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Russia Intimidates NATO with Military Exercises
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
June 13, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Staging military exercises in the Baltic
Kaliningrad region of Russia, the Kremlin responded to a NATO troop buildup in
Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, a direct response to Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s March 1 annexation of Crimea.
Leaders in the former Soviet Baltic satellites asked NATO for added
military security, concerned that Putin could get more ambitious and re-occupy
one or more of the Baltic States.
After watching a pro-Western coup Feb. 22 while he hosted the Sochi Winter
Olympics topple the Russian-backed government of Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovich,
Putin went on the aggressive, seizing Crimea and stationing 10,000 troops on the
Russian side of the Ukrainian border, telling the U.S. and European Union to
back down. Western officials have
not adequately explained what happened Feb. 22 when anti-Russian demonstrators
toppled the Yanukovich government.
Flying close to Latvian airspace, Putin showed NATO who’s boss in his old
neighborhood, when he once dominated the Baltics in the old Soviet Union. Putin often laments the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union, seeking to reestablish the superpower credibility
enjoyed by the former Marxist-Leninist state.
“The training of the army’s group in the Kaliningrad operational
[theatre] is being held simultaneously with the international [NATO] exercises
of Saber Strike-2014 and BALTOPS-2O14 launched in Europe,” said the Kremlin
statement. Kalinnigrad is a sliver
of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania. Since Putin’s annexation of Crimea,
Poland the Baltic States fear more Russian encroachment, prompting NATO military
exercises in the air and sea. About
4,700 NATO troops from 13 countries are participating, prompting Moscow’s
counter-measures.
Some U.S. and EU officials have characterized Putin’s responses as
paralleling Adolf Hitler in the 1930s when he kept seizing more European
territory. While Putin rejects that view, annexing Crimea
reminds NATO of Putin’s 2009 annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both
Russia-speaking areas of Georgia, a U.N.-recognized sovereign state. While Putin has pulled back some of
his forces in Eastern Ukraine, there’s still concerns that he could invade the
area under the same pretext of protecting Russian-speaking populations. Since taken over by the Soviet Union
in the 1920s, the Soviet communists imposed Russian on most the ethnic
populations from the South Caucasus region to the Baltics. Showing no signs to returning Crimea
to Ukraine under the new leadership of 49-year-old Petro Poroshenko, Putin has
created more anxiety for former Soviet satellites.
Sending 16 Russian military aircraft to patrol the area around Latvia,
Putin’s show of force violates Latvian sovereignty. Neither Poland nor any Baltic State
has asked Putin for any intervention.
What irks Putin, as it does in Ukraine, is that the Baltics and most the
former Soviet republics, including Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, etc.,
seek closer ties not to Moscow but to the EU.
Putin’s heavy-handed approach mirrors the old Soviet style of
compromising the sovereignty and territorial integrity of former Soviet
satellites. Poland and Lithuania
complained about Russian surveillance and flyovers, prompting NATO to send in
more troops and start patrols at the request of former Soviet satellites or
client states. Putin’s insistence
that he had the right to invade Ukraine March 1 showed former Soviet satellites
that he could repeat that excuse with other sovereign states.
Putin’s intimidation of once Soviet satellites now sovereign states
prompted the U.S. and EU to impose economic and trade sanctions on Moscow. Unwilling to back down, ordering the
Russian military to intimidate former Soviet republics shows Putin real intent,
not to protect Russian-speaking populations.
Before the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989 and the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991, most the former Soviet republics imposed the Russian language
on ethnic populations. Moscow’s
longstanding battle with Islamic cultures in the Caucasus regions, especially in
Chechnya, shows the heavy-handed Soviet approach that spurred the 1980-89
Russian-Afghan War, costing the Soviet Union nearly 16,000 lives and trillions
of rubles. Putin’s already watched
the Russian ruble and stock market sink after annexing Crimea and intimidating
his neighbors.
Putin’s annexation of Ukraine and intimidation in the Caucasus region,
Baltic States and other former Soviet satellites requires a more forceful
response on the U.N. Security Council.
Voting more U.S. and EU sanctions isn’t enough for Putin to get the
message that he can’t bully former Soviet republics or parts of Western and
Eastern Europe. Before Putin
dominates more of Eastern and Western Europe or the former Soviet republics, the
U.N. must debate Moscow’s continued presence on the Security Council. Considered one of the five
veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia often uses its veto
power to advance a self-serving political agenda. Without some attempt to clip Putin’s
feathers, the Kremlin will continue advancing its power at the expense of
sovereign states. More economic and
travel sanctions aren’t enough to stop his aggression.
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