A few interesting Russia notes

Apologies for the infrequent posting of late, but sports (which I don't like anymore) and other real-life developments have intervened. Hopefully you'll see a return to regular service over the coming days and weeks. For now I just want to direct your attention to a few interesting Russia-related pieces: first off, you should definitely read this op-ed in Politico about the continued significance of Russia to U.S. national interests. It's by Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill (who, not incidentally, are promoting the release of a report they've written on the subject; it just went live in the last hour or so, and I haven't read it yet).

I tend to be skeptical about the deterministic certainty so many analysts seem to feel about the potential security consequences of demographic change around the world, but I'm not really a public health guy, and you'll be unsurprised to learn that I know very little about the subject. Like everyone else, I've seen references to the forthcoming bizzaro-Malthusian birthrate crisis in Russia and Japan and western Europe, etc etc, usually accompanied by alarmist commentary about the inevitable and compensatory rise in Muslim/Latino/Other Scary Brown People immigration.

As much as I tease, I'm a near-total ignorant on this issue, so I was eager to read Nicholas Eberstadt's essay in Foreign Affairs about Russian demographic trends. I found it to be reasonably informative if a little alarmist. (I've got to be honest: I get a chuckle out of some folks speculating about underpopulation making Russia more aggressive while others simultaneously speculate about overpopulation making China more aggressive.)

To get the other side of the story, check out Mark Adomanis's response to Eberstadt on the Forbes website. I always enjoy graphical pwnage, and Adomanis delivers it in force with a concise criticism of Eberstadt's use of statistics.

I don't have a dog in this fight, and as I've indicated above, I feel reasonaby confident that Russian public health issues will have a less significant and less predictable impact on international security than a lot of people would like to suggest.  But one of the significant shortcomings of much analysis of foreign security forces is a failure to appreciate the unique national context from which they're generated, and it's definitely worth taking a look at things like demographics when we try to understand the way these forces evolve and adapt. (I spent the last hour trying to think of a particular expression that distilled this sentiment and finally tracked it down in a Colin Gray book. He quotes Bernard Brodie as having written that "good strategy presumes good anthropology and sociology. Some of the greatest military blunders of all time have resulted from juvenile evaluations in this department.")

Intervention and the presumed combat multiplier of popular uprising

In 1984, an American expert on Soviet military history wrote this in a chapter called "The Making of Soviet Strategy":

The most important mistake [of the wars in the immediate post-revolutionary period] was made by the influential Tukhachevsky, who insisted in the later stages of the [Russo-Polish] war on launching an ill-conceived offensive against Warsaw. This could be relegated to the annals of Soviet military history were it not for the significant political statement Tukhachevsky sought to make with it--that "revolution" could be exported by bayonet. Arguing for an assault on Warsaw in spite of seriously overextended supply lines and insufficient reserves, he may have placed too much weight on the expectation that the working class would rise up to greet the Soviet forces.

That's in Paret, page 652. The emphasis is added.

Tukhachevsky was perhaps the most famous of the so-called "Red Commanders"; a Bolshevik and a committed revolutionary, he vied for influence in the new army with the many rehabilitated imperial officers that Trotsky found it necessary to retain for the sake of military survival. The decision to press forward against the Polish capital was a strategic miscalculation heavily informed by ideological bias; success of the operation was dependent on an unlikely popular uprising that only a revolutionary internationalist could have any faith would happen. Sound familiar?

So: any guesses as to who that Sovietologist was? Ok, I shared this on Twitter yesterday, so some of you will already know: it was Condoleezza Rice. That, ladies and gents, is what we call irony.

Mark Kirk gets his feelings hurt, says a spectacularly dumb thing

Russian ambassador to NATO/kooky unreformed nationalist Dmitri Rogozin, who has a habit of saying (and tweeting) somewhat nutty stuff, took a whole bunch of shots at unilateralist Russophobe dinosaurs/U.S. Senators John Kyl and Mark Kirk in his country's press after meeting with the two this week. The story is related by Josh Rogin at The Cable. Here's the money line from Rogozin:

"The meeting [with Kirk and Kyl] is very useful because it shows that the alternative to Barack Obama is a collapse of all the programs of cooperation with Russia. Today, I had the impression that I was transported in a time machine back several decades, and in front of me sat two monsters of the Cold War, who looked at me not through pupils, but targeting sights."

The guy is always good for a few lulz, but Kirk was less amused. He gave Rogin a few snippy quotes that aren't worth recounting, but also dropped what I imagine he thinks is the hammer:

"In a potential missile combat scenario between NATO and Iran, Russia is thoroughly irrelevant. So Russian concerns about what we do and not do about the Iranian threat are interesting but largely irrelevant."

Wow. Russia is thoroughly irrelevant, and its concerns are largely irrelevant. (See if you can't sort that one out for yourself.)

I know it's probably a bit much to expect sophisticated understanding of strategic deterrence theory from a guy who "misremembers" his own military record, but could we at least hope for some common sense?

"In a potential missile combat scenario between NATO and Iran," precisely nobody with nuclear weapons and an early-warning/launch detection system is "irrelevant." Especially not a state with a massive arsenal of nuclear warheads and the delivery systems to get them to American soil, one with a cultivated distrust of American intentions vis-a-vis missile defense.

"In a potential missile combat scenario" in which the sky fills up with ballistic missiles, every damned guy on the planet with a red button is going to go reaching for it until he has a pretty solid sense that none of those missiles is going to land on him. That solid sense is probably going to take just a little while longer to materialize when you've got a bunch of senior "statesmen" running their yaps and posturing in ways that seem almost certainly intended to impede information-sharing and common understanding, to keep the other guy off balance, wondering if -- in spite of official policy statements to the contrary -- our missile defenses really are targeting his weapons.

Russia's "irrelevant" to a scenario that could kindle nuclear war, huh, Senator? More irrelevant than a guy who has to shit-talk his own government to America's biggest foreign creditors just to get on the news? More irrelevant than a guy who spent much of his time in the House impotently railing against the government's irresponsible spending habits while serving as a member of the body that writes America's checks? More irrelevant than a guy whose idea of inspired leadership and aggressive oversight is pathetic obstructionism and delaying tactics in a condominium of ignorance with the U.S. Senate's most trifling and manifestly inconsequential clowns?

Well hell, Rogozin, I might take "irrelevant" as a compliment coming from that guy.

Fear the Chinese/Russian condominium!

