Conflicted S3 E4 - Borderline Post-Soviet Disorder

CONFLICTED
S03E04

Thomas Small Dear listener, this episode of Conflicted is going to be a bit different. You see, it was always our plan to talk about Russia in this episode as a way of laying out some aspects, at least, of the geopolitics of the Cold War, which is what this season of Conflicted is all about. When we recorded it four weeks ago, Russia had sent over a hundred thousand troops to the Ukrainian border, which we thought made the discussion especially topical. But we didn't know then that, by the time this episode came out, President Putin would have ordered a full invasion of his neighbour and put his nuclear forces on high alert. 

Like a lot of people did four weeks ago, when Aimen and I discussed Vladimir Putin's aims and objectives, we did so under the assumption that Putin's sanity was basically intact. After what's happened since, Putin's sanity can no longer be taken for granted. It looks like that old adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely has been proved true once again. 

As you can imagine, this is a busy time for a professional security analyst like Aimen. And so, though we considered rerecording this episode entirely in the light of recent events, we haven't been able to. Instead, I am recording this new introduction and, at the end, I'll add some new thoughts as well. As you listen, please bear in mind that we've tried to do what we always try to do: tell the story as best we can, as objectively as we can. 

My worry is, by outlining the way Putin sees the world, you'll think we think his assault on Ukraine is justified. We do not. Geopolitics is a diabolical game, hardly ever played by good guys against bad guys. But no one is ever forced to launch a war. And though every decision must be seen in context, Putin's decision to launch this war was his alone to make, and he alone bears responsibility for it and for its tragic consequences. 

Right. That's what I've got for you by way of introduction. I'll be back at the end for some final thoughts. Enjoy. 

Welcome back, dear listeners, to Conflicted. You've reached episode four of series three. And as always, I'm joined by my right-hand man, the incomparable Aimen Dean. Or am I your right-hand man, Aimen? What do you think? 

Aimen Dean Well, you know, the Dark Lord doesn't share power. 

Thomas Small Oh. So – so, what you're saying is you're the master, I'm the apprentice. But you know what that means? 

[THEME IN]

I mean, one day, I will rise up and slay you.

Aimen Dean Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

[THEME OUT]

Thomas Small In the last episode, we talked about how the American half of the Cold War was established in Saudi Arabia. Today, we're shifting our focus to the other half of that epic conflict: the Soviet Union. What were the Soviet Union's designs on the Middle East? And, now, as the spectre of war between Russia and Ukraine hangs over Europe, to what extent can Soviet history and, indeed, the earlier history of Imperial Russia help us to understand what's going on?

This episode can be considered a follow-up to the third episode of season two. So, if you haven't listened to that or – or haven't since it came out, I recommend you go and listen to it now, then come back to us. It lays the foundation for much of what we're going to discuss today: the collapse of the Soviet Union; Russia's quick descent into economic anarchy; the rise of Putin; the crushing of the Chechen jihad; and Russia's return to the Middle East as an important player in the Syrian civil war, commanding its own armies of Sufi jihadist mercenaries. It was a great episode. 

At the end of the episode, I said this: "There's obviously a lot more we could have talked about in this extremely complex episode of Conflicted. We could have talked about Russia's war in Georgia in 2008 or we could have gone into greater detail about the annexation of Crimea in 2014 or, indeed, about the ongoing Ukrainian civil war." 

Well, at the time of this recording, Russia has mast one hundred and thirty-five thousand troops along the Ukrainian border. And everyone is wondering, "What will happen? Will Russia invade? Will NATO defend Ukraine?" 

Here on Conflicted, we don't forecast the future. And who knows? By the time this episode airs, the conflict may have completely gone away. But I doubt it. 

Now, here on Conflicted, we talk about how the past sheds light on the present. Beginning with the present, then. Aimen, can you give us a quick update on Russia's position in the Middle East at the moment? Where are its Chechen mercenaries currently being deployed? 

Aimen Dean Well, they are deployed in Syria.

Thomas Small Still in Syria?

Aimen Dean Yeah. Four or five thousand of them. They – they are actually called or designated the Russian Military Police. Their mission is to patrol and to police so-called liberated areas, you know, which were under jihadist control in the past. Also, they are deployed in Libya. And, you know, to some extent, also, they are deployed in Donbas in the Ukraine, on the eastern front. 

Thomas Small Well, we'll get to that, for sure. But what are they doing in Libya? What's their agenda there? 

Aimen Dean Well, during the Libyan civil war or the recent one, you know, in 2020, 2021, they were siding with the forces of the infamous general, Khalifa Haftar, a remnant of the old regime, someone, basically, who is a self-styled neo-Gaddafi. And, funny, enough an American citizen. 

So, yeah. However, he – he got the backing of the Egyptians, the Russians, the Greeks even, and, to some extent, the Saudis and the Emiratis. So, he is, you know, the person who wanted to rid Libya of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Thomas Small Yeah. He's a sort of anti-Islamist general. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. He is an anti-Islamist general. And then, on the other hand, of course, although, like, you know, he has lots of Salafists, you know, fighting for him. 

Thomas Small Yeah. Absolutely lots. You might be anti Islamist, but you're never rid of Islamist. They're everywhere. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, it's like, "Okay. These are Islamists, but I have my own Islamists." You know? "I'm fighting Islamists with my own Islamists." 

And then, you have—. So – so, in Libya, they were, you know, serving the foreign policy objectives of Putin in trying to restore Libya into a strongman republic. You know, similar to what Gaddafi used to do, although like, you know, I mean, with more sanity. Although, like, you know, basically, no one can, you know, outdo Gaddafi when it comes to insanity.

