Hassanwazir's List: RUSSO-PAK RELATIONS

• As the US prepares to curtail its presence in Afghanistan by 2014, Russia fears that state failure in that country will cause a spillover of Islamic fundamentalism into Central Asia, and from there into the southern regions of Russia.'
• Diplomatically, we have recently been seeing increased cooperation between the two countries. In the past, high-level exchanges were rare - President Musharraf travelled to Moscow in 2003 and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov visited Pakistan in 2007. 2012, however, has marked a change in Russo-Pakistani relations. Following visits to Moscow by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and President Asif Ali Zardari earlier this year, the Russian capital is set to welcome General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on 3rd October. It is worth noting that his trip continues to be on course despite the cancellation of Putin’s visit.
• While Pakistan’s deteriorating relations with the US have led it to look for new regional allies, Russia’s increased closeness to Islamabad is primarily motivated by the situation in Pakistan and around. As the US prepares to curtail its presence in Afghanistan by 2014, Russia fears that state failure in that country will cause a spillover of Islamic fundamentalism into Central Asia, and from there into the southern regions of Russia. Having just dealt with Islamist secessionist movements in Chechnya and the South Caucasus, this is not a scenario that Russia would welcome.
• The importance of energy to Pakistan cannot be overemphasized - no electricity projects were initiated between 1996 and 2008, despite an annual increase of 1,600MW in electricity demand since 2007. In fact, the energy crisis is so profound that it has begun to influence Islamabad's foreign policy decisions. Earlier this year, for example, Pakistan agreed to import petroleum and electricity from arch-rival India and liberalise trade relations with New Delhi.
• Conversely, one of the primary drivers of Moscow’s foreign policy is global energy politics. Unsurprisingly, Moscow is trying to develop closer ties with Pakistan in this sector. Russia has, for example, expressed interest in financing the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI) gas project and has also agreed to make investments in the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project. There is media speculation that Putin’s decision to cancel his visit could be linked to Pakistan’s reluctance to award Russia’s energy giant Gazprom a $1.2 billion contract for the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline, without going through the bidding process which is the international norm. There is, however, no official evidence to support this conjecture.
• Russian investors have also expressed keen interest in the Thar Coalfield Project, intended to exploit the massive deposits of coal found in this desert region in 1991, as well as in the Central Asian and South Asian (CASA) project, which aims at establishing the necessary transmission and trading infrastructure to enable trade in electricity between Central and South Asia. And as well as investment in new projects, Moscow has also offered to finance the refurbishment of the Guddu and Muzaffargarh power plants.
• Russia has offered to cooperate in the non-energy infrastructure sector as well. Recently, Russia's Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Factory (MMK) offered to invest $500 million to expand the production capacity of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) from one million to 3 three million tons a year. And while the postponement of Putin’s visit definitely delays the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for PSM’s expansion, it is too early to conclude that it is off the agenda. Experts feel that with Pakistan accounting for just 0.3 percent of Russia’s trade in 2011, there is enormous potential for growth in this sector.
• General Kayani’s upcoming visit follows the first ever trip to Moscow by Pakistani Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafiq. Apart from these symbolic visits there has also been a slow infiltration of Russia’s defence technology from third countries into Pakistan. Ukrainian T-80 main battle tanks, supplied to Pakistan in the 1990s, have Russian-built key systems and components. Even the JF-17 fighter planes supplied by China to Pakistan were powered by Russian RD-93 engines.
• Putin’s public endorsement of Pakistan’s candidacy for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), along with his acknowledgment of the crucial role that Pakistan plays in South Asia and the larger Muslim world, is proof of this. Cooperation in multilateral institutions serves to silence sceptics who view improving Russo-Pakistani ties as the start of a new Cold War between the US and Russia for influence over this strategically located country. Putin has suggested the setting up of an SCO energy club, grouping the energy producing countries of Russia, Iran and Central Asia and the three big energy-consuming countries of India, Pakistan and China. This proposal in itself shows that Russia’s involvement in South Asia is based on the principle of cooperation, not confrontation.
• The postponement of Putin’s visit is undoubtedly a symbolic blow to Pakistan's efforts to diversify its strategic allies and do away with its image of bandwagoning with America. At the same time it’s a blow to Russia's ambitions of making greater inroads into Central and South Asia.However, it needs to be stressed that Putin has postponed his trip and not cancelled it. Indeed, in his letter to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, he expressed hope for enhanced cooperation and suggested a trip to Moscow. Therefore, it would be wrong to dismiss Putin’s postponed trip as a sign of vacillating Russo-Pakistani relations. There is a definite rapprochement between the two, even though their current bilateral engagement continues to be limited.

