Moscow Reverts To Cold War Moves Just As NASA Plans To Buy Russian Soyuz Services; Cause Of Soyuz Woes Still Unknown
Russia Cuts Oil Flow To Czech Republic, But Denies This Retaliates For Czech Agreement To Host Missile Defense Radar
Russia yesterday deployed SS-21 missile launchers into the Ossetia region of Georgia, violating assurances given to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and defying newly voiced demands of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Russia withdraw from Georgia immediately.
As a further show of recalcitrance, Russia deployed surface-to-air missiles in South Ossetia, and stated that any withdrawal of its armed forces from Georgia will be paired with stationing Russian “peacekeepers” in Georgia that leaders in Tbilisi and Washington fear will become a de facto occupation force.
The rogue Russian invasion of Georgia is but one example of Moscow reverting to its bloody-handed old-style Cold War tactics, a bellicose stance that has included threatening to use military force to destroy the planned European Missile Defense (EMD) system if the United States installs it in the Czech Republic and Poland.
This violent Russian rampage is creating difficulties for the American space program: U.S. taxpayers have sunk $100 billion into building the International Space Station, on the assumption that U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts can continue to work together to operate the orbiting laboratory jointly. And NASA now will have to negotiate with Russia to transport U.S. astronauts to the space station in the half-decade when NASA has no manned space capability.
Russia also without warning slashed the flow of oil into the Czech Republic by half last month, just a day after the Czech government signed an agreement to host a radar for the EMD system, according to the International Herald Tribune. Russia denied the oil-flow reduction was a retaliation for Czech agreement to host the radar. But Czech officials expect even more cuts in oil flows.
Russia has alleged the 10 EMD system missile interceptors, to be based in Poland, would be able to knock down Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), an assertion the United States has labeled absurd. The radar would be aimed southward toward the Middle East, including Iran, and the interceptors wouldn’t be able to catch any Russian ICBMs if they were launched northbound toward U.S. cities. Also, Russia has thousands of ICBMs, versus the EMD deploying just 10 interceptors.
Russia also has sent strategic-weapons submarines with nuclear-tipped missiles on patrols, and last year resumed sending strategic bombers on long-range missions. That included flights off Western nations — including near Guam, where the U.S. military has a base so that U.S. fighters had to scramble — and over the North Sea, where Norway and Britain had to scramble jets to intercept the bombers .
As well, newly hostile Russian leaders have threatened to target their nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles toward European cities, just as they did in Cold War days, unless Europeans abandon any thought of allowing the United States to install the EMD system.
And most recently, the Russians threatened to launch a nuclear attack on any EMD installation if one is built in Poland, a threat that U.S. leaders dismissed as empty rhetoric and bluster.
These tactics, reminiscent of tensions with the old Soviet Union, come just as NASA is planning to negotiate with Russia to provide Soyuz spaceship transport services to take U.S. and allied astronauts to the International Space Station, during a half-decade gap in 2010 to 2015 when American space shuttles are mandated to retire and the next-generation Orion-Ares spaceship is still in development before its first manned flight. (For a story on the timing of that flight, please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, Aug. 11, 2008.) The United States and Russia jointly staff the orbiting laboratory, along with visits by astronauts of other space agencies such as Canada, Europe and Japan.
The United States is responsible for providing transportation to the space station, either on the space shuttles or on Soyuz vehicles, not only for U.S. astronauts but also for some of those from the allied nations.
NASA can’t begin to negotiate that contract for Soyuz transport services in 2012 and later, however, until Congress first provides an enabling exemption from the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act, permitting NASA to purchase the Soyuz services from Russia.
The current NASA contract for Soyuz transport flights is for services provided through Dec. 31, 2011.
That contract for Soyuz flights in 2012 and later has to be negotiated and signed by sometime around the end of this year, so that the Russian industrial base can plan and prepare for production of needed Soyuz hardware. “We need to begin that [contract negotiating] process fairly soon,” a NASA spokesman said. The time when the Russian industrial base needs to begin preparing for further Soyuz flights in 2012 and beyond “is pretty soon.”
However, Congress is in its August recess, and won’t return until Sept. 8, when it immediately will have to face a full docket of unfinished business such as measures to fund the federal government in the upcoming fiscal 2009 that begins this Oct. 1. Also, this is an election year, when all House members and a third of senators must seek reelection if they wish to continue serving in Congress.
An issue here, which will be answered when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill, is how they will react to a request for purchasing expensive transport services from the Russians, given the bull-in-a-china-shop behavior orchestrated by Moscow in the former Soviet state of Georgia.
Clearly, Bush, Gates and Rice already have denounced Russia in stern terms.
