German Left Party leader outlines campaign against Russia

Johannes Stern

Christine Buchholz, a leading member of Marx 21, the German offshoot of Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and a parliamentary deputy of the Left Party, was recently treated to a reception buffet at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). If there was a critical visitor to the event—and there were none, since it was “invited guests” only, along with members of the press—they might have been reminded of the saying, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

The mere fact that the defense spokesperson for the Left Party delivered a lecture at the DGAP on German foreign and defense policy exposes how deeply the organization and its pseudo-left factions are integrated into German imperialism. In fact, the Left Party is playing a central role in the revival of an aggressive German foreign policy.

The DGAP is one of the largest and oldest foreign policy think tanks in Germany. It was founded in 1955 by the influential bankers Hermann Josef Abs and Robert Pferdmenges, both of whom had made their careers under the Nazis.

The DGAP today has more than 2,500 members, including major figures in the economic and political establishment. In its presidium can be found Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of the Munich Security Conference. Its managers are CEO Arend Oetker and diplomat Paul Freiherr von Maltzahn. One of its most well-known active members is the current German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU, Christian Democratic Union).

Buchholz spoke within the framework of a series of talks at the think tank, organized under the headline, “German defense policy and a new responsibility—parliamentary group speakers explain their positions.” The spokesmen of the government parties had already explained their “positions” at previous events.

The stated aim of the DGAP is to promote discussion of a new defense and military strategy for Germany. The text announcing the series of meetings reads, “2014 was a year of major security policy crises in Europe and its periphery … Germany must and will take on more responsibility in this conflict-ridden world. At the same time, the deficiencies of the Bundeswehr [armed forces] are striking.”

It continues, “German defense policy is being put to the test: What should a stronger German engagement look like in practice? Do we have the right defense mindset to tackle the threats? Where do we stand in the reorientation of the Bundeswehr? Does it have the right skills? How can the necessary changes be better conveyed to the German public? Can we fulfill our treaty obligations?”

Buchholz came to the DGAP not as an opponent, but as an ally and strategy consultant of German imperialism. Even before beginning her actual contribution, she stressed that cooperation with the Left Party was possible in foreign policy issues.

“I do not see this so narrowly, that there are no points of overlap at all,” she said. Rather than making absolute statements, she said, the question is, “How to conduct oneself with regard to specific points.” These remarks were made to an audience comprised of representatives from the world of politics and the media, senior ministry officials and a whole detachment of the military in civilian clothes and in uniform.

Buchholz was received with warm applause. The moderator of the event, Henning Rieke, head of US/Transatlantic Relations at the DGAP, praised Buchholz’s biography as “one of engagement in numerous projects of the peace movement, globalization movement and other alternative political fields.” Rieke said Buchholz, a founding member of the Left Party, could be described not only as a defense politician, “but generally as an influential foreign policy politician.”

Buchholz’s lecture, titled “New responsibility instead of old interests,” revealed the specific role that the Left Party and Marx 21 are playing in the change in German foreign policy. She justified the return of German militarism with “humanitarian” arguments, calling for a German role more independent of the US and NATO. Such arguments are playing an important role in mobilizing an entire petty-bourgeois layer for the return of German militarism. She also offered the Left Party’s services to foreign policy elites in Germany in the campaign to install pro-Western governments in strategically and economically central regions of the world.

This was particularly evident in Buchholz’s remarks on Russia. In condemning Russian “imperialism”—a term she did not employ in relation to Germany—and the alleged Russian aggression in Ukraine, Buchholz plainly stood behind the aggressive attitude of the German government.

“While Western imperialism remains quagmired in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she lectured, “Russian imperialism has awakened again.” In 2008, Russia had inflicted “a defeat upon a NATO ally, Georgia.”

Specifically, she said she agreed with the defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen. “Frau von der Leyen said the day before yesterday [at the opening event White Paper 2016]: the ‘new policies of the Kremlin began long before the Ukraine crisis.’ That is true.” Russian behavior corresponds to “a great power that imposes its interests by means of force.”

Then Buchholz presented the strategy of the Left Party: “It is obvious that Putin is relying on the use of military force. The Left Party has no sympathy with this. However, the escalation of the conflict—and this is what the response of NATO amounts to—is no more an answer. The solution can only come from within.”

Buchholz added, “Anti-militarism in Russia is the answer to Putin’s militarism. But these voices are marginalized so long as Putin can justify his policy of escalation by pointing the finger at NATO, the EU and their allies.”

In other words, Buchholz advises the German ruling class to break up Russia from the inside in order to pursue their imperialist interests, rather than relying primarily on a military confrontation. Her demand for support for “anti-militarism” in Russia is merely another expression for the promotion of a “color revolution,” as the Western powers have already organized and financed in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Marx 21 and other parts of the Left Party played a central role in the putsch in Ukraine a year ago, together with the Greens, the government parties and their respective think tanks. They celebrated the right-wing coup as a “democratic revolution” and defended the collaboration with the fascist forces that drove elected President Viktor Yanukovych from office.

During the clashes in Kiev, Marx 21 published an interview on its web site with Ilya Budraitskis, a member of the pseudo-left Russian Socialist Movement, who praised the fascists as the “bravest and literally most militant sections of the movement.” No one went on such an “offensive against the police as the ultra-right.” When asked whether he wanted to “discuss with Nazis,” Budraitskis replied, “Maybe with some.”

With her proposal for a regime change in Russia in the name of “freedom and democracy” and the “struggle against Russian imperialism,” Buchholz stands in the anti-Russian traditions of German imperialism and the DGAP. Shortly attack the attack on the Soviet Union by Hitler’s Wehrmacht in June 1941, Hermann Josef Abs—who founded the DGAP after the war and was the spokesman for the Deutsche Bank from 1957 to 1967—described the war against the Soviet Union as a struggle “against the greatest enemy of freedom and humanity.”

US and South Korea begin joint military exercises

Ben McGrath

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are likely to rise as annual war games between the United States and South Korea take place over the next two months. Washington and Seoul are using the large mobilization of troops and weaponry involved in these military exercises to threaten and intimidate North Korea as well as China.

The South Korean navy announced Friday that the Foal Eagle exercises had begun early. “The naval maneuver drill started ahead of the official Foal Eagle schedule inevitably to fit the schedule of the US ships so they could come here,” a naval officer told the Yonhap News Agency.