On June 15th, in a sign of strengthening ties between rising Eurasian powers, the six defense ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization issued a joint communique slamming U.S. plans to revise the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

Oh, no, wait, just a second... that communique was issued on June 15th, 2001. Yeah, ten years ago. And here I was prepared to acknowledge that this powerful signal of cooperation between Beijing and Moscow constituted a "mile marker on the road" to "a China-Russia entente [that could soon dominate] the international distribution of resources and [will be] ascendant economically"!

That would be pretty stupid, though, seeing as a decade has passed without giving any real indications that this sort of anti-American balancing coalition had even the most remote chance of materializing (or that if such a coalition did form, it wouldn't be similarly balanced against by the presumably predictable anti-hegemonic behaviors of other states).

Seriously, though, this particular SCO declaration, the one that happened this week, where Russia, China, and their Central Asian little brothers declared opposition to U.S. plans for theater ballistic missile defense... this one is definitely foreboding. Way more foreboding than that other outraged communique from a decade ago. Especially since the U.S. did in fact withdraw from the ABM treaty, which surely pissed off the Russians and Chinese even more, further solidifying the bonds of anti-hegemonic cooperation. Surely.

(In case you're wondering, the SCO also issued a declaration expressing the member states' collective belief that armed conflict in Libya should come to an end. I wonder why that one's not a mile marker. Or the SCO Antiterrorist Strategy that was just published. Or any of the several UNSC resolutions on which Russian and Chinese votes have been cast in lockstep. Is it because it's even more difficult to make the absurd allegation that these developments represent some kind of anti-U.S. balancing instead of routine, pragmatic cooperation and the coincidence of interests?)

So yeah, dude, Eaglen and McGrath are nuts. (Or just playing around, "creat[ing] a framework for thinking, not ... a prediction of the future," depending which day it is.)

The Russian army sucks. But should we care?

Last week the Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, an establishment-connected Moscow think tank, published a series of reports on the state of Russian defense reform in a book called The New Russian Army (pdf). It's available online, but my Russian was crap even when I was studying it, so I'll just trust Pavel Felgenhauer's analysis.

The book lists a number of technical, strategic and personnel problems that bedevil the present Russian armed forces: including a lack of modern weapons, vague military doctrine that does not distinguish precisely what threats Russia faces and the military means that must be developed to counter them. Russia is an isolated power with no significant allies, while the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), comprising Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, depends on Russia’s limited defense resources. According to CAST experts, CSTO allies are weak and disloyal and unprepared or able to support Russia politically or militarily, while these countries require constant commitment and investment. Additionally, an acute manning crisis has diminished the combat readiness of the so called “permanent readiness brigades.”

Felgenhauer's summary focuses on the personnel aspects of the book, recognizing that Russia's other strategic challenges are of secondary importance when viewed in light of an army that can neither deploy nor fight effectively.

According to “The New Russian Army” authors, the main strategic mistake was the transition to one year conscript service in 2008 from the previous two year term. The idea of the reform was to man combat units mostly with contract soldiers or kontraktniki, while conscripts form a trained mobilization reserve are also used as a pool for recruiting additional kontraktniki.  From 2005 to 2007 more than 50 percent of the defense budged was reportedly spent on the federal program to form a contract armed force, which was later declared to be a failure: the number of recruited kontraktniki was inadequate and their quality – dubious. In 2009 and 2010 contract units were replaced by a predominantly conscript force – mostly to save money.

Today, officially the Russian armed forces have 85 brigades, but according to the “New Russian Army” authors their combat readiness is dismal. Sergeants and specialists are 3-months trained conscripts. Unit combat readiness fluctuates twice a year as during the spring and fall drafts trained soldiers are discharged after one year service and units are left with six-month serving badly-trained conscripts and fresh recruits with no training. These brigades are officially fully combat ready, but in reality they may send into combat one or two battalion tactical groups of six-month-trained conscripts.

The crux of all this: the Russian army has perhaps five battalions that can fight worth a damn. What's it to us?, you might be wondering. Well, fair question. NATO's force-sizing construct was based for nearly half a century on the eastern threat, and some folks would still base U.S. military force structure and concepts on a country they view -- along with China -- as a military (if not economic) peer competitor. And for the purposes of our new-ish NATO allies, this may be a noteworthy revelation: Poland and Estonia, for example, will welcome Russia's struggles to field capable expeditionary landpower, and a better understanding of a potential adversary's capabilities can help them to tailor their own forces within a broader NATO defensive framework. But what about for the U.S.: should signs of Russian military weakness meaningfully inform our strategic approach vis-a-vis Russia? As far as I'm concerned: not a bit.

First of all, the way the U.S. understands and behaves toward Russia as an international actor has never been about landpower capabilities -- at least not since the demise of the Soviet Union. Force projection and deterrence are a job for the navy, the air force, and the strategic missile fleets, not conscript infantry battalions. NATO's responsibility for territorial defense still holds, and those nervous smaller states only recently emancipated from Warsaw Pact serfdom are of course interested in Moscow's ability to send an armored column over the western frontier. As a matter of force planning for the Big One in Europe, latent capability is perhaps just as important as who's currently in uniform and manning the guns, and Poland will never be sanguine about Russia -- underpaid, underfed, over-officered conscript force or not. And these revelations aren't exactly earth-shattering or surprising, either: the poor performance of Russian troops in Chechnya and, more recently, Georgia justifiably posed questions about whether the bear had lost his fangs.

So: if the Russian army's weak, it's time to press for advantage, yeah? Time to add more members to NATO, push 'em around on the Caucasus and central Asia, bully them in the near abroad and disregard their red lines, right? Not exactly. Moscow still bears influence far out of balance with its expeditionary landpower capabilities by dint of nuclear weapons, a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, and Russia's status as a willing partner and supplier of armaments to a great many states in both the developed and developing worlds. Medvedev, Putin, and their successors can still exert a great deal of pressure on U.S. interests both in Eurasia and elsewhere, as Russia's shifting relationship with Iran has clearly demonstrated. NATO still depends on Russia and her one-time vassals for logistics cooperation in OEF, not to mention the affinity our little counterterrorist and counterinsurgent buddies have for Russian helicopters.

What does all this mean to us, then? Not very much. Russia still swings a big stick, and it doesn't mean much that in an imaginary battle for Antarctica, we could put roughly nine times as many well-trained, well-equipped ground forces in place. Russian weakness will perhaps pose a greater problem to western interests than strength would: instability in the north Caucasus or elsewhere on the southern periphery is probably our biggest security worry with regard to Russia, and a state that's not capable of conclusively settling its own border troubles and insurgencies is more likely to take unsettling and destabilizing actions than one that's geographically and demographically secure. Beware of those who celebrate this trend: over the long term, a worried, impotent Russia makes for a worrying, unstable Eurasia.

