Strongman (7 page)

The Americans soon decided on their response to the attacks, which had been sponsored by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organisation operating out of Afghanistan with the support of the
fundamentalist Taliban government there. When Putin asked what else he could do to help, the answer was clear: the only suitable places to launch an assault on Afghanistan, apart from US aircraft
carriers in the region, were in former Soviet republics of Central Asia. And those republics – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan – while nominally independent, were states where Moscow
had great influence.

Putin’s instinct was to ask the Central Asians to cooperate, and indicated this to the Americans. But then he ran up against unexpected opposition within his own government. The hardline
Sergei Ivanov, now defence minister, was one of Putin’s closest allies – like him, a former KGB spy, but more urbane and better versed in Western ways. He was also Condoleezza
Rice’s main channel of communication in Moscow. When she came to office as Bush’s national security adviser, Ivanov was her opposite number, and, even though he had become defence
minister in March 2001, Rice liked him and (despite diplomatic protocol, which should have linked her with the new Russian national security adviser, Vladimir Rushailo) she retained the link. At
the Ljubljana summit, according to Rice, Bush asked Putin, ‘Who should we call if we can’t get you and we need a trusted agent?’ Putin said, ‘That would be Sergei
Ivanov.’ And Bush said, ‘That would be Condi.’

Just three days after the terrorist attacks, Ivanov, the ‘trusted agent’, suddenly went way off message with regard to Russia’s willingness to help. ‘I see absolutely no
basis,’ he said while on a visit to Armenia, ‘for even the hypothetical possibility of NATO military operations on the territory of the Central Asian states.’

The Americans were confused by the conflicting signals. Suddenly the presidents of the Central Asian states, not counted among the world’s greatest democrats, became everybody’s
favourites. Putin sent his national security adviser, Vladimir Rushailo, to sound them out. Bush sent his under-secretary of state, John Bolton, to the Uzbek capital Tashkent to win over President
Islam Karimov, a man accused of some of the world’s most heinous human rights violations. The Americans were in no mood to quibble about such things now. Rice recalled later: ‘With
Uzbekistan it just became a problem of what would be the price. Karimov needed money and he knew he had us over a barrel.’ And indeed, Bolton apparently found him bending over backwards to
oblige: ‘I [was] all prepared for how hard it will be and he said, “Why aren’t you asking for a permanent base?” ’
¹⁴

That was precisely what the Russians, and not just Sergei Ivanov, were worried about: the prospect of an American ‘presence’ – limited access to Central Asian bases for the
purposes of their campaign in Afghanistan – turning into something more permanent, something more political.

Ivanov recalls: ‘We were concerned that once the Americans had a presence in the region, then “democracy promotion” would start. We know those countries very well – they
were part of the same country [the Soviet Union] – and as we say in Russia, “the orient is a very intricate place”. We were afraid that political processes that were
not very
advantageous to us
could start. And that proved to be true later. The leaders of those countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan – started complaining to us, because they had
given the Americans everything they needed, but then they started working with opposition groups, building democracy.’
¹⁵

This was one of the earliest indications that under Putin Russia considered the prospect of democracy on its borders threatening.

On Saturday 22 September Putin called his defence and security chiefs together for six hours of crisis talks at his dacha, hidden in the woods on a cliff-top overlooking the Black Sea at Sochi.
Putin argued that it was not only in Russia’s interest to help America, but also in Russia’s self-interest. For one thing, Moscow had long been disturbed by the rise of Islamic forces
in the Central Asian republics, fomented in part from Afghanistan. Russia itself could never again put military boots on the ground in Afghanistan after its catastrophic war there in the 1980s, but
if the Americans were going to do it for them why should Russia oppose? Sergei Ivanov recalls: ‘We were counting on getting help in return. We knew where the training camps were in
Afghanistan. I mean, we knew the exact map coordinates. Those camps trained terrorists – including those from Chechnya and Dagestan, as well as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ... We were counting
on the Americans to liquidate those camps. Or they would capture the terrorists and send them to us.’

