VZCZCXRO0513
PP RUEHPW
DE RUEHMO #0232/01 0330823
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 020823Z FEB 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1713
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 000232 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER MARR SNAR NATO AF RS
SUBJECT: WORKING WITH RUSSIA TO STABILIZE AFGHANISTAN 
 
REF: A. MOSCOW 220 
     ¶B. 08 USMISSION USNATO 357 
 
Classified By: Ambassador John Beyrle for for reasons 1.4 (b/d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:  The February 10 interagency consultations 
led by SCA DAS Moon should launch a sustained effort to 
engage Russia on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia that 
reduces the zero-sum nature of U.S.-Russian relations in the 
region and increases the chances of our success in 
Afghanistan.  We should test the Russian proposition that 
Afghanistan is a missed strategic opportunity in our 
relationship, while not underestimating the neuralgia in both 
Moscow and Kabul that will make this engagement complicated. 
We believe intensified consultations are necessary to rebuild 
Russian support for our military presence in Central Asia. 
Practical cooperation could produce an expanded transit 
agreement, delivery of long-promised assistance to the Afghan 
National Army, sustained Russian military airlift, 
infrastructure investment, and improved counternarcotics 
coordination.  Encouraging the SCO's engagement on 
Afghanistan and selectively participating in CSTO 
counternarcotics efforts could partially undercut Russian 
complaints over the "zero-sum" nature of our presence in the 
region.  Fundamental disconnects will continue to plague 
Moscow-Kabul relations, with Moscow continuing to curry favor 
with the Northern Alliance and talking a better game than it 
will fund.  However, building the habit of dialogue and 
consultation is an essential first step in reducing 
suspicions of U.S. motives.  Visits by S/E Holbrooke and 
General Petraeus would allow us to reinforce this message at 
senior political-military levels, and expand the dialogue to 
Pakistan, which remains a Russian preoccupation.  End Summary. 
 
Testing Russian Overtures 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) The upcoming February 10-11 bilateral consultations on 
Afghanistan in Moscow led by SCA DAS Moon should be the 
beginning of a sustained effort to expand consultations with 
Russia on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia that aims 
to reduce the zero-sum nature of our relations in Central 
Asia (ref A) and increase the possibility of success in 
Afghanistan.  Despite understandable neuralgia in Kabul over 
its former occupier, it is in our interest to engage Russia 
on Afghanistan, recognizing that Moscow has the power to 
complicate or even undermine OEF and ISAF efforts.  The good 
news is that Russia is seeking to use the February 
consultations to elevate cooperation on a number of fronts, 
including providing weapons to the Afghan National Army 
(ANA), intensifying counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics 
cooperation, and promoting economic development. 
 
¶3. (C) Now is the time to test Russian overtures on 
Afghanistan.  Russia has signaled that it views Afghanistan 
as a missed strategic opportunity between the U.S. and 
Russia.  Privately, President Medvedev has conveyed his 
readiness for cooperation on Afghanistan directly to the 
President, building on his January visit to Uzbekistan, where 
he expressed public support for the Obama Administration's 
intent to increase troop strength and redouble efforts to 
stabilize the country.  Ignoring the bait provided by Uzbek 
President Karimov's comments that Americans were becoming 
occupiers in a failed war, Medvedev stressed that Russia was 
ready for "full-fledged and equal" cooperation with the U.S. 
He specifically identified the NATO transit agreement as one 
element of cooperation and called for an international 
conference to coordinate aid to Kabul, with Moscow using its 
chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this 
year to host a March conference focused entirely on 
Afghanistan.  Likewise, FM Lavrov has stressed publicly that 
Afghanistan should figure more prominently on the bilateral 
agenda, with Russian PermRep to NATO Rogozin trumpeting the 
renewal of low-level NATO-Russia Council consultations as a 
first step towards a more intensified focus on Afghanistan. 
 
What Russia Can Offer 
--------------------- 
 
¶4. (C)  As the graveyard of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan 
looms large in the Russian political and popular 
consciousness, and the Russian leadership must overcome a 
fair measure of its own "Vietnam Syndrome" to think 
rationally about how best to prosecute its interests.  As 
much as average Russians would like to wash their hands of 
Afghanistan entirely, Russian policymakers understand that 
geographic proximity, historical commonality, and economic 
interdependence with Central Asia make the region a soft 
underbelly through which Afghanistan's narcotics, extremist 
ideology, and instability flows.  Even a hardliner like 
 
MOSCOW 00000232  002 OF 004 
 
 
Russia's NATO PermRep Rogozin recently described to a 
national radio audience the negative consequences for Russian 
security interests that would ensue from a NATO "defeat" in 
Afghanistan. 
 
