Russia Agrees To Repay Soviet-Era Debt To Bosnia

Bosnia-Herzegovina and Russia have signed an agreement to settle Moscow's $125.2 million Soviet-era debt to the Balkan country.

Bosnia's Finance Ministry said the deal signed on March 22 in Moscow will make Bosnia the only ex-Yugoslav republic to collect the debt in cash.

The full amount is expected to be transferred by the end of May, but the timing depends on how speedily the Bosnian parliament ratifies the deal.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Moscow will make payment within 45 days of the deal taking force.

In 2003, Russia took over the responsibility for the Soviet Union's debt to the former Yugoslavia, estimated at $1.3 billion. The debt arose mainly from business deals under which communist Yugoslavia provided the Soviet Union with consumer goods.

Moscow has already cleared the portions of debt claimed by other Yugoslav successor states, repaying them in goods and services.

Russia Playing Politics With Alleged Submarine Confrontations

Confrontations—and alleged confrontations—between the Russian armed forces and those of the United States, Europe and Japan have been on the uptick in recent weeks. The encounters have paced a general decline in relations between Russia and the West over events in the Ukraine.

 

This month Russian media have reported two alleged anti-submarine warfare operations undertaken against American and Japanese submarines. The confrontations are reminiscent of similar events during the Cold War, in which submarines of the Soviet Union, the United States and her allies played a constant cat-and-mouse game against one another.

 

This time however, the rationale behind the incidents appears more complex, undertaken by Russia as often for internal reasons as for making a larger point to the international community.

 

According to Russian state media, on Aug. 7 a foreign submarine was allegedly expelled from Russian-controlled waters in the Barents Sea. A Northern Fleet spokesman stated that Russian anti-submarine forces, consisting of surface ships and an Ilyushin Il-38 Maymaritime patrol aircraft had chased off what was presumed to be a U.S. Virginia-class attack submarine.

 

A spokesman for European Command later denied that the event took place, saying that no U.S. submarines had been operating in the area.

 

The incident—as well as an incident a week earlier, in which a U.S. Air Force RC-135 V/W Rivet Joint aircraft was harassed in international airspace over the Baltic Sea—appears meant to send a message to Russia’s neighbors. The message to pro-NATO countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is that Russia is more than capable of successfully confronting the U.S. presence in Europe and ejecting American forces if necessary.

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of Russia came a report last week about a similar incident involving a Japanese submarine. A report in the Russian business daily Kommersant, citing a source in the Defense Ministry, said Russian anti-submarine warfare units had forced a Japanese Oyashio-class submarine to cut short a patrol near the border between the two countries.

 

The alleged incident occurred in the La Perouse Strait, known to Japan as the Soya Strait, a narrow passage between the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. The La Perouse Strait is a mere 43 miles across, and depth at the strait is approximately 60 meters. Japan claims an international water boundary of a mere three miles at the strait, instead of the usual 12, allegedly to allow nuclear-armed American warships crossing the strait to skirt and not enter Japanese waters.

 

The La Perouse Strait has been an important defensive bastion for Japanese submarines since the Cold War, when it was feared that Soviet forces would launch an invasion of Hokkaido from Sakhalin. In wartime, two or three Maritime Self-Defense Force submarines would guard the strait to prevent an amphibious invasion.

 

The Oyashio-class diesel attack submarines are older members of Japan’s submarine fleet, having been superseded by the newer Soryu class. The submarine involved would have been from the Maritime Self Defense Force base at Yokosuka.

 

On Wednesday, according to ITAR-TASS, the Russian government took the unusual step of denying a confrontation had actually took place. “The Japanese submarine detected in the La Perouse Strait on Wednesday did not violate international law and did not cross the Russian state border,” a source at the Russian General Staff reported. Why the story of a confrontation came to light in the first place is unknown.

 

The incident took place while Russian forces, including 1,000 ground troops, five Mi-8AMTSh armed transport helicopters, and 100 military vehicles staged an exercise on the Russian-held southern Kuril Islands. The southern Kurils, four islands seized from Japan by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, are still claimed by Japan. Japan, where the islands are known as the Northern Territories, has tried to get Russia to return the islands for decades without avail. Japan protested the exercises, calling them “totally unacceptable.”

 

Japan also recently imposed sanctions on Russia for its part in events in the Crimea. The exercise, as well as the reported encounter with the Japanese submarine, are likely signals to Japan that Russia is still in control of the southern Kurils and can be a complicated neighbor, to put it mildly.