Inflated threat assessments and pro-military policy outcomes

This is from the introduction to Steven Blank's new U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute monograph "Civil-Military Relations in Medvedev's Russia":

This situation of inflated threat assessments leading to pro-military policy outcomes, even if they are only partially what the armed forces want, is a direct result of the enduring failure to establish democratic controls over the armed forces and the 18-year hiatus in defense reform since Mikhail Gorbachev's presidency in 1991.

So what's our excuse?

How to kill a perfectly good lunch hour fiddling with an essentially meaningless thought experiment; Or: How this graph mathematically proves withdrawal is a good idea

Step 1: Browse Abu Muqawama

Step 2: Observe new post positing a simple graphical model for Chinese and Iranian engagement in Afghanistan

Step 3: Immediately assume that this model is fundamentally flawed in extremely simple, easily illustrated way

Step 4: Second-guess, equivocate, hedge, rethink, repeat

Step 5: Sink an hour into playing around with your own draft

Step 6: Refresh browser, notice that Ex has appended explanatory update that basically resolves concerns

Step 7: Review Step 3, revise conclusion to reflect that Gulliver's brain is fundamentally flawed in an extremely simple, easily illustrated way

Step 8: Choke yourself

Seeing as I've now spent so much effort demonstrating my high nerd quotient and talent for auto-distraction, I suppose I ought also own up to being a blowhard and a popinjay by sharing the product of my scribblings. (N.b.: the time I spent carefully modifying Ex's graph was meant to have been dedicated to a far more substantial post, one illustrated by yet another semi-original visual aid. That one will have to wait.)

I promise this made sense a few hours ago

So there it is: my redrafting of Ex's graph and some explanatory notes. What the hell does it all mean?

First of all, I think the original depiction suffers from a well-intentioned attempt at parsimony and elegance. The concept being depicted is too complex to be accurately rendered with just two lines. I understand the attempt, and the logic behind it is so simple as to be nearly self-evident: as U.S. engagement in Afghanistan decreases, other states will likely become more involved in the country so as to protect their interests. In the near term, those states that view the U.S. as a competitor will try to bandwagon off American efforts -- taking advantage of the stability dividends of NATO presence in Afghanistan to serve their own economic and geopolitical interests -- while enjoying the relative benefit of reduced U.S. readiness and flexibility attendant to the commitment of a substantial force. As the American footprint shrinks, countries like China and Iran will seek to assert themselves in Afghanistan so as not to suffer an interruption to the largely beneficial status quo.

Ex lays all of this down in two simple assumptions. (There are certainly more implicit in the model, but it's a good beginning.)

Let's start by assuming both China and Iran have an interest in U.S. military assets remaining in Afghanistan at great expense. Let's also assume that neither country, both with interests in Afghanistan, wants more instability.

Ok, so let's double back: Here he's saying that Iran and China want instability in Afghanistan to continue at present levels so as to ensure the U.S. continues to dedicate resources and military assets to it, but that China and Iran have broader interests in Afghanistan such that increased instability would be detrimental to them (outweighing whatever benefit is derived from continued heavy U.S. involvement). Put another way: an increase in Afghan stability would benefit those interests that exist independent of the relationship with the U.S., while harming the specific interest those countries have in continued U.S. involvement in the conflict.

This is all predicated on the idea that the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan contributes to stability, and that their departure will likely presage instability (absent other mitigating circumstances), or at the very least that a precipitious withdrawal of all American forces would threaten whatever stability currently exists. The Chinese and Iranians, then, want instability so much as it's required to cement American presence (and thus enhance their own position vis-a-vis the U.S.), but not so much as to threaten their own independent interests.

But what if decisions about U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan were made independent of assessments about the country's stability? What if the timeline for withdrawal was not controlled or impacted significantly by the security situation, and American troops were to be brought home without a care for whether or not the Afghan government could be counted on to secure predictable political outcomes? Because as it happens, that's our reality: NATO has pledged to turn over primary responsibility for the country to its own government by 2014, a benchmark that's helpfully highlighted on the graph. With a withdrawal timeline set, we can't argue that stability impacts force sizing in any meaningful sense. So U.S. troop levels aren't going to increase, and in fact are going to decrease on a generally predictable schedule. As such, we can eliminate that variable from our assessment of Chinese and Iranian interests and say that stability in Afghanistan is an objective "good" for those countries.

This is worth repeating: because China and Iran benefit from Afghan stability in a broad sense, and because the only detrimental effect those countries suffer from Afghan stability is increased U.S. flexibility and readiness, and because U.S. troop levels (and thus flexibility and readiness) are determined by an independent political decision and are thus not connected to Afghan stability… we can ignore U.S. troop numbers and say that all things which increase Afghan stability benefit China and Iran.

Still with me?

If Afghan stability benefits Chinese and Iranian interests – that is, if there’s a directly proportional relationship between the two – and if it’s assumed that stability will decrease after 2014, then China and Iran will seek to engage in behaviors that either counter this decline or mitigate the relationship between Afghanistan and their other interests. (This means that their options are to make Afghanistan less impactful on their other interests or to try to make Afghanistan more stable. This is the same choice the U.S. is facing right now, and we’ve determined that the threat of terrorism makes it impossible to pursue the first option. At least until 2014.) So as U.S. troop levels go down, Chinese and Iranian willingness to take stabilizing actions must increase in order to keep the “Afghan stability” indicator from spiking downwards. This is a decidedly different concept from what the original graph is meant to represent.

Of course, I wrote all that before Ex made his "clarification" (which is really a correction!). So you can see on my chart that I've redlined "Chinese and Iranian interest in a stable Afghanistan" on the original graph and replaced it with "Chinese and Iranian willingness to take actions to ensure stability." The conflation (or at least confusion) of these two variables was a major flaw. I addressed this by adding a new line which you can see across the top of my version: "Chinese/Iranian interest in Afghan stability." Over a limited timescale, this measure should stay relatively flat. The dotted line that scoops upward from "willingness" to "interest" is meant to illustrate the mistake we make if we fail to consider the intended U.S. withdrawal timeline: our adversaries' enduring interest in Afghan stability is only variable if a decrease in stability is met with a flexible U.S. response -- meaning an escalation and the attendant consequences for readiness.