The two exercises known as Foal Eagle and Key Resolve are held each spring. Foal Eagle officially starts today and involves 3,700 US and 200,000 Korean troops. It will be followed by Key Resolve in which 8,600 American and 10,000 South Korean soldiers will take part.

The Foal Eagle naval drill will take place in the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the East China Sea just south of the Korean Peninsula and is slated to run through to mid-March. The South Korean Navy released a statement saying, “We expect to boost joint operational capabilities between Seoul and Washington and solidify a strong joint defense posture.”

Foal Eagle comprises a series of land, sea, and air drills. Friday’s exercise began in the waters south of Korea and involves live-fire drills. Ten South Korean vessels are taking part, including the Ganggamchan, a destroyer. The USS Michael Murphy, a destroyer, is participating along with attack helicopters and patrol planes.

The US navy announced last month that one of its new littoral combat vessels, USS Fort Worth, would participate in Foal Eagle for the first time. The ship, which is designed to operate in shallow waters, carries a helicopter and a drone and is armed with missiles and a 57-millimeter gun.

Key Resolve is a computerized command post exercise focusing on crisis management and combat readiness between the two allies. Both exercises are aimed, in the first instance, against North Korea, but also underscore the US military presence close to the Chinese mainland.

Pyongyang denounced the US-South Korean exercises. An editorial in the official Rodong Sinmun last Tuesday declared, “The whole course of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle is aimed to invade North Korea through preemptive strikes.” Another editorial on Thursday warned that North Korea would “wage a merciless sacred war against the US now that the latter has chosen confrontation.” As it has in the past, the North Korean military test fired two short-range missiles off its coast today.

These bellicose but largely empty threats, like its nuclear program, are part of Pyongyang’s attempts to gain some leverage with Washington in exchange for easing crippling US-led economic sanctions and international isolation. However, this rhetoric plays directly into the hands of the US and its allies.

In the past few years, the US used the joint exercises and supposed North Korean threat to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula. In 2013, as the threat of conflict loomed, the US flew nuclear capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula. Last year a tense artillery exchange erupted between the North and South along the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, the disputed sea border between the two countries.

North Korea has been calling for dialogue with the South. In October, Pyongyang sent top-ranking officials to South Korea to observe the closing ceremonies of the 2014 Asian Games and hold talks with their counterparts. Then in his New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un offered to hold a summit with President Park Geun-hye.

In January, Pyongyang also offered direct talks with the US and to suspend a fourth nuclear test if the US would call off its annual war games with South Korea. North Korea’s last test was conducted in February 2013. Washington rejected the North’s overtures outright, indicating it currently has no interest in reaching an accord with North Korea.

The current war games also provide the US with an opportunity to highlight its commitment to the “pivot to Asia,” which has been questioned by Washington’s Asian allies as the US focuses on its confrontation with Russia in Ukraine and its new war in the Middle East. The “pivot” is aimed at diplomatically isolating and militarily encircling China in order to force Beijing to accept US hegemony in Asia.

US Republican congressman Randy Forbes, chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, stated last month, “Devoting credible resources to the capabilities required to ensure US presence in Asia is the only way to ensure that the ‘rebalance’ is more than just a slogan.” He continued, “Both our allies and our competitors judge our commitment to the Asia-Pacific region by the capabilities we maintain.”

The current war games take place few days after Joel Wit, an analyst at the US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University, predicted North Korea could have as few as 10 or as many as 100 nuclear bombs by 2020 as well as the ability to mount them on missiles. Speaking at a press conference last week David Albright from the Institute for Science and International Security, Wit declared that North Korea possessing 100 bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles was a “pretty scary scenario.”

Such statements coming on the eve of the US-South Korean exercise only further fuel tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which the US uses to put pressure on China. Albright once again blamed China for allowing North Korea to import equipment used in its nuclear program to cross their shared border: “Just cracking down on the border could do a lot, and they (China) do very little now,” he said.

With the war games scheduled to late April, the Obama administration could well exploit the tense situation to ratchet up a dangerous confrontation with North Korea.

US inflames South China Sea disputes

James Cogan

Top US intelligence and military officials used hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and House Appropriations Subcommittee of Defense on February 26 to step up accusations against China over its construction of facilities on islands and reefs in the South China Sea. The immediate result has been the rise of tensions between China and the Philippines—which lays claim to some of the same territory as Beijing—and warnings by Chinese officials for the US to stay out of the dispute.

Appearing before SASC to present a “Worldwide Threat Assessment,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asserted during questioning that China was making “aggressive” efforts to secure control over the South China Sea, through which passes 83 percent of China’s oil imports and global trade worth an estimated $5.3 trillion each year.

Former Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, displayed satellite images that have been widely published over recent weeks, purportedly showing Chinese construction on Gaven Reef and other reefs in the Spratly Islands. McCain labelled it “a rather dramatic change” and suggested that China was aiming to construct airfields and anti-ship and anti-air missile bases that would be used to deny the US Navy access to the area.

Clapper accused Beijing of being “more willing to accept bilateral and regional tensions in pursuit of its interests, particularly on maritime sovereignty issues.” In an open rejection of China’s territorial claims, Clapper labelled them as “exorbitant.” Last December, a US State Department report dismissed China’s so-called “nine-dash line” boundary, asserting that it “does not accord with the international law of the sea.”

At the House Appropriations Subcommittee of Defense hearing, in response to a question “do we still have the naval edge there [the South China Sea],” Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert warned that if sequester budget cuts to the military were implemented, “sooner or later, we won’t have it.” In early February, Greenert visited Australia to canvas the possibility of basing US marine amphibious assault ships in Darwin and an aircraft carrier battle group in Perth and enhancing the American naval presence in the Indo-Pacific as part of the “rebalance” or “pivot” that was formally announced in November 2011.

An email sent to journalists after the SASC hearing by a Senate staffer stated: “While Washington is focused on happenings in Europe and the Levant, China has spent the last year quietly building 600 acres of tiny islands across the South China Sea…. Right now, we appear to just be watching all of this unfold while sending soft messages of our disapproval to Beijing and calculating that the costs of preventing further expansion are just too high. In another six months we could wake up to a far different operational and diplomatic situation in this maritime highway, where the Philippines and Vietnam are left with tangible reasons to question the resolve of our ‘rebalance’…”

The implication of such language is that the US military needs to accelerate its efforts to shift the weight of its air and naval power to Asia, and confront China more aggressively, in order to reassure its regional allies.

