#10 - RW 10-22-04 - RW Home
Russia Profile
www.russiaprofile.org
October 19, 2004
Russia's Security Fix
New Threats in the 21st Century Require New Ways of Thinking
By Viktor Litovkin
Victor Litovkin is a military analyst for RIA Novosti.

The Beslan tragedy, 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, the monstrous murders of hostages in Iraq and other inhuman crimes against innocent civilians show that international and domestic terrorism have really become "the new plagues of the 21st century." This terrifying definition ceased to be an exaggeration of the press and became a reality long ago. Combating this universal threat has become task No. 1 for the civilized world.

The terrorist threat is especially acute for the new Russia. An unsuccessful, decade-long war in the Caucasus, along with total unemployment in this volatile region, mass poverty and illiteracy, corrupt bureaucrats and law enforcement agents - not to mention the absolute lawlessness and unlimited power of the gunmen - are driving more and more people to join the militants every day. Only a comprehensive program for combating terrorism, involving sweeping political, economic and social reforms, can halt this plague. This program must rely on a strong and well-coordinated security component: The new threats and challenges to Russia's security require new armed forces, new strategies and tactics for the army and special forces, new security structures, and new combat and support equipment. But this is not all.

No country - not even the United States, the United Kingdom or their NATO allies - can defeat terrorism, or a guerrilla movement, single-handedly. Events in Iraq and Afghanistan prove this every day. A broad-based, integrated and highly diverse coalition of states is necessary. It should abandon long-standing and recent disagreements, as well as the transient political ambitions of its leaders, for the sake of achieving its main aim. It should be a single coalition to rid the world of this new plague, like the coalition that defeated the plague of fascism in the 20th century.

But this will be hard to do unless the international community - that is, bodies like the UN and its Security Council, and especially the OSCE - can agree on a definition of "terrorism" and the ways to combat it. It will be hard to achieve unity as long as terrorists who kill women and children are called "rebels," and as long as Western political leaders fail to perceive that trouble is knocking on their door too.

Trouble On Many Fronts

Russia also needs international unity and a common front in the fight against terrorism. In this situation, exchanges of intelligence and declarations of support for Russia's efforts to wipe out gangsterism in the North Caucasus, which takes place under the spurious veil of separatist and extreme religious ideologies, are clearly not enough for the Kremlin and its political and security bodies. Moscow also has to react to NATO's continuing eastward enlargement and strengthen its deterrence forces, although Brussels and Washington continue to provide reassurances that NATO expansion and related military activities present no threat whatsoever to Russia. As the saying goes, making promises does not mean getting married, and Russia is trying to protect itself in this area.

Nor can Moscow fail to react to the threats of Islamic extremism, drug trafficking and the instability of the clan-like political regimes in Central and South Asia. Although the United States and its NATO allies are doing most of the work to allay Russian fears - especially regarding the threat from Afghanistan and the Taliban - Moscow has to think about the ensuing cross-border uncertainty. Likewise, it cannot be absolutely calm about China's fast-growing economic and military potential. No one can guarantee the Kremlin that with a change of political elites in Beijing, China's demographic problems (especially in the northeast) and the possibility of its ruling class turning away from Russia will not destabilize relations between the two neighbors in 15 to 20 years, as already happened in the 1960s. Russia's security bodies believe the nation should begin preparing for such a situation in advance.

All of these different problems require huge outlays and concerted efforts to train the armed forces and tighten national security, although Russia never has enough money to do what it needs.

However, the North Caucasus is still the Kremlin's biggest headache. How is it possible to neutralize international terrorism in a region that is known to receive lavish financial injections and brigades of well-trained cutthroats from all over the Islamic world? In addition to a comprehensive program to facilitate the region's political, economic and social revival, serious security efforts are needed.

