By General Monzer El Ayoubi
Translation: Dr Pierre A. Sarkis
“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,” with this phrase Washington opened the hotline with Moscow during the month of August, 1963, at the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis, to avoid any event or misinterpretation, an action or counterreaction that could raise the tensions before moving towards the stage of military escalation, leading to a spontaneous mutual response that opens the silos of the nuclear missiles.
After a little more than five decades, and contrary to his phrase “it is always preferable to meet face to face,” stated by US President Joe Biden from the entrance to the La Grange Palace in Geneva, on August 18, just before his first meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the video communication channel WebEx Meeting Center did not open to the minimum level between the White House and the Kremlin, and the line of communication coded “red phone” remained silent since the era of the Cold War, while the waters of the Black Sea have been experiencing unprecedented tensions. Consequently, former US President Donald Trump had used a precedent which prevailed in method and style, by using the communication channel Via Twitter for publicity worldwide, to announce his sometimes impromptu positions on world issues at the strategic level, as well as, his relationship with his head of states counterparts.
As Twitter became later an easy, instantaneous and immediate means of communication for any stated decision or impulsive opinion, US President Joe Biden soon fell into the first hole, when he declared that he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a “murderer” warning that he “will pay” for his actions. This caused a diplomatic rift which prompted Moscow at the time to recall its ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, until the matter was handled at the La Grange Summit with the two presidents meeting face to face after which all accusations and mutual recriminations ceased. In a related context, overcoming the bad personal relationship did not obviously lead to understandings on strategic and geopolitical levels. Most of the world crises remained within the framework of managing the dispute to a minimum, by adopting regional conflicts and internal wars as a language for expansion or regression between the two superpowers, according to the balance of the local powers at each hot spot, or imminent hot spots, and within the limits allowed by both of them.
In parallel, the Western-Atlantic incursion into the Russian lake was not the direct reason for raising the level of tension, now almost at the edge of military confrontation, as the pattern of the cautious and unfriendly relationship increased, most recently on October 18, when Russia suspended the tasks of its NATO mission in Brussels, Belgium, and closed NATO offices in Moscow, in response to the decision of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to expel eight members of the mission who were charged with espionage. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the time that “the basic conditions for joint action no longer exist,” adding that Moscow would suspend the work of its official NATO mission in Brussels, including its military representative starting November 1.
Furthermore, the deterioration of relations with the Western military bloc was translated last week into a joint naval maneuver in the Black Sea by the United States, involving units of the maritime and air forces of Britain, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey and the Ukraine. The start of the training operations which occurred suddenly, and without any direct coordination or prior notice to the Russian Defense Ministry, escalated the dispute following the publication of reports by Western Media of Moscow’s intention to invade the Ukraine. This prompted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, acting on the Kremlin’s decision, to raise the level of alert and combat readiness of the Black Sea Fleet Command (BSFC) stationed in the Moscow Cruiser anchored at the Sevastopol base, a city in the Crimea annexed to the Russian Federation in 2014.
In this sense, the Russian President considered the entry of US and Atlantic naval war pieces into the Black Sea “the Western courtyard of Russia” across the Strait of the Bosphorus and the beginning of training exercises, a hostile act directed at his country which crossed the red lines. In an interview with Channel Russia-24 last Saturday, he expressed his country’s sharp, conclusive warning stance: “the United States and its NATO allies are now conducting unscheduled maneuvers- and I would like to stress that they are not scheduled- in the Black Sea Basin, not only to form a largely strong group of ships, but also by using aviation, including strategic aviation, which is a serious challenge for us.”
In parallel, the study of the supposed theater of NATO operations and exercises produced the traditional Russian initial response, with Admiral Igor Osipov pushing a number of modern guided missiles frigates class Krivak and Slava, to display force with surveillance missions. And within the margin of control measures and keeping pace with the movements of US Navy ships in the hot spot, he did not refrain from pushing the assault submarines Kalpino, Krasnodar and Staryy Oskal of the 4th Submarine Brigade into the theater.
Within the cautious calm coinciding with the warming of the cold waters, Russia’s strategic response reflected the maximum level of readiness for a military confrontation, with an anti-satellite missile test conducted on Tuesday without any coordination with Washington. While US officials stated that “a missile launched by Russia toward one of its satellites on Monday, has spread what looks like an orbital debris field that has endangered the International Space Station and will pose a threat to space activities for years to come.” No statement has been issued by the Russian Airforce-Space Command or the Ministry of Defense. Experts in testing weapons which destroy satellites in its orbit considered the test dangerous, as it can draw fragments that could collide with other objects and lead to a sequential reaction of projectiles across Earth’s orbit.
This dual sea and space military movement in the theater, although it shows the magnitude of the confrontation and the capabilities and responses, its results are in the policy that translates into geopolitical gains. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s statement on Monday, is enough to be built by analysts: “I think NATO exercises are linked to the efforts of the United States and its allies to step up the policy of “containing Russia” continuing that “we have been accustomed in our relations with NATO for many years to prepare for any provocations.” This morning a flood of remarks between US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the missile test was softened, with the latter describing the State Department’s statements as “full of Hypocrisy.”
The question in this haste is about the meaning, intent and dimensions of “containing Russia.” Is the goal to keep her away from her alliances? At the very least is the most important one with China, keeping in mind that the latter is a strategic US economic and military goal. The AUKUS Alliance, a kind of security agreement between Australia, Britain and the United States announced last September, is in response to the Sino-Russian Alliance agreement and to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Noteworthy was a series of events that run parallel within the supposed circle of containment, as today also noted a hypothetical summit meeting between the American and Chinese presidents that lasted about three hours, and certainly will not exceed the limit of addressing hot economic differences, such as, the Chinese trade invasion of markets, industrial espionage and intellectual property, or correcting as much of it as possible, deficient in making any breakthrough in the strategic relationship between Beijing and Moscow. In addition, border tensions between Poland and Belarus over the latter’s facilitation of the movement of refugees and migrants crossing into Germany and western Europe, have been placed in the coordination column between Moscow and Minsk to confuse NATO countries which carry the human rights flags. Added to the scene is the renewal of the Armenian-Azerbaijani front after violent border clashes broke out throughout the day between the armies of the two countries, from which Turkey’s intelligence services and NATO countries are not innocent. In the foreseeable future, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will not succeed in his attempt to de-escalate, declaring that “the organization retains channels of communications with Russia, and continues the dual approach of relations with Moscow that combines defense, deterrence and openness to dialogue, but this has become more difficult because of Russia’s decision to close the NATO office in Moscow.”
Finally, it seems that the period of pulse sensing, testing of forces and balanced deterrence capabilities will be prolonged, and the two world superpowers will continue to exchange messages in politics and the theater, but they will surely be good at reading them and translating their symbols, for neither of them has any interest in playingl with strategic stability and reaching the end of the game, which means mass destruction.
Beirut, 16/11/2021
Scholar in Security and Strategic Affairs.
