Restoration Watch # 10: Consolidation of Power by Primakov Marks the End of the Line for Reform in Russia
(Washington, D.C.): The elevation today of KGB alumnus Yevgeny
Primakov to the post of
Prime Minister of Russia means that the country’s experiment with democratic and free-market
reform is formally at an end. Such a step complements and consolidates Primakov’s
long-standing agenda of returning Russian external and security policies to their Soviet-era
antecedents. Anyone who tries to portray the erstwhile Foreign Minister’s ascendancy as
a
positive development — for either the Russian people or the West — is deluding themselves
and/or deceiving others.
A Man With Whom We Can Not Do Business
It is, nonetheless, predictable that Clinton Administration spokesmen like Strobe Talbott and
Madeleine Albright will begin touting Primakov as “a man with whom we can do business,” a
“widely respected professional” and as someone whose high standing with Communists,
nationalists and other xenophobes must be disregarded in the interest of promoting stability within
Russia and abroad. Perhaps we will even be told he likes Scotch whiskey and American jazz —
the gambit used by Primakov’s former boss in the KGB, Yuri Andropov — to allay concerns in the
West about the coming to power of an inveterate enemy of freedom.
At the very least, stand-by for fatuous untruths about Primakov’s help in promoting stability in
the
Middle East, Europe, the so-called “Near Abroad,” East Asia and the Western Hemisphere and
his “excellent cooperation” in thwarting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their
ballistic missile delivery systems via, among other things, the negotiation of various arms control
agreements. As the Center for Security has documented in over fifty papers dealing with new
Prime Minister and his malevolent “Primakov Doctrine,” the truth is very different: Reduced to
its essence, Primakov has pursued throughout his professional career a relentless effort
to
promote the Kremlin’s aspirations for hegemony by impeding, subverting or otherwise
adding to the costs of U.S. and/or its allies foreign and security policies. Consider, for
example, the following bill of particulars:
Regional Subversion
- Middle East
As one of the KGB’s career Mideast specialists, Primakov regards the region as a
lynchpin
of his strategy for reestablishing a Sovietesque empire.(2)
Under operatives like him,
Soviet/Russian policy has traditionally been aligned with Middle Eastern states who engage in
aggression and/or terrorism themselves — or that enable others to do so. Among other things, he
served as the KGB handler for such unsavory individuals as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez
Assad and Libya’s Moammar Quaddafi. (N.B. Thanks to his special relationship with Saddam,
Primakov earned notoriety in this country in 1991; on the eve of Desert Storm, he was dispatched
by Gorbachev to Baghdad in the hope of running diplomatic interference against the coming
U.S.-led assault.)(3) Primakov has also been party to the
KGB’s ongoing, covert involvement with
terrorist cells operating from and in the Mideast. Such assistance has included: the training,
arming, underwriting and logistical support for these groups and their state-sponsors.
Even more worrisome is the high priority the new Russian Prime Minister has placed on
restoring
and expanding Moscow’s relations with several of the region’s most egregious pariah states —
notably, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya.(4) In particular,
Primakov has sought to sabotage U.S. efforts
aimed at sanctioning or containing these dangerous actors.
- Europe
Primakov’s insidious hand can also be seen, for example, in the Russian campaigns: to
protect Slobodan Milosevic and thwart half-hearted Western efforts to prevent further Serbian
genocidal “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans(5); to stop — and,
failing that, to mutate beyond
recognition — eastward enlargement of NATO(6); and to
attack NATO’s soft underbelly via the
sale of S-300 surface-to-air missiles, whose deployment will be seen as a causus belli
for
Turkey.(7)
- The ‘Near Abroad’ and East Asia
In his previous capacities as head of the KGB successor organization, the Foreign
Intelligence Service (SVR), and as Foreign Minister, Primakov has devoted considerable energy
to reestablishing Moscow’s sovereignty over the so-called “Near Abroad” — from the genocide in
Chechnya; to attempted coups in Georgia(8) and
Azerbaijan(9); to using proxies like Armenia
destabilize those who dare to resist Russian attempts to control the region’s vast hydrocarbon
reserves and monopolize pipeline routes.(11) In this area,
as in so many others, Primakov has
taken the measure of U.S. fecklessness and bold rhetoric unmatched by will or power, and moved
to fill the vacuum with vintage Soviet-style brazenness and ruthlessness.