The sharpest tensions are developing between China and the Philippines. On February 26, the head of the Philippines’ military western command, Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez, told reporters that Chinese construction on Filipino-claimed territory was “continuous” and “aggressive” and added to the “destabilisation of the region.” He cited the arbitration case the Philippines initiated early last year, with US assistance, to have the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) support the Filipino claims over the islands and reefs against those of China. The officer declared: “We will not lose them. We will not lose anything. Even if we have to die for it, the world will know this is ours. Even if they have built structures on them, they are still ours…”

Beijing has repeatedly and unambiguously issued statements that it will disregard any ruling by ITLOS that found against its claims, setting the stage for a further escalation.

In response to last week’s hearings in Washington, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei commented: “It is legitimate, reasonable, and rational for China to carry out activities around islands, reefs, and waters under its jurisdiction. Outsiders have no right to make groundless accusations. We hope the United States will honour its commitments, be prudent with its words and actions, and do more to contribute to China-US relations and regional peace and stability.”

The US, however, is taking action that only inflames the situation. On February 27, the day after the hearings, the Filipino military revealed that the US Navy has been flying a Poseidon surveillance plane from a base in the western Philippines over the disputed region. According to the reports, the aircraft flew 180 hours of operations between February 1 and February 21 and on occasions had carried Filipino personnel on board.

At the end of January, the commander of the US Seventh Fleet, Admiral Robert Thomas, provoked furious Chinese condemnations after saying that he would welcome the Japanese air force joining such surveillance of Chinese activities in the South China Sea. Thomas declared: “The alleged nine-dash line, which doesn’t comport with international rules and norms, standards [and] laws, creates a situation down there, which is unnecessary friction.”

On February 28, the Wall Street Journal featured the major military purchases and build-up being made across Asia by US allies and “strategic partners” in conjunction with the “pivot.” It noted that Vietnam had taken delivery of new Russian-made submarines and jet fighters and was purchasing US surveillance aircraft, the Philippines is purchasing new naval frigates, Japan had assembled amphibious assault forces and India was “testing ballistic missiles with a range of over 3,000 miles, which could strike inside China.”

Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila, told the newspaper: “China is bound to face greater risks of unwanted escalation and resistance.” All the developments across the region heighten the danger that a minor incident or clash could trigger an all-out war.

Manhattan terror trial vs. PLO: The hypocrisy of imperialist justice

Tom Carter

On February 23, a jury in a US district court in Manhattan found the Palestinian National Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) liable for $218.5 million in connection with seven attacks that took place in Israel between 2002 and 2004.

The plaintiffs were a group of ten families whose members were injured, killed or traumatized by the attacks, which included two shootings and five bombings. Under a Clinton-era anti-terrorism statute, which allows the victims of terrorist attacks to sue in American courts, the damages will likely be tripled to $655.5 million.

The plaintiffs claimed that the PA and PLO had orchestrated the attacks and had given financial inducements and incentives to plan them. The Palestinian defendants denied responsibility for the attacks, which they had condemned, attributing the payments to individuals acting independently.

The verdict was the culmination of a six-week trial and ten years of litigation, during which the PA and PLO had repeatedly petitioned for the case to be dismissed.

The political establishment in Israel praised the verdict. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in a statement that he expected the international community “to continue to punish those who support terrorism just as the US federal court has done and to back the countries that are fighting terrorism.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called it “a moral victory.”

The Palestinian organizations expressed disappointment and announced plans to appeal the decision. Under American law, foreign states normally cannot be held liable, under the doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” but the United States does not recognize Palestine as a state. The debt-ridden PA has also claimed that there is no money to pay the judgment, prompting speculation in the press about the possible freezing and seizure of its assets.

“There is no money,” said PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi at a news conference in the West Bank. “Maybe they can get some furniture from our offices in Washington.”

The PLO, which grew out of a radical nationalist liberation movement, administers parts of the Palestinian territories in the form of the Palestinian Authority pursuant to the US-sponsored 1993 Oslo Accords. The PA has a long history of collaboration and capitulation to Israel and the United States, functioning today essentially as a junior partner in the Israeli occupation. Its funding consists largely of foreign aid.

Nevertheless, the verdict against the PA and PLO prompts a question: what if the same standard was applied universally? If the PA and PLO can be held liable in US courts for $655.5 million, surely the bill owed by the United States and Israel should run into the trillions.

For the purposes of illustration, one can calculate that the $655.5 million verdict, divided among the families of 33 individuals who died in the attacks, amounts to an award of approximately $20 million per fatality.

The Granai massacre, a 2009 US air strike in Afghanistan, caused the deaths of nearly 150 people, including, according to the Afghan government, 93 children. Multiplying the number 150 by $20 million, it follows that the United States owes at least $3 billion to the families of the victims of that one strike alone. When, one might ask, will a US federal court be hearing that case?

A July 12, 2007 helicopter attack in Baghdad—the subject of WikiLeaks’ “Collateral Murder” gunsight video—resulted in the deaths of between 12 and 18 innocent people, including two journalists working for Reuters. When will the US government be paying the $240 or $360 million it owes to the families of that attack?

Countless other examples of war crimes, indiscriminate bombings, and drone murders by the United States could be provided. How much compensation is owed to the families of the massacred civilian population of Fallujah in Iraq, which was targeted with chemical weapons such as white phosphorous in 2004?

What should be the total compensation for families in Iraq, where as many as 1 million people died as a result of the US invasion and occupation, which was launched on the basis of lies and in violation of international law? One million deaths multiplied by $20 million comes to $20 trillion—the number two plus thirteen zeros ($20,000,000,000,000).

How many more trillions are owed to families in Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya and all the other regions that have suffered the “collateral damage” of imperialist mayhem? How much money is owed in Egypt, where the US is backing a military dictatorship to suppress the population? Or in Ukraine, where the US supported a putsch led by fascists? What about all the families in Vietnam, Korea, Central America, the Philippines and the former Yugoslavia?

Where is the court that will hear these cases? Should the families be able to collect compensation directly from the military brass that ordered the attacks, from the politicians who launched the wars, and from the Democratic and Republican parties that supported them? If the defendants refuse to pay, can assets be frozen on Wall Street, in Swiss banks, and in the Cayman Islands?