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• The amends to address Pakistan’s sensitivities were manifest when the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who was to visit India on October 04, came to Pakistan to stand in for Putin and the Russian Defence Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, postponed his visit to India to conduct talks in Moscow with the Army Chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Those conversant with the dynamics of Russian diplomacy will know that these are no small diplomatic gestures.
• “Our own experience in the past and the track record of others in recent years has taught us that the problem of Afghanistan cannot be resolved without the constructive involvement of Pakistan and Iran,” said Mr Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, recently.
• In 2010, President Putin publically supported Pakistan’s bid to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that includes Russia, China, four Central Asian Republics as permanent members and Pakistan and Iran as observers.
• Opening up the landlocked Central Asian Region by laying oil pipelines and constructing trade routes to Pakistan is also being pursued. This includes the Central Asia-South Asia electricity transmission infrastructure from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan (CASA-1000) and construction of rail and road tracks from Tajikistan to Pakistan to create corridors of communications. Russia has shown its eagerness to facilitate the 1640 km TAPI project, bringing gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and then onwards to India. It is also keen to obtain the contract of laying down the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline for its energy giant Gazprom.
• A high-powered delegation visited Pakistan in the beginning of this month and signed memorandums of understanding in three vital sectors of our economy; the expansion and modernisation of Pakistan Steel Mills, refurbishing Railways and enhancing the capacity of the energy generation sector.
• The Russian Military Chief, Colonel General Alexander Postnikov, visited Pakistan in May last year and the two sides broached the subjects of holding joint military exercises, exchanging trainees and selling and buying weapons. General Kayani’s recent visit to Moscow was conducted in a high-profile manner and proved to be a singular success. The provision of Russian hardware was also discussed during the visit. It may be pertinent to point out that Pakistan has already acquired Russian military technology through third parties, which could not have been possible without a Russian nod. This includes engines to power the Chinese built JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat aircraft and the 12 air refuelling pods fitted to the four Russian built Il-78 multi-role transport aircraft acquired from Ukraine. The induction of newly built MI-17 helicopters is also being considered by Pakistan. These are significant straws in the wind that are a harbinger of meaningful military cooperation with Russia, against the backdrop provided by India’s greater reliance on US and Western origin military hardware in a bid to wean its military hardware away from an overwhelming Russian dependence.

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• There are some significant geo-strategic developments taking place in Russia's neighborhood. The US is increasing its influence in the Asia-Pacific, in cooperation with India, to dominate the sea lanes of the region. Pakistan provides an alternative route which is closer to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and is accessible to Russia through Central Asia. 
• Russia is also looking for new partners in the South Asian region. Russia's relations with India are not as good as they used to be. India, which was a significant buyer of Russian weapons and defense system, is now a major US partner. Putin has signaled his willingness to adapt Russia's foreign policy to the new geopolitical changes.
  
• The situation in Afghanistan is another factor that requires closer cooperation between the two.
  
  Contrary to the US perceptions, Russia realizes that Pakistan is an important actor and must be included in any peaceful settlement of conflict in Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, the roles and concerns of regional countries will be further enhanced.
• Russia, China, Pakistan, Central Asian States and Iran, acting through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other multilateral and bilateral forums, should focus more on the promotion of regional commerce and trade. Trade entails prosperity which leads to peace at home and abroad. Closer regional cooperation will discourage involvement of external powers, which manipulate the differences among regional states for their own interests.

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• The impending withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014 has seen increased efforts being made by Russia and China to gain influence in the region. As a part of their strategy to secure its interests in Central Asia, Russia has been attempting to foster a relationship with Pakistan.

