RESTORATION WATCH #7: PRIMAKOV’S PROMOTION MARKS MAJOR STEP ON THE ROAD ‘BACK TO THE USSR’⁽¹⁾

(Washington, D.C.): The appointment of Yevgeny
Primakov as Russia’s Foreign Minister yesterday marks
perhaps the most ominous transfer of power in Moscow
since Yuri Andropov became General Secretary of the
Soviet Communist Party in 1982. This is not only because,
like Andropov, Primakov has had powerful links to the KGB
throughout his career. It is also due to the fact that
the new Foreign Minister may be as cunning, ruthless and
unwavering as the former General Secretary in his service
to totalitarian imperialism. And, possibly most alarming
of all, there is a strong possibility that Western
governments will once again try to construe the new power
in the Kremlin as a “man with whom we can do
business.”

The Primakov Agenda

In fact, Yevgeny Primakov is a man as committed to
restoring the Soviet Union (or at least its key
components) as Yuri Andropov was to preserving it. Toward
this end, he will seek to reestablish Moscow’s control
over the “Near Abroad,” notably the Caucasus
and Central Asia. He will also continue the process of
building or reinvigorating Soviet-style strategic
partnerships with the most dangerous nations in the
world.

The following areas already are the object of
Primakov’s malevolent attentions — or shortly will be:

• The ‘Near Abroad’: Primakov has been
  intimately involved in Russian efforts to bring
  Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and other southern
  republics of the former Soviet Union back into
  Moscow’s orbit. Toward this end, Russia has,
  during his tenure as chief of the Foreign
  Intelligence Service (SVR), employed such tools
  as blackmail, physical coercion, assassination,
  political insurgency and selective use of more
  widespread deadly force.

An example of the last of these is the brutal
conflict in Chechnya. The Kremlin’s Chechen
campaign is being conducted, in large measure, as
a lesson to those outside Russia concerning
Moscow’s determination to reestablish its
preeminence in controlling the vast oil reserves
of the Caspian Sea. The larger objective,
however, appears to be the basic reconstitution
of the Soviet Union itself.

• The Middle East: As a Mideast specialist,
  Primakov regards the region as a lynchpin of his
  strategy for reestablishing a Sovietesque empire.
  He has already forged an ominous “strategic
  partnership” with Iran. This marriage
  of convenience appears designed to abet Tehran’s
  campaign to acquire nuclear arms, other weapons
  of mass destruction and long- range ballistic
  missile delivery systems in exchange for Iran’s
  cooperation on priority Kremlin agenda items
  (e.g., crushing Azerbaijan’s current leadership
  in order to restore Moscow’s sway over the
  Caspian Sea region and securing for Russia warm
  water ports in the Persian Gulf).

Primakov
has also been one of Iraq‘s staunchest
friends. He personally traveled to Baghdad
immediately prior to the start of Operation
Desert Storm’s ground campaign in the hope of
derailing the impending U.S.-led attack. Although
he failed in that mission, Primakov nonetheless
succeeded in his subsequent bid to ensure that
the Western coalition did not liquidate Saddam
Hussein at the Gulf War’s conclusion. And ever
since, he has been a prime-mover in the effort to
end U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq, even as
Russia has supplied advanced missile guidance
technology and other military-related materiel to
Saddam in direct contravention of those and other
sanctions.

Primakov has also sought to revitalize the
close ties Moscow enjoyed during the Soviet era
with allies like Syria, Libya and
the PLO. Toward this end, he may well demand
that the precedent established in Bosnia —
namely, placing Russian troops beside American
ones in multinational peacekeeping operations —
must apply to the treaty-monitoring deployment on
the Golan Heights formally proposed this week by
U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry. Such a step
would greatly exacerbate the problematic nature
of such a deployment.⁽²⁾
It would also provide a pretext for a Russian
military presence in the Middle East and a rubric
for renewed Russo-Syrian military ties. Given
Primakov’s handling of the Iranian account, his
cooperation with Damascus could well extend to
covert collaboration on Syria’s large weapons of
mass destruction program.

Russian intelligence under Primakov also
appears to be playing a part in encouraging
Iranian and Sudanese support for Islamic
fundamentalists bent on toppling pro-Western
regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Unfortunately, the instability that may arise
from the recent transfer of power in the Saudi
kingdom and the Egyptian and Turkish elections
could create dangerous new openings for
Primakov’s machinations in these nations.

• Asia: As head of the Russian foreign
  intelligence service, Primakov has been
  instrumental in fashioning recent initiatives
  aimed at renewing close strategic ties with China.
  Manifestations of these ties include: extensive
  collaboration on military technology, the sale to
  Beijing of sophisticated Soviet-era weapons,
  intelligence-sharing, etc. The recent
  Sino-Russian entente may have directly encouraged
  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 Moscow.

