MH17: A collateral victim of shadow war
Ideally, the American strategic establishment should have converted Ukraine into a neutral buffer state initially after having enforced a regime change by ousting incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych through a people’s revolt.
A bitter blame game, reminiscent of the cold war era, has already erupted among the Western powers, Ukrainian government, pro-Russian separatist forces of eastern Ukraine and the Russian leadership.
While a horde of Western leaders lost no time in laying the blame at the feet of the indomitable Russian President Vladimir Putin for the loss of 298 innocent lives, the big question is what Moscow or for that matter the rebels in eastern Ukraine would gain by shooting down a passenger liner full of civilians?
After all, such a disastrous misadventure can leave the most vocal of Russia’s supporters disillusioned and disenchanted apart from the further strengthening of the existing sanctions regime enforced by the West.
Wisdom suggests Putin would never ever want the Russian sponsored proxy-war in eastern Ukraine to spill over into his own country. At the end of the day, the ongoing “Maskirovka,” a deceptive shadow war, is all about keeping the chaos alive in Ukraine, but with much restraint, so as to destabilize the central government in Kiev and yet maintain plausible deniability.
Undoubtedly, Putin’s spy instinct would prevent him from embarking on any misadventure that might come in the way of beleaguering Ukraine. Moreover, being a former practitioner of the trade of espionage himself, Putin knows it very well that not every covert operation is completely foolproof. Unlike policymakers – without espionage background – who are often seduced by the cost effectiveness, deniability and success rate of strategic clandestine missions, Putin is very unlikely to be swayed easily.
He does understand that these sneaky campaigns can not only fail but also produce some unexpectedly worst consequences that may overshadow the original objective or the intended outcome. But is the downing of MH17 just an outcome of a mission gone awry or has the local proxies through which the politico-military campaign was being fought changed loyalty surreptitiously?
Whatever the reasons, it is surely not a very sane idea to hand over surface-to-air missiles to undisciplined and undertrained rebels just because a nation has rejected a pro-Russian leader and opted to embrace a “free-market” Europe instead. To be fair to Putin, the Americans and some of its European allies are also guilty of committing the same mistakes in other parts of the globe. In the peak of the cold war, Afghan militants used with devastating effect US supplied anti-aircraft missiles to destroy at least three passenger aircrafts. In fact, there have been no less than 20 such instances of civilian aircrafts falling prey to overzealous rebel fighters since World War II.
But then similar mistakes – of equipping non-state actors with lethal man-portable air-defense systems and missile-launching platforms – on the part of Washington does not necessarily absolve Putin. He will go down in history as the guilty man who ruined his immediate neighbor, thus inviting chaos at his own country’s border.
Engrossed in a competitive shadow war with the Americans, Putin somehow failed to realize that whatever the consequences of the tactical non-linear warfare that he has employed in Ukraine, the sufferings of the eastern Ukrainians will continue deep into the future. The adverse side-effects of this nasty conflict like societal disharmony, political instability, economic doldrums and worst still, proliferation of leftover weapons in a post-war scenario will not only affect the Ukrainian society but also have an adverse impact on Russia permanently.
Unfortunately, the Russian president like his formidable Western counterparts has been playing with wildfire for far too long and ended up burning his fingers due to a combination of bad luck and a brilliant countermove executed by his powerful opponents.
Meanwhile, as both the Ukrainian government and the rebels have denied involvement in the MH17 tragedy in the midst of a never ending blame game, it is very unlikely that the families of the victims will ever get justice or closure.
Why the ill-fated aircraft was guided-off its usual flight course into the dangerous conflict zone airspace and made to fly at a lower altitude will always remain a mystery.
But one thing is for certain. Even if impartial international investigators are able to pinpoint the guilty, legal loopholes and impediments will ensure a quite burial of the case.
Most importantly, the basic cause of such incidents, namely the arming of proxy fighters to the teeth in covert warfare, would not cease anytime soon. Instead, Washington and its allies will find it expedient to use the MH17 tragedy as a rallying point for cornering Putin in Europe. Since, Putin very much fits into the general American perception of a devious Russian autocrat unleashing cruelty on free-willing people, opposing an aggressive Russia would automatically become the holy task of a democratic West.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has condoled MH17 crash deaths while Parliament paid homage to the departed souls. But can Modi convince the world about the urgency of signing an international treaty for prohibiting transfer of sophisticated armory to non-state actors under deliberately tenuous supervision, to make the skies safe?
—
Seema Sengupta is a Calcutta based journalist and columnist
Email: [email protected]
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view
