AIR DEFENCE THREAT

Moscow hosted an extraordinary summit of the Collective Security Treaty Or-ganization (CSTO) on 4 February. It was meant to drastically change the image of this organization and to implement last year's proposal by Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev to establish a collective rapid reaction force (KSOR). The main goal of the KSOR is to prevent and, if necessary, to eliminate a military threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of CSTO member states, and to solve domestic armed conflicts. Moreover, the list of the most important tasks includes special operations to combat terrorists and extremists, organized crime and drug trafficking, and to deal with the consequences of emergencies.

It is clear that the establishment of a collective force is not limited to the abovementioned goals. Moscow's initiative is, first and foremost, intended to strengthen Russia's strategic and political position in and around the CIS. The Kremlin is clearly concerned that Western countries, especially the USA, are successfully "winning over" and influencing not only Russia's CIS neighbours, but also its CSTO allies, trying to strengthen their military presence on their territory. Moscow believes that the active intervention of extra-regional forces in the affairs of the CSTO and the so-called "near abroad" undermines its influence. We believe that the KSOR is intended to cement the unity of both the CSTO and the whole "post-Soviet area".

However, Moscow did not restrict itself only to the establishment of the KSOR. It went so far as to initiate the creation of a single air defence system within the format of the CSTO. The secretary-general of the CSTO, Nikolay Bordyuzha, said on 13 February that the united CSTO air defence system will include the air defence systems of individual regions. Integration will take place in three zones - Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The CSTO air defence system will probably replace the united air defence system of the CIS states, which was set up on 10 February 1995. The commander-in-chief of the Russian air force, Col-Gen A. Zelin, said that during the 14 years of its existence, "it had been possible to revive the air defence forces of Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan", while Belarus not only preserved its air defence force, but also turned it into "one of the most powerful forces in Europe." Currently, the group includes several air defence brigades and 46 anti-aircraft rocket units, armed with S-125, S-75, S-200 and S-300 complexes in various versions. Moreover, it has 23 air units armed with MiG-29, MiG-31 and Su-27 jets, as well as 22 units of radio-engineer troops and two radio-electronic units.

It is planned to establish the CSTO air defence system in two stages. First, regional air defence systems will be created in the Eastern European, Caucasian and Central Asian regions. They will be based on the model of the regional air defence system created recently by the Russian Federation and Belarus. A similar bilateral air defence system will be set up in the Caucasus region - between the Russian Federation and Armenia. Then, a single air defence system will be set up for the organization.

Work on the integration of regional air defence systems has already started. Specifically, it is planned to sign an agreement on the joint protection of the air borders of the union state and on the creation of a single regional air defence system between Russia and Belarus. It is known that the air defence system with Belarus will include five flight units, 10 anti-aircraft missile units, five radio-engineering and one military radio-electronic unit. Draft agreements on the other regions are being prepared right now. In the near future, it is planned to send several divisions of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems from Russia to Kazakhstan. The Kazakh defence minister stressed that Kazakhstan and Russia have a "complete mutual understanding" on the question of the supply of new systems of armaments.

The Russian military believes that the decision to create a united air defence system was timely and well-thought out. "Experience showed that territorial limitation on the use of operational air defence forces to national borders reduces their potential significantly," the Russian air force chief, Zelin, said. "For this reason, the integration of national air defence systems into collective security regions is becoming a requirement of the times."

As was the case with the KSOR, Russia's interests in the implementation of this project go beyond the framework of collective security. Moscow may well use the setting up of a single air defence system and the supply of anti-aircraft missile complexes to its CSTO allies in order to put military and political pressure on "inconvenient" neighbours within the CIS, for example, Georgia and Ukraine. Specifically, there is absolute confidence that Yerevan, which often draws Russia into its bloody games (for example, the Xocali tragedy), will take advantage and will try everything possible to ensure that the creation of the single CSTO air defence system has extremely negative military-strategic and political consequences for the security of Azerbaijan in its confrontation with Armenia. Firstly, the military and foreign policy positions of Armenia will be strengthened, and secondly, Yerevan's position on the Nagornyy Karabakh settlement will inevitably become more radical. This is graphically illustrated by the recent statement of President Serzh Sarkisyan that Nagornyy Karabakh will never return to Azerbaijan. Indeed, it is difficult to expect a country which is relentlessly armed by Russia and which is strengthening its military-political relations with CSTO allies or, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it, is strengthening its "collective security", to be flexible and accept compromise.

