Category Archives: Energy Security

The Long Telegram: Ukraine, the Last Nail

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byVice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (Published in the IIRF Strategic Year Book 2024)

An Expiatory Offering

Stian Jenssen, director at NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s private office, stated that one solution to the on-going war could be “Land for Nato membership and peace”. Has the strategy of ‘Containment’, a lodestone dogma from the cold-war run its course and has the very ideology of a cordon sanitaire, to contain an expansionist Russia been put to rest?

 Jenssen is a senior figure who has worked at NATO for over a decade and rarely speaks in public. Jenssen, however, the next day appeared to backtrack on his comments. He said his statement was part of a broader discussion and, not very convincingly added, “it was a mistake.” It will be recalled that Stoltenberg at the NATO Summit on July 2023 said that Ukraine would be invited to join the alliance; remaining vague on how or when. President Biden, however, had been far more categorical when he earlier declared that Ukraine was not ready for NATO membership.  But was there a sense of remorse in the changed strategic direction that the proxy war in Ukraine was taking? Had Jenssen touched a true chord in the larger plans of the West?

Keenan’s ‘Long Telegram’

            In 1946 Mr George Keenan, the then American Charge d’Affaires in Moscow, responding to a query from Washington who were perplexed by the USSR’s obdurate approach to proposals that were to be the foundation of the post-war world order, had enquired “why the Soviet Union was opposed to the newly formed World Bank and International Monetary Fund.” Keenan, in a cable famously called the “Long Telegram” outlined, from a questionable perspective (it must be said), strategic motivations of the Soviet Union. His 5000 word narrative over-simplified a picture of an insecure State obsessed with the idea of expansionism and impervious to reason. He urged leadership to adopt a foreign policy the main element of which sought to belligerently “contain” Soviet imperialistic tendencies; almost as if it were pandering to a need to invent a new enemy to replace the Nazis. As we attempt to verify whether the Telegram lay at the core of the West’s policy and try and excavate some sane logic to its centrality one is up “against it” for the innermost chambers that are expected to hold secrets of that time are… bare. (John le Carre).

Containment provided an aggressive ideological framework to a strategic policy strapped administration that saw military power and mass destruction as the only arbiter to a war drained world. History today tells us, it led to a series of conflicts, near nuclear catastrophes, deliberate twisting of political narratives, disastrous WMD stockpiling and bizarre ‘witch hunts’ targeting left leaning polity.

This dogma conceived in 1947, continues in essence, into this millennium. The policy has been varyingly called a master stroke that sealed factional diplomacy; a strategic monstrosity blind to the complexity of geopolitics; a perverted belief that was to climax with the spread of capitalism, slanted democracy and free markets (Fukuyama). Much of its appeal was driven by creating manipulable elites in states of interest, fear, enticement and the inability to discern reality. Rather, ‘Containment’ gave the world, a self-extolling prophecy of morality and leadership; a curious sense that frustrating the spread of communism was an interest above all else; nurturing and militarily arming an array of pliant puppet states irrespective of their dictatorial and often tyrannical outlook; sponsoring of surrogate conflicts that split the world into persistent warring camps; subversion of legitimate governments and lastly regime changes in unyielding states. Its long-term fallout was the distortion of democracy on the altar of anti-communism.

Is the looming lack of success in the Ukraine proxy-war the last nail in the moribund policy of Containment?

The Last Nail

By oversimplifying the world into categories defined largely by ideology (and in later years) by culture and religion and declaring them inevitably hostile to one another (Huntington) Containment established an intellectual template for what began as an ideological siege which in recent years has transmuted to a civilizational one.

Clearly the development of social and political history of man cannot be so easily pigeon holed. Nations follow their own path of socio-economic development and pursue different forms of wealth generation, equitability, concepts of security and sovereignty; some of these are indeed at odds with the norm, yet it does not make a case for intervention unless such anomalies spill over borders in armed clashes. As the concept of Jus Ad Bellum (Just War)  suggests the war must have: just cause, being a last resort, being declared by a proper authority, possessing right intention, having a reasonable chance of success, and the end being proportional to the means used. When seen against this backdrop, it beggars belief to assume that powers of the day will readily embrace all aspects of a western-led international order. It seems more likely that rising powers will want to shape a global order that is inclusive of their own values and find place for their political agendas. It is this transformation that has provided the hammer to drive the last nail into Keenan’s telegram.