But no American court would ever hear these cases. Using doctrines such as “state secrets,” the “political question” standard, “sovereign immunity,” “qualified immunity” and so forth, and citing the un-reviewable “commander-in-chief” powers of the executive, the American government and courts routinely block cases that seek accountability for US war crimes.

In April 2014, for example, a US district court threw out a lawsuit over the death of US citizen Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was assassinated by the CIA along with nine other people in a drone strike on an open-air restaurant near Azzan, Yemen. Abdulrahman’s father, also a US citizen, had been assassinated on the orders of President Obama two weeks before.

“In this delicate area of war-making, national security, and foreign relations, the judiciary has an exceedingly limited role,” the judge wrote, ruling that there was “no remedy” available to the family.

This is the same US justice system that provides immunity to war criminals, immunity to corporate and financial criminals, and immunity to killer cops. While the big-time criminals in America are untouchable, a substantial portion of the population is jailed in overcrowded, dangerous, filthy prisons. Torture, beatings, assassination, corruption, criminality, domestic spying, and official perjury go unaddressed, while draconian sentences are handed down for minor infractions or for inability to pay fees.

The American justice system is for all intents and purposes inaccessible to the broad mass of the population, which encounters it only when at the receiving end of a criminal prosecution or a bankruptcy decision that rips up workers’ contracts and pensions. The US Supreme Court, which sits at the head of this system, has been working systematically to dismantle democratic rights and roll back reforms, while advancing the “rights” of corporations and the rich.

What about the state of Israel? Will Israel be required to pay monetary compensation for each victim, for example, of the recent massacre in Gaza? Over a 50-day period last year, Israeli military forces conducted a bloody one-sided campaign that resulted in the deaths of as many as 2,300 people, the maiming of more than 10,000, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands. Throughout the campaign, Israel’s military deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. Using the $20 million figure, Israel owes at least $46 billion—not counting damages for the destruction of property, disfigurement, and emotional trauma.

Israel has killed approximately 70,000 Palestinians since its occupation of the West Bank in 1967. Again, using the $20 million figure, Israel owes $1.4 trillion ($1,400,000,000,000,000) to families of the victims. It would take five years of the entire gross domestic product of Israel ($290 billion) to pay that sum.

Just days before the verdict in the Manhattan terror trial, Israel’s Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in 2003. Israel’s Supreme Court refused to hold the Defense Ministry liable on the grounds that bulldozing the 23-year-old American activist constituted “wartime activity.” At the same time, the court refused to examine whether the killing complied with the laws of armed conflict.

The phrase “double standard” does not seem adequate to describe the depth of imperialist hypocrisy. While a US court hands down a gigantic verdict against Palestinian groups, the American state itself refuses to participate in the International Criminal Court (ICC) because it is afraid of seeing its own civilian and military officials in the dock on war crimes charges.

The US Congress is currently threatening to withhold $400 million in annual aid if Palestinian groups present a war crimes case to the ICC in connection with Israel’s 2014 Gaza campaign. Israel has responded to the threat of an ICC case by illegally withholding $250 million in customs duties collected on behalf of Palestinians.

Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov assassinated in Moscow

Andrea Peters

Russian free-market opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated late Friday in Moscow under unclear circumstances. Though there is little hard evidence as yet, the US media and government are using Nemtsov’s death to further vilify the Putin government and whip up anti-Russian hysteria.

Nemtsov was gunned down in the center of Moscow, near to the Kremlin, as he was walking home from dinner with Anna Duritskaya, a Ukrainian model. Four bullets hit the 55-year-old former government insider. According to some reports, several shots had been fired from one of three passing vehicles. Duritskaya was unharmed and was detained for questioning as a witness, along with other passers-by. According to Vesti.ru, however, “The 23-year-old model said that she suffered a terrible shock and could remember neither the murder nor the automobile.”

A special joint investigative committee established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the attack was carefully planned. “It is very clear that the organizers and executors of this crime were informed of [Nemtsov’s] proposed route,” said Vladimir Markin, speaking on behalf of the official investigation.

The killing came shortly before yesterday’s anti-government march called by right-wing, pro-US critics of the Putin regime who accuse the Kremlin of stoking the conflict with Ukraine.

The investigative committee has said it is exploring the possibility that Nemtsov’s assassination was aimed at “destabilizing the political situation in the country.” It is also considering whether the murder was the act of Islamist fighters angry over Nemtsov’s support for Charlie Hebdo, the work of rogue elements on either side of the war in Ukraine, or tied to the opposition leader’s business or personal affairs.

Putin offered his condolences to Nemtsov’s family, and his press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Russia Today that “one can say with 100 percent assuredness that this is a provocation.” Pressed by the newspaperKommersant to explain this remark, Peskov pointed to Nemtsov’s hostility to Kremlin policies, his open support for the US-backed regime in Kiev and the tense political situation in Russia amid the proxy war between Russia and NATO over Ukraine.

Before anything more was known, the US political establishment and media seized on the murder to demonize the Kremlin, hail Nemtsov and promote the right-wing Russian opposition. The Obama administration released a statement this weekend demanding that Russia carry out a “prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation,” while former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul praised Nemtsov as a “real patriot who believed in Russia’s greatness.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, expressed “indignation” at the killing of a “strong advocate for a modern, prosperous, and democratic Russian Federation.”

The New York Times endorsed the view that Russian President Vladimir Putin was morally responsible for the murder, regardless of who carried it out. In her February 28 article, Times correspondent Julia Ioffe approvingly cited Russian opposition activist Maxim Katz’s Twitter statement that “If he ordered it, then he’s guilty as the orderer. And even if he didn’t, then [he is responsible] as the inciter of hatred, hysteria, and anger among the people.” Ioffe added, “It’s hard to argue with this last point.”

Echoing this view, US Republican Senator John McCain issued a press release that said, “Regardless of who actually pulled the trigger, Boris is dead because of the environment of impunity that Vladimir Putin has created in Russia, where individuals are routinely persecuted and attacked for their beliefs, including by the Russian government, and no one is ever held responsible.”

At this point, it remains totally unclear who carried out the killing and what their political motives were. However, the purpose to which it is being put by the US media and government is clear: to further escalate pressure on Russia, with US-Russian relations already at the breaking point over the war in Ukraine and US and NATO military deployments to Eastern European countries near Russia.