Primakov has also been an architect of the Kremlin’s periodic economic warfare initiatives
against
Ukraine and the Baltic States, aimed at bringing those former Soviet republics to heel on such
issues as foreign and defense policy, treatment of ethnic Russians, etc. Such behavior has only
served to intensify long-standing — and entirely legitimate — concerns in those countries and
elsewhere about Russian revanchism.
In both his KGB and Foreign Ministry capacities, Primakov has been instrumental in
fashioning
recent initiatives aimed at renewing close strategic ties with China. Indeed, as SVR head, he
signed the Russo-Chinese intelligence sharing agreement that served as the framework for much
of what has ensued in such areas as: extensive collaboration on military technology, the sale to
Beijing of sophisticated Soviet-era weapons, etc. This bilateral entente may have directly enabled
aggressive Chinese behavior in the Spratleys and toward Taiwan. At a minimum, the Chinese
Communists could only have been emboldened by the perception that such external assertiveness
would not be resisted by the Russians and protected by them.
Primakov has presided over Russia’s transfer of advanced air defense systems and other
military
equipment to North Korea — actions that could add greatly to the price the United States would
have to pay should it become necessary to destroy Pyongyang’s nuclear infrastructure. The
discovery of underground facilities and the test of the Taepo Dong 1 missile believed to be related
to the North’s nuclear weapons program adds to the risks associated with allowing it to continue
unchecked.
- Western Hemisphere
Primakov has been personally involved in the resurrection of Moscow’s Cold War ties
with
Fidel Castro’s regime — offering life-support that has, at the last minute, helped rescue the Cuban
Communists from terminal bankruptcy. In exchange, he has greatly expanded Russian intelligence
operations against the West, to the point of exceeding Cold War espionage levels against both
defense and commercial targets. The huge Soviet-era signals intelligence collection facility at
Lourdes, Cuba (subsidized by Moscow to the tune of $200 million per year) plays a critical role in
accomplishing this dual tasking.
Even more worrisome is Russia’s facilitating under Primakov of the construction of a fatally
flawed nuclear power complex near Juragua, Cuba. If allowed to be brought on line — something
the new Prime Minister and his fellow apparatchiks at the notorious Ministry of Atomic Energy
are determined to accomplish — there is a high probability that the two VVER-440 reactors will
emit a radioactive plume not unlike the Chernobyl catastrophe. Should that occur, according to
analyses by the General Accounting Office and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration, millions of Americans downwind from this facility could be exposed to dangerous
levels of radiation within days.(13)
Exacerbating Proliferation and Advancing Phony Arms Control
One particularly alarming upshot of the Primakov Doctrine described above has been the
powerful
contribution its author has made to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and
ballistic missile technology around the globe. Far from being a constructive partner in efforts to
control and prevent the transfers of WMD-relevant equipment, know-how and finished weapon
systems, he has assiduously undermined them. A classic case in point is the ongoing assistance
Russia is giving to Iran in acquiring nuclear reactors, whose byproducts are certain to find their
way into warheads to be borne by the newly introduced Shahab-3 — and even more capable
missiles that will shortly come on-line for use against U.S. forces and allies (notably Israel) in the
Middle East, Europe and, in due course, the United States, itself. He has also presided over the
systematic campaign of lies about missile technology transfers to Iran by the Russian Space
Agency (America’s partner in the International Space Station and recipient of hundreds of millions
of U.S. tax dollars in subsidies for its Mir program) and other official and quasi-official research
and design firms.