The Jenssen Testimonial in Retrospect; the Nuclear Factor  

There are several underlying issues that may have actuated Mr Jenssen’s testimonial; after all the statement was made and it was in the air extant and plausible before it was rescinded. So what triggered this account? While  there are several reasons, which include the all-round economic burden that the conflict has imposed and the consequent fatigue that has set in, the growing disaffection amongst a populace unwilling to cover the cost and perhaps most importantly the real dangers of the proxy war escalating and the EU being hauled into a catastrophic war. But chief amongst these is the inexorable push towards a nuclear calamity.

The breakdown of existing strategic nuclear checks and control regimes that have evolved over the last more than half-a-century between U.S. and Soviet/Russian leadership is perhaps the first symptom of the disintegration of whatever trust had been built up. The only agreement on Strategic Arms Reduction had been negotiated through a series of near calamitous nuclear incidents, progression of bilateral agreements and other confidence building measures to limit and reduce each other’s substantial nuclear arsenals. Indeed it was a slow but apparent understanding of the futility of a nuclear exchange.  Which would in time (it was hoped) become the norm with all states in possession of nuclear weapons. These optimistic prospects today amount to naught with the suspension of the New START arms control treaty. Since February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has rattled his nuclear sabre in hopes of isolating Ukraine and intimidating it into submission. The US has responded by threatening Putin with terrible reprisals if he uses nuclear weapons, equipping Ukraine with long-range precision guided munitions and bolstering their air-power despite Moscow’s provocations. The deliberate nuclear risk-taking is both a throwback to Cold War-era superpower crises and a preview of what lies ahead.

The Treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT, 1968) is now on thin ice. The big unwritten bargain amongst the signatories of the NPT (191 nations) was that nuclear weapon states will not only provide nuclear security and nuclear technologies to non-nuclear states,  but will also not attack a non-nuclear weapon state with nuclear weapons,  However, given the proceedings of the Ukraine war the nuclear security assurances of the NPT, today hardly sound very convincing.

Changed Outlook: Has the War Run its Course?

The unanimous New Delhi G 20 Leaders Declaration on the Ukraine War underscored “that all states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. In line with the UN Charter, all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” The declaration is symptomatic of a changed outlook to the war. The absence of an outright condemnation of Russia and recourse to the founding principles in the UN Charter are, debatably, a realisation of the disastrous economic burdens of the war, acceptance of the frozen state of the conflict and the nuclear perils of attempting to push the NATO verge up to  Russian borders has dawned on the USA and its allies.

Disarmament Structures in Tatters 

In 2007, Putin, at the Munich security conference accused the United States of creating a unipolar world “in which there is one master, one sovereign.” He added, “… this is pernicious.” This event had to have been seen by serious Russia watchers that Kremlin had reached its red-lines. At this stage for NATO to push for expansion appeared adventurous and contradictory to the spirit of the reassurances made by the then US secretary of state James A. Baker to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting on 09  February, 1990. In a discussion on the status of a reunited Germany, the two men agreed that NATO would not extend past the territory of East Germany, a promise repeated by NATO’s secretary general the same year in Brussels. Also the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) established as a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision making and joint action on a wide spectrum of security issues of common interest never came to an understanding on enlargement other than on membership of the Baltic States. Russia’s case has been built on these two instances of “betrayal” and a lack of trust.

In the meantime, Moscow backed its words with actions by dismantling the structures designed to keep peace in post-Cold War Europe. Moscow formally announced its withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, rejected the principle of host-nation consent for its troop presence, annexed the Crimean peninsula and indeed now occupied the Donbas region of East Ukraine and the Kherson region that provides the continental bridge to the Crimea.

The Global disarmament structures today lie in tatters.

Ebbing Wages of this War

Poland has decided to stop transfer of military equipment to Ukraine. It will be recalled that Poland was Ukraine’s staunchest ally and its contribution to the latter’s war effort is amongst the largest in the EU, it has provided the maximum amount of immediate-use combat capability to the Ukraine. To give an example, all of NATO have reportedly provided about 100 tanks; Poland alone has contributed over 330 ready-to-use tanks. However, grasping realities of the Ukraine condition, the Polish Premier likened the situation to a “drowning person who could pull you down with it”.