As for portrayals of Nemtsov as a persecuted Russian democrat, they are a grotesque political lies. He was one of many right-wing politicians who came to prominence by overseeing the free-market shock therapy and economic looting of Russia that followed the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism in Russia.

After serving as the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, a position he first received through presidential appointment, he was brought into the Yeltsin cabinet in 1997 as a member of a so-called “dream team” of free-market reformers drafted to prepare a second round of shock therapy. This included, among other measures, cutting state expenditures by raising housing and utility rates to world market levels, regardless of the population’s ability to pay.

Nemtsov’s implementation of a privatization and anti-welfare state program won him the praise of reactionary figures such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In their work on the restoration of market relations in Russia, Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski note that Yeltsin recruited Nemtsov “because [Nemtsov] believes in the salutary role of authoritarian institutions for Russia, be they monarchical or presidential ... This view is evident from Nemtsov’s book, in which Yeltsin is depicted as a ‘genuine Russian tsar.’”

“For Russia, the weakening of presidential power would be extremely deleterious,” Nemtsov declared in 1997. “Those who insist on transforming Russia into a parliamentary republic are consciously or unconsciously pushing the country towards chaos.”

Nemtsov only discovered his ostensible concern with “democratic” issues in Russia after he fell out of favor with the Russian government in the early 2000s. He shifted rapidly into the camp of American imperialism. He was an ardent defender of the “Maidan revolution” and the fascist-led putsch that installed a right-wing, pro-US regime in Ukraine in February 2014. He was also a supporter the new Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko.

His brand of free-market opposition to the Kremlin is widely discredited in the Russian working class and has little support outside a small layer of affluent, middle class people.

Yesterday’s anti-government protest that Nemtsov and fellow opposition politicians were supposed to lead on the outskirts of the country’s capital was transformed into a memorial march in his name in the center of Moscow. Somewhere between five and ten thousand people attended the march, which organizers had feared would be a non-event before Nemtsov’s murder.

Press reports have estimated the turnout at around 50,000, many times more than was expected for the original march, which had failed to gain much traction in the broader population. In an article published the day of Nemtsov’s murder, the liberal daily Nezavisimaia Gazeta lamented the unpopularity of the opposition forces behind Sunday’s planned protest, noting, “[Russians] don’t have confidence in the opposition.”

Steelworkers union blocks broadening of oil workers’ struggle

Jerry White

With the US oil refinery workers’ strike entering its second month, the struggle has become a critical battle by the working class against some of the richest and most politically influential corporations in the world.

The strike has won the sympathy of tens of millions of working people, who have suffered decades of declining living standards and deteriorating working conditions. But the biggest obstacle to mobilizing the strength of the working class is the United Steelworkers union, which has limited the walkout to only a fraction of the 30,000 USW members employed by the oil companies nationally.

The union has restricted the strike to only 6,500 workers at 12 of the country’s 65 USW-organized refineries. This has encouraged the oil giants to maintain a hard line against the workers’ demands, which are directed against unsafe working conditions, the replacement of unionized workers with temporary contractors, and crushing out-of-pocket health care costs.

Well aware that the USW’s policy is doomed to failure, rank-and-file workers have increasingly demanded an all-out strike. Over the last several days, the USW International has dispatched members of its National Oil Bargaining Policy Committee to union meetings to try to quell the opposition before it turns into an open rebellion.

At one such meeting, held Saturday at the USW Local 1014 hall in Gary, Indiana, hundreds of striking workers from the nearby BP refinery in Whiting peppered bargaining team members Steve Garey and Jim Savage with demands for a national strike.

“We think all 200 refineries and other facilities should go on strike. That’s what a lot of us were saying at the union hall yesterday,” a worker on the picket line in Whiting told the World Socialist Web Site Sunday afternoon. “If it were up to me, we’d all be going on strike. But I’m not in charge and we don’t know what the strategy [of the USW] is.”

Asked by WSWS reporters why he thought the union hadn’t called a national strike, another picketer said, “Believe me, that question was asked a thousand times last night.”

The Chicago Tribune cited Savage as saying this was the main question at the union meetings. According to the Tribune, “[Savage] said the reason [for limiting the strike] was two-fold: to keep the government from interfering with this labor dispute and to retain some bargaining power if negotiations don’t progress. ‘If we fire all our bullets out of our gun on day one, what do we say later? If you don’t come to the table, we’ll do what?’ Savage said.”

After a month of keeping strikers in the dark, the USW, with this statement, is finally indicating its “strategy”—a combination of cowardice and treachery. The union virtually admits to emasculating the strike in order to avoid an open clash with the Obama administration. Its talk of saving “bullets” for later is deserving only of contempt.

Steve Garey had the nerve to tell striking workers that the greatest danger to their struggle was workers growing discouraged and crossing the picket lines. “We cannot betray each other,” Garey said, even as he defended the treachery of the USW leadership.

Over a month into the strike, the companies remain intransigent after making seven insulting “offers.” The USW has acknowledged that negotiations, which are scheduled to resume Wednesday, are largely a farce, with the oil companies ignoring what union bargainers admit are their “lean demands.”

The companies have dug in for a months-long battle, moving managers and strikebreakers from around the country to keep their refineries operating. Workers are stretched thin, with no health care and at best a pittance in strike pay.

If the USW has not “fired all of its bullets,” it is because it fears the development of a broader movement of workers that could quickly assume political dimensions, exposing its anti-working class alliance with Obama and the Democrats.

Having spent six years peddling the lie that Obama is a “friend of labor,” the USW does not want a clash that would show the president and the Democratic Party, no less than their Republican counterparts, to be enemies of the working class and tools of Wall Street and Big Oil.

Just last month, the White House intervened to block a strike by 20,000 West Coast dockworkers and called on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) to impose a sellout agreement that will further slash jobs and destroy rights won by previous generations of longshoremen.

Slashing the wages of industrial workers has been the centerpiece of Obama’s “economic recovery”—i.e., the boosting of corporate profits and the stock market—beginning with halving the pay of newly hired auto workers as part of the 2009 forced bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler. In this drive, Obama has received the full backing of the unions, including the USW, whose president, Leo Gerard, was appointed to Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership board to help cut labor costs.

Jim Savage, the president of USW Local 10-1 in Philadelphia, epitomizes the anti-worker conspiracy of the unions, the corporations and both political parties. In 2012, he played a key role in imposing concessions, including reductions in pension and overtime payments, to induce the Carlyle Group private equity firm to take over the Sunoco refinery in Philadelphia.

