Almost as soon as President Obama finished outlining his strategy to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, it became clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin once again was going to use it as an opportunity to pounce on vulnerable countries.
An Estonian policeman detained by Russian security forces and taken into Russia was charged with espionage, his lawyer told AFP Thursday. Meanwhile, Poland’s state gas company said deliveries of natural gas from Russia have been cut by 45 percent this week. The BBC reported that some analysts believe Russia is punishing Poland for continuing to supply natural gas to Ukraine.
Both events occurred as Obama has been preoccupied the Islamic extremist group, which is seen by Americans as a direct threat and has become the focus of a new U.S. military campaign. Meanwhile, Obama has said the U.S. would not go to war to defend Ukraine from Russian pressure.
It’s a pattern many analysts have noticed in Putin’s behavior: wait until the U.S. is tied up with another crisis, then pounce. And it’s worrying U.S. allies in Eastern Europe such as Estonia, who see themselves as Russia’s next targets in spite of assurances from Obama and other leaders at last week’s NATO summit.
“This is a drama that’s going to play out over years to come,” said Robert Kaplan, chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor, a strategic intelligence firm. “The issue of ISIS is a blessing for Putin.”
Russian moves in Eastern Europe resemble what happened in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, when China “made significant strategic gains throughout East Asia” while U.S. forces were tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Kaplan, who is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
The rise of Chinese power without a U.S. response created a lingering fear among allies in the region, most notably the Philippines and Japan, that needed to be addressed years later when Obama made a visit to the region in April.
That could happen in Eastern Europe as well if the administration doesn’t counter it, and may lead to the “Finlandization” of many NATO allies and the creation of a neutral buffer zone along Russia’s borders — exactly what Putin wants, Kaplan said. He noted that this is already happening in Bulgaria, where the influence of Kremlin subversion and Russian crime syndicates has so disrupted the nation’s politics that “it’s potentially in a state of chaos.”
Putin’s strategy is similar to that of czarist Russia, which expanded its territory and influence over time at the expense of its neighbors, said Luke Coffey of the Heritage Foundation. “We have a 21st century Russia with 19th century ambitions.”
But there’s a modern twist: The unconventional strategy used by Russia to take Crimea from Ukraine six months ago — what NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove described as a combination of control of energy supplies and financial resources, “the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the history of information warfare,” and the deceptive use of troops without insignia posing as local separatists — left NATO leaders scrambling to craft a response.
NATO’s plans now include staffing a new headquarters in Eastern Europe tasked with defending countries concerned about the Russian threat — particularly Poland and the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — increased rotations of U.S. and allied troops in those countries and a new rapid-response force of several thousand troops that would preposition its supplies at Eastern European bases.
“Most of all it will take concentration from the White House on this problem,” Kaplan said. “This is a world where you can’t focus on one thing.”
But that leaves out Ukraine, where the administration has said it will not use force and sanctions have not deterred Russia. Lawmakers are concerned that the U.S. is sending the wrong signals to other nations by not taking a tougher stance.
On Thursday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said Obama admitted a few weeks ago in a meeting that Crimea was “gone.”
“I was in a meeting in the White House a few weeks ago, and the president was giving us a synopsis of the problems around the world, and I said, ‘You didn’t mention Crimea. Is that just gone?’ And the basic answer was, ‘Yeah, that’s gone,’” McKeon told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute.
“I don’t think that’s a good example of American leadership.”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who recently was in Ukraine to observe elections, said during a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor on Thursday that the U.S. needs to do more to help Ukraine.
He said that Ukraine has repeatedly asked Washington for military supplies and arms and has been rebuffed. Instead, he said that Obama has offered toothless speeches, such as during the recent NATO summit, and economic sanctions that don’t appear to be bothering the Kremlin.
“A lot of speeches and hot air from conferences in Europe and presidential speeches means nothing to him,” Portman said of Putin. “What means something is if we acted.”
Obama and the European Union are planning to impose harsher sanctions on Russia’s financial, energy and defense sectors on Friday. The restrictions reportedly include tightening access to capital markets and curtailing help for Russian oil exploration.
But even though confronting the Islamic State may hurt U.S. efforts to keep Russia in check, the group also poses long-term risks to Moscow if the threat from Islamist extremism spreads beyond the northern Caucasus —where the Russians have already faced it in Chechnya — to Moscow’s new prize, Crimea, where the Muslim Tatars make up about 12 percent of the population.
“If I were Russia I’d be concerned about ISIS as well,” Coffey said.