 

Another, more direct reason for these events is to divert attention within Russia from negative news harmful to the government of Vladimir Putin. Unlike the Cold War, in which the Soviet government did not have to compete internally with the Western narrative of world events, the Russian government must do so. The controlling relationship between Russian state media and Moscow makes it possible for the Putin government to promote alternatives to negative news and events.

 

The alleged expulsion of the Virginia-class submarine from the Barents Sea likely had another purpose as propaganda. The news broke in Russia on a Saturday, when it could dominate Russian news for the weekend. The following Tuesday, 12 August, was the 14th anniversary of the sinking of the Russian cruise missile submarine Kursk. Kursk sank with all 118 hands aboard in the Barents and the rescue effort by the government of then-president Putin was later criticized by many as inept. The anniversary was marked in Murmansk, Kursk, and several Northern Fleet bases with commemorative events.

 

Russia Today, in reporting the alleged expulsion, said “Such actions by the NATO undersea fleet have led to a number of navigation incidents in the Arctic”and then quoted a source in the Russian navy as stating that that, “A collision with (sic) U.S. nuclear submarine, Toledo, was one the main explanations of the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000.” The net result was that the anniversary of the Kursk sinking was overshadowed by an incident that illustrated Russian strength.

 

Similarly, the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 by Ukrainian separatists—and likely Russian complicity in the event—must now compete for attention against news reports of Russian forces defending their borders against American intruders. Creating incidents in which Russian strength is on display, offers a more positive alternative to reports of Russian ineptitude and involvement in the Crimea.

 

Confrontations between Russian and U.S., NATO and Japanese forces at sea will likely continue for the duration of the Putin administration. A major concern is that, aside from projecting the bellicosity of the Putin regime, such a confrontation could spark a major incident at sea. However, in an ironic twist, such events provide the West with an opportunity to study Russian military forces and detect strengths and weaknesses, as well as collect technical information on Russian equipment.

Russia Today TV presenter Liz Wahl quits on air

 

For the second time American presenters on the Russian backed TV station Russia Today have gone off script to voice their personal concerns about Russia's occupation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.
 

On Tuesday, Abby Martin signed off her programme with an ad-libbed attack on the Kremlin. Now her colleague Liz Wahl has added her voice to the disquiet among the channel's on air staff by announcing her resignation on air.

 

Submariners World Supports Free Ukraine

Counter-Terrorism ---- The Downside Of Victory

Even before September 11, 2001 counter-terrorism experts were becoming aware of how crucial money and other forms of material support are to even the most fanatical terrorist organizations. The intense scrutiny of Islamic terror groups in the last two decades revealed some other interesting angles to international terrorism. For example, after the Cold War ended many in the West were surprised to discover the extent to which the Soviet Union had provided support for terrorist groups.

 

There was not only an extensive network of terrorist training schools in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but also cash subsidies, weapons and specialized equipment as well as technical advisors for terrorists outside the Soviet controlled countries. Western counter-terrorism organizations knew this support existed but not, until the Soviet Union fell in 1991 and their archives were opened for a few years, the extent of that support.

 

Islamic radical terrorists did not get much support from the Soviet Union because these groups considered the Soviets anti-Islam and prime targets for Islamic terrorism. The Soviets managed to keep the Islamic terrorists out of the Soviet Union and cut off from any Soviet support. The Islamic radicals learned to adapt by relying on pious, newly rich, Arabs from countries with lots of oil to export. After the Arab led oil cartel was formed in the 1970s and forced up oil prices there was a lot more Islamic charity for Islamic terrorist groups to tap into.

  

This brings us around to Somali Islamic radical group al Shabaab. Originally the fanatic wing of a more moderate Somali movement trying to impose law and order after more than a decade of chaos, al Shabaab soon became a major law and order problem itself. There are still several thousand armed al Shabaab men in Somalia after several years of fighting and losing to African peacekeepers and Somali troops. Al Shabaab suffered major losses last year and has scattered into smaller groups that hide out in remote parts of Somalia. At the moment al Shabaab is more interested in raising cash as the group is broke following its expulsion from the lucrative cities of Mogadishu and Kismayo over the last two years. There are now fewer opportunities to kidnap foreigners and the pirates, who used to share ransoms with al Shabaab, have not taken a ransomable ship in over a year. In short, al Shabaab needs money.

