A New Cold War?

In the past few years it seems there has been a steady move from the main threat facing the west from terrorists to eastern states emerging as world superpowers. These States pose much more of a threat to the west than any terrorist could ever, not only could they be working with terrorists but they could be plotting ageist the west in a coordinated fashion. These states have access to huge amounts of money and collectively have the power to cripple the west in a number of catastrophic ways. In this article I intend to look in to this emerging threat in more detail.

Russia and china could be regarded as the biggest threat to the west for a number of reasons. The main one is that Russia and china are members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council(1). This could enable Russia and China to block any international sanctions that other members of the Security Council try to place on a state the perceive to be a threat.

For example when the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DRPK, North Korea) tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) the Taepodong-2 in April of 2009, in breach of UN sanctions. The Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi said that. "All sides ought to look at the big picture ... (and) avoid taking actions which may exacerbate the situation further." this was in reference to the united states pushing for father sanctions against north Korea and is a prime example of china using its power on the security council on behalf of north Korea, Russia had a similar response(2). It was not until the nuclear tests later in the year that Russia and China gave into full sanctions and even then it was with pressure from the other UN members.

As most readers will no doubt be aware North Korea is presenting its self as an ever growing threat with constant missile tests and now 2 nuclear weapon tests. Diplomatically China is North Koreas greatest ally providing over 90% of North Koreas energy supplies as well as food and most importantly arms(11). Perhaps however most interestedly and most under reported is the existence of the 1961 Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. Under this treaty if there was to be an attack against North Korea China is legally obliged to defend North Korea. This means that if South Korea (which is technically still at war with North Korea) was to attack North Korea, China would provide them with military support; this would undoubtedly lead to the USA becoming involved because they have 29,000 troops based in South Korea(11) and thus would lead to Japan taking the side of America leading to a full scale Asian war.

Interestingly China and Russia are the main members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)(3). This small group is relatively unknown in the west despite the role it would play in a war between the west and east. The SCO is like an Eestern version on NATO although the organisation also cooperates on social and economic topics as well as security and was established to combat American dominance in the East. In 2009 the SCO annual meeting took place in Russia, coincidently the fist summit of the BRIC nations also took place at this time also in Russia. Also on March 24th 2008 Iran applied for full membership of the SCO and disputed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the 2009 meeting as an observer(5) despite the turmoil in his own country regarding human rights he received a warm welcome. I would urge anyone reading this to look into the SCO themselves in order to understand the potential threat it could one day pose.

Russia is the world’s largest producer of gas and oil and supplies to most of Europe with its largest exports(6). Most of its gas reserves are controlled and treaded by Russia’s largest company Gazprom and in the past few years has been using its power in the energy markets to hold whole governments to ransom. On the 1st of January 2009 Russia for example cut of gas supplies to Ukraine dew to $2 billion in unpaid debts to Gazprom(7).  This also lead to other European countries reporting a loss in there gas supplies received from Russia and inflation in Ukraine raising to 26.2 %(8). Interestingly this also took place at a time when Ukraine was making a bid to enter NATO was requesting that the Russian black fleet leave Ukraine. Also the Ukrainian president Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is widely known to be an enemy of the Kremlin. So could this all be proof of that Russia was using its power over Ukraine’s energy supplies to get their own way?

The situation in Ukraine proves that Russia has the potential and the drive to cut off gas or oil supplies to Europe if they refuse to pay the bills. It is true of course that if Russia were to do this long term to the whole of Europe it would be devastating for the Russian economy however if Russia were to do it to one European county it wouldn’t have much effect and in the event of a large scale conflict between Russia and the EU for Russia to cut off oil and gas supplies would make strategic sense as it would bring the countries concerned to a standstill and would be just as economically damaging for the EU as it would be for Russia.

Economically China could present as much a threat to the USA as Russia could to the EU. Currently the American treasury has a deficit of $11.3 trillion(9). A large about of this money is owed to china; this is because before the credit crush china had vast amounts of savings that America borrowed during the Bush years to boost the American economy(10). Now that the American economy is sliding further the USA is ever more reliant on Chinese investment and if China decided to stop this flow of money and demand its debts played to them that would worry investors in the west possibly leading to a huge crash in American stalks around the world leading to American Bankruptcy.

 During his election campaign Barack Obama raised concern that China may be deliberately setting the value of its currency low against the dollar to boost china’s exports. More recently the Chinese have been pushing for a end to the dominance of the US dollar as the main trading currency of the world(19).