• Beginning 2008, Zardari met Putin's predecessor Dmitry Medvedev six times on the margins of regional and global conferences culminating in a state visit in May 2011.

  His foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar was in Moscow in February trying to woo Russian investment in Pakistan's crippled energy sector and in May, Putin dispatched his point man on Afghanistan Ambassador Zamir Kabulov to Islamabad to lay the ground for the state visit.
• Even more critically, the commander of Russia's ground forces, Col-Gen Alexander Postnikov, was in Islamabad last year and according to Pakistani media reports discussed the possibility of defence ties including joint military exercises and weapons sales.
• For India to be involved in any endgame in Afghanistan, is anathema to Pakistan and stokes its worst fear of encirclement, and even dismemberment as happened to East Pakistan in 1971.
• Pakistan's future is in the region, and its interests lie in building strong political and economic ties with its neighbours and those in the near abroad - Russia is geographically closer to it than India - rather than be distant America's foot soldier.
• Indeed three of the BRICs are in Pakistan's neighborhood, and it is up to it to exploit the opportunities these fast-growing economies offer to pull itself back from economic collapse. Russia, for its part, appears to have figured out that so dire are Pakistan's energy requirements that it must first address this vulnerability before it can attain any degree of strategic autonomy and pull out of America's orbit.

• Moscow has offered its support for a string of big-ticket energy projects including the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline and officials are racing to put in place a set of agreements that the two sides can reach 'during Putins visit.

  The $7.5 billion project will bring 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (bcfd) from Turkmenistan's gas fields to Multan in central Pakistan and will end in the northwestern Indian town of Fazilka. Originally scheduled to be completed by 2013-14, the landmark deal was signed by Zardari, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Indian Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, and President of the Asian Development Bank Haruhiko Kuroda in Ashgabat, the capital city of Turkmenistan, in 2010. But the instability in the region has kept the project frozen.
• Russia has said it is in interested in participating in TAPI as also in the even more controversial Iran-Pakistan project which envisages bringing gas from Iran to Pakistan. India has dropped out of the project, which many see as a result of U.S. pressure.
• At a joint working group meeting this summer, the Russian authorities also offered $500 million for the World Bank-backed Central Asia South Asia electricity import project, which would bring electricity from Central Asian states. Under the project floated in 2006, 1,000 to 1,300 megawatts of surplus electricity will be imported from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
• For Russia, clearly, Pakistan is the key to tackling the tangled mess in the region as NATO prepares to leave Afghanistan. It sees itself as the guardian angel of the Central Asian Republics (CAR) and has repeatedly expressed concern about the arc of instability radiating out from the Afghanistan-Pakistan belt that has only gotten worse since the U.S. invasion and feeds its own insurgencies as well trafficking in drugs. Almost one fourth of the drugs produced in Afghanistan flows to Russia.
• With a drastic demographic fall and with nearly 3 million drug addicts, Russia today cannot afford to continue this situation for long.
• Stabilising Pakistan, - a nuclear power with a population bigger than Russia's - then, is the first step toward stabilising Afghanistan and then the countries of Central Asia, at its doorstep. Many of the Islamist militants who commit violent acts in Central Asia are based in Pakistan, and are linked to Russia's jihadi problems in Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia.
• From Russia's standpoint, getting Pakistan into the grouping - which it at one stage likened to a regional NATO - would help forge a compact against separatism, extremism and militancy. Together with China which similarly prizes stability above everything else, it can work to temper Pakistan's irredentist tendencies in ways the Americans could not do because they became such a hated power.
• Putin in fact has been pushing hard for setting up a "energy club" within the SCO comprising Russia, Iran and the central Asia republics as the producers and China, India and Pakistan as the big consumers. A powerful club such as that can well influence energy markets, and ultimately put further distance between Pakistan and the West. The challenge for Moscow will be to upgrade its ties with Pakistan while maintaining a close relationship with India.

• Indo-Russian cooperation in the military technical cooperation sphere has been transformed from a simple buyer-seller framework to one involving joint R&D, joint production and marketing of advanced defence technologies and systems.