¶5. (C) We believe that new efforts to engage Russia at a 
senior level on Afghanistan could help: 
 
-- Build Consensus on a U.S. Presence in Central Asia:  The 
more we work with Russia, the harder it is for Russian 
critics to portray the war in Afghanistan as a zero-sum 
effort to undermine Moscow, and the easier we make it for our 
Central Asian partners to justify and expand their 
cooperation, either bilaterally, through NATO, or in 
multilateral efforts, including the OSCE.  Russian support 
for a U.S. military presence in Central Asia post-9/11 is 
eroding, as suspicions grow that the U.S. seeks a permanent 
military presence aimed at encircling Russia and undermining 
its "privileged relations" with former Soviet republics. 
Policy ruptures over NATO enlargement, missile defense, and 
Georgia have made it easier for officials, particularly in 
the military and security apparatus, to question Russia's 
continued support for Manas airbase. 
 
-- Broaden the Transit Agreement:  The April 2008 NATO 
transit agreement for non-lethal equipment was a positive 
first step, but we should aim to expand it to cover lethal 
military equipment, including for OEF, which the Germans and 
French have negotiated on a bilateral basis.  Russian 
agreement to expand transit (and acquiescence in the transit 
of military equipment through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) will 
help off-set the unreliability of supplying Afghanistan via 
Pakistan and could potentially reduce shipping costs from 
Europe by 90 percent (ref b). 
 
-- Increase Afghan Military Assistance:  The GOR has proposed 
providing military assistance to the ANA in the form of $200 
million worth of weapons, vehicles and other reportedly 
quality material that the Soviet-equipped ANA would find 
useful.  The U.S. has taken the GOR up on this offer and 
provided a list of specific Russian weapons and equipment 
needed by the ANA.  Delivery has been complicated by mutual 
misunderstandings in Moscow, Washington, and Kabul, which we 
hope will be cleared up during the February consultations in 
Moscow.  While the GOR will donate most of the $200 million 
worth of material to the ANA, it is also interested in the 
possibility of weapons sales.  Our willingness to selectively 
waive sanctions on military sales (as we already do for 
MI-17's in Iraq and Afghanistan), which could be triggered by 
U.S.-origin assistance monies funding Afghan defense 
purchases, would send a strong signal of the priority we 
attach to building regional support for Afghanistan's 
security and give us greater leverage in pushing Russia to 
issue licenses for the deployment of Warsaw Pact equipment 
from new Allies. 
 
-- Sustain Russian Military Air Lift:  Ukrainian and 
Russian-owned aircraft continue to provide airlift for ISAF 
contributors, and Russia did not pull these contracts in 
retaliation for sanctions reimposed on Rosoboronexport in 
December 2008.  While air lift and commercially provided 
Russian fuel supplies take place largely under the radar, 
they are essential to ISAF efforts and should remain a 
foundation stone of our cooperation. 
 
-- Encourage Infrastructure Rehabilitation:  The GOR has 
offered to lend Russian expertise to the rehabilitation of 
Soviet-era infrastructure, including dams, electric 
generating and irrigation systems, and the Salang Tunnel. 
Russian firms with experience gained during the construction 
of these facilities would carry out the work, although the 
GOR has not offered to provide funding.  USAID has developed 
a list of projects in which Russian assistance would be most 
useful. 
 
-- Improve Counter-narcotics Cooperation:  Russia is 
especially vulnerable to the damage done by narcotics 
originating in Afghanistan, and the GOR claims to be eager to 
work with countries in the region to address trafficking. 
INL and DEA are skeptical of Russian ability in this area, 
and question the effectiveness of the CSTO's 
counter-narcotics program, Operation Channel.  We can push 
Russia to sign on to the UNODC's Central Asia Regional 
Coordination Center project, as well as respond to numerous 
leads provided by DEA.  Disagreements have restricted 
counter-narcotics cooperation, with Russia pushing the CSTO 
to take the lead at the same that Moscow's long-standing 
ambivalence towards OSCE involvement in the region has led it 
to oppose the organization conducting training for Afghan and 
Central Asian officials in Afghanistan.  The GOR is keen to 
 
MOSCOW 00000232  003 OF 004 
 
 
use its Domodedovo training facility in Moscow, and will look 
to us to persuade the Afghans to make full use of this 
resource.  The February consultations and additional meetings 
need to focus on making our counter-narcotics cooperation 
with Russia and the Central Asian states more effective, 
including finding the means to enhance the abilities of 
regional law enforcement agencies. 
 