Primakov has pursued the Soviets’ practice of negotiating arms control agreements by which
they
do not intend to be bound, but from which they can extract strategic advantage. To name a few:
Russia is utterly ignoring its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and bilateral
U.S.-Russian agreements in this area; Primakov has mutated beyond recognition the START II
Treaty and advanced a grievously flawed START III accord; and he has secured new treaties that
will make it harder for the United States to deploy either effective theater or strategic missile
defenses even than was the case under the obsolete 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
On Primakov’s watch, meanwhile, Russia has moved forward with efforts to modernize its
strategic arsenal, to build multi-billion dollar, deeply buried underground bunkers apparently
designed to survive a nuclear war, and conducted exercises in which nuclear attacks on the United
States were simulated. He has even presided over the diversion of funds from U.S. and
multilateral organizations provided for disarmament and economic support to the Yeltsin regime
— at the very least by dint of the fungibility of money — to help underwrite these portentous
activities.(14)
No Better News on the Economic Front
If the foregoing record were not enough to disabuse those Americans and others who have
held
out hope that a real, constructive transformation of Russia might yet eventuate, consider this:
Yevgeny Primakov lacks virtually any business or economic experience and is
ill-equipped
to deal with Russia’s death-spiraling financial crisis. As a result, it is predictable that he
will
be obliged to take counsel from his comrades among the Communists and his fellow apparatchiks
who have emerged as kleptocratic oligarchs. This reality can only accelerate the roll-back already
underway with respect to the vestiges of democratic pluralism and free market
institution-building.
To be sure, Primakov can be relied upon to talk the talk of reform — notably, by promising to
tie
the ruble to gold and/or the U.S. dollar and establishing a currency board. We can count,
however, on his putting the Finance Ministry’s printing presses to work around-the -clock the
moment he takes office. This will, of course, precipitate hyper-inflationary trends and potentially
Weimar-style political, as well as economic, instability.
Primakov may also undertake some (or all) of the following anti-reform (or what he calls
“anti-crisis”) measures: the re-nationalization of so-called “strategic industries”; some form of
price
controls on “socially important goods”; the payment of wage and pension arrearages with
increasingly valueless rubles; unworkable state guarantees of citizens’ bank deposits and the
recapitalization of failing banks owned by Russia’s robber-bankers; preserving natural resource
monopolies like Gazprom; the gutting of IMF-mandated budget deficit-reduction targets; and
unimproved tax collection practices, compounded by the burgeoning barter-domination of
Russia’s economic life (now comprising over 50% of all transactions in the country).
The Bottom Line
In short, Primakov will try to get the West to ignore all of the above while providing the
$30-50
billion he will want to secure in new Western taxpayer cash infusions, ostensibly to bolster
Russian hard currency reserves and “stabilize” the ruble. The G-7 and the international financial
organizations it dominates (especially the IMF) must not permit the continued operation of a
“firewall” between decisions bearing on Western assistance and Primakov’s pursuit of a doctrine
incompatible with his donors’ vital long-term security interests.
decision-makers will not only bear considerable responsibility for the disaster that will emerge in
Russia from Yevgeny Primakov’s tenure; they — though not the people they represent — will
deserve what befalls them.
– 30 –
1. Restoration Watch is a series of Center for
Security Policy Decision Briefs that — together
with an earlier series entitled Transformation Watch — has chronicled
important developments
in the rise and fall of pro-Western, democratic forces in the former Soviet Union. To obtain
previous papers in these series, contact the Center.
2. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Of Delusions and ‘The Deluge’: Genesis of the
‘Summit with Terrorists’, Roots of a Failed Foreign Policy (
3. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Restoration Watch # 7: Primakov’s Promotion
Marks Major Step on the Road ‘Back to the USSR’ (
4. See Clinton Legacy Watch # 11: Dangerous
Absurdities on Iraq (No. 97-D 176, 24
November 1997), Clinton Legacy Watch # 10: Administration Ineptitude,
Appeasement
Saddam, Primakov Back in Driver’s Seat (No.
