CIAO DATE: 08/06

International Affairs:
A Russian Journal

No. 1, 2005

 

New Year Wishes from Sages

Ye. Primakov

"A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility" is the name of a UN report compiled by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change published toward the end of 2004.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's panel, also known as the Group of Sages, brings together eminent persons from all over the world, including Yevgeni Primakov of Russia (member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian foreign minister in 1996-1998, prime minister in 1998-1999, head of the "Fatherland - All Russia" faction in the State Duma in 1999-2001, president of the RF Commerce and Industry Chamber since 2001).

The experts put in long and painstaking efforts to draw up this most important international document containing more than 100 recommendations and pieces of advice to the United Nations for 2005 and beyond.

Shortly before 2005, Yevgeni Primakov was interviewed by the "International Affairs" editor-in-chief Boris Piadyshev. We are confident that our readers would like to know what the Russian sage had to say and advise.

Q: Yevgeni Maksimovich, since this interview will be published in the first 2005 issue of "International Affairs" let's, perhaps, begin with a New Year topic.

When you turn into Il'inka Street in the heart of Moscow and drive on towards the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TPP), there is a banner across the street, which says "Entering the new year with a new policy." This street is the location of several ministries, banks and presidential agencies. Capital and Power combined. What does a 'new policy' imply?

A: 2005 should be not only a new year in turn but it should also become a new year in quality. It is either we go on increasing exports of raw materials to add to the budget or we most earnestly start on restructuring industry and embrace innovation.

The latter is only possible with the help of the state. When I say "with the help of the state," I do not mean to say that the state is going to be the owner of means of production. Granted, it will remain the owner of some of them. But most important thing is the regulatory role of the state. It is essential in carrying out a major maneuver when we shift the emphasis from raw materials to innovations. I think these questions will be very pressing in 2005.

Q: The consistency of your statements and ideas is gratifying. When you were prime minister, your philosophy was the same. Regretfully, the views of other people prevailed at that time. And that didn't do Russia much good.

Thank you, Yevgeni Maksimovich for your idea of how we should make the new year really new in terms of advancing our economy and our state. Let us now address the main subject of our discussion which is world politics analyzed in the report "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility" prepared by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

The UN Secretariat compilers of its "Executive Summary" must have become carried away when they said: "The report provides a clear definition of terrorism." In effect, it provides no such definition. It only refers to the elements contained in 12 anti-terrorism conventions and other documents that can add up to a definition of terrorism.

A: It is very difficult to put a clear definition on terrorism that would please absolutely everyone. Exactly, it is necessary to take an aggregate of elements, which may add up to this definition.

The most important element is without doubt the use of force against civilians for whatever reasons. At the same time, from my viewpoint, we cannot regard as terrorism operations against forces of occupation or against enemy troops when the struggle is on for independent existence of one or other state. But if operations against civilians are being carried out deliberately, this is terrorism.

One of its distinguishing features under today's conditions is that terrorists conduct their operations in order to baffle the state, make it demonstrate its impotence and plunge the population into chaos and confusion even without putting forward any concrete demands. That's what happened to some extent, for example, in Beslan on 11 September 2004. They try to commit acts that send society into frenzy and make it look for the guilty among its leaders. You see? This is one of the avenues of terrorist activities. To shake loose one or other state and its society. It is with this objective in mind that they carry out massive attacks against civilians.

Q: There is now a fairly good interpretation of state terrorism saying that this is violence committed by governments. But there is still no single approach to assessing violence committed by individuals. Let's say, do gunmen in Chechnya fit the definition of terrorists?

A: Of course they do. If they are behind the bombings of homes that kill dozens or even hundreds of people. If they stage bombings in Moscow underpasses. If they stage bombings at bus stops where people get killed.

The victims of such acts of terrorism are not those who combat Chechens weapons in hand, not government representatives but ordinary people of Russia. It is against them that strong-arm methods are used. They get killed. This is sheer terrorism, pure and simple. We don't have to look for any new definitions, everything is plain as it is.

Q: Let us now take the "international terrorism" category. This is a new term, which we often use, but many people in other countries do not quite understand its meaning. Some of our political scientists do not quite approve of it. Reading Nezavisimaia gazeta the other day I came across a "much talked-about international terrorism" formula.

