Part One: U.S. strategy in the 21st century: leadership through hegemony
Chapter III: Official U.S. Strategic Doctrines: A View of the World and of Russia
The CIA Writes About the World and Russia
The CIA’s Annual Reports52 differ from the documents discussed above in that they are brief, clear, and frank (at least the part not intended for the general public). Due to the nature of its function, the CIA doesn’t use the category “challenges” and operates instead with the category “threats.”
The 1999 Report points out right away, without undue “philosophizing”: “There are two categories of threats that will occupy the Intelligence Community’s attention53 in the foreseeable future: threats from our strategic rivals—China and Russia—as well as from regional worries such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq; and the transnational threats—organized crime, narcotics trafficking, proliferation, information warfare, and terrorism.” Accordingly, U.S. strategic priorities must be ranked in this order: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and then Russia.
This means that in the terms of the documents discussed previously, Russia and China fall into the category of “rogue nations,” i.e., the group of countries that are regarded at the official level in the USA as the countries most dangerous for the security of the United States and the entire world. Curiously enough, in the preceding Report of 1998 that reviewed the situation in 1997, the above-mentioned countries were listed among so-called “Hard Target countries,” i.e., countries subject to the heightened attention of U.S. intelligence. In this context, Russia was characterized as a country experiencing serious social and economic difficulties, including rampant crime and corruption, and China was described as a state that intends to become a superpower in the next century. The CIA Report of 1999 mentions that the CIA had analyzed the impact of the financial crisis in Russia on WMD programs and identified Russia’s increasing dependence on Western financial aid to dismantle nuclear and chemical weapons. In the CIA director’s opinion, this information provided the administration with a motive to continue financing WMD programs, and could be used by top U.S. officials to assess subsequent Russian requests for financial assistance. The CIA also supplied additional information on two occasions when governments were changed in Russia, and on the occasion of the Clinton-Yeltsin summit.
The Report indicates the CIA was implementing a program for improving the quality and speed of translation of materials from the Russian press. The Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research also managed the $4.6 million Research and Training Program on Eastern Europe and the NIS, which seeks to build U.S. expertise on those regions by providing assistance to more than 1,200 graduate students and senior scholars annually.
When CIA Director George Tenet presented to the Senate his report, The Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of our National Security, on February 2, 2000,54 Russia was discussed in the context of different “threats.” First, Russia was mentioned together with China and North Korea in connection with supplies to Iran of components for ballistic missiles and corresponding technology. Second, Russia was recognized as one of the hotbeds of international organized crime, with references made to Russian officials (no names mentioned). It is stated that in Russia itself, organized crime has infiltrated important sectors in the economy, including those that dealt with strategic resources such as oil, coal, and aluminum.
In its discussion of regional problems, the CIA started with Russia. Describing the possible shifts in policy in Russia, Tenet declined to state which of them was most likely to occur, citing the uncertainty of Putin’s conduct as president. At the same time he “suggested” to Moscow some “more positive directions” that amount to support for the final resolution of the matter of START II and transition to the next phase of arms reduction through START III; and expressed the desire that Russia’s leaders would go in for a deeper integration of their country into the world economy, be it through continuing cooperation within the G-8 group or through WTO membership.
At the same time, regardless of all this, the USA is primarily concerned about the storage of nuclear weapons and their components in Russia. In Tenet’s words: “Russia’s economic difficulties continue to weaken the reliability of nuclear personnel and Russia’s system for securing fissile material. We have no evidence that weapons are missing in Russia, but we remain concerned by reports of lax discipline, labor strikes, poor morale, and criminal activities at nuclear storage facilities.”
John Gannon, chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), has a somewhat different view of international relations and Russia’s place in the world.55 He believes the USA is currently the sole superpower, but it will not be a hegemon because other states will attempt to change the future of the world. These “others” include the European Union (EU), Japan, Russia, and China.