Bush, for example, suggested Russia risks incurring punishment for its transgressions, without detailing just what that might entail.
“Russia’s actions in Georgia raise serious questions about its role and its intentions in the Europe of the 21st century,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “In recent years, Russia has sought to integrate into the diplomatic, political, economic, and security structures of the West. The United States has supported those efforts. Now Russia has put its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions.”
While Bush didn’t mention it, one way that the West has treated Russia as an advanced-nation modern partner is to expand the elite Group of Seven Nations meetings to include envoys from Moscow, making it the Group of Eight. Whether Russia will remain a member of the group may be seen when the group next meets in October, during the semi-annual International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings in Washington.
“To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe, and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must act to end this crisis,” Bush warned.
Earlier, he had insisted on a complete Russian withdrawal. “Moscow must honor its commitment to withdraw its invading forces from all Georgian territory,” President Bush said in a Rose Garden statement.
Gates said the Russian invasion of Georgia seems to be the work of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, now the Russian prime minister, rather than his successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev.
Appearing on “This Week” on ABC News, Gates said Putin seems to have “his hand on the steering wheel” in Moscow, rather than Medvedev.
Gates returned to the whole point of the United States wishing to create a European Missile Defense system, to guard against missiles fired from Iran, a nation rapidly producing nuclear materials.
It is not in Russia’s interests to have a nuclear-armed Iran, Gates observed.
While U.S. lawmakers who oversee NASA and its intention to negotiate a contract with Russia are on their August break, a hint of the American legislators’ response already can be seen.
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the House Armed Services Committee chairman, rebuked Russia for its assault.
On the one hand, Skelton welcomed Russian President Medvedev’s order to end Russia’s military operations.
But Skelton clearly was appalled that the attack began in the first place. And Skelton skeptically adopted a wait-and-see attitude, stressing that “this step must be followed by the withdrawal of Russian troops to the positions held before the conflict and by successful international mediation to restore peace to the region.”
However, some observers say Russia may not completely withdraw its forces from Georgia, leaving some of them in controversial areas such as Ossetia.
Skelton excoriated the “invasion of a small neighboring country closely allied with the United States,” saying that the attack “does not serve Russian interests and is not in line with Russia’s announced intentions.
“Such aggressive behavior only increases tension and raises suspicion about Russian goals, while also creating a humanitarian crisis in an already volatile region,” the Democratic congressional leader said. “The United States, working with our allies in Europe and in the region, must send a message to Russia that its actions against Georgia are unacceptable.”
While the Skelton committee doesn’t oversee NASA, other lawmakers who do are expected to hold similar views about the Russian actions.
Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte summoned Russian Charge d’Affaires Aleksander Darchiyev to say that “we deplore … Russian attacks by strategic bombers and missiles, which are threatening civilian lives. These attacks mark a dangerous and disproportionate escalation of tension, as they occur across Georgia in regions far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia.
“The United States calls for an end to these bombings, an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian ground combat forces from Georgia, and return by all parties to the [pre-Russian-invasion] status quo of Aug. 6.
“We underscore the international community’s support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.”
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, when they return, are expected to voice similar strong views.
Further, some members of Congress, in remarks earlier this year, already have objected to the plan to have the United States pay to hire Russia to provide Soyuz transport services, asking why that money couldn’t have been spent instead on U.S. space shuttle flights beyond the October 2010 retirement of the shuttle fleet, or for development of private U.S. commercial space transport capabilities.
The decision to retire the shuttle fleet in 2010 saves money that can be used to help finance development of the next-generation U.S. spaceship system, Orion-Ares, under the Constellation Program.
Some lawmakers say this was a bad decision, placing the United States — the nation that put men on the moon — in a position where it can’t put even one astronaut in low Earth orbit, a position where the United States is dependent upon and beholden to the Russians.
But what is clear is that the responsibility for this situation in no way can be attributed to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who has termed it “unseemly.” The decision was made long before Griffin took over the space agency.
Another issue in NASA contracting to use Soyuz vehicles is that they have a serious flaw, and no solution has yet been announced by experts in Moscow sleuthing the cause of the problem.
In two consecutive Soyuz missions, reentry and landing were marred by steep ballistic entries and rough landings that caused back injuries for at least two space travelers.
The ballistic entries have been accompanied by imperfect separation of a component on each Soyuz, so that shortcoming has been targeted by Russian researchers seeking to resolve the problem.
A recent spacewalk outside the space station involved removing a pyrotechnic bolt from a Soyuz that is docked to the station as a life raft for station crew members if an emergency should develop. The bolt, which explodes to effect separation, was brought back to Earth and provided to the researchers in Moscow, who have studied it in a search for flaws.