Olympics

NATO and Russia developing joint counterterrorism system

Jorge Benitez — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:57:45 -0600

From RIA Novosti: Kommersant has learned that Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are in the final phase of a classified joint project called Standex, to help identify even low-yield bombs carried by suicide bombers.

The first tests will be carried out on the Paris metro. Serial production of the device is scheduled to start ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics. Moscow has called it an unprecedented success: the first time that NATO and Russia have produced an integrated intelligent anti-terror system.

The tests are scheduled for spring. The specifications of the system, which is even able to detect small quantities of explosives on a suicide bomber, from 200 grams in TNT equivalent, will not be disclosed. The project has successfully passed the research and development stage. Jamie Shea, who leads NATO’s Emerging Security Challenges Division and is Director of Policy Planning in the Private Office of the Secretary General, launched it during the Russia-NATO Council ambassadorial meeting on March 2. ...

It was not accidental that Paris was chosen as the test location: France is one of the five Russia-NATO Council countries involved in running and subsidizing the project. The others are Russia, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. ...

Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Kommersant that the project was conceived several years ago on the Russia-NATO Council’s suggestion. “Standex has grown to become the Council’s key project and benefited from everybody’s unreserved support. At the same time, it was classified, with experts deciding to keep the technology involved confidential,” Russia’s permanent representative to NATO told Kommersant. (graphic: the Economist)

An Olympic Opportunity

Kurt Volker — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:29:18 -0500

With summer arriving, it might seem early to be thinking through the politics of the 2014 Winter Olympics. But the next Winter Games are to be held in Sochi, Russia, just a few miles from Abkhazia, a territory Russia broke off from Georgia by military force in 2008. Simply put, this will be tricky. Preparations need to begin as soon as possible.

Few are suggesting that the United States and Europe boycott the Sochi Games, a la Moscow in 1980. But attending the 2014 Olympics under today's circumstances would make all of us complicit in cementing in practice Russia's changing European borders by force, even if we reject those changes in principle.

Imagine the practicalities. Abkhazia is a part of sovereign Georgian territory according to every country in the world except Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Nauru. Already, Olympic construction workers are being housed in Abkhazia. By 2014, we could see housing for tourists, regular border crossings between Russia and Abkhazia without a hint of Georgian sovereignty, high-visibility symbols of Abkhaz "statehood" such as flags and travel documents, and the presence of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian "presidents" at Olympic ceremonies -- alongside U.S. and European leaders.

To avoid the unpalatable choices of boycott or complicity, the United States and Europe should get to work on a third possibility: that the Sochi Olympics could become a catalyst for resolving long-standing conflicts, bringing the Caucasus region into the 21st century. Russia's interest in a successful Olympics -- an interest that we share -- should be a powerful incentive for consigning to history Moscow's zero-sum, divide-and-rule approach to the Caucasus. This would surely be the best outcome for the states and peoples in the region, for Moscow, for the athletes and for the Olympics.

To get there, four steps come to mind:

First, we need to be clear that in today's Europe, the change of borders by force will not be recognized. Diplomacy should begin now so that at this autumn's NATO and U.S.-E.U. summit meetings, we can agree on a formal non-recognition policy pertaining to Abkhazia and Georgia's other breakaway province, South Ossetia.

Although details can be fine-tuned, such a policy could encompass: non-recognition of statehood; non-acceptance of travel documents issued by the two territories; no official travel to these areas unless the access is from Georgian territory; no investment in, or trade with, business entities based in these territories; and no U.S. or E.U. visas for officials of the breakaway governments, unless it is on terms the United States and Europe decide upon. But it should be equally clear that the West is prepared to lift these policies quickly should there be agreement with Georgia on internationally supervised autonomy.

Second, in parallel with a non-recognition policy, the United States and Europe should give a renewed push to the Geneva process of negotiations over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. First launched after the E.U.-brokered cease-fire in 2008, the talks are foundering. The United States hit the reset button in early 2009; it is time for Russia to reset as well.

Third, efforts should be reenergized to resolve the region's other major conflict: the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, which is disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is an issue on which Russia, the United States and Europe have been working together well for years, and the outlines of a possible settlement have long been on the table. An Azeri-Armenian settlement could spur travel, trade, investment and economic prosperity in the region. A ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Minsk group, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, should be convened to renew pressure toward a settlement.

Fourth, the OSCE, the European Union and the United States should put far greater resources into strengthening democratic institutions, supporting nongovernmental organizations, monitoring conflict zones, fighting corruption and building trade and investment throughout the Caucasus. The next elections in Georgia -- where democratic institutions are strongest, though still fragile -- should be heavily monitored to make them as clean as possible. We should step up calls for genuine democratic processes in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Washington should increase Freedom Support Act funding and team up with the E.U. Eastern Partnership initiative. Healthy political and economic development will increase incentives for resolving conflicts and serve as a magnet for breakaway territories to seek closer integration.