There is a gnawing awareness that the West’s proxy war in Ukraine has run its geo-political design and fuelling it further can only result in ‘diminishing strategic returns’, degeneration of the NATO alliance and the return of an existential nuclear threat to Europe that lay dormant for near half-a-century. After all, are not the real challenges in the Indo-Pacific?

Distress in West Asia

A dramatic, overnight shift in the West’s policy towards Ukraine is potentially on the cards, as Israel’s war on Hamas escalates to a conflagration that engulfs all of west Asia. Western resources and stomach for the proxy war in Europe with nuclear dimensions has diminished. It has accelerated a process that could freeze the conflict in Ukraine, never mind that Russia may emerge ahead of the game. The alternative is a long and debilitating war in which the western allies appear to be holding the short-end of the stick without in any substantial way eroding the power of Russia.

 The War Will End on the Table

The debate over the future of the Russia-Ukraine war while, rhetorically, predicated on Ukraine re-establishing territorial control to the pre-2014 holding, it is clear today that the reality of the situation will neither tolerate nuclear escalation nor is there the will in the EU to endure further economic hardships and the perils of the conflict engulfing them.

Territorial reclamation, undoubtedly important to Ukraine, appears unlikely as their counter-offensive fizzled out. Add to that support for a protracted conflict that has prospects of degenerating to a Russia-NATO war does not appear to find favour in the western alliance. Avoiding such a war is higher priority. Enabling Ukraine’s territorial control is debatably the most thorny proposition confronting NATO for reasons mentioned earlier and besides they are not fighting the war.

President Biden has said that “this war will end at the negotiating table”. But no moves are apparent that push the parties toward talks. Although it is far from certain that a change in U.S. policy can spark such an outcome, adopting a reconciliatory one on the lines of the Jenssen testimony could freeze the conflict and make negotiations more likely. And with it, perhaps, a blood rimmed curtain will come down on ‘Containment’.

The Nord Stream Affair a Coup-de-Grace to Perpetuate a Proxy War

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By Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

(Published in the IPCS web journal and may be accessed at http://ipcs.org/people_select.php?member_id=245t )

The Incident

“On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy Long Range Maritime Patrol (LRMP) aircraft on routine surveillance mission laid a sonobuoy field south of the Danish Island of Bornholm to seemingly surveil the underwater space in the region of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines emanating from the Russian pumping stations of Vyborg and Ust Luga, terminating at the Lubmin station in Germany. The conduits span a distance of about 1200 kilometres, most of the transit runs below the Baltic sea through the Gulf of Finland travelling East-West to south of Bornholm before making landfall on the German coast near Greifswald (see Map).  A few hours into the patrol, high-powered explosions were sensed in the vicinity of the pipelines and “within a few minutes, slicks of methane gas could be seen spreading on the water’s surface”. It was later established that three of four Nord Stream pipelines were blasted out of commission. So far investigations by Swedish, Danish and German authorities have not pinned the blame on any one country or actor.

Gas supply to Europe, during the on-going conflict in Ukraine, is a very profitable source of revenue to a ‘severely’ sanctioned Kremlin. It not only fuels the war effort but also rejects the Western forecast of a critical contraction of the Russian economy by as much as over 12%, in reality the contraction is closer to 2%.

The Seymour Hersh Report

Enter Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh; of My-Lai, Abu-Ghraib and Turkey’s use of chemical weapons in Syria, fame. He has in a self-published report on 08 February 2023 titled “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”, made a disquieting claim that “the pipeline blow-out was the handiwork of the American intelligence agency, CIA”. According to him, US Navy divers had been ordered to plant the explosives in a covert operation in June 2022, under cover of a NATO exercise BALTOPS 22. Hersh has suggested the explosives were triggered by sonobuoys laid for the purpose on 26 September 2022. Motive behind the American action was the need to reduce the commercial gains of Russia amidst its war with Ukraine. It was also an attempt to reduce the dependence of Europe on cheap Russian gas.

The facts that Hersh has used to substantiate his case are centred on a statement made by the US President Biden on 07 February 2022, when in the Q &A session, he declared that “if Russia invades Ukraine there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2”. This proclamation was made in the presence of German Chancellor Sholtz with an assertion that this would be the result of “joint action”. The second fact relates to a NATO maritime exercise conducted between 05-17 June 2022 in the South West Baltic Sea, codenamed “BALTOPS” in which 14 NATO nations along with two partners participated. And here, Hersh relies on an undisclosed source for the conjecture that the sub-surface explosives were laid under cover of this exercise, and were set off by a cooperating LRMP. The third and last fact was that on 26 September 2022, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were struck by underwater explosions that busted three of four pipelines running south of the Danish Island of Bornholm.