But, nonetheless, you know, I remember, you know, I met a few Libyans, you know, in the airport, in Beijing, and they were asking me to help fill in their landing cars. cards. And I said to them, "Guys, you know, we have a saying in Arabic, you know, don't get rid of your insane monkey. You might get even a more insane monkey." You know? So, this is Gaddafi. 

Like, you know, I mean, they said, "Yes, because, you know, with him in power, we had one insane monkey. Now, we have an entire insane zoo competing."

Thomas Small It's the age-old tension between authoritarianism and chaos. 

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small Well, in this series of Conflicted, we're focusing on the Cold War in the Middle East. Do you know, Aimen, where the first recorded instance of the expression "a cold war" comes from?

Aimen Dean No. In Latin?

Thomas Small Here's the quote: "War that is very strong and very hot ends with either death or peace, whereas cold war neither brings peace nor gives honour to the one who makes it." 

Those are the words of Don Juan Manuel, an early fourteenth century Castilian nobleman, in Spain, referring to the war between the Christians and the Muslims there. Now, it's easy for a fourteenth century Spaniard to prefer hot to cold wars. But, by the twentieth century, developments in military technology made such a preference appear romantic in the extreme. 

We are talking about Russia and Ukraine today, and both trace their histories back to a state that formed in the late ninth century A.D. A state—and this is key—that was situated in present day Ukraine with the same capital city, Kyiv. This state, which is known as Kyivan Rus', was actually founded by Scandinavians, by Vikings who were traveling up and down the Dnieper and Volga rivers, bringing furs and slaves to the great empires of Byzantium and the Abbasid Caliphate. 

The people living along the rivers were mainly Eastern Slavs who, in fact, made up the bulk of those slaves. The English word "slave," it comes from the word Slav. But the ruling class were Norseman, Germanic warriors with Germanic names, like Oleg and Rurik. And even Vladimir, a Slav-afide form of the Norse name Waldemar. 

Kyivan Rus' converted to Orthodox Christianity in 988 and, thus, became part of what's known as the Byzantine commonwealth. The Kyivan state looked to Byzantium as a sort of cultural ideal. And this would characterise Russia later. Kyivan Rus' eventually fragmented and weakened, succumbed to the Mongol invasions in the 1240s. It was incorporated into the realm of the Golden Horde, which in Russia, is called the Tatar Yoke, and it lasted for two hundred and fifty years. 

Aimen, how are the Mongols and their Turkic successors remembered by Middle Easterners? I mean, we Westerners have an almost totally negative view of them. 

Aimen Dean The Mongolian invasion is remember reading negatively for lots of reasons. I mean, it has blamed partly for the collapse of the Islamic civilisation, the sack of Baghdad, the burning of the House of Wisdom. You know, the biggest library at the world at the time. Five million titles were lost. So, all of this, you know, means that, like, you know, to this day, you know, the Arabs remember the Mongol invasion as the worst calamity to have ever befell, you know, the Middle East. Worse than the crusades. 

Thomas Small Because the Mongols and the Turks who followed after and eventually did convert to Islam and re-established Islamic civilisation in a way, along – on new foundations, almost, the Mongol – the Mongol heritage in the Middle East is perhaps remembered a little bit more ambiguously at least than in the West, where they just were always the, you know, the absolute worst.

Aimen Dean Not by the Arabs, though. And the reason is because even when the Turkic-Mongol, you know, conversion to Islam happened, they still fought, you know, had so many wars. 

Ibn Taymiyyah, you know, the famous grandfather of Salafism, he fought against King Kazan and the Ilkhanate Mongols and issued fatwas that they were not proper Muslims, because they were incorporating parts of the Yassa—you know, Genghis Khan, you know, law—into Islam. And so, he declared them to be, you know, non-proper – not proper Muslims. He excommunicated them and then he fought against them. He declared jihad against them. So, no. 

And even then, when the Ottoman empire was established, you know, on the back of the Mongol invasions, although they are Turkic rather the Mongol, still, the Arabs were, you know, considered to be fourth or fifth citizens. No. That era is never remembered fondly.

Thomas Small Well, that's something that the Arabs have in common with the peoples of Kyivan Rus', who languished under the Tatar Yoke for two hundred and fifty years. The Mongols were eventually rolled back in waves by a number of rising Christian powers. The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania conquered much of the heartlands of what had been Kyivan Rus'—i.e. modern-day Ukraine—which they jointly ruled for centuries and which they called Ruthenia, a Latinised form of Russia. 

This means that the word "Russian" has different meanings, depending on when you're talking about it. And one of those meanings is "all the people who lived in Ruthenia, in Kyivan Rus'," which includes both modern Ukraine and modern Russia. 

Ukraine means "border land." And, indeed, that part of Ruthenia was torn between competing powers, including the Ottomans and the Habsburgs. But it was a new power to the northeast that started taking bigger and bigger chunks of it, beginning in the seventeenth century, that is most relevant today: the power of Muscovy. 

The Grand Duchy of Moscow was a vassal of the Mongols until it threw them off in the mid-thirteen hundreds. This Muscovite state was actually founded after the fall of Kyivan Rus', but it believed that it was an heir to the tradition of that earlier state. 

Wars of expansion characterised the Moscow state, which, in 1547, became an empire proper when its infamous leader, Ivan the Terrible, was proclaimed czar, which is just the word for "Caesar" in Russian. 

The Tatar Yoke left its mark in the Russian Empire. It was part-Byzantine, part-Mongol in its statecraft, where the rule of law was always second to the iron rule of power. The empire was autocratic, centralised, Orthodox Christian, and committed to territorial expansion. This, it pursued with ruthless gusto, eventually swallowing up the entirety of northern Eurasia, including most of what is now Ukraine, a monumental achievement. The Russian Empire was a behemoth. It haunted the dreams of Western imperial powers, especially Britain, whose global maritime empire was the exact opposite of the czar's transcontinental empire. 