Above all, shifts in power alliances are caused by the growing economic and political power of the EU and East Asia, and also by the possible (after some time) shrinking of the sphere of American internationalization (i.e., shrinking of the sphere of U.S. international influence). It is unclear how this process will unfurl, due to the uncertainty about the development of several key states. In Gannon’s opinion, the EU gives no cause to worry, for it will maintain close ties to the USA through NATO, one way or another. The same applies to Japan and South Korea.
As for Russia, its pretensions of maintaining the status of a great power are based solely on its stockpile of nuclear weapons. In the next fifteen years, Gannon thinks, Russia will likely concentrate on rebuilding its economy. At the same time, it will be troubled by the contradiction between its shrinking possibilities and the passionate desire of a part of the elite to preserve great-power status.
China will modernize and grow stronger, though the direction of its development will depend on domestic policy and economic progress.
Most importantly, “the risk of conflict between great powers remains low.” In the event of a return to multipolarity as U.S. influence in the world shrinks, the biggest dangers will be ethnic conflicts in East Asia and possibly Europe.
Gannon concludes that in the period up to 2015, no country, ideology, or movement will become a threat to U.S. interests on a global level. On the regional level, however, the policies of certain countries may clash with U.S. interests, and international threats, such as terrorism, are to be expected. Some unfortunate “if” scenarios may become reality. For instance, China may fail to resolve the problem of Taiwan by peaceful means. Russia may turn toward authoritarianism, or, on the contrary, it may be consumed by anarchy and disintegration. By the way, Gannon makes a prediction about Russia: “And Russia’s population is likely to shrink—perhaps substantially—as a result of declining life expectancy, which is linked to poor health care, as well as declining birth rates.”
Gannon develops these ideas in more detail in his report dedicated specifically to Russia.56 He argues that by now, Russia has “elements of the market system,” but on the whole, “Russia is neither a command economy, nor a market economy.” The political transformation in Russia is possibly turning toward “renewed authoritarianism.”
Gannon is not much concerned about the relations between Russia and China because: “We do not see the emergence of a full- blown alliance with coordinated positions and actions on all issues.” From the strategic perspective, more concern may be caused by sales of arms and technologies to China; this will happen out of purely mercantile motivations, not any strategic considerations.
His main conclusion is that Russia’s future is so uncertain that it is impossible to forecast. He is personally quite skeptical about this future, as evidenced by the “old Russian joke” he recounts in his two reports. It goes like this: “What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist? The pessimist says, ‘Things cannot possibly get any worse.’ The optimist, on the other hand, says, ‘Oh, yes, they can!’”
The CIA director’s Report garnered some attention in Russia; its section dealing with Russia was even translated and published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta (February 9, 2001). Actually, this Report reproduces in a milder form the truly unflattering assessments contained in a paper prepared under the auspices of the National Intelligence Council (December 2000), Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts.57
I want to start with that document’s section dedicated to China.
All experts note that it is difficult to forecast China’s development for a period of more than fifteen years due to a multitude of variables. “Some projections indicate that Chinese power will rise because of the growth of its economic and military capabilities. Other projections indicate that the array of political, social, and economic pressures will increasingly challenge the stability and legitimacy of the regime. Most assessments today argue that China will seek to avoid conflict in the region to promote stable economic growth and to ensure internal stability. A strong China, others assert, would seek to adjust regional power arrangements to its advantage, risking conflict with neighbors and some powers external to the region. A weak China would increase prospects for criminality, narcotics trafficking, illegal migration, WMD proliferation, and widespread social instability.
“China’s People’s Liberation Army will remain the world’s largest military, but the majority of the force will not be fully modernized before 2015. China could close the technological gap with the West in one or more major weapons systems. China’s capability for regional military operations is likely to improve significantly by 2015.
“China by 2015 will have deployed dozens of missiles with nuclear warheads targeted against the United States, mostly more survivable land- and sea-based mobile missiles. It also will have hundreds of shorter-range ballistic and cruise missiles for use in regional conflicts. Some of these shorter-range missiles will have nuclear warheads; most will be armed with conventional warheads.”