Who Struck the Pipeline? And Why?

But the unanswered questions remain: Who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipe line? And how plausible is the Hersh Report? It makes little sense that Russia would punish itself by cutting off a vital source of funding to its military operations, particularly so when faced with economic contraction. At the same time to permanently throttle gas supply and reduce the EU’s dependence on Russia could only serve to stiffen NATO’s resolve to back Ukraine in its war-effort. After all, Russia could just as well have shut the tap if it was control that it wanted to establish. Clearly, the part played by America in terminally ending gas supply is more convincing. Intention being to cement and unify NATO’s resolve to exploit Ukraine’s case in the conflict. In support of this argument is a statement made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in September 2022, when he called Europe’s end of dependence on Russian energy supply as a “tremendous opportunity” to undercut Vladimir Putin’s power and influence in the region.

Map: Nord Stream 1 & 2 Source: https://pedlowski.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/hearsh-how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream-pipeline.pdf

Continuance of the conflict with NATO support selectively restricted to “just enough” surveillance, intelligence and supply of land based short range arms and munitions of low conventional yield and defensive in nature would appear to be the order of things. US expenditure on the conflict makes apparent that it has morphed to a proxy-war between America and Russia with the aim of bleeding the latter to a state of emasculation.

The Proxy War: To Emasculate Russia

Proxy wars involve the sponsorship of actors by an external state to influence a violent conflict’s outcome for the external state’s own strategic purposes. This characterization encompasses two considerations; firstly, the needs of the sponsoring state to avoid direct engagement while supporting the client state on the ground in order to obtain strategic political goals and secondly to prevent escalation beyond certain limits. It is there for all to discern why providing air-power to Ukraine is a no-no while the prospects of direct violence afflicting the US is kept at bay.

In any proxy-war, great-power competition does not visibly show itself by direct and high-intensity wars. The US has extensive background with indirect strategies and vast political experience with sponsoring separatists and regular forces in campaigns. One need only look at the US involvement early in the Vietnam War, in Congo, Afghanistan (1979-89), Libya, military operations in Syria, involvement in Yemen and Iran for confirmation of its reliance on the indirect approach. The US understands full well that the key to enfeeblement is protraction of conflict.

Conclusion

The Nord Stream episode may or may not have been engineered, yet it has brought about a situation that has energised a proxy war on Russia without direct involvement of America or the NATO in military operations. The larger aims of enervating Kremlin’s power and influence globally seem to be well underway. Nevertheless, the global economic fallout and its debilitating effects on the growth and privations of the European people puts a question mark on how long this proxy war can be sustained. But central to US strategic aims is the ability of Ukraine to bear with the daily crippling hardships of a devastating war and their nation being reduced to a grisly battleground.   

Saudi Arabia: Quest for the Ultimate “Political Play-Off”

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By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

(Published in the IPCS web journal. May be accessed at the following link:  http://www.ipcs.org/comm_select.php?articleNo=5843 )

The British Empire, long masters of the Persian Gulf and the wiles of playing-off nations; met their match in Ibn Saud (1880-1953) the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. At the turn of the last century, Whitehall was concerned with the growing cosiness of Germany with the Ottoman Empire. In 1903, a strategic project was born from this snugness, a Berlin-Baghdad rail axis that envisaged a central terminal at Kuwait. The plan was for it to evolve into a pivotal Control and Logistic sea-land hub that could threaten the Suez Canal and in turn the British Indian Empire. Ibn Saud saw in the emerging geopolitical contest an opportunity to ‘play’ the protagonists to his advantage.

While consolidating his powerbase, Ibn Saud, never lost touch with the orthodox teachings of Muhammad Ibn al Wahhabi, who in the 18th century deeply influenced his forebears into enforcing a unity, based on the brotherhood of Islam. However, the tribal origins of the Al-Saud, its nomadic population and harsh conditions never permitted a strategic view of geography. It took Ibn Saud’s geopolitical acumen and the opportunity that the collapsing Ottoman Empire presented that inspired his return to puritanical Islam and most critically an acceptance of “Political Islam”. Ibn Saud attacked the nomadic structure of his society and combined the aggressiveness of the Wahhabi ideology with the unquestioning nature of his followers to penetrate the vast Arabian Peninsula. He weakened tribal allegiances and replaced them with loyalty to Allah and the Amir. He established a new communal identity of ‘Ikhwan’, a Wahhabi religious militia to form a significant military force. The Ikhwan not only played a crucial role in instituting him as ruler of most of the Peninsula, but also placed him in a favourable power-bargaining position with both the Sultan and the British. Ibn Saud made it known to the latter that the Ottoman and other powers were also interested in establishing treaty relations with him which he would have to conclude if he had no other means of support. The veiled threat to British interests was not lost on Whitehall.