If the United States and Europe do nothing, we will surely face an untenable situation in 2014. But by acting now, we can stake out a position based on democratic values and increase the prospects for reaching long-term solutions well before the Sochi Games.

Kurt Volker, a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council, is a former US ambassador to NATO and current managing director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. This piece first appeared in the Washington Post. Photo credit: AP Photo.

China’s Post-Olympic Image

Joseph Snyder — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:00:00 -0500

The recently completed Summer Olympics extravaganza in Beijing was a monumental and spectacular undertaking that is unlikely to be repeated for a long time to come. Certainly the British, with the self-deprecatory preview during the closing ceremony, were sending a signal that they plan to stage the 2012 London Games on a more modest scale.

It is clear that the Chinese government was aiming at creating a certain image for the country with the scale of the Beijing games, particularly with the opening ceremony, but also with the meticulous attention to every detail of the two-week experience. It is thus useful to look at the image that actually came across to the rest of the world, especially the image conveyed in the West through the extensive television coverage.

There is no question that the Chinese were able to convince the world that they have an effective government. Tens of thousands of people were mobilized toward a single goal. All aspects of the games were carefully planned and skillfully executed. The organizers wanted nothing left to chance, and there were no apparent missteps anywhere during the entire two weeks. To the outside world, the authorities in charge of the Olympics belonged to a government that can get things done. The contrast with the Athens games four years earlier, when it looked like many Olympic venues would not be finished on time, was striking.

The motto of the Beijing Olympics, “One World, One Dream,” was designed to present a benevolent face to the rest of the world. The various themes of both the opening and closing ceremonies were built around an image of openness and good spirit. China’s ancient culture was displayed front and center, and only the most benign aspects of that culture -- art, music, literature -- were emphasized. The invention of paper and movable type was featured; the invention of gunpowder was not. Costumes depicted the many ethnic groups in China and children from around the world were recruited to sing heart-warming songs.

If the carefully managed television coverage of the Olympic Games themselves was the only lens through which the world watched China in the middle of August this year, Beijing did a fantastic job of promoting the image they desired. China is a country that has developed rapidly, and its achievements are admirable. It is large, efficient, kind-hearted and increasingly wealthy. It won more gold medals than any other country. Its people are intensely proud of their country. In this sense, the Olympics this year were the great success that China hoped for.

However, despite the efforts at image control, the picture that emerged even to the casual outside observer was not entirely what the Chinese authorities planned. First, the international torch relay, with its pro-Tibet demonstrations and the sometimes heavy-handed suppression of those demonstrations, especially by the Chinese “guardians” of the torch, gave an initial hint that something wasn’t entirely right about the Olympics this year. Promises that all journalists, both international and domestic, would be free of the normal restrictions on the press in China were not kept, and not keeping promises to journalists is not good image management. One of the most conspicuous efforts to promote the idea that China is a more open society than in the past, the promise of permits for demonstrations at specific locations, blew up in the authorities’ faces when it turned out that not a single permit was issued and that some who applied, including two 70-year old ladies, were arrested for their troubles.

Even some of the very success of the Chinese Olympic effort proved counterproductive. The mass mobilization of tens of thousands throughout the games, including thousands of performers at the opening and closing ceremonies, gave pause to spectators who wondered about the incentives (and disincentives) required to produce that kind of discipline. Even small things that emerged during the course of the games, largely because of the tenacity of the foreign press in the fact of so much managed news, marred the image of perfection. A lip-synching young girl displacing a less attractive singer, apparently under-aged gymnasts, and silver and bronze medalists who were devastated by not coming in first all conjured up thoughts of a regime that would stop at nothing to achieve its goals.

So, on balance, where did China come out in its efforts to present its best face to the world?

No one questions the competence of Chinese authorities or their ability to mobilize the country’s greatest asset, its 1.3 billion people. The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube will remain as enduring impressions of functional beauty. China’s medal tally reflects a country that has arrived on the world stage. A country rule by a Communist Party had clearly conjured images not traditionally associated with Communism.

And yet . . . .

Nagging questions remain. What kind of persuasion did it take to make so many people march together in one single-minded direction? What will this single-mindedness mean when China has the world’s largest economy, as it clearly will in the next 25 years? How genuine is the benign image that China worked so hard to project? These may be no more than nagging questions and raising them may be small-minded in the face of China’s real accomplishments in staging the 2008 Olympics.

And yet . . . .

Joseph Snyder is director of the Atlantic Council Asia Program.