A: I think that "international terrorism" is an appropriate description of what is happening now. Terrorism used to be local, roughly speaking. Take, for example, the Basque terrorists, Irish terrorists, or terrorists who were active in some other specific country against its leaders and population and had no branches abroad. This wasn't international terrorism. But now that there is al-Qaeda, which has its branches in various countries operating on the communicating vessels principle, there is an international terrorist network. One can now see terrorist forces flowing from Afghanistan and Pakistan, from the tribal zone, into Iraq. They are trying to open up new areas of operations. We could see how terrorists were filtering into Kosovo and we can see terrorists trickling from Afghanistan into Chechnya.

These are "communicating vessels." And when bombs explode in the United States, Africa, Europe and everywhere - what is it? Isn't it international terrorism? How can we deny this?

If we talk in earnest about new traits of terrorism, trait number one is its international nature.

Trait number two is self-sufficiency and self-financing of its organizations that are connected to no government.

Trait number three is massive acts of terrorism against civilians precisely in order to cause turmoil in society and destabilize one or another state.

Q: One of the most emotional statements on the problems of terrorism, as far as I can judge, was U.S. President George W. Bush's address before the 59th UN General Assembly session. He had some heartfelt words to say about the Beslan tragedy. That's where he could have continued and said that behind this tragedy was international terrorism. He, however, did not continue and didn't say that.

In the meantime, it seems hard, without common goals and even without uniform terminology, to undertake something against it on a general scale. This much should become clear at some point, do you think?

A: I think the realization is coming gradually. In his statements, President Bush does not essentially deny the international nature of terrorism.

International terrorism today has an extremist Islam tinge. But this does not mean at all that it is possible to confuse Islamic fundamentalism with Islamic extremism; that it is possible to divide the world along the "Muslims and non-Muslims" lines. I think Chechnya will remain a festering wound for many years to come because of the failure to isolate the civilian population from the gunmen. It will be very hard to combat international terrorism if we fail to separate the "Islamic street" or "Arab street" from it. If we fail to put the Muslim states into the front ranks of fighters against terrorism. They should be there.

Take al-Qaeda's ideology. Bin Laden said that they want to create a caliphate on territories populated by Muslims. But this is not a vacant place: a number of states exist there. Today, terrorist acts are carried out in countries with secular Muslim regimes and in countries with moderate Muslim regimes. Obviously, bin Laden wants to eliminate these regimes. The leaders of Turkey and Saudi Arabia realize this much. The United States became the prime target of terrorists precisely because it backs militarily, economically and politically the Islamic regimes that can be placed in the category of secular or moderate.

Terrorists also target states where Muslims are in the minority in order to stir up separatism among the Muslim part of the population. Many realize this.

Q: Thank you. Can we move on to another subject? A concrete question. We are saying now that we'll be increasing the defense budget by almost a quarter and its greater part will go to pay for "big war" - submarines, missiles and so on. Is a major war the biggest threat?

A: There are several reasons for that. First, it is really necessary to rearm our military if we are to remain a great power. Scanty funds were appropriated for these purposes over recent years. The deficit that has been there since the 1990s has to be made up for.

Second, search is on for measures to match the efforts being made by the other great powers but which would cost less in terms of money.

One such answer is the Bulava. This latest submarine-launched missile is believed to evade ballistic missile defenses. This means that now we don't have to build a missile defense similar to the one being built by the Americans. Besides, we just don't have funds for that. But we are developing an antipode, which is cheaper, and it will prove, we think, a good deterring factor under the new conditions. Not in the Cold War sense, though. This is a different deterrent. We hardly expect a global war against us. What is happening in Ukraine and in some other countries, however, demonstrates that we are being hemmed in, even if it is being done with sweet smiles. Is this just an episode or a tendency? If this is a tendency, we should be looking for countermeasures. We should not, of course, look for confrontational countermeasures.