The long imperial conflict between them is called The Great Game, which we've discussed before on Conflicted. And if you're interested, check out our episodes on Afghanistan and Russia. You'll hear all about it. 

The First World War did not go well for the Russian Empire. It ended with revolution, the communist takeover, and a peace treaty with Germany that saw the empire's borders contract massively. One territory at loss was Ukraine, which was itself plunged into chaos. Different Ukrainian nationalist groups competed for power, and Ukraine became a battlefield in the larger Russian civil war, which included Western armies terrified of communism, trying to restore the czar. 

In the end, the Bolsheviks won the field. And, in 1922, the Soviet Union was founded, whose borders were basically the same as the Russian Empire's. But Ukraine wasn't just a province as it had been. It was a proper constituent republic, an implicit acknowledgement of Ukraine's claims to statehood. 

Anyway, as we all know, though it haunted the dreams of America just as its imperial predecessor, it haunted the dreams of the British, the USSR eventually fell apart. Ukraine achieved its full independence in a referendum in 1991. And as capital of the newly formed Russian Federation, Moscow found itself ruling less territory than it had for centuries, a situation that, in the eyes of Russian leaders, was essentially untenable in the long run.

There's a reason for that: Russia's geography. I'm going to give a – a description of Russia's infamously porous borders, Aimen. What do you have to say in general about Russia's geographical position, and how important is it to understand it to understand what's going on? 

Aimen Dean Well, Russia is extremely lucky and unlucky in its geography. It is extremely lucky, because of all the natural resources that they, you know, acquired, you know, unknowingly when they just expanded all the way to the east and to the wilderness of Siberia.

Thomas Small Where the natural gas fields are vast and extremely lucrative. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And the oil, also. And the coal and many other minerals. The problem here is, you know, Russia is the biggest country in the world. Yet, ironically, you might as well consider it to be almost landlocked. And the reason for that is because they don't have any warm water ports, with the exception of the Black Sea. 

Thomas Small The infamous warm water port problem of the Russians.

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small It's—. They've been pursuing warm water for longer than anyone remembers. Russia has twenty thousand kilometres of borders. Twenty thousand kilometres of border to police. It borders sixteen independent states. Twelve used to be in the Soviet Union. And all of that border territory is an immense liability. Just policing it, ensuring that no one invades is a huge cost to the Exchequer. This vulnerability is deeply embedded in the Russian state's psyche. From the beginning, the Grand Duchy of Moscow was extremely vulnerable due to geography. It needed to expand. 

I mean, geography is destiny. Try to imagine Russia. Invasion from the north, it's basically impossible because of the Arctic waters. They're frozen most of the year. In the east, Russia's strategic control of the northeast Asian coastline, down to Vladivostok, including the Kuril Islands, gives it the upper hand there. Two mountain ranges north of Mongolia and China, the Stanovoy and the Sayan ranges, give Russia some protection from invasion from that direction. 

But the European plane is like a flat funnel. It has a narrow mouth at the low countries of Belgium and the Netherlands. And then, it just widens, expanding eastward, its southern side rapping along the Carpathians to the Black Sea, and its northern side, along the Baltic Sea, all the way to the Euros. It's a vast, flat plane containing few natural defensible barriers. Russia's western border snakes down the middle of it for two thousand kilometres. There is no border like it in the world. No border as long or as exposed. 

What adds to this geo-strategic nightmare for Russia is what's called the Volgograd Gap. Aimen, tell us about the Volgograd Gap, a seven-hundred-and-fifty-kilometre stretch of flat land between the Sea of Azov the northeast of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. How important is the Volgograd Gap? 

Aimen Dean Well, of course, it is very important, because, you know, Hitler wanted to go all the way through that – through it, all the way to the oil fields in the Caspian. For him, he knew that this is a flat plane that is easily invadable, that you can just basically roll through the tanks, the panzers, all the way to the Caucasus. 

And that is why it is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of Russia as far as, you know, European powers are concerned, whether they are the French and the Napoleon invaders. And before—. And after that, Hitler tried again.

Thomas Small And before Napoleon, the Poles invaded it. Before that, the Swedes invaded it. It was an endless succession of invaders from the West.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. But, you know, nonetheless, I think the particular invasion that will always live in the memories of all Russians will be the Second World War or, as they always call it, the Great Patriotic War. 

Thomas Small Yes. During the Second World War, Hitler's troops tried to control the Volgograd Gap. And from Russia's point of view, if a foreign power grabs control of this gap, which is, you know, it's flat—there's no easily defensible area there—if a foreign power controls it, it effectively cuts Russia off from access both to vital trade routes, to its only warm water access on the Black Sea. This is an existential threat to the Russian state. 

And, incidentally, this goes some way towards explaining why Russia crushed Chechen separatism so mercilessly. Moscow considers the north Caucasus region to be integral to its existence as a state. The Caucasus Mountains are Moscow's first line of defence against incursion from the south into the Volgograd Gap. 

Now, Russia's southern Central Asian border is also vast. It is also flat and it is also indefensible, which is why Russia needs to keep the Central Asian republics within its security fold, Central Asian republics now built on top of land that was conquered and pacified by the czars in their never-ending quest for security. 

So, that's the geopolitical geographic situation. And – and I think it's important, sometimes, at least, to, you know, imagine yourself in Vladimir Putin's shoes, sitting on his throne there in Moscow, looking out at the world. We're not trying to advocate or defend his perspective, but at least we can understand it. He rules this vast country with these three easily penetrable borderlands, enormous borderlands, and he's instinctively going to feel vulnerable. And what makes him feel most vulnerable is NATO's expansion eastward.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has continued to acquire or to add to its ranks new countries, countries that used to fall squarely within Moscow's sphere of influence. East Germany joined immediately upon reunion with West Germany in 1990. In 1999, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined NATO. In 2004 Slovakia, the Baltic states, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria joined NATO. 