Secondly, Putin linked the 9/11 attacks to the same worldwide terrorist threat that he faced in Chechnya. Supporting the Americans could only help garner support for (or at least mute criticism
of) his own campaign against terrorism. The Russian leader had already spoken to the Americans about the links between al-Qaeda and the Chechen Islamists – indeed he claimed that Osama bin
Laden himself had twice been to Chechnya. Now the Russians had a chance to help the Americans wipe out some of the sources of trouble within Russia itself. ‘We all have to understand,’
Putin told his team, ‘that the situation in the world has changed.’

The hardliners were won over. ‘Even the doubters agreed,’ Putin said in an interview. ‘New circumstances meant we had to help the Americans.’

After four hours, Putin left the meeting to call the American president and inform him of their decision. ‘It was a substantive conversation,’ Putin recalls. ‘We agreed on
concrete steps to be taken straight away, and in the long term.’ He offered Russian logistical help, intelligence, search-and-rescue missions if American pilots were downed in northern
Afghanistan, and even the right to military flights over Russian territory for humanitarian purposes. Most importantly, he told Bush: ‘I am prepared to tell the heads of government of the
Central Asian states that we have good relations with that we have no objections to a US role in Central Asia as long as it has the object of fighting the war on terror
and is temporary and is
not permanent
.’
¹⁶
The last words were crucial. Ten years later (despite a Russian attempt to have them evicted in 2009), American forces still
operate out of the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.
¹⁷
They were asked to leave their base in Uzbekistan in 2005.

The American campaign was mainly going to involve air strikes, while the Afghans themselves (the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance) would be doing the fighting on the ground. Rice says that she and
Sergei Ivanov were given responsibility for getting supplies to the Northern Alliance and preparing them to fight. Even as Putin was calling Bush from Sochi, Russia’s chief of staff, General
Anatoly Kvashnin, was holding talks with a Northern Alliance leader in Tajikistan.

Russia, it seemed, was now totally aligned with the US in the war on terror. Sergei Ivanov claims that some days after the war began, Russian border guards on the Tajik frontier with Afghanistan
were approached by representatives of the Taliban. ‘They said they had authority from Mullah Omar to propose that Russia and the Taliban join forces fighting the Americans.’ Putin
referred to the same incident when the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, visited Moscow. ‘We gave them only one answer,’ said Putin in English, showing a crude Russian
hand-gesture, a fist with the thumb pushed between the forefinger and middle finger. ‘We do it a little differently, but I get the point,’ laughed Rumsfeld.
¹⁸

The American assault began on 7 October. It was Putin’s birthday. Together with the guests at his party, he watched the news of the first air strikes on television. Defence minister Sergei
Ivanov turned to him and raised a glass of vodka: ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, it’s a birthday present for you.’

The George ’n’ Vladimir show

It seemed that Putin had now answered that journalist’s question in Ljubljana: was this a man Americans could trust? Delighted to be seen to be acting in concert with the
West rather than against it, Putin now kept up the charm offensive, travelling first to Germany, where he impressed his hosts by making a speech to the Bundestag entirely in German.

He emphasised his country’s cooperation in the war on terror, and contrasted this with the slap in the face Russia had felt over the bombing of Serbia – an event now more than two
years old but still rankling. ‘Decisions are often taken without our participation, and we are only urged afterwards to support them. After that they talk again about loyalty to NATO. They
even say that such decisions cannot be implemented without Russia. Let us ask ourselves: is this normal? Is this true partnership?’

‘We cannot have a united Great Europe without an atmosphere of trust,’ he said, laying out a grand vision to put an end finally to the Cold War. ‘Today we are obliged to say
that we are renouncing our stereotypes and ambitions and from now on will jointly ensure the security of the population of Europe and the world as a whole.’