In April 2001 a North Korean defector named Ku Kim Bok entered the American Embassy in South Korea. Mr. Bok informed the CIA station chief that he was a senior electrical engineer in missile guidance systems at “factory 395” near Najin in North Korea. During his debrief he confessed to his interrogators that his job was to develop the missile guidance system for a missile that would have the capability to deliver Nuclear Biological or Chemical (NBC) warheads, this was most probably the Taepodong-2 ICBM. Mr. Bok also told his interrogators that he based his designs for the guidance system on Russian R-36M ICBM (NATO designation: SS-18 Satan) these systems were supplied form the Russians and Mr. Bok also claimed that during product Development meetings Russian technicians were present(12). If this is to be believed then it means that Russia could actively be taking part in North Koreas nuclear weapon program. With China’s close ties to both Russia and North Korea then it would not be surprising if China is also involved. 

As has been extensively reported in the press however North Korea is not the only “rogue state” with nuclear weapons ambitions. Iran is thought to have between 600 and 700Kg’s of highly enriched uranium (U-235 isotope) (13). The question then is where is Iran getting the technology for its nuclear weapons program? Well the answered not surprisingly lies in Russia. During the 1950’s to mid 1970 however it was the west that supported domestic nuclear program although they became suspicious of what would happen should the Iranian revolution come to pass so they pulled out all their support and nuclear technicians. Then 1981 in a spectacular move the Israelis by destroying Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility “The Exodus plant” and with it Iran’s Nuclear program(15).

It was not until the 1991 gulf war that Iran began to seriously look into nuclear technology again because of the threat there old enemy Iraq posed by apparently having its own Nuclear weapon program. Although this time Iran did not have the support of the west and had to turn to a new ally Russia. In 1995 Russia agreed a $800 million contract with Iran to build the Bushehr Nuclear power plant (BNPP) due to be completed in 2016, through a company called Atomstroiexport(16) of which 50.2 % is owned by the Russian government and 49.8 % by Gazprom!(17). Iran has also sought nuclear technology and assistance from China, Pakistan and even North Korea(18).

Iran though is not the only country looking to North Korea for nuclear technology. In 2007 after Israel destroyed the nuclear site at Al-Kibar in Syria in a unprecedented move the CIA released a intelligence briefing video about the reactor in which they presented evidence that appeared to prove that North Korea had been providing the expertise to build the Gas Cooled Graphite Moderated Reactor, North Korea has been the only country to build one of these in the past 35 years(25).

It is rumoured to be that the reason for Russia assisting Iran’s nuclear program is to cause political upheaval in a country already in chaos. This is beneficial to Russia because it leads to an increase in global oil prices and this would also boost the prices of Russia’s domestic oil reserves. And Iran as a Nuclear power is a threat to the security of the middle east not only because of its aggressive stance against Israel but also because of its links to terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation(PLO) the problem could become exacerbated exponentially if Iran was to supply a terrorist group with nuclear material.

However it’s not just Iran that could be helping terrorists. Before his murder in 2006 by Russian agents ex KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko made a number of claims that Russia was involved in state sponsored terrorism. Mr. Litinenko’s claim was that Osama Bin Laden’s number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained for half a year in 1997 by Russian FSB agents(20) this claim has been backed up by another FSB agent as well. Russia has also been accused in recent years of poisoning Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych during his presidential election campaign(21).

Aside from assassination and espionage the Russian and Chinese are playing another game with what is now called the Weapon of Mass Disruption. Cyber warfare and cyber espionage is becoming a ever growing threat to western governments and businesses. This became apparent after the US national grid admitted that its systems had been compromised by foreign intelligence agencies implanting bugs that could poetically give the power to monitor American power consumption and could even give them the capability to shut down the entire national grid(22)

In 2009 British and Canadian researchers uncovered a vast Chinese cyber spy net work called GhostNet(23). GhostNet runs in a similar but much less extensive way as to the ECHELON(24) program and was found to have been snooping on some 103 countries. This news showed that China has an ongoing cyber espionage network for the first time that could one day rival that of ECHELON.     

It appears to me then that Asian and Middle Eastern countries are beginning to pose a massive security risk the west and that risk has been multiplied because these countries now appear to be cooperating with each other. As to what can be done to combat this threat I really do have no idea in writing this I have discovered just how complex this whole situation is, it maybe perhaps that we are seeing the end of western dominance and we may have to accept our fate or that we have to start to cooperate in a similar fashion this could just be the start of a new Cold War.