Now, Aimen, remind us. During this first wave of NATO expansion, Putin remained a potential partner to the West. But that relationship began to break down. Quickly remind us why. 

Aimen Dean Well, several things. The first thing is the Iraq War, because Putin didn't like the idea that the Americans are going to put their hand on the fourth largest oil reserves in the world in Iraq, and threatening, you know, the second or the third largest oil reserves in the world, which is Iran next door. And also, at the same time, from their position in Iraq, where they can have a hegemony on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Iran and Iraq, which, basically, will put them in charge of roughly about sixty percent of the world's hydrocarbon reserves.

Thomas Small Meaning, they could manipulate the oil price downward for American consumers. And – and Putin has an interest in keeping the price as high as possible. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

So, here is the dynamics of the buyer and seller, and each trying to influence the events to their advantage. Now, Putin, already after 9/11, offered this, you know, olive branch, saying, "Look, I've been fighting terrorism in Chechnya and the Caucasus. I've been succeeding and splitting the Wahabis from the Sufis. I could help. I could, you know, lend intelligence, you know, air bases, assets in order to assist the war on terrorism from the American side." 

Then, the Americans brushed him aside and said, you know, "Sorry. Thank you. Like, you know, Russia is a broken country. We have no interest, you know, in having help from you or anyone else."

Thomas Small And then, following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, America reached out to partners throughout the Central Asian republics, established military footholds there. That was obviously very provocative to Putin. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

The second thing that was provocative is, you know, remember that the only warm water port that the Russians have is on the Black Sea. So, they already tolerated the fact that Turkey, which, with a long coastline on the Black Sea, is a NATO ally, but—. Oh, it's a NATO member. But it's been a NATO member since the 1950s. I mean, they are fine with that.

Thomas Small Which was always threatening. I mean, that's an essential threat to Russia, because Turkey being in NATO means NATO can close access to the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. 

Thomas Small And the Bosphorus. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. But then, when Romania and Bulgaria, both are Black Sea nations, joined, you know, it's only a matter of time before the entire Black Sea, you know, almost becomes a – a NATO lake. So, you know—. So, in essence, you know, the Russians were, you know, viewing this NATO expansion with nervousness, and they were thinking, "Ah, okay. Who's next?"

Thomas Small When the Cold War was coming to an end, many people, in Russia, especially, assumed that NATO would be disbanded as Russia was disbanding the Warsaw Pact, because, you know, without the Soviet Union there to defend Europe from, what does NATO exist to achieve? 

Well, NATO exists to defend Europe from Russia. There is something essentially provocative. If the West is in a military alliance that says, "You are our enemy. We are defending ourselves from you," it's already creating that kind of a dynamic. And then, following the appearance of NATO troops in Central Asia—this is, again, from Putin's point of view—provocative. 

There's another side to Putin's perception, that Western policy is threatening. And this is what he calls the US's support for democracy. This is extremely difficult, really, for Westerners, I think, or for people who have a commitment to – to liberal democracy to understand. 

But for – for autocrats, authoritarians, like Putin, who actually believes that authoritarianism is the best thing for Russia—now, we might be cynical about that, but he believes—Putin sees liberal democracy as an essential threat to the authoritarian top-down style of leadership that he himself practices and supports. We might think that this is the logic of a dictator seeking to retain power. And, perhaps, that is true. But this is certainly the way he sees it. 

And it is incontrovertibly true that the US, particularly from the late nineties onward, began, in the words of The Guardian newspaper at the time, who was a champion of this effort, began engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience. This is absolutely true. Where The Pentagon was trying to impose democracy, if you like, through the military in places like Iraq, the state department, effectively the foreign ministry of the United States government, was trying to impose or at least encouraged democracy by training peoples outside of America on how to mobilise democratically. 

In 2000, the state department put a huge effort into influencing the presidential election in Serbia, and it succeeded. And Slobodan Milošević was voted out of office. In 2001, they tried again, this time in Belarus, and they failed. But, in 2003, the state department intervened in the elections in Georgia, where they, again, succeeded. 

So, having succeeded in Georgia in 2003, we come to the Ukraine. And this is really what brings us up to the present. This is vital backstory to what's going on. So, in 2004, the state department and its NGO allies were involved in swaying the presidential elections in the Ukraine that year. Initially, they failed, and the Russian-backed candidate, Yanukovych, came to power. But, immediately, a mass protest movement broke out, coordinated by this network of NGOs. And this will be called the Orange Revolution of 2004. Eventually, this led to a rerun of the election, and the pro-Western candidate, Yushchenko, came to power. 

Everything really can be traced back to this election in 2004. It showed Russia that the West was trying to install a pro-Western president in the Ukraine. Now, Russia was also manipulating the election and it even attempted to assassinate Yushchenko, the pro-Western candidate, with dioxin poisoning. 

So, you know, we're not saying that Putin is a good guy here. A bit like our episode in – about – about Afghanistan. There are no good guys in this – in this world.

Aimen Dean No. We're just talking about, you know, really bad guys with, you know, different levels of how bad they are. 

Thomas Small It's important to remember that though Putin is anti-democracy, he's not anti-voting. He just sees voting as serving a different purpose from how voting is perceived in a liberal democracy. 

Aimen Dean Like Iran, for example.

Thomas Small Yes. Well, like all these authoritarian places. They try to use elections as a way of controlling public perception and legitimising authoritarian rule. And so, when Putin sees US-backed NGOs teaching political candidates in authoritarian countries how to mobilise the masses, how to campaign, how to use the media to achieve their – their communications objectives, and then, when elections don't go the right way, how to really get mass protest movements moving, when he sees this going on, he obviously feels threatened. He feels angry. 