What Stumblingblocks Loom 
------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Russia is never an easy partner and while our 
interests in Afghanistan overlap, they do not wholly 
coincide.  We can anticipate continued policy friction, 
including over: 
 
-- Collective Security Treaty Organization:  Moscow will 
press for the U.S. and NATO to work with the CSTO on Central 
Asian security and regional counter-narcotics efforts, and it 
is unclear whether engagement with the (non-Russian 
dominated) Shanghai Cooperation Organization will give Russia 
the legitimacy it seeks for "made-in-the-Kremlin" regional 
organizations.  Russia interprets our preference for 
coordinating within NATO and OSCE structures as evidence of a 
zero-sum game, in which Euro-Atlantic institutions prevail 
over regional organizations.  Engaging with the SCO and 
selectively participating in CSTO-sponsored counternarcotics 
programs, for instance, may provide sufficient diplomatic 
cover for Russia to remove its objections to stalled OSCE 
initiatives on border security.  While the CSTO did not 
endorse Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, 
it provided more robust support for Russia's invasion of 
Georgia than the China-tempered SCO.  We believe it is 
difficult, but not impossible, to thread the needle of 
distancing CSTO as a military counterpart, while seeking ways 
to improve its regional counter-narcotics projects. 
 
-- Ethnic politics:  The GOR has maintained lines of 
communication with Russia's traditional allies, the Northern 
Alliance, intending it to serve as a buffer between the 
Taliban and Central Asia should Afghanistan once again fall 
to the extremists.  While the MFA affirms the importance of a 
strong Kabul, and bemoans Karzai's weakness as a leader for 
all Afghans, the temptation will remain to play ethnic 
politics.  This certainly influences Russia's approach to 
delisting Taliban under UNSCR 1267, with Russia suspicious of 
the criteria being used and the absence of a permanent ban on 
the return of former extremists to political power. 
 
-- Russian/Afghan/U.S. Disconnects:  No reliable channel of 
communication appears to exist between Russia and Kabul, with 
Russia expecting a level of diplomatic solicitude that is 
unrealistic from a nation that remembers its one million war 
dead.  Well-intentioned initiatives go unimplemented by 
Moscow and Kabul, with Russia blaming the U.S. for sowing 
mistrust of Russian intentions within the Karzai government 
and advocating against the use of Russian arms.  The MFA has 
also accused "foreign advisors" in Kabul of convincing the 
Karzai government not to send officials to Moscow for planned 
counter-narcotics training at the GOR's Domodedovo training 
facility.  In both instances, despite U.S. protestations to 
the contrary, evidence emerged to support Russian claims. 
Concentrated effort will be required to overcome such 
missteps, to convince the GOR that we are serious about 
regional cooperation, and to broker effective communication 
between Moscow and Kabul. 
 
-- Outsized Ambitions: Russia talks a better game than it has 
been willing to fund.  The economic crisis will continue to 
hit Russia hard, with the leadership focused on maintaining 
political stability in an authoritarian system that has been 
predicated on constantly rising living standards. With South 
Ossetia and Abkhazia two new sinkholes for Russian spending, 
and with the Kremlin committed to working with the Central 
Asian states to alleviate the financial crisis, we can expect 
little in the way of ramped up assistance for Afghanistan. 
 
Next Steps 
---------- 
 
¶7. (C) We look forward to hosting DAS Moon and his 
interagency delegation, to better assess how can we break 
down artificial barriers to cooperation on Afghanistan, while 
better managing the tensions that accompany the U.S. military 
presence in the region.  Instilling the habits of 
consultation and dialogue is a first step towards chipping 
away at the zero-sum calculus that has corroded Russian 
support for our efforts to defeat the Taliban and secure 
Afghanistan.  Assuming a serious reception and constructive 
dialogue on February 10, we endorse U.S. attendance at the 
 
MOSCOW 00000232  004 OF 004 
 
 
March SCO conference.  Visits to Moscow by General Petraeus 
and Special Envoy Holbrooke will allow us to reinforce our 
message at senior political-military levels and broaden the 
discussion to Pakistan, which continues to preoccupy Russian 
policymakers worried about instability in the nuclear-armed 
state. 
BEYRLE