Readers will know that I have an unhealthy interest in the supply of helicopters for peace operations. There aren’t enough of them, and those that do exist aren’t always reliable – one crashed in Darfur yesterday, with four fatalities. So you might have imagined that I’d welcome the news that the EU is about to get four Russian transport helicopters, complete with ground crews, for operations in Chad:
The EU force commander, General Patrick Nash, says talks about the Russian helicopters are “very advanced”. The operation – called Eufor Chad/CAR – has been hampered by a shortage of helicopters, needed to reach refugees scattered over a vast area of desert.
The Russian helicopters – expected to arrive in November – will boost by one-third the number available to the EU forces in Chad, Gen Nash said. “With 3,500 troops in an area of operations the size of France, you cannot have enough air assets,” he told a news conference on Monday.
That’s true, but there’s obviously a bigger question at stake here: should the EU be accepting Russian support in one peace operation just when it is deploying monitors for another in Georgia? As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a risk that the EU guys watching South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be seen as stooges for the Russians. Today’s IHT reports that the Russians are setting new limits on the EU observers even as they arrive. This news from Chad may not help improve that picture.
Of course, it’s arguable that working with Russia in conflict areas outside its self-declared sphere of interest may be one way to stop it detaching from the international community altogether. Before the Georgian war, French officials were musing on how involving Russia more closely in Western-led operations – including Afghanistan – might improve ties with the Kremlin. Now European and American diplomats are on the look-out for signs that Russia wants to heal scars left by Georgia. The agreement of a pretty anodyne resolution on Iran at the UN last week was duly welcomed as proof that Moscow doesn’t want to lose touch.
I don’t want to be a miserable bugger, but I’m not convinced that we have the optics right here. Getting Russia to provide limited help in Chad, or say the right things without serious consequences on Iran, is smooth diplomacy. But does it compensate for Russia’s behavior in Georgia? And is the fact that Moscow has four helicopters out in the desert going to alter its geopolitical priorities? The answer to those questions is, in essence, “ha ha no”. Our excitement about getting Russian choppers to sustain our – still fumbling – mission in Chad makes us look weak.
I’m not saying that the international community should refuse all Russian help. I believe that the UN, meant to promote collective security efforts among countries that don’t necessarily share common viewpoints, does have a significant interest in keeping Russia in the peacekeeping game. But the EU is not just the UN for White Guys (as I’ve just shown for ECFR, the EU is gradually losing its power to shape the UN’s agenda). It’s an alliance that will be taken seriously if it projects some power in its own interests. If it’s going to mount serious military operations, it needs to show that it’s self-sufficient, and not reliant on potential and/or actual competitors.
I hope the Russian helicopters are helpful in Chad, but they shouldn’t be there.