  

The effort to further weaken (and eventually obliterate) al Shabaab has now shifted to the group’s finances. This is a battle that gets little publicity and is easy to keep out of the news because it is, well, stuff that mostly happens out of public view. Al Shabaab is believed to be seeking cash from wealthy Arabs in Arabia, These are men who like to donate to Islamic charities that support Islamic radicalism. For nearly a decade both oil rich Arab countries and their Western allies have been trying to stop this source of terrorist funding, but have only been able to reduce it. The money still gets through to Islamic terror groups that have lots of media coverage. For that reason it is believed al Shabaab will try to carry out more spectacular attacks outside Somalia. That way al Shabaab can gain more media coverage and easier access to wealthy donors. 

  

This strategy is easier now because a recent power struggle within the organization has left the “Foreign” faction in charge. For years al Shabaab had been divided as the “Somalia” nationalist faction opposed the foreign volunteers who were eager for al Shabaab to carry out more terrorism outside Somalia. The Somalia faction wanted to hold off on this until they had all of Somalia under their control. But the Foreign faction believed that would take too long, especially once the foreign terrorists came to understand how fragmented Somalia was by clan and warlord politics. The foreigners concluded that Somalia would never be united, because it had never been united (for long) in the past. This is something most Somalis do not want to dwell on. Meanwhile in the past year many prominent al Shabaab nationalist (keep operations inside Somalia) faction leaders were killed or driven away from al Shabaab, which now sees itself primarily as an international terrorist organization. Thus the eagerness of American, Israeli, British and other European countries to help destroy al Shabaab in Somalia once and for all. As long as al Shabaab survives in Somalia the organization can reach out to Somali communities in other countries, especially the West, for donations, new recruits and overseas targets.

  

The loss of Kismayo last year was a major blow to al Shabaab finances because that port could be used to smuggle illegal goods (especially ivory) out of the country. Al Shabaab also collected fees on anything leaving or entering via Kismayo. Now al Shabaab has limited, and irregular, access to smaller ports on the coast. The financial loss to al Shabaab has been huge. Al Shabaab charged fees (for protection from al Shabaab retaliation) to businesses in all areas it controlled. This covered an enormous amount of legal and illegal trade via Kismayo. Kismayo alone was worth over $50 million a year to al Shabaab. For every million dollars of income al Shabaab could keep 400-500 armed men in action. Major operations, like suicide car bombings, can cost several thousand dollars (to get the car, build the bomb and train the suicide bomber) and intelligence gathering costs money, if only because bribes are an easy way to find out things but that can be expensive, even in Somalia. 

  

With most of that income gone in the past year, al Shabaab has begun to unravel. The loss of income led to many desertions and the inability to make attacks within Somalia. This is a common pattern in Islamic terror organizations. The less cash they have the fewer senior staff they have. This group includes skilled leadership and technical experts (for building bombs, planning attacks and working the media). These core members usually have families to support and need cash to do their work. Without the spectacular attacks potential recruits and donors won’t know you exist and you will fade away. Counter-terrorism efforts now try to induce this form of natural selection and al Shabaab is one of the primary targets. Al Shabaab is adapting and trying to establish branches in nearby countries with ethnic Somali populations. Thus al Shabaab becomes a more widespread threat and it becomes weaker overall. When the rats abandon a sinking ship the rats show up somewhere else.

India-Pakistan; Terrorists Win A Big Election

China recently released an unclassified analysis of the Indian military situation. This is a first for China, which has, in the last decade, increasingly come into conflict with India over where the Tibetan border should be and whose fleet should be dominant in the Indian Ocean. The last time China and India fought was in 1962, when China won a brief battle to decide a dispute over where the Tibetan border really should be. All has been quiet since then, mainly because of Cold War politics (Russia and China began feuding and India became a Russian client while still maintaining ties with the West). After 1991, with the Soviet Union gone, Russia and China became the best of pals (despite dormant Chinese claims on Russian territory) while India drew closer to the West and remained the largest customer for Russian weapons. The big change has been the huge growth in the Chinese economy, which is now the second largest in the world. China spends three times as much as India does on defense. Chinese leaders are not elected (the country is still a communist police state) and have used nationalism (rebuilding the old Chinese empire) to maintain power. This means adjusting the Tibet border (which a temporarily independent Tibet adjusted in India’s favor in 1914) and moving the rapidly growing Chinese fleet into the Indian Ocean (to safeguard vital Chinese trade routes). Despite all this, the Chinese analysis still sees Pakistan as India’s major military threat, despite India officially shifting its effort to confront China in the last few years. Pakistan has attacked India several times in the last half century and lost every time. The Pakistani military is poorly equipped and really only good for fighting Pakistanis. It’s not very good at that either and India has decided the Chinese are more of a threat. The new Chinese study is apparently an effort to make the Pakistanis feel better, if only because Pakistan is a major customer for Chinese weapons.