Let's take a quick break now. Okay, Aimen. Let's get back to our conversation. The next big date in this backstory is on the 3rd of April 2008. NATO held a summit in Bucharest. Putin was actually present. And it ends by welcoming Ukraine and Georgia's aspirations to join NATO. At the time, Georgia and NATO were hoping that the summit would result in the beginning of a formal process for them to join NATO. And it didn't go as far as that. But it did officially welcome their aspirations. 

George W. Bush had wanted to start the joining process. You know, George W. Bush, he was a big fan of exporting democracy. But Britain, France and Germany said that, "No, We need to wait." Perhaps, they recognised Russia's perspective. 

And – and Russia made that perspective immediately. "It was a huge strategic mistake," Russia said. "It would destabilise European security."

I think we know what that means. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

Thomas Small And he said that Georgia and Ukraine's joining NATO was a "direct threat to Russia." So, Russia made its opinion absolutely clear. And a few months later, in August of 2008, Russia goes to war against Georgia. So, Russia is showing that it is – it is not kidding around.

Now, Aimen, you were still spying for MI6 in August 2008. Is that right? Or had you already left the service?

Aimen Dean No. By that time, I already left.

Thomas Small Nonetheless, in the years up to that point, you were talking a lot with intelligence experts and analysts. How were America's pro-democracy tactics perceived in that community? And – and tell us a little bit about that war with Georgia. 

Aimen Dean Well, we have to understand that Georgia, once it, you know, it veered in 2003 towards the West, that actually was a negative. It had the negative impact on the Russian effort to pacify and subdue Chechnya and the other. you know, Islamic militants in the Caucasus. 

There was an area just north of Tbilisi. It's called the Pankisi Gorge. The Pankisi Gorge is important here, because that is the place in which militants would use in order to, you know, infiltrate into Chechnya. And, you know, the Russians, prior to that, prior to 2003, were always relying on the Georgians sealing that gorge, making sure no weapons, munitions, logistics, and men were crossing. 

In fact, one of the people who wanted to cross the Pankisi Gorge and was turned away by the Georgians is none other than Abdulaziz al-Omari, one of the 9/11 hijackers. 

Thomas Small Wow. 

Aimen Dean He, you know—. In – in the year—. In February 2000, he was about to cross the Pankisi George and go ahead to fight in Chechnya, but he was, you know, turned away by the Georgians and was deported to Turkey. And from there, he went to Afghanistan. 

So, the reality is that the Georgians were really good at helping the Russians until 2003, when a new pro-American government were, you know, came to power. And that had a negative impact immediately on the amount of logistics and weapons and, you know, traffic of fighters in and out of Chechnya, using the Pankisi Gorge. 

So, the Russians decided, "Okay. You give us the Pankisi Gorge. We're going to give you Southern Ossetia." You know? So, the Southern Ossetian separatist republic in Georgia. So—. And when the Georgians wanted to pacify Southern Ossetia, the Russians used that as a pretext to invade. 

So, the reality is that Putin realised that, "Okay. I offered to help you, you know, pacify Afghanistan. I've offered to help you fight terrorism." 

Thomas Small He's talking to the – he's talking to the United States here? 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

"And, now, you come to my own backyard, my own backyard, the home of Stalin in Georgia, the home of Stalin, to – to – to turn it into not only a liberal democracy, but a liberal democracy that's giving aid and support to jihadists." 

Thomas Small I can imagine Putin's not happy. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, he decided to do what Russians do best: send them the airplanes and the tanks 

 Thomas Small And they—. The Russian army totally smashed Georgia. I mean, Georgia is still smarting today from that – from that invasion. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

Thomas Small But what about America's pro-democracy tactics in general, the ones that were coordinated through the state department? Were intelligence analysts focused at all on this at the time and – and the potential for conflict as a result of those actions? 

Aimen Dean Well, if you talk to those who were Russia desk analysts and officers in, you know, whether the British intelligence or the German intelligence or other services, they will tell you that there is no need to antagonise Russia this way. I mean, after all, the spectre of al-Qaeda, the spectre of the Taliban was still there. We were still fighting a war against terrorism. There are many Chechens who are using the Pankisi Gorge, then later would infiltrate into places like Afghanistan to kill Americans, they would infiltrate into places like Iraq to kill Americans, and they will infiltrate into Syria later. 

So, the reality is that, while the state department enabled, you know, pro-democracy or pro-liberal democracy powers to reach, you know – you know, governance, basically, in Georgia, that did not result in a improved security, you know, for the West and for Western allies. 

I mean, actually it proved to be the opposite. And I think Putin learnt the lesson, that if you see that effort to destabilise one of, you know, my buffer or satellite states intervene immediately. Don't let it fester.

Thomas Small Well, we would see that happen before, too long in the Ukraine. 

So, to return to the Ukraine onto its backstory, in 2010, the Russian candidate, Yanukovych came to power. But he began negotiating with the EU to form an association agreement. Basically, a step on the way to full membership of the EU. 

Putin said, immediately, "This is unacceptable. The Ukraine cannot be in the EU." 

Because the EU and NATO, though they're separate institutions, they are both parts of the liberal democratic order, which Putin does not want to grow into his front yard. Instead, he suggested a separate arrangement involving the EU, but also Russia, the IMF, and the Ukraine. But this was rejected by the EU. And in the end, after putting a lot of pressure on him by Putin, President Yanukovych rejects the EU deal. That took place on the 21st of November 2013. Yanukovych says no to the EU. Only ten days later, in December, large demonstrations, breakout in Independence Square in Kyiv. This is the famous Maidan. And, actually, interestingly, that word, Maidan, is a Turkic word, "a big public square," and that is an immediate echo of the Tatar Yoke. Immediate. It goes and stretches right back to those two hundred and fifty years, when the area was ruled by the Turks.