97-D 173, 20 November 1997), ‘Iraqi
Roulette’: Dodging A Bullet Must Not Be Confused With Ending The Threat Posed By
Saddam (No. 97-D 171, 17 November
1997) and Unfinished Business: Christopher, Perry
Depart But Saddam Abides — Will ‘Clinton II’ Finally Put Him Out of Business?
(No. 96-T
111, 8 November 1996).
5. See Clinton Legacy Watch # 26: The
‘Feckless-izing’ of U.S. Security Policy (No. 98-D
112, 16 June 1998), Glaspie Redux in the Balkans: As With Saddam,
Appeasing — Rather
than Resisting — Milosevic is a Formula for Wider War (
Congress Should Say ‘Nyet’ to Either U.S. or Russian Ground Forces as Bosnian
Peacekeepers (No. 95-D 69, 29 September
1995).
6. Particularly noteworthy was Primakov’s success in negotiating in
1997 the joint NATO-Russian Federations “Founding Act on Mutual Relations” — a document
that read like a Soviet-era accord. As drafted, it transforms a free-standing military
alliance of democratic states to a
“Euro-Atlantic” community with which Russia becomes an “equal partner” in political as well as
security matters. The tone is set with the pledge by the two parties to pursue “to the maximum
extent possible, where appropriate…joint decisions and joint action with respect to security issues
of common concern.” See Primakov Watch: Destroying NATO From
Within (No. 98-D 14, 22
January 1998) and ‘Founding Act’ Or ‘Final Act’ For NATO? (
7. Primakov also reportedly intends to sell the S-300 to Egypt, a
development that may precipitate
a new conflict with Israel.
8. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Caspian Watch # 10: Russia Makes Its Move In
Yeltsin’s ‘Pipeline War’ (No. 98-D 28, 12 February
1998).
9. See Caspian Watch # 9: Emboldened By Iraq
‘Victory,’ Russia Intensifies Effort To
Undermine Azerbaijan (No. 97-D 180, 26
November 1997).
10. See Caspian Watch # 11: U.S. Interests
Jeopardized As Moscow’s Man in Armenia and
Armenia’s Man in the Kremlin Prevail (No. 98-D 56,
31 March 1998) and Meltdown in
Armenia Demands Reassessment, Redirection of U.S. Policy in The Caspian
Basin (No. 96-C
94, 1 October 1996).
11. See Caspian Watch # 8: ‘Silk Road’ Legislation
Opens New Opportunities For U.S.
Strategic, Commercial Interests In The Caspian Basin (
Caspian Watch # 4: House-Senate Conference Must Strike Proper Balance For
American
Interests (No. 96-D 85, 17 September 1996)
and Caspian Watch: Russian Power-plays on
‘Early Oil’ Hallmark of Kremlin Expansionism Past — and Future? (
1995).
12. See Clinton’s Political Fundraising for Yeltsin
Will Entail High Costs for U.S. Taxpayers
— and Interests (No. 96-D 12, 9 February
1996).
13. See Secretary Cohen, Casey Institute Symposia
Agree: Castro’s Cuba Remains an
Asymmetric Threat (No. 98-R 80, 7 May 1998) and
Castro’s Cuba: A Classic ‘Asymmetric’
Threat (No. 98-C 59, 3 April 1998).
14. As Expected, Russia Gets a Bail-Out — But It
Won’t Get Moscow Through Next Year, or
Protect U.S. Security Interests (No. 98-C 128, 13
July 1998).
15. In this regard, see the Casey Institute’s Press
Release entitled President Clinton Should
Heed Security-Minded Advice, Not Strobe Talbott’s (
two 28 August Wall Street Journal editorials, entitled “Don’t Bail Out a Belligerent
Russia” (U.S.
edition) and “Abandon the Unsustainable Firewall” (European edition), authored by the William J.
Casey Chair Roger W. Robinson, Jr. Also see the 3 September New York Post lead
editorial
entitled “Don’t Sing Duets With Primakov.”
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