Meanwhile, Baku expected Moscow to take a quite different approach to issues of regional security. It is obvious that the implementation of this project will run counter to Russia's statements about its readiness to promote a peaceful solution to the conflict and will be incompatible with its status as a mediator in the negotiating process. In other words, the current status of Russia, a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, does not allow it to continuously arm one of the conflicting sides, thus increasing its military-strategic potential. For this reason, Moscow will probably get a clear signal from Baku that the decision to set up a single air defence system of "the seven" is a step that disrupts the balance of forces in the region, undermines its image as an unbiased mediator and threatens the security of our country. As for the routine statements by Russian officials that such actions are not targeted on Azerbaijan, Vladimir Putin fairly stressed in Bucharest on 4 April, replying to journalists' questions on the results of the Russia-NATO Council meeting and quoting the great Bismarck, that "what matters in this situation is not intention, but potential". This is how he reacted to the West's statement that the missile defence system in the Czech Republic was not directed against Russia.

It would be relevant to point out another statement frequently made by Russian politicians here, to be more precise, the invitation to Azerbaijan to join the CSTO. But even if this is said with good intentions, it does not counter the criticism anyway, because collective security cannot be strengthened if one of the members of the collective has occupied 20 per cent of the territory of another member. This is the reason why the Commonwealth (!) of Independent States is not functioning. Incidentally, the genocide in Xocali was committed by the Armenians with the help of the 366 regiment of the united CIS troops, i.e. Azerbaijan and Armenia were members of one military organization which not only failed to save the civilian population, but actually helped in its barbaric extermination.

It must be noted that Moscow is using the "air defence card" not just in the CIS, but also in other directions. As we know, Moscow is actively playing the ace of air defence system supplies to Iran in its geopolitical rivalry with the USA. This "game" began again after the new administration came to power in the USA - with Moscow hoping to establish partnership on a wide range of issues of regional and international security.

It is well-known that Iran has a strong interest in receiving supplies of advanced Russian air defence systems in order to protect its airspace and strategic facilities from possible attacks by the USA and Israel. Tehran has a special interest in the S-300 PMU-1 missile and anti-aircraft systems. According to the Russian media, a contract for the supply of five S-300 divisions, worth 800 million dollars, was signed and initialled a long time ago, but Moscow has not implemented the contract for political reasons - so far, it has no intention of handing over the complexes to Iran because this may damage Russian-American relations, which have already started normalizing - we mean the "geopolitical bargaining" which has resumed between Moscow and the new US administration.

For the time being, the most significant development between Russia and Iran in this sphere is the contract for the sale of 29 Tor-M1 complexes signed in December 2005. The contract was worth 700 million dollars. In 2007, Russia supplied Iran with Tor-M1 anti-aircraft and missile complexes, which protect Iranian strategic facilities against air strikes - first of all, the nuclear centres in Esfahan and Bushehr where, Western observers suspect, atomic weapons may be developed. Tor-M1 missiles have a range of 12 km (6 km high), while the latest versions of the S-300 systems are capable of hitting planes 150 km away, and at a height of up to 27 km.

Since then, Tehran has had a special interest in S-300 complexes and has secured the signing of a contract. The world media and Iranian officials have repeatedly reported that supplies of these complexes are already underway. The Russian authorities have zealously denied these rumours. The Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (MTC) last did so on 22 December last year. It is important to point out that this issue has greater significance for Iran than ever before. The point being that the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is entering its final stage, and this plant and other facilities in Iran's nuclear programme may become the first targets in the event of a military conflict with the USA and Israel.

But Moscow is in no hurry - at least for now. The main factor that deters Moscow from developing military-technical cooperation with Iran is the possibility of improving relations with the USA after the arrival of the new administration. In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will hold their first meeting, to prepare the agenda for the first meeting between Presidents Obama and Medvedev. Moscow pins great hopes on these talks, because the parties may reach compromise on many important issues holding international, European and regional security in suspense - nuclear disarmament, the deployment of US missile defence facilities in Eastern Europe, relations between Ukraine, Georgia and NATO, Iran's nuclear programme, the improvement of the situation in Afghanistan and others. News about the onset of S-300 supplies to Iran would clearly dampen the atmosphere in these talks. A clear thaw and readiness for constructive interaction can already be seen in relations between Moscow and Washington. Specifically, Moscow has already given the go-ahead to the delivery of non-military cargo to Afghanistan across its territory to meet the requirements of the US contingent in that country. After a visit by the Russian foreign minister to Jerusalem on 17 February, it became clear that Russia had achieved one of its main foreign policy and propaganda goals in the Middle East, getting Israel's support for the holding of a Middle East peace conference in Moscow. Moscow has been raising this issue for several years. Its invitation was rejected first by the Israelis, then by the Palestinians and then the Americans. As is known, Washington held its own conference in Annapolis (in November 2007). It was attended by the US president, the Israeli prime minister, the head of the Palestinian administration, the UN secretary-general and delegations from more than 40 countries, including Russia, which agreed to participate on condition that the next meeting would be held in Moscow. The Moscow conference will hardly bring forward a settlement of the Jewish-Arab conflict, but holding it is important in terms of Russia's international prestige and for the encouragement of warmer Russia-US relations.