In southwest Pakistan (Baluchistan) a terrorist truck bomb was used against a police station, killing five policemen. 

 

May 11, 2013: National elections were held in Pakistan, despite Islamic terrorists and tribal rebels trying to halt the process. Over a thousand casualties (including at least 200 dead) were suffered by candidates, voting officials and civilians in the last month. There’s always some of that, but it was worse this time because each new government is expected to do something about Islamic terrorism and tribal unrest and they don’t. 

 

Nawaz Sharif and his party (the Moslem League) won the election. This returns Sharif to power after being ousted by the military in 1999. Five years ago Nawaz Sharif, who tried to remove Pervez Musharraf as head of the armed forces in 1999, and was himself removed by the army in turn, tried to return Pakistan (from exile) and overthrow Musharraf. He was arrested at the airport. Many of Sharifs followers had earlier been rounded up. Sharif had earlier agreed to stay out of the country for ten years (until 2010). This was partly to avoid going to prison for corruption. Sharif eventually got in and established himself and his party as a viable contender. 

 

While Musharraf was disliked for being a dictator, the political parties don't offer much of an alternative. The Islamic parties fear they are losing support, because of the continuing Taliban and al Qaeda violence. Musharraf had ordered elections when he saw rising popular anger against him and the military. He lost power in the 2008 elections. He has since been arrested for corruption and abuse of power. Musharraf is unlikely to make a comeback. Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, belongs to a powerful family from Punjab and has temporarily made the corruption charges go away. The wealthy feudal families dominate the economy, politics and the military in Pakistan and less than a hundred of these clans control about half the economy. They are very powerful and determined to keep things that way.

 

The corruption is still there but Sharif, who got his start working for military dictator Muhammad Zia who ruled from 1977 until his death in 1988). Zia was notable for establishing Islamic terrorism and Islamic radicalism as official state policy, along with being the longest lasting military dictator in Pakistani history. In effect, Zia is most responsible for the mess Pakistan is currently in but is considered a national hero because he was in charge during the 1980s as billions in American and Saudi money poured in to sustain Afghan refugees from the war with Russia in neighboring Afghanistan. Those refugees supplied tribal warriors who kept fighting the Russians until the Russians tired of the enterprise and left in 1989. Pakistanis officers and officials stole lots of that money and infected the refugees with Islamic radicalism, which led to Pakistan creating the Taliban in the 1990s. With that as a background, Nawaz Sharif now has to deal with the growing threat (to Pakistan) of Islamic radicalism and the Pakistani military (to depose him once more). The corruption in the economy and politics makes it difficult to rule Pakistan but there is the hopes that Nawaz Sharif might get it right the second time around. That’s no guarantee of success, especially since Sharif and his clan still wallow in corruption, but in Pakistan hope is often the only thing you’ve got. 

 

Sharif’s party did surprisingly well, gaining 46 percent of the seats in parliament. Sharif has said nice things about Islamic radicalism and advocates yet another attempt to make peace with the Pakistani Taliban (which has been at war with Pakistan for most of the last decade). With all that Sharif says he wants to maintain good relations with the United States while reducing Pakistani efforts against Islamic terrorism. That is something that is unpopular with America, India and China. Many Pakistanis see the Islamic radicals not as potential saviors but as another bunch of criminals plundering the country. It is a fact that the Taliban often steal and have made a lot of money extorting ransoms and protection money from the military. The Islamic terrorist assassins know where officers and their families live and have powerful branches in major cities (especially Karachi). While many Taliban are intent on turning Pakistan into a religious dictatorship, many others have tasted the good life all this extortion cash can bring. This terror campaign has caused the military to back off on its efforts to shut down the Islamic terror groups (mainly the Taliban) at war with Pakistan. Can Sharif turn this around? Probably not, but the hope is that he can. In one sense hope has been fulfilled because this election marks the first time in Pakistani history that one elected government has followed another without being interrupted by a period of military dictatorship. 

 

May 10, 2013: A long time British reporter (Declan Walsh) in Pakistan (who has worked for major British and American newspapers) was expelled. This was apparently the military expressing its displeasure at his stories revealing how the military tried to blame some of its air strikes on American UAV operations. Walsh was lucky, for his Pakistani counterparts are often murdered for saying things the military does not want said. 

