The Implications of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Sales between Moscow and Tel Aviv

Here's an international military manoeuvre to de-cipher: according to the Jerusalem Post, Israel is planning to expedite production of unmanned aerial vehicles for Russia.

There are two starting points for an analysis. In summer 2008, when Russia was at war with Georgia, Amos Gilad, the head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, visited Moscow and took away the guarantee that Russia would not sell the S300 defensive missile system to Iran. And only last week, Russia announced that it had decided to halt the sale of advanced MIG-31 fighter jets to Syria.

Contrary to a long-standing assumption, it appears that Moscow has not had significant leverage over Tehran’s nuclear enrichment. This may be partly because of Iran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities in fall 2003, as the latest CIA report reiterates.

Thus, Russia has to find other bargaining chips in the Middle Eastern game. And it need not worry --- even without a nuclear weapons programme, Iran has enough conventional weapons initiatives for either pretext or genuine fear, and there are other countries such as Syria who will have to be kept in their proper military place.

Text: The EastWest Institute (US-Russian) Report on "Iran's Nuclear and Missile Potential"

For more than a year, US and Russian scientists and other experts supported by The EastWest Institute have been studying US-Russian relations and Iran's weapons programmes. Their report, released this week, recommends the suspension of plans for missile defence and pursuit of a diplomatic route, both in the United Nations and directly with Iran, on the nuclear issue.

Recommendations

5.10 This report has concluded that there is at present no IRBM/ICBM [intermediate-range/inter-continental ballistic missile] threat from Iran and that such a threat, even if it were to emerge, is not imminent. Moreover, if such a threat were forthcoming, the proposed European missile defenses would not provide a dependable defense against it. It does not make sense, therefore, to proceed with deployment of the European missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

5.11 The more immediate danger comes from the military and political consequences that would follow if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them against targets in the Middle East. The urgent task, therefore, is for Russia and the United States (and other states) to work closely together to seek, by diplomatic and political means, a resolution of the crisis surrounding the Iranian nuclear program. Such cooperation could be helped if the issue of European
missile defense were set aside.

5.12 If deployment of the European missile defense system were suspended, the United States and Russia could
explore in a serious fashion the possibility of cooperation in ballistic missile defense, an issue also mentioned in
the joint statement of the two presidents. A wide range of options could be explored, including the possibility
of boost-phase missile defense. (See the Technical Addendum for a detailed discussion.)

5.13 There is scope for U.S.-Russian cooperation in thefollowing areas:

a. Ensuring that the sanctions the Security Council has imposed on Iran are implemented strictly;
b. Strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and in particular the IAEA’s capacity to implement safeguards and enhance its verification procedures;
c. Strengthening the MTCR [Missile Technology Control Regime] in order to restrict further the export of sensitive missile technologies;
d. Persuading Iran, by diplomatic means, to adopt measures that will reassure its neighbors (and the international community more generally) that its nuclear program is directed solely toward peaceful purposes.
e. Exploring the responses the two countries could take if Iran should expel the IAEA inspectors; and studying other paths by which Iran might seek to “break out” as a nuclear power and devising appropriate responses.
f. Investigating seriously the possibility of cooperation in missile defense.

5.14 The issues dealt with in this report — the potential nuclear-missile challenge from Iran and the role of missile defense in meeting that challenge — have in the past served to worsen U.S.-Russian relations. The analysis given in this paper points to a diff erent possibility: that cooperation between the two countries could help to resolve these important and urgent issues and could play a role in changing the U.S.-Russian relationship for the better.

May Day, May Day: The Strains in US-Russian Relations

Miriam Elder of Global Post notes the expulsion of two Russian diplomats by NATO on spying charges and Moscow's treaties with separatist regions to consider the consequences for relations between Moscow and Washington:

Russia and the West have a very bad day

MOSCOW — It was meant to be a day of fresh starts, as officials from Russia and NATO sat down for their first formal talks since breaking off relations last summer in the midst of the Georgia war.

Instead, NATO expelled two top Russian diplomats after accusing them of spying and Russia signed a treaty strengthening its ties with the separatist regions at the center of the controversial war. Are Russia’s relations with the West doomed to fail?

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