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder fully supported Putin’s idea of involving Russia in ‘jointly’ ensuring Europe’s security. Even before this visit they had begun to think
the unthinkable: that Russia might even become a member of NATO. Schröder recalled later in an interview that they had discussed what he called a ‘fairly visionary’ approach to
foreign policy: ‘I had discussions with Putin about whether it would make sense for Russia to join NATO – and I thought that it made perfect sense, a good prospect for Russia and also
for NATO.’
¹⁹

A week later Putin was in Brussels for a meeting with NATO secretary general George Robertson, ready to push his luck. Robertson was taken aback when Putin opened the meeting by asking,
‘When are you going to invite Russia to join NATO?’
²⁰

Putin’s adviser Sergei Prikhodko insists it was just a ‘figure of speech’, but Robertson took it seriously.
²¹
He patiently explained
that this wasn’t how things were done. He recalled: ‘I said, “Well, Mr President, we don’t invite people to join NATO. You apply for membership. You then have to go through
a process to show that you can be integrated within NATO, and then an invitation to membership is issued.” So he sort of shrugged and said something to the effect of “Russia is not
going to stand in a queue with a lot of countries that don’t matter.” So I said, “Well in that case can we stop this diplomatic sword dance about membership and actually get down
to building a practical relationship and let’s see where that takes us?” ’
²²

Undeterred, Putin continued to woo the West with conciliatory gestures. On his return from Brussels to Moscow he approved the closure of two Soviet-era military facilities abroad – a naval
base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam and a listening post at Lourdes in Cuba. In private, Russian officials admit that these had become expensive white elephants that they were glad to get rid of. But
still they hoped they would be seen as goodwill signals that deserved to be reciprocated. Moscow was looking for accommodation on a number of longstanding concerns. An American Soviet-era law,
known as the Jackson–Vanik amendment, was introduced in 1974 to restrict trade with the USSR until it lifted restrictions on Jewish emigration. The problem had long since vanished, but
Jackson–Vanik was still on the statute books, despite Russian pleading (and American promises to repeal it). Russia also wanted to join the World Trade Organisation to facilitate the growth
of its economy, but the US blocked its application and increased tariffs on Russian steel imports. Above all, Putin was still hoping that his good behaviour might earn a reprieve for the ABM treaty
and even persuade the Americans not to go ahead with a missile shield.

Such hopes were soon to be dashed. George W. Bush had campaigned for the presidency on a promise to build an American national missile defence system, and the ABM treaty stood in his way.

The issue was top of the agenda when Putin made a state visit to the USA in November 2001. The Americans tried to convince the Russians that they had nothing to fear from a missile shield, since
its aim was to protect the United States from missiles that might be developed in the future by ‘rogue states’ such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea (countries he would soon refer to as
the ‘axis of evil’). As such the defence system would not destabilise the US–Russian strategic balance. Colin Powell recalls: ‘The president wanted to convey to President
Putin that he, Bush, understood that the Cold War was over and that we had to avoid looking at the Russian Federation through the lens of the Cold War.’
²³

According to deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Bush said, ‘My preference would be that we both agree to leave the ABM treaty and we announce cooperation on ballistic missile
defence. If it’s better for you, Vladimir, for me just to go unilaterally, so that you’re not part of it – and maybe even criticise it a bit – that’s
okay.’
²⁴

It was the Americans’ turn now to try to seduce Putin with some good mood music. He was invited to the Bush family ranch at Crawford, Texas. Putin felt rarely privileged. He explained that
he had never been to the home of another world leader. The atmosphere was cosy. While a thunderstorm raged outside, a log fire burned inside. Van Cliburn – a hero in the Soviet Union, where
he won the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition back in 1958 – played for the guests. Condoleezza Rice danced and Putin’s foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, chatted in Spanish with President Bush.
He recalls: ‘I speak Spanish because I used to work in Spain, and when Bush found this out he always used to chat to me in Spanish. He called me “Iggy”. “Hey, Iggy,”
he would say, “Como estas?” ’
²⁵

But nothing could remove the log-jam over the ABM treaty – and Putin certainly did not intend to provide a fig-leaf by agreeing to abandon it jointly with the Americans. The most that
could be agreed was that Bush would not embarrass Putin by announcing the withdrawal while he was still in the States.