Does this new graph have any broader meaning or explanatory value? Well, it ought to indicate that so long as we're willing to assume that other countries have an interest in Afghan stability, reducing our troop presence is certainly the correct decision. It prevents potential competitors from continuing to bandwagon and coattail, and we reap benefits from improved readiness and increased strategic flexibility. (But we already knew this, right?) It also means that those states that perceive a threat to their interests from uncertainty in Afghanistan should be lining up to get involved in a productive, stabilizing capacity -- both now and after the U.S. heads for the exits. (An predictable and unfortunate side-effect is that the internationalizing of the conflict absent strong U.S./NATO leadership is likely to have negative outcomes for the Afghan people, if not for "stability.") So why isn't that happening? Well, there are a few options: either A) those other countries don't perceive a similar level of threat from instability; B) they feel as though they're sufficiently shielded from the negative effects of instability or that the U.S. will continue to shield them in some way, even without troops on the ground; or C) they simply don't believe the U.S. is really going to leave.

That's what spits out at the end of all this? Fuck, what a waste of time.

Bill Gertz: Terminally dishonest, analytically handicapped, or just a really bad writer? (UPDATED)

You guys do know that -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- I don't actually go out looking around on the internet for stuff to get pissed off about, right? (You: "Then why do you follow Bill Gertz on Twitter?" Me: Touche.) Really, I don't. And sometimes I even beat myself up about how negative I get on the blog, how it seems to be so much easier to criticize other people's work and call my e-nemeses dummies than to write something original and constructive and pioneering.

But seriously: my e-nemeses are dummies. 

So here I am last night just trying to mind my own business and get some work done (on Twitter? Shut up) when I see this:

@BillGertz: State Dept. report confirms secret missile defense deal with Russia http://tinyurl.com/3ah4ktw

Well! That sounds interesting! Let's go read about a secret missile defense deal! And so I follow the link. There I am: the venerable Washington Times, home to venerable "geopolitics editor" Bill Gertz and the best damned China-hawkery you'll find this side of Air Combat Command. The same "news"paper that referred to Armenia as a "small Central Asian state" in an article last night until I childishly taunted the writer into fixing it with nary an acknowledgement of the mistake in the original, you ask? Yep, one and the very same. 

So what's all this about a secret deal with the Russians? I wish I could say it was easy to sort the whole thing out, but Gertz's prose is damned near impenetrable, what with his tenuous hold on grammatical convention, artless overuse of generic identifiers, and general inability to construct clear and meaningful English sentences free of loaded, leading pre-judgment. Here's the lede, largely (and mercifully) free of the sort of advocanalysis and debatable-contention-disguised-as-conventional-wisdom that fills the rest of the piece:

The Obama administration, despite public denials, held secret talks with Russia aimed at reaching a ballistic missile defense agreement that Moscow ultimately rejected in May, according to an internal State Department report.

Disclosure of the report to The Washington Times comes as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday pressed for a new anti-ballistic missile treaty, warning that a failure to reach an agreement would trigger a new strategic arms race.

The four-page document circulated on Capitol Hill stated that administration officials held four meetings with the Russians and last spring presented a draft Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Agreement (BMDCA) to Russian negotiators.

The internal report contradicts congressional testimony by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in June denying a missile defense deal was in the works.

I'm not sure about you, but it seems to me like this would be a good time to introduce some kind of concrete detail about the aforementioned report, right? But there's perilously little of that, aside from those few excerpts you'll see quoted here. In case you're confused already (and I was -- it took me three readings to sort through the whole thing), the "report" seems to be some kind of internal State Department communication referencing a proposed BMDCA that was discussed with the Russians. Gertz elaborates... sort of:

As part of the U.S.-Russia talks, the State Department submitted to Congress on May 5 a legal memorandum called a Circular 175 report that is required before reaching treaties and agreements.

"The BMDCA was designed to be a framework agreement under which the United States and Russia could begin missile defense cooperation while not limiting either party's missile defense capabilities in any way," states the report, which is labeled "sensitive but unclassified."

The draft 10-year agreement would have set up a BMD Cooperation Sub-Working Group. The Circular 175 was "approved by Under Secretary [of State Ellen] Tauscher on May 5, 2010," the report said.

Presumably the Circular 175 report to Congress is not the generically-titled "report" to which Gertz continually refers, and we're actually dealing with a completely separate document that communicated details about the Circular 175 from one part of the State Department to another. (I think.) Still with me? So this communication outlines the basics about the proposed BMDCA: "framework agreement... begin missile defense cooperation... not limiting either party's missile defense capabilities...", etc. What else does it say? Well, it tells us that "the Russian Government indicated... that they were not interested" in a BMCDA. So the USG wanted to talk to Russia about working together on missile defense in a way that wouldn't place any limits on American defenses, but Moscow decided to pass. Simple enough. Case closed.

Not so fast, says our intrepid correspondent!

The draft missile defense agreement was first reported in The Times on June 16, noting that U.S. officials feared it would limit defenses.

A day later, Mrs. Clinton was asked about The Times report and dismissed the idea of any secret draft agreement to limit defenses. "No. 1, there is no secret deal. No. 2, there is no plan to limit U.S. missile defenses, either in this treaty or in any other way. And No. 3, on that score, the story is dead wrong," she said.

Mr. Gates, appearing with Mrs. Clinton, also denied any draft agreement was being negotiated, stating that "whatever talks are going on are simply about trying to elicit [Russian] willingness to partner with us along with the Europeans in terms of a regional missile defense."

When asked whether the draft agreement was public, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Times on June 18 "there is no draft agreement to provide you."

Gertz modestly fails to mention that when "the draft missile defense agreement was first reported in The Times," it was in the June 16th edition of his own weekly "Inside the Ring" column. (Editorial aside: when he says "...noting that U.S. officials feared it would limit defenses," Gertz is presumably making a grammatical mistake. That is, he means to say that his column noted purported U.S. fears, and that wacky participial phrase in the latter half of the sentence isn't intended to indicate that the "draft missile defense agreement [noted] that U.S. officials" had fears. But I digress. Fears were noted!) So here's where we are now: Gertz has quoted from the Senate Armed Services hearing on START and has affirmed that Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates both denied any talks with the Russians related to limiting missile defenses.

Because Gertz -- surely limited by space considerations and not tempted in the least to make questionable editing decisions out of bad faith or a desire to mislead -- only quoted part of Secretary Clinton's comments before the committee, it's probably worth referencing the transcript (pdf). Here's the first mention of "secret deals" -- the very first question out of the gate (p. 13) after Clinton, Gates, Energy Secretary Chu, and CJCS ADM Mullen have delivered their prepared statements:

[Senator LEVIN, Chairman:] Secretary Clinton, let me start with you. During the course of the negotiations on the New START, were there any side agreements, any informal agreements, any secret agreements with Russia that are not included in the treaty relative to any limitations on U.S. missile defenses or any other subject?