Clearly, the current anti-terrorist operation - headed on a rotation basis by the military, the FSB and the Interior Ministry, and staffed on a similar basis by Army special forces units, airborne troops and marines, as well as by various rapid-reaction forces and special police brigades from around the country - is extremely inefficient. These forces cannot completely seal off either internal or interstate borders. Nor can they establish absolute control over transport routes, including village roads and mountain paths. Relying on local armed formations cannot produce the desired result either, since it is impossible to avoid corruption and ties of kinship within these units, or to stop them from having secret contacts with militant groups.

The main problem, though, is that the population of the "critical districts" does not trust the FSB, Army or police. Russia's intelligence services do not have complete, reliable information about local populations and their connections to terrorists. Restoring trust is a difficult task that takes time. However, it must be accomplished, for without it the terrorists and murderers of innocent civilians cannot be stopped. We must also radically revise our approaches to a whole swath of important anti-terrorist tasks; President Vladimir Putin has already mentioned some of these in his speeches.

Weapons Against Terrorism

The most important idea is the creation of a single anti-terrorism center to oversee operations in the entire North Caucasus and the formation of permanent, highly mobile special forces units from the Defense Ministry, FSB, Interior Ministry and local armed formations. These units must employ professional soldiers working under contract, and they must have one permanent commander and a single joint staff subordinated to one permanent command center for the entire duration of the counter-terrorist operation. In addition, lawmakers must give these units complete legal support for emergency measures to prevent terrorism in all of its forms. This does not mean carte blanche for the arbitrary abuse of power, but rather, a legal framework that spells out the necessary measures to locate and neutralize bandits.

The war against terrorism - and nobody, even within the country's leadership, doubts that this is a war - requires emergency measures. The fact that they have not been identified legislatively makes the counter-terrorist operation considerably less effective.

Military and special forces units involved in counter-terrorism operations need new tactics and combat support, including light, compact equipment for quick and effective operations in mountainous and wooded areas. They also need multi-purpose, lightly armored vehicles with caterpillar tracks, reinforced with high-caliber submachine guns and light mortars, and alpine artillery for parachute divisions. They need high-accuracy reconnaissance and homing systems, night vision equipment and closed communications circuits, integrated with unmanned aircraft, helicopters and computing technology to be able to hit enemies as soon as they are detected. So far, troops in the Caucasus have not been provided with such light and effective combat equipment, even though the war has been going for almost a decade. Nor have they been provided with high-accuracy reconnaissance-strike systems or with remote anti-mine and anti-demolition-bomb engineering reconnaissance equipment.

To launch preemptive strikes on terrorist bases and transport routes in any region of the world - as Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky, Chief of the General Staff, has said - one must know where these bases and vehicles are located and one must have high-accuracy weapons ready to use. Without proper reconnaissance information and online processing, neither assault planes nor missile launchers can operate.

So far, the Russian defense industry has received neither the orders nor the necessary funds to provide the country's troops with such systems. Nor has it received a real order for the development and batch production of effective modern border-control systems, such as radar, optical and thermal imaging, and other ways of remotely detecting criminals from checkpoints and in forests and mountains. To be more precise, the order exists on paper. But it does not receive guaranteed, consistent financing. Without the necessary large-scale investment, the equipment cannot be created, and for this reason it cannot be found at administrative borders or on federal highways, let alone on local roads. Without this equipment, it is impossible to catch terrorists and prevent their attacks.

As part of the international anti-terrorist coalition, Russia could buy such devices and unmanned aircraft abroad, perhaps from Israel or the United States, where the technology exists. Israel, for example, makes broad use of such technology against Palestinian terrorists. But for some reason, Russia's security forces have not taken such steps. They either have no money, or their amour propre does not allow them to buy modern combat support equipment abroad. In any case, neither of these reasons is satisfactory.

The challenge thrown down by international terrorism to Russian society and the Russian state requires an appropriate, comprehensive response. The country's security, and the life and health of its citizens, cannot wait. If the Kremlin, the government, the security agencies and the public do not concentrate on finding a solution to this serious and complex problem today, then tomorrow it may be too late - and not only for Moscow.