 

May 9, 2013: In northeast India (Assam) police arrested a senior Maoist leader (Anukul Chandra). Police are not sure if Chandra (and two less senior Maoist leaders arrested in the area last month) are simply trying to escape the increasingly effective anti-Maoist campaign in eastern India, or are in the northeast to help with the Maoist effort to expand their operations into the tribal territories of the northeast. There, tribal separatists have been fighting the government for decades but in the last few years most of them have made peace. 

 

May 7, 2013: For the first time since the Taliban declared war on polio vaccination a year ago, there has been a case of polio in the tribal territories. It occurred in North Waziristan, an unofficial (but very real) sanctuary for Islamic terrorists where resistance to vaccination has been most effective. Polio can only exist in a human host and one case means there will be others.

 

In Bangladesh two days of violence by Islamic religious (madrassa) students, demanding the imposition of Islamic law led to 28 deaths, most of them Islamic radicals. Islamic radicalism is growing in popularity in Bangladesh but is still very much a minority activity. Incidents like this, and the mess Islamic radicals have made in Pakistan, make it difficult for Islamic radicals to expand their base of popular support.  

 

May 6, 2013: More gunfire on the Afghan border although this time Pakistan insists the Afghan’s fired first. Last week an Afghan policeman was killed in a similar incident. This violence is all about an ongoing dispute about exactly where the international border is. Recently Pakistan built some new border posts forward of previous ones but still, according to Pakistan, on Pakistani territory. This has led to shooting between Afghan and Pakistani border guards. There’s also a tribal rivalry element to all this. Most of the Afghan-Pakistani border is occupied by Pushtun tribes. This frontier, still called the “Durand Line” (an impromptu invention of British colonial authorities) was always considered artificial by locals, because the line often went right through Pushtun tribal territories. However, the Afghans are more inclined to accept the Durand Line, and fight to maintain it. The Pakistanis believe absolute control of the border is impossible, and their attempts to stop illegal crossings cause additional trouble (as tribesmen do not like excessive attention at border crossing posts). This recent violence is also linked to years of anger over Afghan Taliban and other terrorists hiding out in Pakistan and Islamic terrorists (fighting the Pakistani government) hiding out in Afghanistan. This has led to regular Pakistani shelling of suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan, which often kills innocent (or semi-innocent) Afghan civilians. The Afghans protest and the Pakistanis refuse to halt the shelling and rocket fire or even admit that they are doing it.

 

May 5, 2013: Indian and Chinese officers met to resolve yet another border dispute and a bit of Chinese aggression. China agreed to withdraw its intruding troops while India agreed to remove some border posts that had annoyed the Chinese. Both nations declared victory, but the Chinese got more out of the deal. It was all about twenty or so Chinese troops who have been camped out 19 kilometers inside Indian Kashmir since April 15^th. China said their troops were not inside India, something India disputed. Neither country seemed eager to escalate this, or resolve it. China said it would withdraw if India would abandon an observation post in the mountains that overlooked Chinese positions. The Indian outpost was in Indian territory but the Chinese don’t like being watched. The Indians refused and pointed out that there had been three other Chinese incursions recently, but these troops did not linger. India sees all this as the Chinese way of applying pressure on India to withdraw from territory claimed by India. Once more, this tactic worked.

 

Heavy fighting continues in the Pakistani tribal territories (near the Khyber Pass). The most recent battles today left 16 Islamic terrorists and two soldiers dead in the Tirah Valley. This time troops overran a major camp and captured a lot of weapons, ammo and equipment. Pakistani troops have spent six weeks fighting Taliban gunmen there. The army has been using regular troops as well as SSG commandos and pro-government tribesmen. So far nearly 150 terrorists have been killed along with about 40 soldiers and tribal allies. The army has been trying to clear the Taliban from this border area since 2009, but have been unable to keep the Taliban from returning. When pressed hard enough, the Taliban retreat across the border into camps and villages in Afghanistan. They are sometimes attacked there, but because the Pakistani Taliban are not attacking anyone in Afghanistan, the local security forces concentrate on those who do (mainly the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, which is based in North Waziristan, an official terrorist sanctuary the Pakistani government refuses to shut down.)

Soviet Cold War Secrets

Crumbling Soviet Military Bases: A 20th Century Empire in Decay

“These sites of power… are mostly doomed to disappear in the course of time.”