Secretary CLINTON. No.

There we are, right off the bat: no secret agreements. The next time this comes up if a few minutes later (p. 19-20).

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Clinton, you were very clear in answering the chairman’s first question about whether there was any secret agreement or side deal associated with the negotiations of the New START Treaty that would affect missile defense. And you were very clear in saying that, no, there were not.

There’s a press report that came out last night that claims that the administration is secretly working with the Russians to conclude an agreement that would limit U.S. missile defenses. It goes on to say that the administration last month presented a draft agreement to the Russians. Is this report accurate?

Secretary CLINTON. No. I’m not aware of the report, Senator Collins, but, as Secretary Gates said, we have consistently told the Russians that if they wish to work with us on missile defense we are open to working with them. So maybe there is something lost in the translation here, because we have consistently reached out to them. We would like them to be part of a broad missile defense system that protects against countries like Iran, North Korea, both of which they border, by the way, so it is in their interest.

But Secretary Gates mentioned that in his opening remarks, so if I could ask him to just perhaps add onto what I said.

Senator COLLINS. Yes.

Secretary GATES. Well, I have seen—I have just seen a reference to the newspaper story that you described, and what I emphasized, what I added, frankly, in my opening statement was that whatever talks are going on are simply about trying to elicit their willingness to partner with us along with the Europeans in terms of a regional missile defense.

But there is nothing in the approaches that have been made to the Russians that in any way, shape, or form would impose any limits whatsoever on our plans.

Again we have Secretary Clinton responding to Gertz's assertion that "the administration is secretly working with the Russians to conclude an agreement that would limit U.S. missile defenses," and his further assertion that a draft of such an agreement had been presented to the Russians in May, with a firm denial. Both Clinton and Gates emphasize the administration's interest in working collaboratively with the Russians on missile defense while repeatedly insisting that any such cooperation would not place limits on American missile defenses. This point is made very clear.

Secretary Clinton must have sensed how eager critics of the treaty were to focus on this bogus "secret negotiations" bugaboo, because she came back to it of her own accord later in the hearing (p. 36). This part's important, because it fleshes out the excerpt that Gertz provides in his piece.

[Secretary CLINTON:] Mr. Chairman, if I could, just on a follow-up to your last questions, which I very much appreciate. I want to ensure that the record is clear on one additional point. Senator Collins raised a certain press report about a U.S.- Russia deal to limit U.S. missile defenses and I want to be as clear as I possibly can. Number one, there is no secret deal.

Number two, there is no plan to limit U.S. missile defenses, either in this treaty or in any other way.

Number three, on that score the story is dead wrong. I want to be very clear about that because I don’t want anyone using what is yet again another inaccurate story to argue against this treaty. As Secretary Gates and I have both said, we will continue to explore missile defense cooperation with Russia, but the talks are not secret and there is nothing on the table or even in the wildest contemplation that would involve any limits on our missile defense. Instead, we’re seeing to see whether they can be expanded with additional capabilities for our security.

So here we are yet again: a firm denial of any "secret deal"; a firm denial of any agreements that would limit U.S. defenses; and an elaboration of the administration's consistent position that missile defense collaboration with Russia is a desirable opportunity to increase European and global security. Clinton notes that "on that score" -- that is, on the subject of possible limitations on U.S. missile defense -- "the story is dead wrong." Dead wrong. No two ways about it. It's very clear: there is no secret agreement that would limit U.S. missile defenses. Simple as.

Where could the confusion be coming from here? How is it that Gertz is now claiming a win, telling "arms control wonks who argued my June 16 scoop was wrong: you're wrong," arguing that the newly-revealed "internal State Department report" shows that "Hillary misled Senate"? Well, yet again we're going to have to dig around and speculate; it's not easy to do in a 1,000-word article in a publication that one would assume has editors, but Gertz steadfastly refuses to apply clear thinking and narrative structure to make his point in any kind of meaningful way. So let's go back to the original piece that asserted secret negotiations, the one published the day before the hearing, and see how Gertz characterized the matter:

The Obama administration is secretly working with Russia to conclude an agreement that many officials fear will limit U.S. missile defenses, a key objective of Moscow since it opposed plans for a U.S. missile defense interceptor base in Eastern Europe, according to American officials involved in arms control issues.

According to the officials, the administration last month presented a draft agreement on missile defenses to the Russians as part of talks between Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for international security and arms control, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov.

The secret talks and possible agreement have triggered alarm among pro-missile defense advocates who are concerned that the administration, in its effort to "reset" ties with Moscow, will make further concessions constraining current and future missile defenses.

Ok, now we might be on to something. "many [unnamed, obviously!] officials fear" that a BMDCA "will limit U.S. missile defenses," Gertz asserts, while also tacking on the misleading suggestion that Russia had made such limitation a priority in its negotiations with the U.S. (If that were the case, one might reasonably ask, then why wouldn't the Russians insert ANY limitation language in the actual text of the treaty -- beyond a mutual prohibition against modifying ICBM and SLBM launchers to host missile defense components instead -- rather than working to that end by negotiating a similarly non-binding informal arrangement, ironically one that focused on cooperation rather than limitation and reduction, as the treaty's main text does?) Senator Collins read the statements like the preceding as "claims that the administration is secretly working with the Russians to conclude an agreement that would limit U.S. missile defenses," which is perhaps a slightly misleading formulation if only because it implies that Gertz was suggesting the "secret" agreement would include concrete limits rather than simply limiting missile defense as a matter of uncharitable interpretation.

Let's try to sum this up, shall we? On June 16th, Bill Gertz writes that the U.S. and Russia are working toward a "secret agreement" that he alleges has some U.S. officials worried about possible limitations on missile defense. On June 17th, Secretaries Clinton and Gates both deny that any secret agreements to limit missile defense have been negotiated, and assert that while the U.S. seeks to cooperate with Russia on this matter, the administration will not accept any provisions that limit missile defense. (Oh yeah, and the U.S. side decided unilaterally to insert a statement in the treaty's preamble that yet again insists that missile defenses are not subject to the treaty, and also to include more than $10 billion for missile defense in its FY11 budget request.) On June 18th, P.J. Crowley responds to Gertz's question about whether the "secret draft agreement" is public by telling him that there is no such agreement. Then at some point in the intervening months, it emerges that there was in fact a draft agreement on missile defense cooperation that was not secret, was not concerned with limiting missile defense, and was not ultimately agreed to -- a draft agreement that seems instead to have been focused on precisely what the SECDEF stated before Congress was the object of ongoing discussions with Russia, which was to "elicit willingness to partner with us as well as the Europeans in terms of a regional missile defense" --  and somehow Gertz claims that this revelation "contradicts congressional testimony" by Gates and Clinton "that a missile defense deal was in the works" and feels vindicated for his earlier assertion that there was a "secret draft agreement to limit defenses." Except that 1) THERE STILL IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THERE WAS EVER A "SECRET DRAFT AGREEMENT TO LIMIT DEFENSES," 2) BOTH SECRETARIES INSIST THAT THERE NEVER WAS SUCH AN AGREEMENT, AND 3) THEY EACH TESTIFIED TO THAT EFFECT. Neither even briefly addressed the existence of a possible missile defense cooperation agreement except to indicate that such an agreement would be consistent with the administration's overall goals and policy.