So, these big demonstrations break out in Independence Square, in the Maidan. Protestors take over the city hall. Yanukovych reacts harshly. Actually, this is precisely what such protests want. They want the leader to react harshly, which will galvanise the protests further, which is, indeed, what happens. 

Sixteen days later, as the country is politically in greater and greater degrees of chaos, Putin announces a fifteen-billion-dollar loan to the Ukraine to help them see through some economic difficulties they were going through. This, again, is proof to the protestors who are anti-Russia that Ukraine is moving too much in the direction of Russia. 

In January and February of 2014, street clashes are – are becoming a very constant thing. Sixty-eight people are killed in the course of them. And the Ukrainian parliament is working with the president, is working with Germany, is working with Britain, is working with Russia to try to find some solution. 

Finally, on the 21st of February 2014, they do reach a deal to hold new elections by the end of that year, which would mean that Yanukovych would remain in power until then.

This was agreed by the Ukrainian parliament, but was rejected by the protesters in the Maidan, which, by this point, included far-right elements. There's no question. There were neo-Nazi-style Ukrainian nationalists, you know, amongst the protesters. Weapons stores had also been ransacked. So, the situation was getting very violent. 

And on the following day, the 22nd of February, Yanukovych flees to Russia, and parliament votes unanimously to remove him from power in a move that Russia calls a coup. 

Now, what is interesting about this whole story in – in Kyiv in 2014, Aimen, is that it has echoes of the Arab Spring. Is that just a coincidence? Or can we see in this pattern the – the consequences of American pro-democracy initiatives, that there's a kind of rule book that's being followed here, and this rule book is leading to strongmen being removed from power?

Aimen Dean Well, if you see that the American administration learnt a lot from the lessons of Tunisia, Egypt, and, to some extent, Yemen. They looked at—. And Libya, of course. They looked at the trajectory of each country and the power play in each country, and they decided that, "Okay. If we want to apply the same here in Ukraine, then we need to follow these steps carefully." 

You know, first of all, you have the – the pretext. From the pretext, come the protest. From the protest, come the provocation. From the provocation, come the reaction. From the reaction, come the propagation. And this is how you feed, you know, this narrative. And until the people are presented or the people in power are presented with two choices, really: civil war or just escape the country. So, what some people call it, that Yanukovych a Ben Ali. 

Thomas Small Ben Ali, the president of Tunisia who just decided to leave. Well, some people say his security officers put him on a plane and sent him away, but. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. Actually, no. They told him that, "Oh, we have information that the protesters are about to storm the palace." You know? "Flee for your safety." So, then he fled. 

It's the same thing had happened with the Yanu- – Yanukovych. He was told that, you know, "if – if the protesters reach the palace, your guard will not protect you anymore."

So, he decided, you know, like, I mean, "I'm not going to end up like Gaddafi." 

So, the spectre of Gadhafi, you know, being knived. 

Thomas Small The ghost of Gaddafi hangs … 

Aimen Dean You know? 

Thomas Small … haunts every strongman.

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

"I don't want to be a Gaddafi. I don't want to be a Saddam. So, thank you so much, guys. I will do a Ben Ali." You know, go into honourable, lucrative exile, a comfortable one, in Russia. And that's it. 

Thomas Small Whatever it was in fact, and it was probably a complex mix of many things, in Putin's eyes, this whole thing was a Western takeover of the Ukraine. And he moved to permanently detach Ukraine from Russia's sphere of influence. 

So, Russian units began seizing checkpoints in the Crimea, which has a majority Russian-speaking population and, as you mentioned, Aimen, is home to Russia's vital Black Sea fleet, at the important naval city of Sevastopol. And by the 18th of March 2014, after a referendum in the Crimea, Russia formerly annexed the peninsula. Two majority Russian-speaking provinces in Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, a part of a larger Russian-speaking region known as the Donbas, declared their independence from Ukraine. And, well, that's that.

From that—. From then, in – in summer 2014 to now, there's been a kind of ongoing civil war within eastern areas of Ukraine, aided by Russian troops, aided by Russian mercenaries, including all sorts of military adventurers.

Zooming out a bit to – to go back to the entire geostrategic perspective, what does Russia actually want? 

Aimen Dean First and foremost, respect, you know. 

"Don't interfere on my affairs. I'm not going to interfere in yours." You know? 

And that's why, you know, we have to understand that Russia is always defensive, whether, you know, in terms of geography or politics. They are defensive. 

Putin would say to the West, "Please, please, please, please, you know, do not undermine the stability of the Central Asian republics." You know, the Stans. Whether it's Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyztan, you know, Turkmenistan. "Please do not destabilise these countries because I will pay the price if there is a jihadist, you know, uprising in these countries, and there will be millions of refugees, you know, coming into my land from the civil wars that erupt. Do not go into Ukraine and cause disturbances. Please do not go into the Caucasus and cause disturbances, because I will pay the price for all of this." 

Thomas Small Putin's belief in stability and his willingness to intervene in order to protect stability was proved in January of this year, when Kazakhstan suddenly erupted into increasingly chaotic and even violent protests. As a result initially of a rise of gas prices, first in west Kazakhstan, which then they spread to Almaty, which is the country's largest city. And – and they grew. They grew into a large-scale looting, violence in places. The state responded with brutality. And to prevent this Arab Spring-style situation, Russia sent in troops to quell the protests. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And they were extremely successful in pacifying the country. So, from his point of view, is that the West is playing lots of games, but in his backyard, rather than he is playing his games in theirs.