There are some five million workers—teachers, auto workers, Verizon telecommunication workers and others—whose labor agreements expire this year. The Obama administration and the union executives are frightened by the prospect of the oil strike becoming a catalyst for a broader movement of the working class.

In the face of an anticipated “wages push” by American workers, the corporate and financial elite plan to escalate their war against the working class. They are determined to reduce workers to conditions of industrial slavery and poverty not seen since the 19th century.

As one striking worker in Whiting told the WSWS, “We’re fighting for all workers. I served in the military and I’ve been to many countries—the Philippines, Indonesia, many third world countries. The corporations want to turn this country into a third world country.”

Another said, “This year is going to be a big year for workers to fight back. I guarantee that by 2016, if we don’t have a revolution, we surely will be on the brink of it.”

Workers are looking to break through the sabotage of the unions and mobilize their strength. This requires the building of new organizations of struggle, controlled by rank-and-file workers and completely independent of the pro-company unions and both big-business parties.

The building of such workers’ committees must be accompanied by a new political perspective, based on a break with the two parties of US big business, the building of an independent political movement of the working class, the fight for the international unity of workers, and a socialist program, including the nationalization of the oil industry under the democratic control of the working population.

Wisconsin Governor Walker, American workers and terrorism

Patrick Martin

On three separate occasions in the past four days, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, one of the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination, has stressed the close connection between the struggle against the working class at home and Washington’s militarist policies internationally.

Linking the suppression of workers’ protests to the fight against terrorism, he has presented his success in defying mass demonstrations that broke out in 2011 in Wisconsin against his attacks on workers’ social and democratic rights as proof of his ability to take on and defeat ISIS.

Speaking Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in suburban Washington DC, Walker cited his experience in pushing through anti-worker legislation as proof of his fitness for the presidency. “If I could take on 100,000 protesters, I could do the same across the world,” he boasted, effectively comparing throngs of state workers and students to ISIS terrorists.

The next day, speaking before the Club for Growth, an assembly of billionaires and their political advisers meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, Walker returned to the theme. He declared that “the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime” was President Ronald Reagan’s smashing of the 1981 PATCO strike and mass firing of 11,000 air traffic controllers. “It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world,” he said, that the Reagan administration was serious about confronting its enemies and “we weren’t to be messed with.”

Appearing two days later on “Fox News Sunday,” Walker repeated his claim that defeating public employee unions in Wisconsin was relevant to fighting ISIS terrorists, while pretending to disavow a direct comparison. “I want to make it clear right now. I’m not comparing those two entities,” he said, and then proceeded to do just that.

“What I meant was, it was about leadership,” he declared. “The leadership we provided under extremely difficult circumstances, arguably, the most difficult of any governor in the country.” He added that “if I were to run, and if I were to win and be commander-in-chief, I believe that kind of leadership is what’s necessary to take on radical Islamic terrorism.”

Walker’s initial statement at CPAC was widely described in the media as a gaffe. The problem, however, was not his implicit equation of working-class opposition with terrorist organizations that have been targeted for extermination, but rather his indiscretion in blurting out publicly what the US corporate-financial oligarchy thinks and discusses internally.

In the event, comparing public employees to ISIS terrorists has not disqualified Walker in the eyes of the media. If anything, it appears to have enhanced his stature as a serious presidential candidate.

This is certainly the case among the so-called “base” of the Republican Party that attended CPAC. Walker won the loudest ovations of any of the 13 potential candidates who addressed the group. In the CPAC straw poll, Walker vaulted from sixth place in 2014 to second place, with 21.4 percent of the vote, only narrowly behind Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

As the WSWS noted Saturday, Walker is not the first US political figure to equate the struggle against popular opposition at home with the wars waged by American imperialism overseas. In the American ruling elite, whether among Republicans or Democrats, there is less and less of a distinction made between domestic and foreign policy. The financial aristocracy increasingly sees itself besieged and compelled at home as well as abroad to resort to force and violence.

Events of the past several years demonstrate that for the American ruling class, the main enemy is at home: the jailing of protesters on terrorism charges, such as the “NATO Three”; the lockdown of Boston after the 2013 Marathon bombing; the militarized response to protests in Ferguson and other cities over police violence; the constant invocations of “home-grown” terrorism as the pretext for the dismantling of democratic rights and the buildup of a police state.

There has been comparatively little media attention given to Walker’s open linkage of suppressing strikes and protests at home with waging war for imperialist interests abroad. The television networks and national newspapers prefer to leave such discussions to in-house assemblies of the ultra-right and conclaves of the corporate elite.

There was one revealing commentary, however, posted by right-wing columnist Peggy Noonan, on the web site of the Wall Street Journal. Noonan, a White House speechwriter in the Reagan administration, responded to Walker’s invocation of the PATCO strike as a historic turning point that showed the Soviet Union Reagan’s determination to smash opposition to his policies.

She noted that the PATCO strike had a direct international dimension, since Canadian air traffic controllers carried out job actions in sympathy with their American colleagues and there was widespread support among European workers. The Reagan administration bullied the Canadian government to force a return to work.

Noonan then wrote: “Sen. Edward Kennedy and Lane Kirkland of the AFL CIO played helpful and constructive roles” in support of Reagan’s handling of the PATCO strike.

What Noonan noted in passing was a devastating admission, confirming what the Workers League, forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party, and our newspaper, the Bulletin, explained throughout the 1981 strike: the outright hostility of both the Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO officialdom to the struggle of the 11,000 strikers, who had enormous support in the working class.

Kennedy had spearheaded the deregulation of the airline industry in the late 1970s and it was one of his aides, working in the Carter administration, who drew up the plans for strikebreaking and mass firings in the event of an air traffic controllers strike, eventually implemented under Reagan.

Kirkland played the central role in the AFL-CIO’s deliberate isolation of the strike. After a mass rally brought 500,000 workers to Washington on September 19, 1981, the biggest labor demonstration in US history, led by thousands of PATCO strikers, the unions shut down all support, blocked any solidarity strike action by airline or airport workers, and tacitly supported the jailing of strikers and the outlawing and destruction of PATCO.