So I am being totally serious when I ask: is Bill Gertz a liar, or is he just incredibly stupid?

UPDATE: Courtesy of Blake Hounshell on Twitter, here's the fact sheet the State Department issued this morning on the subject of Missile Defense Cooperation with the Russian Federation. Some highlights:

There are no “secret deals” with Russia on missile defense.

The Administration has repeatedly communicated to the Russian Government at the highest levels that the United States will not agree to any limitations or constraints on U.S. ballistic missile defenses, and that the United States intends to continue improving and deploying BMD systems to defend the U.S. against limited missile launches, and to defend our deployed forces, allies, and partners against regional threats.

The Administration has repeatedly made clear that it is pursuing missile defense cooperation with Russia. As one example, at a June 17 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Gates stated: “Separately from the treaty, we are discussing missile defense cooperation with Russia, which we believe is in the interests of both nations. But such talks have nothing to do with imposing any limitations on our programs or deployment plans.”

The Obama Administration believes that missile defense cooperation with the Russian Federation is in the national security interests of the United States, as did the Bush Administration. Restrictions or limitations on U.S. missile defense capabilities are not under discussion in any forum.

So yeah, pretty much what I said (/boom).

What's in it for Russia? (UPDATED TWICE)

Russian defense minister Anatoliy Serdyukov met with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Pentagon last week. Gates devoted more than four hours to his Russian counterpart; suffice it to say that it's unusual for the SECDEF to spend half a working day on a senior leader engagement.

That said, the time seems to have been well spent. Just today, the Russian government announced that President Dmitriy Medvyedev has cancelled a proposed sale of S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran, a development that will come as a pleasant surprise to American and Israeli military leaders. The S-300 is "a system that scares every Western air force," according to defense analyst Daniel Goure (via Spencer Ackerman), and Medvyedev's decision flies in the face of recent Russian insistence that the S-300 deal would go ahead.

So why the sudden change of heart? It's difficult to say. Gates' meeting with Serdyukov also apparently emphasized American gratitude for Russian assistance with the Northern Distribution Network, a logistics line that has become increasingly important to the coalition effort in Afghanistan in light of instability and insecurity in Pakistan. Spencer quotes Ariel Cohen and suggests that Russian complicity with U.S. wishes on the S-300 deal may be part of some sort of "quid pro quo" for the ministerial visit. But look at the Serdyukov-Gates chat alongside the NDN developments and recent U.S. interest in Russian helicopters. Just so there's no misunderstanding here, the Russians know exactly what's going on; here's what Serdykov had to say after his meetings with Gates: "“We discussed that our cooperation in the military and technical sphere isn’t developing. We, of course, have an interest in some American technology and, I think, they have an interest in some of ours.” Hint hint.

So, seriously: what's in it for Russia? They've helped with the NDN, they've agreed not to sell S-300s to the Iranians, and they're interested in exchanges of defense technology (to include facilitating U.S. efforts to supply warfighting partners with difficult-to-find Russian airframes). It can't be as simple as us refusing to satisfy Georgian pipe dreams about self-defense, right? Or pushing the "overcharge" button? So really: what is it?

UPDATE: This morning's Playbook has a statement on the S-300 issue from National Security Staff spokesman Mike Hammer:

"The White House strongly welcomes the Executive Order signed by Russian President Medvedev which bans the transfer of advanced weaponry to Iran, including the S-300. We believe President Medvedev has demonstrated leadership on holding Iran accountable to its international obligations from start to finish. We welcome this faithful and robust implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1929, and we remain committed alongside our Russian and other P5+1 partners to finding a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue."

UPDATE 2: Josh Rogin has an excellent rundown on this issue, though I think the space he gives to David Kramer's bleating is probably excessive. But to the point of this post, Rogin speculates that Russia's decision is an effort to win support for WTO accession:

As for why the Russians finally decided to scuttle the arms deal after years of lobbying by Washington, the official speculated that Moscow now has something it needs -- and that it finally has faith that the U.S. is willing to help. Russia is jockeying for as much U.S. support as possible for their upcoming bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Moscow is planning to finalize its bid this year.

"Momentum on WTO accession is what they see as they next big negotiations with us. We're right in the middle of that. That's asymmetric because that's more in their interest than ours. I think we have to deliver on that," the official said.

But the Obama administration isn't asking Russia for favors or giving them out in return, the official explained. The idea is to make the U.S.-Russia relationship more valuable to the Russians than their relationship with Iran, and both countries should act in their own interests.

"The objective is not actually to develop a good relationship with Russia. The goal here is to advance our national security and economic interests and to promote universal values," the official said.

The last bit is noteworthy in light of Kramer's criticism, perhaps. Anyway, it's worth reading the whole piece.

Can the Anti-Defamation League please, PLEASE just STFU?

This is outside my normal lane, but it's so egregious that I just can't avoid ranting about it here: During a baseball game between New York and Tampa on Saturday, Fox broadcaster Tim McCarver, a former teammate of ex-Yankees manager Joe Torre, said this about the way that Torre's success with the team has been rather indelicately whitewashed in the franchise's organizational memory:

"You remember some of those despotic leaders in World War II, primarily in Russia and Germany, where they used to take those pictures that they had ... taken of former generals who were no longer alive, they had shot 'em," McCarver said Saturday. "They would airbrush the pictures, and airbrushed the generals out of the pictures. In a sense, that's what the Yankees have done with Joe Torre. They have airbrushed his legacy. I mean, there's no sign of Joe Torre at the Stadium. And, that's ridiculous. I don't understand it."

McCarver has since apologized -- "Although my analogy was inappropriate, in my opinion the underlying point remains true" -- which I think was probably unnecessary. (Is it just the case now that any time you say "Nazi," it's necessarily offensive and inappropriate?) But the ADL had its own take. According to ESPN.com,

The Anti-Defamation League, which advocates against anti-Semitism and bigotry, also felt McCarver's comments went too far.