By the way, I'm not saying that Putin and, by extension, Putin's Russia are the victims here. We're just talking about the dynamics of the game and where the game is being played. Is it being played in America's backyard or is it being played in Russia's backyard? No. Actually, it is in Russia's backyard right now.

Thomas Small Now, we've kind of talked mainly about how Putin sees the West as a threat. But, of course, the West sees Russia as a threat as well. NATO has expanded throughout the last thirty years, largely because, in the eyes of most American military policymakers, Russia is an enemy. And, of course, if you want to spread liberal democracy, it is an enemy. 

But also, more recently, in March 2018, Putin announced a number of new super weapons. These super weapons have been designed specifically to get around American defence systems, which clearly freaks out The Pentagon. If you're Putin and you're looking at America's defence system, what – what – what are its weaknesses or how are you going to get around it?

Aimen Dean Well, Putin decided that he will avoid what bankrupted the Soviet Union. He learnt the lessons of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union tried to match the American military power. Submarine to submarine, aircraft carriers to aircraft carrier. You know, bomber to bomber. 

He decided that, "No. We – we can't much American arms race financially. So, you know what? Let them build aircraft carriers, but we will build the anti-aircraft carrier weapon."

Thomas Small America's military might is – is founded on aircraft carriers. Is that – is that right?

Aimen Dean Absolutely. Because that's how you project power. It has, you know, air power. And every aircraft carrier group has submarines and Tomahawk missiles and cruise missiles and all of these things, as well as the aircraft's on top of the aircraft carrier. It's a huge power projection. Powerful than many other. Each aircraft group carries the power of a whole nation. Of a whole nation. 

So, that is why, as far as Putin is concerned, "Okay. I'm not going to match each aircraft carrier with an aircraft carrier of my own. I'm going to invent weapons that will sink them before even they come to me." 

Thomas Small And what are these weapons?

Aimen Dean Hypersonic cruise missiles.

Thomas Small Hypersonic cruise missiles? My goodness, this is something out of a 1950s Pope sort of comic book. A hypersonic cruise missile. And what is that? I mean, that sounds like it moves very fast. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. I mean, the American typical cruise missile, like, you know, the Tomahawk, for example, you know, the speed is about eight hundred kilometres. But, you know, the speed of, you know, the Russian new hypersonic cruise missiles could reach anywhere between three and a half thousand to five thousand kilometres per hour. So, it is really fast. And even the velocity of the impact, you know, could destroy the carrier without even having a warhead on it. You know, just the velocity. 

Thomas Small So, hypersonic cruise missiles. What else? What other weapons are – are they developing? 

Aimen Dean Uh-huh. This is where we come to one of the scariest weapons ever created in human history. It's a mini-submarine, but it's a torpedo. But it's a nuclear torpedo with a nuclear warhead and a nuclear reactor to make it going, you know. Basically, it propelled by diesel, you know, or any other, fuel. It is propelled by a nuclear reactor inside it. It is a twenty-four-metre tube shaped like a torpedo that can roam the oceans, carrying a warhead, that is—and prepare for this—it's a hundred megatonnes in terms of the power of the thermal weapon inside. 

Thomas Small Compare that to the – the nuclear bombs that America dropped on Japan, a hundred megatonnes, how much bigger are we talking about? 

Aimen Dean God. Goodness. Like, I mean, okay. Fine. The – the – the Hiroshima bomb was fifteen kilotonnes. The Nagasaki bomb was twenty kilotonnes. This is a hundred megatonnes. 

Thomas Small Well, I'm no mathematician, but that sounds like a lot bigger. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. You know, basically, it's – it's, you know, it's tens of thousands of times bigger, I mean, than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. 

Thomas Small So, there's this underwater nuclear torpedo that is just kind of moving around and it can detonate at any time. The detonation underwater. Obviously, if you detonated it under a naval group, all – say goodbye to three or four aircraft carriers. But what happens if you, like, detonate it by the land? I mean, that is a big explosion. 

Aimen Dean And a big tsunami after that. You can destroy entire coastal cities. And so, this is why the Russians call it the doomsday weapon. And the idea is that, "Okay. If, for whatever reason our nuclear arsenal was destroyed, we were subject of a first strike by the enemy, we still have these weapons roaming the ocean that will take revenge in such case." 

Now, of course, you don't endear yourself, you know, to the West and to America by inventing a weapon like this, that could destroy the, you know, New York and Boston and other key cities.

Thomas Small No. I mean, clearly weap- – weapons like that justify any – any American, kind of intervention. My goodness, that's terrifying. 

Aimen Dean It is terrifying. I mean, you know, so inventing a weapon like this, I mean, okay, what are you trying to achieve here? Is it security for your country? 

Well, I mean, you are achieving the opposite, you know. People now will try to undermine you, because you have now gone so far in threatening, you know, well, a global, natural catastrophe on biblical scale and you have, you know, deployed, you know, quite a few of these weapons, you know, to the oceans. So, this is not good, you know, as far as the image of Russia and the image of Putin, you know, is concerned. 

Thomas Small But I suppose Putin would say, "Look, you know, we're not going to use these things. But this is an insurance policy. We need an insurance policy. After all, America's military is much bigger than ours. It has more nuclear bombs than we have. It is not like America isn't developing weapons of its own." 

But Russia has an insurance policy. 

Aimen Dean Well, the problem with this insurance policy, it might come at a huge premium to the natural order of the world. I mean, what if anything goes wrong with these? Because, don't forget, they are unmanned. You know, they are roaming around. What if, one day, you lose contact with them? You know, one day, there is something goes – is going wrong with one of their nuclear reactors? 

Actually, there is a double, you know, risk here. You know, there is the risk of the warhead itself, you know, malfunctioning or the nuclear reactor on the damn thing, you know – you know, malfunctioning. One way or another, if you put, you know, four or five or six of these in the ocean, you know, the chances of something going wrong, you know, is, you know—. It's quite big. 