Primakov is believed to have been a
prime-mover behind Russia’s efforts to insinuate
itself into the U.S.-brokered deal to provide North
Korea with new, light water reactors. Moscow
may yet get a piece of this multi-billion dollar
construction effort. At the very least, Primakov
has successfully seized upon this precedent to
justify the Kremlin’s own, even more problematic
nuclear cooperation with Iran. Meanwhile, there
are continuing reports that Yeltsin’s Russia has
supplied 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 West: Primakov has made little secret
  of his reflexive antipathy toward the United
  States and its Western allies. 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
  continues under Primakov to play a critical role
  in accomplishing this dual tasking.

Primakov has also worked assiduously to
derail NATO’s eastward expansion. Perhaps as a
hedge against a failure on this score, he has
exploited Moscow’s historical and continuing
close relations with alumni of “fraternal
socialist organizations” such as the East
European intelligence services and (erstwhile)
communist parties. Primakov’s hope may be that —
thanks to the growing influence of these forces
in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic —
Russia may be able to turn NATO expansion into
the ultimate undoing of the Atlantic Alliance by
dint of the attendant assimilation of deadly
“Trojan Horses” under Moscow’s
influence or control.

‘He likes Scotch Whiskey and Jazz…’

At least as worrisome as Yevgeny Primakov’s
agenda is the prospect that the chances for its success
will be advanced by American officials prone to construe
its author as merely a tough but pragmatic Russian
leader. Yuri Andropov underwent a similar, astounding
transformation when that long-time, ruthless head of the
Soviet Union’s espionage and secret police operations was
portrayed as a man who preferred Western suits, drank
Scotch and listened to jazz music. It was said that he
must, therefore, be a promising interlocutor for
detente-minded leaders in Washington and other allied
capitals.

Today’s New York Times already suggests the
coming Pollyanish assessment of the new Russian Foreign
Minister: “In Washington, [Primakov] will
undoubtedly appear less forthcoming and collegial than
his immediate predecessor [Andrei Kozyrev]. But his
steady demeanor and solid ties to the Kremlin should at
least help clarify Russian-American relations.”
(Emphasis added.) For its part, the Washington Post
reports today that Primakov is a “pragmatist”
who is “neither friendly nor hostile to the
West” and who has admitted a “fondness for John
Le Carré novels.”

Indeed, it is predictable that unreconstructed
Sovietophiles like Strobe Talbott will shortly begin
touting Primakov as a man whose high standing with
communists, nationalists and other xenophobes is critical
to preserving Boris Yeltsin’s “reform” program.
It will be said that he is indispensable as a man who
understands the texture of contemporary Russian politics
and who is capable of tailoring U.S.-Russian relations in
such a way as to insulate them from adverse pressures in
Moscow. In this regard, Primakov will be lauded for his
excellent “cooperation” on thwarting the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, his curbing
of global crime, his fighting international terrorism and
promoting arms control agreements — hard evidence to
the contrary notwithstanding.

The Bottom Line

The truth is, of course, that Yevgeny Primakov is a
shrewd, archetypal Soviet thug and one of the most
insidiously dangerous men on earth. He can be expected to
try to advance his imperial objectives at the expense of
the United States and its strategic interests. He will
also likely work closely with his natural allies in this
cause — the despotic leaders of the world’s rogue
nations, many of whom have been his friends and/or
clients for years.

It would be an even more serious mistake now to
regard as a reliable partner for U.S. diplomacy a man
like Yevgeny Primakov who is bent on reconstructing the
Soviet Union than it was for George Shultz and James
Baker to see then-Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze as other than an agent for preserving the
USSR. The only way to “do business with” a man
like Primakov is to help him do his business,
something the United States has no business doing.

The ascension of Primakov to the position of
Russian Foreign Minister should be a cause for wholesale
reexamination of the most fundamental tenets of Clinton
policy toward Russia. It should be taken as concrete
proof that Boris Yeltsin has lost whatever claim he once
had to being the best hope for democratic, pro-Western
change in Russia. The United States can no longer afford
to indulge policies inimical to its interests — policies
Primakov has done much to shape over the years — simply
on the grounds that Yeltsin must be supported at all
costs. If President Clinton cannot contemplate such a
course correction, he must be directed to make it by the
Congress.

(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) For a comprehensive, critical
analysis of the prospective Golan deployment, see the
Center for Security Policy’s href=”../studies/golan94.html”>blue-ribbon study
entitled, U.S. Forces on the Golan Heights: An
Assessment of Benefits and Costs.