"No matter what one thinks of the Yankees' treatment of Joe Torre, likening it to how Germany and Russia treated their generals who fell out of favor is an inappropriate comparison," the organization said in a statement, according to the Daily News.

Honestly, can you guys just STFU? What in the world does this have to do with "anti-Semitism and bigotry"? Why does the ADL think its organizational position on this matter is any more relevant than what Abe Foxman thinks about the tie I'm wearing today?

Serious question: what exactly is inappropriate about what McCarver said? Ok, so he compared Torre's departure from the Yankees to a murderous political purge, but are we all so uptight nowadays that we can't take that for what it was -- a colorful simile? I'm not the guy who sits around bitching about how political correctness is ruining the world and whatnot, but this is just damned stupid, full stop.

EDIT: Slightly more context from the NY Daily News.

Friday photo of the day (UPDATED)

So yeah, it's cool that U.S. troops are marching in the Victory Day parade in Moscow today, etc etc. Security cooperation, building bridges between past allies, remembering our mutual sacrifices in the destruction of the Nazi specter and so on and so forth. But easily the awesomest thing about this whole story is this picture of U.S. TROOPS MARCHING ACROSS RED SQUARE.

If you don't watch it, Russkies, next time they'll be serious!

(Ok, not really. (Well, probably not.))

UPDATE: Two more pictures from the day of the parade. First from the NYT...

...second from Danger Room (thanks to karakapend in the comments for this one).

Awesome.

In which the tragedy of Polish history is borne out

Seventy years ago this spring, the Soviet secret police murdered more than 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals that had been made prisoners in the previous year's offensive. More than 4,000 of those Poles were shot in the head or neck and dumped into a mass grave in the Katyn Forest, just west of the city of Smolensk in what is now the Russian Federation. For half a century, the Soviet Union denied responsibility for what would come to be called in Poland the zbrodnia katynska -- the "Katyn crime" -- only acknowledging in 1990 that it had not, in fact, as Soviet propaganda insisted, been perpetrated by the Nazis after the invasion of Russia.

On Saturday, a Tu-154 airplane carrying 96 people -- including Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife, his national security adviser, the chief of the Polish general staff, the commander of the Polish land forces, and nearly a score of MPs -- crashed on approach to Smolensk airport. All aboard were killed. From Smolensk the delegation was meant to have made the 12-mile journey to Katyn to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Russian mass murder, and President Kaczynski was to have delivered a speech later that day. (If you speak Polish, or if you just want to hear how beautiful the language is, you can listen to a narrator reading the text here.)

Poland has suffered through a tortured existence -- and for a time, even non-existence. After two partitions had failed to completely dismember the state in the latter portion of the 18th century, Poland's greedy neighbors finally consumed her in 1795: Russia bit off the east, Prussia the west, Austria-Hungary the south, and Poland ceased to be. Not until Versailles would Europe's first modern democracy again rule its own territory... at which time the newly constituted republic went immediately to war with the Bolshevik behemoth on the frontier.

I won't belabor the well-publicized suffering of the Second World War and the communist People's Republic of Poland, though most will surely know of Oswiecim/Auschwitz, the Warsaw ghetto and its uprising, and of martial law in the 1980s. Suffice it to say that it's been a rough go, and Katyn was among the low points.

The great irony of all this is that the compassionate and sympathetic response of the Russian government and people to President Kaczynski's death -- a reaction perhaps as unexpected as the tragedy itself -- may foretell a thaw in Polish-Russian relations. Irony abounds not only in the surreal symbolism of Katyn, but in the identity of the most celebrated victim: Lech Kaczynski, conservative, patriotic, perhaps even nationalist, prone to strident assertion of Poland's uniquely besieged sense of self... and erstwhile thorn in the Russian diplomatic side. To see Vladimir Putin embracing Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president's twin brother and a former prime minister, was a really, really surreal moment.

As you may have worked out by now, I have a special place in my heart for Poland and Poles. I lived there for two years and went to grad school there, speak the language (if only very occasionally now, and quite poorly), and really enjoy the people and the culture. Defense Minister Bogdan Klich, one of the only senior defense officials not to have been aboard the plane, was a grad school professor of mine and something of a mentor. President Kaczynski and First Lady Kaczynska will be buried this weekend at Wawel Castle, less than a mile from my old apartment in Krakow, home to the tombs of Polish royalty. (The White House announced today that President Obama will attend.) And on top of all that, I'm a twin, so I feel a special horror at how Jaroslaw Kaczynski must feel mourning not only his president, but his brother.

The Kaczynskis aren't exactly my cup of tea from a political perspective, and they've been wildly controversial as leaders of Poland. (The article linked above about the burial at Wawel alludes to some of that controversy.) As might be clear by now, Lech in particular stepped on quite a few toes -- including those of Russia.

The text prepared for delivery by President Kaczynski frankly stated (in the English construction of an Australian translator named Kilroy, apparently) that

Katyn became a painful wound in Polish history, and has for many decades poisoned the relations between Poles and Russians. May this wound fully and finally heal. We are already on this path. We Poles acknowledge and value the actions of Russians of recent years. This path, which is bringing our nations together, we should continue to travel, not halting on the way or retreating back.

Let's hope the two countries stay on that path. And let's spare a thought today for the Polish people, who have suffered just about enough loss by now.

*Apologies to Polish speakers for the lack of correct spelling (by which I mean diacritical marks, really), but you don't even want to think about the fiasco that it is to try to accurately render Polish typography on blogspot.

Hey Russia, I've got an awesome idea

Don't like the way NATO is doing counter-narco in Afghanistan? Come do something about it!

Russia has accused the United States of "conniving" with Afghan drug producers by not destroying opium crops as U.S. troops advance in Helmand Province, one of the major opium growing regions. The allegation, which came in a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, was the second time this week that Moscow has criticized the West over the opium issue. NATO rejected the charge and said Russia could help by providing more troops to combat the insurgency.

Or maybe just quit your whining and suck it!

(h/t Foust on Twitter)

Turns out the SECDEF also thinks it's a bad idea for allies to sell advanced weapons systems to countries working at cross purposes to NATO

Remember how the French were gonna sell Mistral-class amphibs to Russia? (Perhaps surprisingly, the posts "Dirty French!" and "Dirty French pt 2" had nothing to do with this.) Yeah, I didn't think that was that cool of an idea when it came up three months ago, and now the deal has been inked. Turns out Secretary Gates agrees with me on the fundamental un-coolness of this.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told French officials Monday that he was concerned about their plans to sell Mistral-class amphibious assault ships to Russia, although there is little if anything the United States could do to block the deal, officials said.

