201 - Halting the Enablers of Putin's Invasion

            When North Korea’s Kim Jong-un comes to the aid of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and Putin smilingly gives him guided tours of military installations and aerodromes in Russia’s far east, we must see the reemergence of President Reagan’s Axis of Evil, now configured as the Axis of those dangerous potentates faced with U. S. and European sanctions. And corporate colluders in Finland and Turkey, both NATO members; Georgia (once a democracy hoping to enter the European Union); and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an American ally, are finally being singled out as key members of the new Axis of Enablers.  Russia’s war effort would be very much more constrained, and the war shortened, without their dangerous and pernicious double dealings. But can we alter the games that the enablers are playing?

            North Korea has munitions that Russia requires, as Russia’s supply of 152mm shells runs short and its factories cannot keep up with the incessant demand from punishing battlefields across eastern and southern Ukraine.  In return, Russia can assist North Korea’s missile-building ambitions and also supply food to its always hungry citizens. Any purchases of military supplies from North Korea would violate UN sanctions against the renegade dictatorship. Likewise, assisting Kim with his martial preparations would fall foul of UN restrictions, as well as linking Russia to the globe’s most reviled outlier state.

            But as important as that newly forged alliance is and will be to the realization of Putin’s imperialist follies, clandestine assistance from enablers like the UAE and Georgia, plus Turkey, may be much more important and critical to prolonging the war in Ukraine. Those three countries, and Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and possibly Kyrgyzstan, since last year have been smuggling specialized but essential electronic components, measuring tools, and mechanical devices and parts to Russia’s manufacturers of deadly missiles, drones, and fighter aircraft. Chemicals with many war uses have also been conveyed along secret routes to Moscow. American semi-conductors and sensors, among other items, have found their way via these routes into Russian missiles and surveillance equipment.  Fully-fitted drones have traveled the same paths. When the war started and Washington, London, and Brussels sliced supply lines into Russia, Putin immediately began a workaround – with the keen assistance of supposed Western allies like the rulers of the UAE and our NATO compatriots in Turkey.

Even Finland has harbored a network that has specialized in slipping foreign electronics into Russia. The Treasury last week slapped sanctions on two logistics firms, accusing them of sending a wide variety of electronic equipment across the border to Ukraine’s enemy. Since Finland’s government is hostile to Russia, stopping those evasions should be much easier than coping with Turkey and the UAE’s unblinking falsifications.

Nearby, the Estonian prime minister is under local pressure to resign because her husband partly-owns a logistics company still in business with Russia. Estonia’s president has called the arrangements shameful especially since Estonians are solidly anti-Putin.

            Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been playing a double game from the beginning, smiling and chatting with Putin, sometimes in order to broker a cessation of the Black Sea blockade against Ukraine, sometimes trying to modify Putin’s conquest goals, but simultaneously purchasing concession-priced petroleum and natural gas from Putin. He also harbors kleptocratic oligarchs, some of whom moor their lengthy yachts in Turkish marinas. Most of all, Turkey (like the UAE) sponsors the quiet transfer of semi-conductors and other precious commodities to Moscow via Georgia and Azerbaijan. Without Turkey and the UAE (much more than North Korea) Putin’s vicious conquests would be stalled.

            Last week, Washington imposed severe sanctions on five Turkish firms and Turkish nationals who have been conduits for this illicit trade.  It also accused Turkey of repairing ships connected to Russia’s ministry of defense. More than 150 entities across the countries listed above, plus some in Russia itself, are now on the official “no trade” list policed by the U.S. State and Treasury departments.

According to the head of the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination, “Russia is trying to run a full production wartime economy, and it is extremely difficult to do that with secretive episodic purchases of small batches of equipment from different places around the world. The purpose of [our] action is to restrict Russia’s defense production capacity and to reduce the liquidity [costs] it has to pay for its war.”

Sanctions on Russia in general have helped since last year to limit its domestic manufacturing capability, to create shortages of consumer goods, and to reduce the value of the ruble while helping to fuel rises in inflation. But nothing the West has managed to do has crippled the Russian war effort. And these new sanctions, extensive as they are, may not impose the kinds of penalties on Erdogan, the monarchical rulers of the UAE, or dictator Kim that will halt material and materiel assistance to the Russian war machine.

Washington, London, and Brussels ought to be able to find powerful diplomatic and  strategic ways to deter Dubai and Ankara from continuing to enable Putin.  The UAE wants our security backing against Iran; Turkey wants F-16s and Erdogan personally wants to be recognized as a statesman rather than a double-dealing conniver. The massed forces of the West ought to be able to shift the incentive structures of international relations more in Ukraine’s favor, bring about an end to sanctions-busting, and emphasize to such leaders (and the smaller fry) that – for long-term self-interested reasons — they should join the West’s side, not Russia’s.

Straight-talking, some of it openly so that their publics will hear, is going to be necessary.  So will some behind-the-scenes heavy arm twisting.

Kim cannot be dealt with so diplomatically. We have no long-term accord to sell to him. But, nonetheless, if he backtracks from helping Putin, we could find surprising ways to ease his paranoia and feed his people.

For free, or join the modestly paying subscriber group.