  The BrahMos missile system is an example of this type of cooperation. Joint development of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) and the Multi Transport Aircraft (MTA), as well as the licensed production in India of SU-30 aircraft and T-90 tanks, are other examples of flagship cooperation programs that are presently underway in this area.

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• If this scenario becomes reality, Russia will obtain enormous leverage over the United States. In one fell swoop, it will remove the Mideastern loop, which can not be tightened today just because of Iran. What is more, Russia will receive access to the Indian Ocean through the Arabian Sea and the ports of Gwadar or Karachi and then to the Strait of Hormuz, bypassing the alliance with Iran, which is not beneficial for Russia now
• With Pakistan's help, Russia would be able to control terrorist activities in Central Asia. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) is the largest Islamist political organization in Central Asia. It is present in Afghanistan on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and Pakistan's role could be crucial in the fight against this menace.
• According to experts, Pakistan is interested in buying Mi-35 attack helicopters, Mi-17 transport helicopters, engines for JF-17 program, missile defense systems, submarines and so on.
• Russia made another thoughtful decision as it offered Pakistan help in solving the country's energy crisis. Gazprom is ready to invest in Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, rather than in the risky TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India), which has the support of the United States. In addition, Russia's Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Factory (MMK), with 75 percent of shares, will help expand the capabilities of Pakistan Steel Mills from 1 million to 3 million tons of production a year. Pakistan, in turn, can provide access to mineral resources in Balochistan and the Thar coal deposit.
• It is important to remember that Pakistan sits on the crossroads of east to west and north to south trade corridors, including the new Silk Road Project in South Asia, which the Americans cherish
• A mega breakthrough is possible in the future: the "Persian Gulf - Bering Strait" railroad. The road will cross the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Turksib and the Trans-Asian Railway from China to Europe.  

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• Geopolitics is concerned with how geographical factors, including territory, population, strategic location, and natural resource endowments, as modified by economics and technology, affect the relations between states and the struggle for world domination.
• Mackinder is best known for his doctrine of the “Heartland.” Geopolitical strategy was about the endgame of controlling the Heartland—or the enormous transcontinental land mass of Eurasia, encompassing Eastern Europe, Russia through Siberia, and Central Asia. The Heartland, together with the remainder of Asia and Africa, made up the World Island. The Heartland itself was defined by its inaccessibility to sea, making it “the greatest natural fortress on earth.”7 The Columbian Age dominated by sea power, Mackinder argued, was coming to an end to be replaced by a new Eurasian age in which land power would be decisive.
• Vietnam Syndrome” (the unwillingness of the U.S. population to support military interventions in the periphery),
• The signal event was the Carter Doctrine, issued by President Carter in his State of the Union speech in January 1980, in which he declared that, “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
• In 1983 the Reagan administration responded to such demands by establishing the U.S. Central Command (Centcom). Centcom is one of five regional “unified commands” governing U.S. combat forces around the globe. Its authority covers twenty-five nations in south-central Asia (including the Persian Gulf) and in the Horn of Africa. Its primary responsibility from the start was to keep the oil flowing. In the two decades of its existence, Klare notes, “Centcom forces have fought in four major engagements: the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the Afghanistan War of 2001, and the Iraq War of 2003[—].”24
• Defense Planning Guidance, directed by Paul Wolfowitz then undersecretary of defense for policy. Parts of this classified report, leaked to the press in 1992, stated in Spykman-like language that “Our strategy [after the fall of the Soviet Union] must refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.” Wolfowitz also took a leaf from the Heartland doctrine, arguing that “Russia will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia and the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States.”25 The Defense Planning Guidance proposed a global geopolitical goal for the United States of permanent military hegemony through preemptive actions. Yet, strong objections from U.S. allies forced Washington to back off from the draft report’s explicit commitment to unilateral domination of the globe.
• Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser, emerged in this period as one of the most avid proponents of the geopolitics of U.S. empire.
• In his Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) he alluded directly to the Heartland doctrines promoted by Mackinder and Haushofer (and what he called “the much vulgarized echo” of this in “Hitler’s emphasis on the German people’s need for ‘Lebensraum’”).

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