Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Seven

Through the very end of November and all throughout December, condemnation came from across the world aimed at Russia’s bloody internal crackdown on the streets of its cities. This didn’t die down. Medvedev and Putin had anticipated a strong reaction – it was worse than what they had feared too – but the belief was that soon enough, other events would draw attention away. That just didn’t happen. The visibility of what had happened made this an issue which wouldn’t just be forgotten about across the globe. Statements by political figures, comments by international campaigners, and debates in national parliaments & international bodies went on and on.

‘11-26’ was a defining moment in so many ways for how much of the world would view Russia afterwards.

There were a few countries whose leader expressed support for the actions taken by the Kremlin and there were those who chose not to condemn Russia too. Certain individuals took their moment to try to muddle the waters as well and claim that there was more context to what had happened. However, these were few and far between. Venezuela’s dictator could say all that it wanted in support of the massacres, China’s regime could make no comment apart from stating that this was a concern for Russia only and Italy’s foreign minister could claim that maybe ‘both sides’ were to blame yet these were voices in the wind. There was a bandwagon to jump on for many. Those who really didn’t give a damn about innocent Russian civilians being beaten or shot to death were given an opportunity to join in. Russia was a punchbag at the minute, a convenient one too.

Alongside all of the statements – political and diplomatic – which came from so many corners there were those which started to take action. The sanctions levelled on Russia following the war with Georgia last year, and the subsequent revelations of that shooting of prisoners plus the failure to withdraw fully from that nation, had never been enough for many. They had been deemed ‘pointless’ at the time in many quarters. Those first sanctions had only partially targeted Russia’s international trade links with the outside world and came with countless caveats which meant that away from the strong words by politicians, they really were pointless in having any effect upon leadership in the Kremlin. The Russian Government was never going to change its behaviour following those. Following 11-26, there were calls made for ‘real’ sanctions this time. If other countries had to take some financial pain, even at this time of great international financial uncertainty, then so be it. It was argued the perceived weakness shown months beforehand had only emboldened Russia and given rise to what it eventually did. True or not, that became the consensus. Many governments, working together, sought to draw up new sanctions. There were still efforts to protect themselves though and this drew things out into the beginning of 2009.


Obama was inaugurated and took office on January 20th. ‘Hope’ and ‘Yes we can’ had won last November. Now that message of change by the pop star who was the new president was inside the White House. There were high hopes for all that the forty-fourth President of the United States could do. The majority of his election campaign had focused on domestic issues – naturally – yet occupying the position vacated by the outgoing Bush meant that foreign affairs were going to be a major part of his presidency. No president could avoid that, not with America in many ways seeing itself (and others agreeing with that) as the leader of the Free World.

Russia was certainly not part of the Free World. It hadn’t been before the Russo-Georgia War nor the killings of so many innocents on the streets of its cities on 11-26. It certainly wasn’t going to be after those massacres which all the world had seen. Had Obama wanted to – which he didn’t anyway – he would have found it impossible to try to ignore the international push for action against Russia in response. Rather than follow, Obama set to lead it. Sarkozy in Paris and Brown in London both had been in contact with the new president since he was elected. All during the transition, where he remained president-elect and thus with no official power, the issue had been there. Bush hadn’t been able to turn the international feeling for something to be done into real action yet Obama was going to.

The defeated challenger to Obama in the Democratic party primaries, Hilary Clinton, took office as Secretary of State the day after her victorious rival’s inauguration. Confirmation hearings had started early and behind the scenes manoeuvring had been done to assure that the former First Lady was quickly in office at the State Department. Instead of Obama directly, it was quickly her who attracted the ire of the Kremlin… very much so in the same vein as her predecessor Condi Rice had too which was quite something as both were very different characters. Clinton promised a ‘reset’ with Russia. Obama wanted a complete change in US-Russia ties in response to what had occurred on 11-26. The president considered the Bush had twiddled his thumbs too much in acting and that wouldn’t be the same with his administration. Clinton set about following the agenda which Obama wanted following when it came to Russia, one which had considerable bi-partisan support in Washington as well.

The United States took the global lead in punishing the Kremlin for what it had done. The actions taken were meant to force the Russian leadership to change course in its behaviour or suffer the consequences of the ire it had raised through the West. Russia would be hit where it would hurt – in the pocket – and the weapon employed would be oil.


Global oil prices had come down during the preceding Autumn. Turmoil on the international money markets had been the main cause of this. Speculation from those in the know in the business was that they would rise again through early 2009. Prices went up and down: that was the natural order of things. Oil exports came from all over the globe and mainly went to the energy-hungry West. China was a new buyer in the market and the West’s share was decreasing due to that yet still dominant overall. Oil prices were manipulated as the key element of the West’s weaponization of oil against the Kremlin. Working with Middle Eastern oil producers – who were getting something out of this soon enough – the price from much of the Arab world for their oil exports was going to stay low. A lack of any sign of American nor European tension with Iran, as previously thought likely, aided this effort.

Russia’s prices were higher. They hadn’t come down late in 2008 and there was no intention to lower them in 2009 either. Customers for Russian oil were mainly in Europe and it was always convenient for them to buy from Russia despite all of the negative issues surrounding transporting that oil – plus natural gas too; Western Europe was near-addicted to that other hydrocarbon – through Eastern Europe. Fast getting win of what was going on where the West had acted in concert with much of the Middle East, the Kremlin sought to play the game back on them. Both Libya and Venezuela had expressed solidarity with Moscow in the face of recent Western hostility and each was a major oil exporter. The Kremlin turned on the charm to get them both to stick with the Moscow approach of standing firm in keeping prices higher than elsewhere. The West would blink in the end and buy from them too as the international oil markets were full of ups and downs. Tripoli was more keen on this than Caracas but both Gaddafi and Chavez were willing to follow this course of action. Sticking a finger in the eye of Washington was what the former wanted; the latter would be getting something more meaningful.

Furthermore, where the West had acted behind the scenes with their plan to use the price of oil as a weapon against Russia, they had acted openly in a whole range of economic and trade sanctions as well. These were a big deal and the face of the ‘reset’ which was spearheaded by Washington. However, from the Kremlin there came a response here too. Medvedev and Putin (the latter especially) weren’t going to accept all which was being done with those sanctions that the Obama Administration made a big deal out of alongside Paris and London. They applied their own and targeted Western businesses which did business with Russia. Lobbying efforts had been made by corporations based in the West who had a global reach to limit some of what had been done with those sanctions against Russia. This had come with varying degrees of success for them. Moscow’s response was to target those corporations directly and let their boards & shareholders put the pressure on Western governments – to make it their problem – at a time when the West was entering a recession. Deals were blocked and there came nationalisation of certain assets. Some big joint oil projects between American oil companies and Russia were hit as well as a BP project in the Russian Far East.

Then there was Nord Stream.

This was a highly-contentious multi-national project to lay a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to send gas direct to Germany from Russia. Work was due to start next year on laying that pipeline – which would bypass Eastern Europe – and the first deliveries were due to start in late 2010. Cancelling Nord Stream would cost Russia too much as a nation and hit the bank accounts of many oligarchs… one of those rumoured to be Putin himself. However, delays were imposed and these were of a bureaucratic nature and not very well disguised for the punitive form that they were. The intention behind this was to cause political and economic consequences in Western Europe, in Germany especially. Berlin had been publicly on the same page as Washington, Paris and London when it came to sanctions against Russia but that wasn’t the case behind the scenes. Nord Stream mattered to Germany as much as it mattered to Russia.

The Kremlin waited for the response, confident that Germany’s economic concerns would pull the rug out from under the whole European position of siding with the Americans in this dispute.