and (of course) Pakistan for discussion. Only here, on the regional level, should we decide how to act toward Afghanistan.

A delegation from the Syrian opposition met with Russian politicians. Bashar Assad and the Iranian leadership are not happy about these negotiations. Are we risking ruining our relations with them?

We always need to be friends with Syria for geopolitical reasons. Right now we don’t have any point of support in the Middle East. The regime of Bashar Assad is friendly and allied to us, just like his father. We are obligated to support him, especially since it’s not a dictatorship. Yes, it is authoritarian, just like any other Arab government. But Bashar Assad has instituted a big program of transformation, so we should work with the opposition, steer them away from demanding, “Down with Assad!” and lead them toward a discussion of reforms.

It’s possible that our diplomats and politicians have tried to do this. But it’s most important to make it clear to the opposition (which is certainly not unified) that we never will support, and always will oppose, armed foreign interference in their country — we will even directly oppose it — and that they need to deal with their problems through democratic evolution. Change the constitution, discuss how to reform the whole political system of Syria, but do all of this peacefully, without attracting foreign militaries inside the country. We need to show the opposition that we are for reforms, but not through the methods they’ve used. The work of Russian diplomats and their decisive co-action with China has allowed us to cut off the opposition’s radical head and to talk with the more reasonable opposition members. Our next step should be to get these constructive opposition leaders to talk with the current regime and support them all the way.

The Turks are not happy about our diplomats meeting with the opposition, nor are the Iranians. Iran wants to preserve their influence in Syria by keeping the Assad regime around. The Turks want a pro-Turkish regime, the Americans a pro-American regime and so on. And of course we are interested in making sure Syria will always be friendly toward us.