It is critical that workers entering into struggle, such as the US oil refinery workers now in the second month of a bitter strike, carefully consider the significance of Walker’s statements as well as the record of the Obama administration in overseeing the buildup of the forces of state repression. The ruling class will stop at nothing to defeat the resistance of workers to its assault on living standards and social conditions. It recognizes in the working class its irreconcilable enemy.

The working class must respond with the same degree of consciousness, determination and ruthlessness.

The PATCO precedent remains of decisive importance today because the twin obstacles of the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party remain the decisive barriers that the American working class must overcome in order to build a mass independent political movement that will challenge the profit system and advance a socialist and revolutionary program.

Indian Ocean: Modi on a Maritime Pilgrimage

Vijay Sakhuja

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Maldives, Mauritius Seychelles and Sri Lanka during this month to reinforce India’s foreign policy objectives. A number of political, economic, social and security issues would constitute the agenda and several agreements and memorandums of understanding are expected to be signed with the Indian Ocean States. At least three maritime issues merit attention.

Capacity-Building for Maritime Security
First, capacity-building for maritime security is a recurring theme in bilateral discussions between India and the Indian Ocean island States. The 2014 trilateral meeting (India, Maldives and Sri Lanka) held in New Delhi supported the idea of expanding the trilateral engagements to include Seychelles and Mauritius as observers. It was decided to build the capacity of the partners to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), provide Search and Rescue (SAR) support, oil pollution response exercises, and cooperation in legal matters. The Indian Navy has supported hydrographic surveys in Seychelles, provided training to the Mauritius Coast Guard, undertaken surveillance for Maldives and worked closely with Sri Lanka in counter-terrorism against the LTTE. It has provided warships and aircraft to these countries to augment maritime security capabilities. These engagements have catapulted India to emerge as a ‘net security provider’ and be seen as a compassionate power in the Indian Ocean.

Before identifying what the Indian Prime Minister can offer during his visits to the four island States, it is useful to understand that these countries have similar security requirements which can be clubbed under MDA, a critical element of maritime security. For instance, Sri Lanka requires platforms, systems and technologies for fisheries patrol and to prevent transgressions that have been the bane of bilateral relations; Maldives requires surveillance assistance; Mauritius requires aircraft and ships for EEZ patrols; and Seychelles requires hydrographic support.

India can offer an institutionalised information and intelligence-sharing mechanism, and it will also be useful to explore if officials from these countries are co-located in the Indian Navy’s National Command Control Communication Intelligence (NC3I) network or the Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC). This is a practice in the Singapore-based Information Fusion Centre (IFC) established at Changi Command and Control Centre (CC2C), where an Indian Navy officer has been positioned. Significantly, the IFC has received much acclaim for its multilateral approach to maritime security.

‘India or China’ Dilemma
Second, China’s overt military support to Maldives, Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Mauritius is an issue, which has caused enormous anxiety in India. Notwithstanding that, it will be prudent for Modi to avoid raising the issue, which could result in an ‘India or China’ dilemma. These island countries are recipients of generous financial and material support (preferential loans for military/commercial infrastructure projects, sale of military hardware at friendly prices and military training and education) from China and may not be willing to address India’s concerns. The docking of the Chinese submarine in Colombo port invited sharp reactions in New Delhi and apparently, under pressure, Sri Lanka decided to review the project but quickly backtracked to state that any decision on the future of the project would be taken in consultation with the Chinese. Further, these countries are keen to participate and partake in China’s Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiative, and build infrastructure to support economic growth. These drivers shape their India policy and these States would like to avoid any pressure from New Delhi. 

Blue Economy
Third, Blue Economy is the current ‘mantra’ of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the respective leaderships have championed it at national and international forums. In the Indian Ocean, Seychelles and Mauritius have been spearheading the discourse on Blue Economy and the concept has found favour across the globe including the United Nations. A number of countries and regional groupings have agreed to support the SIDS in their vision of sustainable development of oceanic resources for economic growth.

India’s ability to harness the seas is noteworthy and it has developed sophisticated mechanisms for the sustainable development of living and non-living oceanic resources. A number of scientific institutions for oceanic research, environment studies, offshore exploration and development of fisheries have been set up to harness the seas in a sustainable manner. India is working closely with its maritime neighbours and has endorsed Bangladesh’s call for the Bay of Bengal Partnership for Blue Economy. Maldives, Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Mauritius are natural partners for India towards developing the Blue Economy.

Saudi Arabia and Evolving Regional Strategic Dynamics

Ranjit Gupta

Saudi Arabia had, for the immediate short-term, seemingly successfully launched the process of transition to monarchs coming from the next generation; however, there has been dissent about the two younger generation appointments which has been kept secret from the public. Moreover, continuing widespread, but unreported, unhappiness within the royal family about Prince Muqrin’s elevation means that he may not necessarily become King; Prince Ahmed, the youngest of the seven Sudairi brothers, though presently sidelined, cannot be ruled out from becoming King and then equations change for the future. 

Thus, uncertainties on the domestic front remain. These add to Saudi Arabia facing the most challenging and daunting external security environment since the end of World War II. It is strongly besieged on all sides - the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria determined to recast the geopolitical map of West Asia while simultaneously posing an unprecedented ideological challenge to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and to the very existence of its monarchical regime; Shiite Houthis taking control of the capital Sana’a and most of northern Yemen, with the country falling apart and staring at the South seceding and where the deeply anti-Saudi al Qaeda is likely to become even stronger than it is; the potential rapprochement between the US, Saudi Arabia’s preeminent ally for the past 70 years, and Iran, Saudi Arabia’s arch enemy since 1979; Obama’s West Asia policies being very different from that of previous Presidents even as US need for Saudi oil is diminishing very sharply. Saudi Arabia’s continuing troubled relations with two GCC partners - Oman since long and Qatar in recent times. 

Saudi Arabia has little or no control over how events in the region will evolve. It is not a significant military power. Even though it is the swing producer in global oil dynamics and can singlehandedly influence the price of oil this still does not give Saudi Arabia the clout to meaningfully influence regional strategic dynamics. To compound matters, it has a new King in fragile health and a relatively inexperienced new senior team. 