With the Ikhwan at his side, Ibn Saud set out reconquering his family lands. In 1902, he captured Riyadh by assassinating the governor of the city. In one stroke he drew the tribes to rally to his call. Within two years of Riyadh’s fall, the Najd lay at his feet and he was in a position to threaten Ottoman designs for Kuwait and their Berlin-axis.

British policy towards Ibn Saud changed metamorphically when it coincided with the Admiralty’s doctrine to convert their imperial navy from coal to oil-fired. At the time their allies the US and Russia produced almost all of the world’s petroleum. Nonetheless, Whitehall was uneasy with the prospect of the Navy’s strategic dependence on foreign entities, even if friendly. The solution, it concluded lay in control at source. In the meantime, Ibn Saud finessed his relations with Britain through the Treaty of Darin (1915). The Pact became a corner stone of Imperial policy that made Ibn Saud an equal ally in the War and his state a protectorate of the British Crown. The minor sheikh from the desert had played his cards well, from tribal chieftain he was transformed into a revered king. By 1932 his nation, Saudi Arabia, was courted by world governments.

As for the strategic Berlin-Baghdad rail link, it remained unfinished, limiting its use during the First World War.   

The Second World War was by no means as important for Saudi Arabia as the First had been. Ibn Saud remained a supporter of the Allies and yet stayed neutral. After the War, European powers that held sway in West Asia were exhausted. They could do little to prop their crumbling empires, thus, ending their influence in the region and giving impetus to a world order dominated by the USSR and the USA. Sensing the incipient power-vacuum in the region, Ibn Saud welcomed the USA into playing a more substantial role in his domain.

Cold War American interests worked to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold in the peninsula. Ibn Saud now manipulated circumstances to win Saudi Arabia financial and security guarantees in return for access and oblique control of the world’s largest energy reserves.  “The USS Quincy Memorandum”, ensured the legacy of the House-of-Saud through the reigns of Kings Saud, Faisal, Khalid, Fahd, Abdullah and the current king, Salman. Solidarity with the Wahhabi’s, oil wealth and American guarantees were the keys that enabled dynastic continuity.

In 2017, King Salman appointed his son Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) as Crown Prince and heir apparent. The young Prince has set about launching sweeping economic, social, military and foreign policy reforms. Given the complex power structure and its vulnerabilities, success of these reforms is predicated on, how they affect the status-quo. Critically three challenges confront MbS. Firstly, the entire political, juridical and social system that is defined by the Wahhabi ulema and had sealed the kingdom’s founding compact with Wahhabism, must change; but any break with the Wahhabi Clergy will tantamount to a de-coupling of politics from its sub-structure of Wahhabism. The second challenge is a contemporary interpretation of the Koran that permits moderation, an idea that, till announcement, would have been blasphemous. Thirdly, MbS has taken a cue from his illustrious forebear, Ibn Saud. He has daringly chosen not to pick sides between Washington, Beijing and Moscow nor have a selection thrust on him.

Meanwhile, the US in their Saudi Policy has vowed, “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” However, China has in its report Sino-Arab Cooperation in a New Era roundly denied the existence of a ‘power vacuum’ in West Asia. It would appear that the “Quincy Memorandum” for guarantees that eventually led to the policy of crude export revenues denominated in US dollars, the “Petro-dollar” deal and total dependence on the American security blanket may have outlived their shelf-life. The US-Saudi Jeddah Communiqué   may even suggest an outline for MbS’ new vision of a more versatile strategic relationship with the US that finds place for Beijing and Moscow.

But there remain three nagging doubts; can Saudi Arabia wean itself away from the luxury of the petro-dollar? Will the lifting of the US security blanket leave the kingdom in the cold? And lastly, will the dynasty survive without the Wahhabi ideology or as the, Economist put it, how to change what God said?