ASEAN-Russia: Foundations and Future Prospects

ASEAN-Russia Military Ties: Reconfiguring Relations

58 ASEAN-RUSSIA MILITARY TIES: RECONFIGURING RELATIONS Robert Karniol On a blustery morning in the summer of 1989, under an overcast sky, a Soviet warship off the port of Vladivostok fired a sophisticated anti-ship missile at a distant target. Unseen from the vessel’s deck, the exercise was being monitored by the U.S. Navy’s Knox-class frigate USS Harold E. Holt. There was some confusion following the launch, punctuated by discussion. A Soviet escort officer eventually turned to the group of assembled observers, which included a scattering of media, to state that a second missile would be fired. “The Japanese television crew missed the shot”, he explained in English, adding ruefully: “Those missiles each cost a quarter of a million dollars.” This event, a major exercise of the Soviet Pacific Fleet conducted on 11–12 July 1989, was deeply significant as the first official opportunity offered foreign observers to view Soviet naval manoeuvres in the Pacific. Coming three years after the seminal Vladivostok address by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which saw Moscow turn towards Asia and most notably foreshadowed a rapprochement with China, the exercise aimed to send the region a reassuring message. Soviet staff officers stressed to observers the defensive nature of the exercise, a radical reverse from the offensive stance previously emphasized. But much of the region remained suspicious, understandably confused by the monumental changes under way in the Soviet Union. Moscow invited fifteen Pacific Rim countries to send military observers, but just four complied: India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.1 It was ASEAN-Russia Military Ties: Reconfiguring Relations 59 nevertheless a start. “Regardless of how few (foreign military) observers are attending it is quite satisfactory to see the ice being broken”, the fleet commander, Admiral Gennady Khvatov, observed.2 THE REGIONAL CONTEXT “Let us turn our faces towards Asia”, the Soviet icon Vladimir Lenin exhorted his followers when the worker’s uprising in Europe failed to materialize. “The East will help us conquer the West.”3 Of course, Russia had extensive historical contacts with Asia — ranging from migratory movements to trade to imperialist expansion. The Soviet period was characterized by Great Game intrigue and Cold War confrontation , but Asian (and Western) competition with Moscow is today the stuff of a more normal national rivalry than the vision promulgated by Lenin. In the post-Soviet era of these past two decades, Moscow has seen relations with its Cold War friends and client states in Asia and elsewhere reconfigured. Its other dealings in the region now emphasize engagement and cooperation across the full spectrum of activity, with defence ties sometimes lagging. The Soviet Union’s collapse naturally unsettled Moscow’s partners in Asia. In military terms this mainly affected Mongolia, Vietnam and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). It was also felt in Cambodia and Laos, which enjoyed formal Soviet support while in Vietnam’s orbit from 1979. Ulaanbataar and Moscow had agreed in 1989 on the full withdrawal of Soviet forces — once up to 75,000 strong and oriented offensively against China — and this was completed by January 1993. A new agreement on military cooperation was concluded in early 1997 but Mongolia balanced this later that year by finalizing a similar accord with Beijing.4 Hanoi and Moscow signed a new umbrella agreement on defence cooperation in October 1998 but Russia nevertheless began withdrawing from the Cam Ranh Bay naval and air base, which included a massive signals intelligence facility, on 1 January 2002. This anticipated the lease arrangement ending in 2004 without renewal.5 Russia had by then already informed Pyongyang of its intention to abrogate Article 1 of their 1961 friendship treaty, which pledged Moscow to intervene militarily in case of renewed conflict on the Korean peninsula. Notice was served on 29 June 1995, with effect from September 1996.6 As for Cambodia, Soviet (and then Russian) influence waned in the early 1990s due to a combination of factors and has since been superseded 60 Robert Karniol by China.7 In Laos, military cooperation was suspended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and was renewed with a new military cooperation accord signed in July 1997.8 An end to Russian defence-related grants and subsidies was central to these revised agreements, with arms sales since conducted on a commercial basis. Strategically, the force pullouts from Mongolia and Vietnam were most significant although the shift in North Korea...