What lies behind Europe's anti-Russian rhetoric, asks Anouar Abdel-Malek How can we explain the irritation felt in Europe about Russia in recent months? Did not Russia join the two most important western European states, France and Germany, in their refusal to sanction Washington's war against Iraq? Or does this trend have something to do with those central and eastern European countries that have been racing to join the EU and NATO now that they are free of the influence of the former Soviet Union? Or is there a larger, more important motive? I confess that I am perplexed by the pace at which anti-Russian criticism has grown week after week, to the point of confrontation. At least one of the underlying reasons seems obvious. The EU and NATO alliances have been edging closer and closer to Russia's western and southern borders, prompting NATO officials to crow only a few days ago that their military command can now "sweep the air" up to those borders. Has Moscow suddenly become an "enemy" that must be cordoned off? Does General de Gaul's famous dictum, "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals" have some bearing on this? There must be a key. What, for example, is the relationship between this new European trend and the schemes and projects that are being unfolded day after day to reshape the "greater" Middle East and newly democratic- socialist Spain's decision to withdraw Spanish support for Washington's strategy in Iraq and to obstruct European integration? To locate the key we must go back to World War II and an entire continent dominated by Hitler's armies. Liberation movements and European governments in exile seek to end the bleakest hours in Europe's modern history as ruling classes accommodate to the new reality. Then, in June 1941, German forces invade the Soviet Union and hostilities became all encompassing. The Soviet Union paid an appalling price for breaking Hitler's armies on the eastern front during the most crucial battles of World War II: 27 million dead. In addition the productive infrastructure of more than 10,000 cities was destroyed, compelling the Soviets to relocate their industrial base to the east of the Urals. This enormous attrition was unprecedented. But were it not for that sacrifice Western allied forces would not have been able to march into western Europe and liberate the continent in cooperation with their foremost ally at the time -- the Soviet Union led by Stalin. Following the war the western world split into two camps, one coalescing under NATO, formed in 1948, and the other under the Warsaw Pact created in 1949. The Cold War set in and with it the age of nuclear deterrents. The Soviet Union needed at least a century and a half in order to recover from the debilitating demographic and social hemorrhage it had suffered, yet it was lured by the US into a strategic and nuclear arms race that both aided its convalescence and hastened its decline. Twenty years ago -- say around 1984-- the Soviet Union was still a great power, far superior to Europe. Soviet rule stretched over three continents and a population of 300 million, and at its command was an army of six million, some 40,000 nuclear warheads, huge quantities of chemical and biological weapons and thousands of major military industrial plants spread from Central Europe to the Pacific. Yes, World War II had ended, but the embers of the memory of Hitler's domination were still alive and ready to be fanned by the US- NATO propaganda machine. The Soviet Union was now cast as the new spectre, seeking to grasp Western Europe in its clutches and European public opinion was whipped up into a paranoid frenzy against yesterday's ally. The Cold War confrontation drew to a close around 1989-1991 and with it the alleged threat the Soviet Union posed to western Europe. Also over was the era of traditional imperialism, in particular for Britain and France. The banners of national liberation and socialism were now fluttering over former colonies. In other words the world, or at least the European sphere that had once formed the heart of the old imperial global order, now breathed a spirit of moderation, peaceful coexistence, cooperation and even partnership. This was also the phase in which the EU expanded eastward into central and eastern Europe and in which Vladimir Putin, who became president of the new Russia in 1999, declared that the Russian people were European in mentality and culture, signaling his country's drive to merge with the larger continent. It seemed that the wounds of yesterday had healed. The united stance of France, Germany, Russia, as well as China, against the war on Iraq was testimony to this healing. What, then, triggered the "sudden" European turn against Russia? Let us, first, take a step or two back to the end of the old bipolar order when the US decided to bring under its direct control the legacy of this era: its regions and spheres, its vital resources, its strategic markets and bases. The motive is perfectly obvious. Its long term strategic aim is to forestall the emergence of any global power, or powers, that might rival the US and create a new bipolar, let alone a multipolar, order. Most geo-political analysts, as well as Washington's geo-strategic projects, have indicated that the potential rival is China. Although it would be difficult to counter China's rise through a preemptive war, given that China possesses a sufficient nuclear deterrent, it might just be possible to curb the economic growth that will make China the second most powerful global hub in the mid, if not the short, term. The key towards this end is energy -- the petroleum, natural gas and the nuclear power that have fuelled China's economic development. Since 1993 China's imports of petroleum have climbed to 5.8 million barrels a year, making it the second largest consumer of petroleum after the US, having recently shunted Japan down to third place. Just where does all that petroleum come from? This is where all the lines begin to merge. In its search for energy resources China combed the world. It has been to Algeria, the Middle East, South East Asia, Central Asia in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, Russia's Siberian fields, Africa, and Central and South America. Of particular import, here, is the recent history of Russian petroleum and natural gas. In 1985 Saudi Arabia decided to raise production levels, causing international petroleum prices to plummet to one of their lowest levels since 1945. Suddenly the Soviet Union found itself hemorrhaging again, in its energy resources this time, so seriously that it demolished Gorbachev's reform policy. The sudden drop in Russia's petroleum exports to the west to only two million barrels a day is one of the factors that hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union six years later. Then Russia slowly began to recover. In 1995 the petroleum exports of former soviet states were around seven million barrels a day, down from 12.5 million in 1988, of which Russia's share was six. This drop of 5.5 million barrels a day equalled the total production of all oil exporting nations together, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. Then Putin came to power, spearheading Russia's national revival. It was Putin who broke the hold of Russian mafia dons who had been working towards transferring control of Russia's oil and gas sector to the west and who, between 1998 and 2003, succeeded in steadily lifting production levels until they reached eight million barrels a day. At the same time experts predicted that production in the Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan fields would climb to five million barrels per day within 10 years and that of Russia to double that figure. Although Saudi Arabia is still the world's largest oil producer, Russia has its fingers on a third of the world's petroleum reserves and is the world's second energy exporter after Saudi Arabia. According to experts it will climb to first place within a few years. There is a vast difference between the Saudi and Russian petroleum centres. The first, in the heart of the Middle East, is ringed by American strategic bases and is under closer scrutiny than ever now that Iraq's oil resources have been excluded as a possible pressure card. Russia, meanwhile, sits at the heart of the powerful circle of rising energy sources, all of which are inside its borders or those of its Asian allies. In other words Russia has the power -- literally -- to safeguard a vital emerging circle in the global theatre, an aspiration which the Russian people confirmed with the reelection of Putin on 14 January. Now here's the question: What if Saudi Arabia and Russia were to work together? Indeed, perhaps the platform is already being laid. During Crown Prince Abdullah's historic visit to Moscow in September 2003 the two countries signed a 50- year cooperation protocol between their respective petroleum and gas sectors, in accordance with which, according to the Russian energy minister, the value of their mutual contracts in this field will rise to $25 billion. Already under this framework, on 26 January 2004, Russia's mammoth petroleum institute signed a contract to explore for natural gas in 30,000 square kilometres of Saudi's Rub' Al-Khali. Saudi Arabia has also been busy on other fronts. Two days later Saudi Arabia signed a similar contract with the Chinese-owned Sinobik for exploration over a 38,000-square-kilometre stretch of land in the eastern part of the kingdom. It then awarded a third exploration contract jointly to the Italian INI and Spanish Ripsol over another 51,400-square-kilometre portion of Rub' Al- Khali. In addition, a year ago, it handed Shell and France's Total similar exploration and production contracts in the south of the country. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia rejected the exorbitant conditions stipulated by the American-owned Chevron Texaco after three years of ultimately futile negotiations. It would appear, therefore, that we are witnessing a strategic convergence between the two most important energy producers in the world market, Saudi Arabia and Russia. One of the factors pushing in this direction was Russia's belief that the US intends to block it from access to Iraqi oil, prompting its approach to Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously, Moscow is still pushing to ensure that Russian petroleum firms obtain their contracted share of Iraqi oil. In short, Russia has plunged headlong into global oil politics en route to a gigantic global power centre rivalling the status of the US. This is where China's and Russia's plans may converge. China hopes to persuade Russia to send it oil and gas via an extension to the new pipelines that have been laid in Siberia. If the new Russia becomes China's main supplier of energy this will promote closer relations between the two countries at the heart of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Simultaneously China is expected to increase its imports of Saudi oil, in which regard the recent statement in Davos by the Saudi Arabian oil minister holds considerable significance. "China has, in effect, become our strategic ally in the field of energy," he said. "They want to approach the upper level [the oil sector] in Saudi Arabia and they are welcome. We want to go to the lower level [the market] in China, where they welcome us." Will Europe -- officialdom and public opinion -- wake up? When will it absorb the lessons of history outside the NATO textbook? What would happen if Europe reverted to its policy of friendship, cooperation and even partnership with Russia, its crucial ally during the war? Europe must come to realise that its future depends on closer bonds with that emerging power whose enormous oil and gas reserves are beyond the reach of American forces. It should take the logical step that follows from a recent EU opinion poll in which 75 per cent of the French, 62 per cent of the Germans, 60 per cent of the Turks and 56 per cent of the people in both Russia and Britain said that Europe must make itself independent of US policy. The deeply intertwining interests of China and Russia, especially those revolving around energy, render these two countries the cornerstone of a new multipolar order. In strengthening its ties with Russia, Europe will become part of the new axis of tomorrow's world. This China-Russia- Europe axis, moreover, has the potential to extend to Japan and southeast Asia, to the Indian subcontinent, to an influential sector of the Middle East, and to Latin America, centering around Brazil. It is this possibility that helps make sense of the recent escalation in criticisms of the new Russia, located as it is between the two other most important emerging powers in the world today, China and Europe. It is the hope of Washington's allies in Europe to forestall the coalescence of the Europe "from the Atlantic to the Urals" and the Chinese giant at the heart of Asia. Nor is it a coincidence that our region should be inundated with all those projects for a "Greater Middle East". The underlying aim is the same: to abort the convergence between the world's two major energy resource centres, Saudi Arabia-Iran and Russia. After all, such a convergence would generate the political and economic resources that would enable the nations and peoples of this region to join the rising "axis of the future" while allowing them to continue their cooperative relations with the US on the basis of friendship and partnership rather than despair and submission.