Iran is, has been and will remain the leading regional power in West Asia. Saudi Arabia is not and cannot be an equal power. Carried away by strong US animosity towards the new revolutionary Iran and its own ‘special relationship’ with the US, Saudi Arabia considered the new Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 as a multi-pronged challenge and chose to respond by adopting a policy of unmitigated opposition to Iran. The US, shortsightedly, also adopted a similar approach which became progressively unsustainable in an increasingly inter-connected world in which Iran has become the preeminent strategic player in West Asia to the increasing disadvantage of the US and its regional allies. There is absolutely no possibility of any improvement in any of the conflict theatres in West Asia without Iran being an active participant in any such endeavours. The region is now caught in the vise of multiple crises forcing the US to finally recognise the reality of strong Iranian regional influence.

If Iran becomes a partner then there is every possibility that negotiated political solutions can be arrived at in Syria and Yemen and of the ground situation improving in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, including in Gaza. 

Saudi Arabia has to realise that the challenge posed by the Islamic State is far more fundamental and lethal to the Saudi regime, State and system than Iran. Its first and overriding priority must be to ensure the defeat of the Islamic State, both militarily as well as ideologically, though the latter will take a long time. Given current political ground realities in Iraq and Syria and the enormous assistance that Iran has been giving to Iraq in fighting the Islamic State, Iran is the best placed regional country which can help ensure the defeat of the Islamic State. 

Therefore, in more ways than one, a US/Western-Iranian deal is the key to stopping the increasing brutality, death and destruction in West Asia. There has to be a fundamental change of mindset by Saudi Arabia in relation to Iran. This is unavoidably necessary to ensure that the potential beneficial spin-offs of a nuclear deal can be translated onto the ground. This is also the only way that Islam-related extremism and militancy can be curbed and ultimately eliminated. Finally, this is absolutely essential to initiate the processes of controlling and ultimately eliminating deepening sectarian divides which have become the major fuel propelling the entirely unnecessary and avoidable killing of innocent people in the thousands. The new Saudi dispensation must play a statesman-like role, completely abjuring past counter-productive policies in relation to Iran.

Furthermore, absent Saudi hostility, there is no rational reason why Iran would be interested in destabilising the regime of any GCC country, including Bahrain. Finally, Iran must be an integral part of any new regional security structures in West Asia. 

If the nuclear deal does not happen and Saudi Arabia does not change its attitudes then deepening cleavages in West Asia will become far worse; possibilities of Iraq, Syria and Yemen imploding will increase; moderate President Rouhani will be discredited and internal strife will in Iran will be aggravated; and, the prized calm in the GCC countries could give way to violence too.

Russia and North Korea: Replaying Old Games

Sandip Kumar Mishra

It has been announced that Kim Jong-un will be participating in the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, to be held in Russia in May 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have been facing isolation of differing degrees and wish to assert their determination in the face of such sequestration. The visit was finalised in November 2014 during the visit of the Secretary of the North Korean Workers’ Party Choe Ryong-hae to Russia, who is considered to be the number two in the North Korean power hierarchy. In May 2014, Choe also made similar visit to Beijing to arrange a summit meet between the leaders of China and North Korea but did not succeed. If Kim Jong-un’s visit to Moscow happens, it will be the first foreign visit of the North Korean leader after assuming power in December 2011. 

It is still too early to say whether Jong-un’s visit will actually take place, as other regional countries such as South Korea would not be willing to participate in the celebrations alongside Kim Jong-un. However, if it happens, it would be indeed an important episode in East Asian affairs, presenting the leader of the reclusive State an opportunity or compulsion to meet or face the leaders of many countries. It would therefore be interesting to explore the intentions of both Russia and North Korea in making these overt gestures, which are also intrinsically linked with North Korea’s relations with China.

North Korea has sought to maintain equidistance from its two closest allies - the USSR and China - from the days of the Cold War. The North Korean leadership has successfully played China against the USSR and in the process, has been able to garner economic and military help from both. In the recent sequence of events, North Korea had its third nuclear test in February 2013 along with several other provocative steps and statements, which have deteriorated the security situation in the region. North Korean behaviour has given an excuse to the US and South Korea to strengthen their security posture and preparedness in the region, which is definitely not good for China. As a result, China has shown its open displeasure with North Korea and has minimised its exchanges and support for North Korea. China has gone along with the international community in imposing various sanctions on North Korea. The Chinese President Xi Jinping has had two summit meets with the South Korean President Park Guen-hye in the last two years, but has held no such meeting with Jong-un. China has also reportedly been suggesting Chinese-style reforms to North Korea but this has not moved the latter yet – in fact, North Korea, in response, sent a strong message to China by executing Jang Seoung-thaek, probably the closest North Korean leader to China.

In this growing environment of isolation, Kim Jong-un has been looking at other openings. In 2014, Jong-un sent Kim Yong-nam, Chairman of the Presidium of Supreme People’s Assembly to Mongolia in the garb of participating in the Winter Olympics. However, by accepting Russian offer to visit Moscow, Kim Jong-un has decided to reuse North Korea’s old tactics and which is that when China is unhappy, go to Russia and vice versa. 

From the Russian point of view, their presence and role in East Asian affairs would only be possible via North Korea. In the 1990s, when the Boris Yeltsin administration had very cold relations with North Korea, Russia had no opportunity to be part of the politics of the region. Russia had no role in the Nuclear Accord of 1994, the establishment of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) and the Four-Party Talks of 1995-96. Putin realised the mistake, and North Korea was his fourth foreign visit after coming to power in 2000. In the last few years again, it seems that Russia has become a non-player in East Asia and has been much busier in its western neighbourhood. Putin probably wants to rectify this imbalance and send a strong message to the West by demonstrating his connections with North Korea.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong visited a hydroelectric power plant in Russia in October 2014, and in January 2015, Russia has announced its assistance to North Korea in repairing and improving is power grid in exchange for rate earth metals from North Korea. Russia also announced in early February a joint military drill with North Korea.

The developments between Russia and North Korea are more significant for China as Beijing may have to rethink its policy vis-à-vis North Korea. The re-thinking has already begun with Xi Jinping sending a personal message through one of the top CCP leaders to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing on the occasion of the third death anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Many observers felt that China’s changing posture had to do with its disappointment with South Korea and the US but the change could also be attributed to Russia’s outreach programme, which must be dealt with.

In brief, it could be said that North Korea is well aware that its relationships with China and Russia are of mutual dependence. Moreover, they also compete with each other for closer proximity to North Korea, which gives North Korea some space for strategic manoeuvring. Thus, the recent episode of Russia’s invitation to Kim Jong-un and his acceptance could be a replay of the old game, which North Korea, China, and Russia have been playing with each other since the Cold War era.