And especially with the fact that, sometimes, you know—. You know, over the past three years, there has been numerous accidents with almost nuclear-like explosions in Russian military bases well-documented by videos, you know. And this is the problem. So, if anything goes wrong with these weapons, and there could be a possibility, then we could say goodbye to the Seychelles, to the Maldives, to Bermuda, to what, you know, to whatever island chains or coastal cities that, you know, these weapons might find themselves in the vicinity of.

Thomas Small My goodness. Well, America and Russia facing off over nuclear bombs. There's a reason why we're focusing on the Cold War in this series of Conflicted, because it seems to be back. I think – I think the main thing to take away about the Cold War—. 

And I promise you, dear listener, from next episode onward, we're going to go deep into the Cold War in the Middle East—but we thought it would be good to establish the geographical, the geostrategic, and the ideological fault lines that resonate to the present day. 

The Cold War wasn't about imperial expansion in the old sense, where an expansionist state sought to impose itself by force on another territory and rule it. Ideally, directly. But indirectly, if required. 

In the Cold War, each of the two competence we're primarily trying to expand not its state so much as its ideological system where they're capitalist or communist. These two ideologies were different, incompatible views on the course modern life should and would take. 

"Ideology" is a word ferociously difficult to define. And I'm not going to attempt to definition here. But what is key about the two warring Cold War ideologies is their universalist character. Each side believed its system, its way of life, its entire worldview was universally applicable. Americans believed that everyone would be happier, better off, more blessed, really, to live in a liberal democratic capitalist system. Soviets believe the same about their centrally-planned Marxist, highly bureaucratic system. 

And one way of understanding US-Russian relations today is that, when the Cold War ended, Russia, throughout its universalist ideology, and, perhaps naively, it believed that the US would do the same. But the US did not. 

To this day, the West is still animated by an ideological conviction that liberal democracy is the only morally and politically legitimate form of government. And that may be true. But not everyone agrees. 

What's more, during the Cold War, both sides believed that its system was destined to triumph. There was an almost religious dimension to this belief in providential manifest destiny. In fact, because both liberalism and communism emerged from a Protestant Christian world under pressure from secularisation, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, and the French revolution, liberalism and communism can be regarded, in my view, as something like Christian heresies. And, therefore, each bears a universalist eschatological stamp just like Christianity. 

That returns us to the opening quote by Don Manuel about the medieval Cold War between Muslims and Christians. If the Cold War, Aimen, was a battle between two heretical versions of Christianity trying to impose their debased religion on the world, have Islamists been right to oppose both in the name of a pan-Islamic solidarity?

Aimen Dean Well, Islamists, you know, are already divided over which version of eschatology they will fight for. The Shias and the Sunnis have their own cold war. 

Thomas Small Oh, we're never going to get to the actual bottom of any of this. It's far too complicated. 

Okay. To throw forward now to our next episode, it's important to know that, beginning in the twenties, Soviet strategists saw that what would eventually be called the Third World—and the Middle East fell into that category—was ripe for revolutionary communist expansion, especially as the old European empires collapsed, leaving new states in their wake. The question was always: Which system would the new states choose communist or capitalist? Essentially controlled command economy or a more or less market economy, finance driven and governed by the law of supply and demand?

That's the Cold War Middle East that we're exploring in this series of Conflicted. In our next episode, we're going to discuss the very first Cold War fault line in the Middle East with echoes down to the present day. 

That's right, Aimen. We're going back to one of your favourite countries: Iran. 

Well, dear listener, that was our best attempt, four weeks ago, at explaining the wider historical and geopolitical context for what's going on in Ukraine. I hope you found it at least somewhat insightful. Given everything that's happened since, what would I say now? I don't quite know. 

Listen, unlike Aimen, I'm not a professional. I'm like you, an ordinary guy trying to understand the world as best I can, relying on the expertise of others. And what's weird in this current conflict, the one between Russia and Ukraine, between Russia and the West over the future of Ukraine, I find myself with skin in the game. Twenty-two years ago, while living in a monastery in northern Greece, I converted to Orthodox Christianity. Like most Russians and Ukrainians, I am an Orthodox Christian. 

But I'm also from California, an American. And so, whatever ideas I might entertain up here in my head, in my bones, I am a liberal in the broadest sense, a citizen of the West.

When President Biden or President Macron denounced Russian aggression, Russian authoritarianism, the age-old Russian behemoth, and affirm the primacy of Western liberal values, my eyes well up a little and I feel a stirring inside. A patriotism, a pride. 

But when non-Western thinkers, Russian thinkers, including President Putin, denounced the West as a perfidious, sneaky globalising Leviathan seeking to turn the whole world into one vast marketplace rigged in favour of Western corporate interests, I can't lie, that narrative resonates, too. 

The conflict tearing Ukraine apart runs right through the middle of my own heart. The war itself is a monstrous, villainous, and, probably ultimately, a very foolish crime. And as I said before, Putin bears responsibility for it. 

But the history leading up to the war, stretching back months, years, decades, centuries, that history is impossible to reduce to easy black and white, good versus evil categories. 

So, what are we to think about at all? 

I don't know. I'm conflicted. 

As always, we'd like to remind you to follow us on whichever social media platform you find least disturbing, @MHConflicted. Over on Facebook, we have a fantastic community of fans having deep discussions on the topics we cover in these episodes. It's a great place to learn more and carry on the conversation. You can find that group by searching "Conflicted Discussion Group."

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Lastly, another reminder that completely ad-free episodes and generous helpings of exclusive bonus content can be had for just 99p on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify by searching for "Conflicted Extra." 

We cannot wait for you to join us in two weeks' time for the next episode of Conflicted. 

Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley. 

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