Russia has been engaged in negotiations for months over what would be the first significant purchase of advanced NATO weaponry since the collapse of communism. Each Mistral warship costs up to $750 million, and the vessels, which can launch helicopters and armored vehicles, would be viewed as a notable addition to the Kremlin’s rusting fleet.

Mr. Gates chose the well-known diplomatic code for disagreement in describing his discussion of the arms sale with his French counterpart, Defense Minister Hervé Morin.

“I think I would just say that we had a good and thorough exchange of views,” Mr. Gates said.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said later that Mr. Gates’s meetings here were “very amicable and positive” on issues that included the NATO effort in Afghanistan, but that Mr. Gates “made our concerns very clear” on the arms sale.

According to media reports, France has agreed to sell one Mistral to Russia and the sale of an additional three ships is under discussion. Information Dissemination, which can be a bit dense for this idiot non-engineer but ought to be your go-to blog for maritime stuff if you care about all that, expresses some confusion on this point. I've seen it reported elsewhere that only three Mistral-class ships exist: the one being sold to Russia, and two currently in the French fleet. That means that the three additional ships would have to be built to order, and some people are even speculating about a licensed production agreement with Russia.

Uh, what?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the U.S. should have veto power over anyone else's arms sales or other military contacts, but aren't we supposed to be on the same team here? Russia's certainly entitled to its own defense program, and I'll be the first to say that there are certain things we can do to give Moscow assurances about its own territorial integrity and security. But amphibious assault vehicles? Really? Where are these things gonna be based? And what missions are they gonna be used for? It seems clear to me that they'll go to the Black Sea fleet (if only because there aren't a whole ton of other warm-water ports), and that they'll be used to menace the Georgians (and perhaps the Ukrainians).

Dmitry Gorenburg of the Russian Military Reform blog does a good job of dissecting the rationale from a Russian perspective here in "Why the Mistral":

Whether this is the ship that should be built is another matter entirely. Various authors have made the case that the Mistral is not the ship that the Russian Navy needs. It may be that at least part of the reason for its purchase has to do with political factors, such as improving Russian-French relations. Or it may be that the Navy wants a versatile ship that can be used in many different ways.

While because of its versatility I don’t think it would be wasted in the Russian Navy, it’s probably not the best use of the limited procurement budget. It might make a good utility ship, good for “conducting independent amphibious operations in distant locales” but is that really going to be a primary mission for the Russian Navy in coming years? It seems to me that for the foreseeable future, the Navy’s main missions will consist of protecting sea lanes and showing the flag. The Mistral could be used for these kinds of operations, but they are not its primary purpose. Given the money that would be spent on this ship, it seems that the RFN might as well get exactly what it needs.

So is this some kind of malign action by the the Russians, or are they just being stupid? (Or, as I always ask in the case of U.S. defense procurement, is there someone with a significant stake in the successful conclusion of this deal exerting inappropriate pressure on the decision-makers?)

And perhaps the more important question, and the one over which the U.S. and other NATO allies should have more influence: WTF are the French doing? I've yet to see any explanation from the French side of things, any justification of how this advances French foreign policy or security objectives. So: anybody want to speculate? Any of our French readership (or authorship!) want to speak up in defense of the strategic calculus behind this decision, or try to explain to us exactly what that is?

"Find and annihilate!"

As you may have heard, a Russian luxury train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg was bombed and derailed last week, killing more than two dozen people. Turns out Islamist separatists from the Caucasus are saying they did it:

Chechen rebels claimed responsibility Wednesday for last week's Russian train bombing, which killed at least 26 people and injured scores of others, a Web site sympathetic to the militants said.

The claim, posted on the Kavkazcenter.com site, could buttress the suspicions of officials who are tracing the attack to Islamist separatists in Russia's North Caucasus region. It also raises fears of a fresh wave of attacks outside the region after a five-year break - a renewal of violence that would mirror the growing unrest inside the region.

The separatist statement, issued on behalf of Chechen separatist leader Doku Umarov, claimed Friday's bombing of a Moscow-St. Petersburg express train was carried out on his orders.

"We declare that this operation was prepared and carried out ... pursuant to the order of the Emir of Caucasus Emirate," or Umarov, the statement said.

As you might expect, Russians are pissed.

The attack has struck a nerve in Russian society. About 1,500 people gathered for a state-sanctioned anti-terrorism rally in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

Participants in the protest, organized by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party United Russia, held banners, with slogans including "Terrorists are not People and "Find and Annihilate."

Of course, the cops were walking around on the day of the bombing asking local residents if they'd seen anyone that looked Chechen, so I'm not sure it made much difference who claimed responsibility.

Meanwhile, the Russia's most prominent spiritual leader is telling Christians to steel themselves for a long struggle:

The powerful head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, issued a statement Sunday warning that Friday’s train attack could trigger increased tensions between Russia’s majority Christian and large Muslim communities. And in a politically inspirational vein, which has so far been absent from the comments of Kremlin leaders about the tragedy, Kirill urged Russians to dig in for a long war against terrorism.

“This is a grave challenge for our people,” he said. “A crime, in which any one of us could be the victim, has been committed for effect. Everyone living in Russia is being intimidated.”

There's been plenty of recent local violence, which isn't much of a surprise to anyone anymore, but now Russian security types are speculating that the Chechen cause has gone out of area again. You're also likely to see a lot of speculation about smaller attacks, "leaderless jihad," and the same sort of discussions that are coming out of the Fort Hood shootings, all leading to the conclusion that the Russians are really bad at internal policing (sort of ironic, ain't it?). Case in point:

Andrei Soldatov, editor of Agentura.ru, an Internet journal that reports on security issues (an English-language version is here) says that Russia’s security forces, at great cost, did manage to crush the large-scale terrorist operations mounted by Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, such as the 2002 siege of a Moscow theater, and the 2004 Beslan school assault, in which scores of terrorist commandos sometimes moved hundreds of miles to hit their targets.

But, he says, like generals preparing for the last war, Russian security services remain fixated on preventing big, spectacular attacks like those of the recent past, instead of preparing for smaller-scale strikes at targets of opportunity, such as the bombings of the Nevsky Express.

“We see new modus operandi taking shape, in which tiny cells of terrorists of 3 to 5 people plan and execute acts of sabotage,” he says. “But our security forces have militarized this problem, and are not set up to deal with small threats like that. The main agency dealing with anti-terrorism is the Interior Ministry, which basically operates an internal army. They are in no way ready for what may be coming,” he says.

Won't be the last of this, I'm sure.