Let me give you one example by citing the words of my long-time colleague Bill Polk, who at one time was president of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs where I spent nearly one month. During the 1962 Cuban crisis, he was in charge of analysis and intelligence at the Department of State. There they played a game where Bill played for the USSR "team." Escalation was mounting as the game progressed. It finally reached the point where the "USSR team" refused to withdraw the missiles from Cuba. The "U.S. team" responded with a decision to deliver a nuclear strike at a Soviet city of 100,000. A local nuclear strike. Bill told me that he had to stop the game at that point. "It was clear to me," he said "that the Soviet Union would either respond with a retaliatory strike with all the missiles it had, or its military would take over the Kremlin." And that would be the end of it, and there would be no longer any games.

This seems to be instructive in the sense that there are sober heads capable of understanding that there should not be gambling on a policy that patently harms Russia's interests. It is only possible to pressurize countries that have nothing to retaliate with. This is deterrence without resorting to confrontation under modern conditions as I see it. To make it possible you have to be strong enough.

And yet another aspect of this problem. I can't say precisely, but we export nearly 80 percent of all the weapons we manufacture. This brings the national economy enormous revenues. This provides a big proportion of the population with jobs at defense factories. And we cannot throw all this down the drain, as they say.

Q: Thank you.

Yevgeni Maksimovich, events of the last two or three months in world politics and in Europe affect our interests. Is there an impression that they are putting a squeeze on the way of life and our civilization that has long taken shape in Russia and countries close to our own?

A: There is such an impression. I would like to point out an aspect that we don't discuss much.

Many in the United States and Europe were clearly disappointed at the grown transatlantic differences. That's what the Democrats blamed on George W. Bush during the elections. The Europeans, who oppose U.S. unilateralism and the U.S. operation in Iraq, want their voice to be heard. But they don't want it at the cost of a crisis of the transatlantic cooperation. In these conditions, America and Europe are looking for areas where their interests coincide, where they can work together. One such area they have found is Ukraine and there these interests converge. This is one of the reasons why Europe has so eagerly dashed into Ukrainian affairs. Europe is clearly seeking closer relations with the United States via Ukraine. The same applies to the United States with regard to Europe.

Q: Going back to the report of the High-Level Panel, I would like to say that you've prepared an impressive report. This is a signal event in the UN history. I recall the Millennium Report in 2002. It was a powerful document. But now the world community has received an in-depth analysis and worthy objectives.

A: We could, of course, have reduced the task to compiling an ordinary UN review. There were indeed such attitudes. We overcame these attitudes. The actual work consisted in debating and comparing the various views and postures. In the final analysis, it became possible to get a good result.

There were discussions on the new threats to the security of people and countries. For example, this question was raised: Can we assess terrorism as a threat to Africa where 30 million people died from AIDS? How many people have died there from terrorism? Through joint efforts and discussions, we found a sensible approach: to take into consideration all threats - not only the new threats but also the so-called traditional threats.

Many other various questions arose, like the question of sovereignty. We came to the conclusion: If internal events in a state - according to the assessments of the Security Council and only in accordance with the criteria put forward by the Security Council - breach peace in a region or spill over to constitute a global threat - it is possible to resort to coercive methods. But only if they are authorized by the Security Council.

Q: What changes are in store for the Security Council?

A: The five states, permanent members with the right of veto, should retain it in any case. At the same time, the number of Security Council members should be broadened.

New permanent member seats should be distributed in a geographically appropriate way. The report names no permanent UN Security Council member candidates. I can only give my own opinion - I only represented myself on the panel. Europe currently has three permanent members: Russia, Britain and France. There should be a seat for one more permanent member. From my viewpoint this is Germany.

Two additional members should come from Asia and they are Japan and India. From Latin America, it is Brazil. Additional two members should come from Africa, one of them might be South Africa or Nigeria, and the second member should be Egypt. In this case both the Middle East and Arab countries will be represented. Thus, all the geographical areas will be equally represented as permanent and nonpermanent members. Once again, this is my own private view. It is up to the UN General Assembly to decide on new permanent and nonpermanent members. Kofi Annan will hold a series of consultations before the General Assembly session.

Q: Yevgeni Maksimovich, I am positive that "International Affairs" readers will be happy to read this interview with you, a person of deep knowledge of politics and life, whose judgements and practical actions greatly benefited and, no doubt, will benefit even more this country and its people. My journal and its readers wish you continued health and success in the new year.

A: Thank you. I would also like to convey my best wishes to readers of "International Affairs. "