“It should be stressed that while experts are in agreement about China’s military potential, their opinions differ widely about the strengthening of China as a great power in general. Some think that China will acquire that status; others believe that it will not, due to many problems of a domestic nature.”
Now let’s see what the document says about Russia. I want to point out right away that the experts’ forecasts about Russia are much more accurate than those about China. They conclude: “Russia will remain the most important actor in the former Soviet Union. Its power relative to others in the region and neighboring areas will have declined, however, and it will continue to lack the resources to impose its will. The Soviet economic inheritance will continue to plague Russia. Besides a crumbling physical infrastructure, years of environmental neglect are taking a toll on the population, a toll made worse by such societal costs of transition as alcoholism, cardiac diseases, drugs, and a worsening health delivery system. (Russian experts predict that the country’s population could fall from 146 million at present to 130-135 million by 2015.) Russia’s population is not only getting smaller, but it is also becoming less and less healthy and thus less able to serve as an engine of economic recovery. In macroeconomic terms, Russia’s GDP probably has bottomed out. Russia, nevertheless, is still likely to fall short in its efforts to become fully integrated into the global financial and trading system by 2015. Even under a best-case scenario of 5 percent annual economic growth, Russia would attain an economy less than one-fifth the size of that of the United States.”
“The centrality of Russia will continue to diminish, and by 2015 Eurasia will be a geographic term lacking a unifying political, economic, and cultural reality. Russia and the western Eurasian States will continue to orient themselves toward Europe, but will remain essentially outside of it. Because of geographic proximity and cultural affinities, the Caucasus will be closer politically to its neighbors to the south and west, with Central Asia drawing closer to South Asia and China. Nonetheless, important interdependencies will remain, primarily in the energy sphere.”
“Russia will focus its foreign policy goals on reestablishing lost influence in the former Soviet republics to the south, fostering ties to Europe and Asia, and presenting itself as a significant player vis-à-vis the United States. Its energy resources will be an important lever for these endeavors. However, its domestic ills will frustrate its efforts to reclaim its great power status. Russia will maintain the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world as the last vestige of its old status. The net outcome of these trends will be a Russia that remains internally weak and institutionally linked to the international system primarily through its permanent seat on the UN Security Council.”
Regrettably, it is precisely this forecast that is most likely to become reality, unless a miracle comes to pass—or a revolution.
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A brief summary. The main official documents of the USA make the claim that the United States is the world’s sole superpower, and it will maintain that status until 2015. Despite this, the United States will face many “challenges” and threats of an international scope (terrorism, drug trafficking, corruption, etc.). Russia is not regarded as a great power capable of rivalry with the USA; it is, however, listed among “threats” to U.S. security on account of Russian authorities’ suspected inability to control the storage of nuclear and other weapons and to operate nuclear power stations.
As for Russia as a whole, it is the only country whose future is not forecast in any official U.S. document.
52 Annual Report on FY 1997 Intelligence Community Activities, Director of Central Intelligence, Annual Report for the United States Intelligence Community (May 1999); available online at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/fy98intellrpt/index.html.
53 The Intelligence Community (IC) is a widely branching, informal intelligence organization consisting of many government and nongovernment departments, agencies, and associations. Along with the CIA, it includes the FBI, the NSA, and certain bureaus of the Departments of State and Defense.
54 George J. Tenet, “Statement by Director of Central Intelligence before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security” (February 2, 2000); http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/facttell/intcomm.html.
55 Remarks by John C. Gannon (Chairman, National Intelligence Council), “The CIA in the New World Order: Intelligence Challenges Through 2015” (February 1, 2000). These remarks are available online at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/facttell/intcomm.html.
56 John C. Gannon, Russia in the Next Millennium (National Intelligence Council, DFI International & Henry L. Stimson Group, December 9, 1999). This is available online at: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/facttell/intcomm.html.
57 See http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/facttell/intcomm.html.
The 21st Century: The World Without Russia
(Philosophical-sociological Essay)