Dmitry Rogozhin, Russian representative to NATO, and General Boris Gromov, a general who fought in Afghanistan, recently published an open letter about NATO in The New York Times. NATO was presented as an alliance lacking a will to fight, where especially the Europeans members were ready to cut and run in Afghanistan. They concluded this would be a great disaster and that the West should remember that the USSR had defended “Western civilization” at large in Afghanistan. Still, the U.S. should not expect much cooperation from Russia. A considerable segment of the Russian elite continues to be quite suspicious of U.S. intentions and its general ability to pursue realistic policies in Afghanistan.

BACKGROUND: The sense that Muslim extremists could pose a much greater danger to Russia than to the West, and that the West’s weakness could create serious problems for Russia has increased recently as Russian observers watch NATO’s increasing problems in Afghanistan. These observers have obviously noted the recent changes in NATO tactics, attempting to modify the “Vietnamization” of the conflict with an emphasis on the expansion of Afghanistan’s army and police. This certainly differs from the Vietnam War through the strategy to buy the loyalty of part of the Taliban forces. Russian observers are implicitly skeptical of the capacity of this program to stabilize Afghanistan without a considerable presence of NATO forces.

One of the major reasons for their skepticism is Russia’s own experience with the “Chechenization” of the North Caucasian conflict. In the beginning, this strategy seemed successful through lavish subsidies to Ramzan Kadyrov for “outsourcing” the fighting with the resistance to Chechen forces under his command. However, recent developments indicate that this policy might not be working. Not only has Kadyrov been unable to eliminate the jihadists – the explosion on the Nevsky Express being a clear indicator of that – but Kadyrov himself has also increasingly become a problem. Russian observers have little reason to believe that the attempt to relieve NATO forces from fighting in Afghanistan would be more successful than Russia’s similar attempt in Chechnya.

There is clear anxiety in Russia that if the last design fails, NATO would cut and run starting with its European allies, and wrapping its retreat in statements acceptable to the public. In such a case, Russia could well face a Taliban spillover to Central Asia and beyond, regardless of Taliban declarations that they are only interested in liberating Afghanistan from foreign occupiers. The Russian elite is also concerned that retreating NATO forces, and especially those of the U.S., could well nudge the Taliban and similar Islamist extremists to focus more on Russia and Central Asia. This is seen as a potential strategy of NATO and the West in general, diverting the extremists’ attention from Western targets. Under such a scenario, Russia has few forces at its disposal. While a broad alliance with the Central Asian states exists on paper, their ability to coordinate military efforts and fight together is seriously under question. Uzbekistan has serious problems with neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have approached China and the U.S. despite Moscow’s objections.

It is thus questionable whether these states, together with Moscow, could counter a spillover of Islamism from Afghanistan. The underlying reasoning behind Rogozhin’s and Gromov’s message to the U.S. on Moscow’s behalf is that Russia in no way objects to NATO, and especially the U.S., fighting in Afghanistan. This even implies that Russia could well increase its help to the U.S. and the alliance in general –obviously in exchange for a hefty geopolitical payment. This is however hardly in accordance with the strategic planning of the Obama administration and thus the prospects for close cooperation between NATO and Russia continues to be quite unclear.

IMPLICATIONS: Russia’s desire to increase its cooperation with the U.S. in Afghanistan now rather than during the Bush administration is not only due to fear of an Islamist explosion of Central Asia. The Kremlin assumes that the U.S. will scrap the anti-missile defense shield in Europe. The U.S. has claimed that the shield will not be directed toward preventing a potential retaliatory strike from Russia. U.S. officials have repeatedly proclaimed that the shield is designed to protect Europe from a possible Iranian strike. However, regardless of the actual reasons for the U.S. to deploy a missile defense shield in Europe, the Russian elite have regarded the shield as being directed against Russia. The decision to install the defense shield in Europe was taken during the Bush administration and was one of the major reasons why the relationship between Russia and the U.S. soured at the end of the Bush presidency. And Obama’s initial hints that the decision would be reconsidered induced the Kremlin to soften its stance in dealing with Washington. However, the fact that the plan is still in place signals, from Moscow’s perspective, that the U.S. and NATO continually sees Russia as the enemy.

The same Rogozhin who called on the U.S. and NATO to join Russia in confronting Islamists has expressed his displeasure with the U.S. decision to keep the defense shield in Europe. In one of his op-ed pieces in the semi-official Izvestiia, he posed the rhetorical question of how one should relate the recent manifestations of the U.S. unfriendliness with its call on Russia to cooperate in the Middle East in general and Afghanistan in particular.

The Russian pundits see the U.S. not only as unfriendly to Russia but also as a risky and, in some ways, irrational player. U.S. policy in the Middle East, and especially Iran, indicates all of these considerations. The sense that the U.S. is both still hostile to Russia and not always rational in its geopolitical posture in the Middle East shapes Russian attitudes toward U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

The wobbling and lukewarm approach to cooperation with the U.S. is clearly visible in Russia’s approach to Iran. The approach to Afghanistan is equally inconsistent and tempered. To start with, Russian authorities have stated that Russia would help the U.S. to transfer goods by using Russian planes, but that it would do this only “on a commercial basis”. Thus, the U.S. and NATO should pay for everything – and Russia would demand a high price. This implies that Russia’s engagement in the war in Afghanistan is not so much of a political as of a commercial nature, scarcely different from its involvement in other enterprises such as the building of the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran. As if to emphasize Russia’s limited involvement in Afghanistan, Rogozhin stated that Russia would never again send troops to Afghanistan.

CONCLUSIONS: It is clear that Russia is alarmed by the possibility of a total defeat of the U.S. and NATO’s and their withdrawal from Afghanistan, potentially leaving the Taliban in full control of the country. Still, the Kremlin has not so far received the geopolitical payment it expected from the Obama administration. Even those who expect the alliance to stay in Afghanistan until the situation is stabilized are quite suspicious of U.S. intentions and even question Washington’s ability to make rational decisions at a time when the U.S. is in decline. Consequently, Russian assistance to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan can be expected to remain quite limited. 

AUTHOR’S BIO: Dmitry Shlapentokh is Associate Professor of History, Indiana University at South Bend.