Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (88 page)

Central Military Commission vice chairman General Xu (earlier my guest at Lincoln’s cottage in Washington) hosted a dinner for me in the same guesthouse where Hu had hosted President Obama, with several of China’s most famous singers as the entertainment. Baijiu, Chinese “white lightning,” flowed as toasts were made. Both Xu’s and Liang’s wives were present, as was Becky, and decorum was largely maintained. Our entire crew visited the Great Wall the next day, the highway shut down by troops the entire distance for my motorcade. One of the traveling press bought a small backpack at a gift shop near the wall with Obama’s picture on it dressed in a Mao jacket and wearing a PLA hat. I persuaded the journalist to sell it to me, and I presented it to the president upon my return. I told him it would validate what a lot of Republicans already thought about him. He laughed.

Hu’s visit to the United States began a week later and went off without a hitch. But high-level cordiality and professions of cooperation cannot mask the reality that the U.S.-Chinese relationship faces serious challenges. China continues to invest a growing portion of its budget in new military capabilities and technologies—including highly accurate antiship cruise and ballistic missiles, diesel and nuclear submarines, antisatellite capabilities, and stealth fighters—designed to keep U.S. air and naval assets well east of the South China Sea and Taiwan. They are building a navy that, while far inferior to that of the United States globally, could be a serious problem for us in Northeast and Southeast Asia. Beijing learned from the Soviet experience, I believe, and has no intention of matching us ship for ship, tank for tank, missile for missile, and thereby draining China financially in a no-holds-barred arms race with the United States. They are investing selectively in capabilities that target our vulnerabilities, not our strengths. The Chinese are becoming increasingly aggressive in asserting territorial claims over much of the South China Sea and islands close to Japan. And they continue to challenge U.S. air and naval surveillance missions, even though we operate
in international airspace and waters. Their cyber-attack capabilities are advanced and getting better, and they are targeting both our military and our civilian networks every day. All in all, this is a relationship that will require careful and skilled long-term management by leaders on both sides if we are to sustain our partnership in some areas (for example, economic) and keep competition in other areas from becoming adversarial. A robust American air and naval presence in the Pacific, especially in East Asia, will continue to be necessary to reassure our friends and allies but also to ensure peaceful resolution of disputes.

When I arrived in Russia for the last time as secretary a day after the bombing in Libya started, I began in St. Petersburg, capital city of the Russian Empire from its founding on the Baltic Sea by Emperor Peter the Great in 1703 until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. First stop was the Russian Naval Museum, to give a lecture to about 200 middle-grade Russian naval officers. The atmosphere was barely more welcoming than for my speech at the Russian General Staff Academy in October 2007; no applause when I was introduced and tepid applause when I finished. This time, though, the questions were not confrontational but curious. What did we see as the greatest threat? Was I streamlining the U.S. Defense Department? What role would the Navy play in U.S. security? What about joint operations and joint combat training with Russia? How about Russian naval officers attending U.S. military institutions? What was the most significant event for me as secretary? I left the session somewhat heartened by the prospect for future U.S.-Russian military exchanges and cooperation.

I then motorcaded to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of the city, where I had been invited to fire the “noon cannon,” set off daily since the days of Peter the Great. Following the ceremony, I visited the Peter and Paul Cathedral on the grounds, burial place of most Russian tsars. As someone who had studied Russian history all my adult life, seeing these sights was a pleasure that had been denied me for decades because of the Cold War and my CIA career.

The next day, March 22, I flew to Moscow to meet with Defense Minister Serdyukov and President Medvedev. Putin was traveling. Libya was on everyone’s mind, especially in light of an unusual public difference of opinion between Putin and Medvedev. The day before, Putin had told
some factory workers in central Russia that the UN resolution on Libya “reminds me of a medieval call for a crusade.” Medvedev had taken issue with that statement: “Under no circumstances is it acceptable to use expressions that essentially lead to a clash of civilizations—such as ‘crusade’ and so on.” He also defended his decision not to veto the Security Council resolution.

The Russians later firmly believed they had been deceived on Libya. They had been persuaded to abstain at the UN on the grounds that the resolution provided for a humanitarian mission to prevent the slaughter of civilians. Yet as the list of bombing targets steadily grew, it became clear that very few targets were off-limits and that NATO was intent on getting rid of Qaddafi. Convinced they had been tricked, the Russians would subsequently block any such future resolutions, including against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Both Serdyukov and Medvedev expressed concern about growing civilian casualties in Libya as a result of our air strikes. I urged them not to believe Qaddafi’s claims about large-scale civilian deaths. We were taking every possible precaution to avoid such casualties and believed that very few Libyan civilians had been hurt or killed by our aircraft and missiles. I wanted the Russians to know that we believed Qaddafi was forcing civilians into buildings that were obvious targets and also that he was placing the bodies of people he had executed at the bombing sites. Medvedev said he was not happy to see NATO jets and missiles operating in Libya, but these actions were “the result of Qaddafi’s irresponsible behavior” and his “blunders.” He expressed concern that the conflict would go on indefinitely but was “not convinced things will calm down while Qaddafi is in power.” Medvedev then repeated what he had told Vice President Biden in Moscow just two weeks earlier: “Land operations in Libya may have to be considered.” He said Biden had told him that was impossible. Medvedev then worried aloud that “if Libya breaks up and al Qaeda takes root there, no one will benefit, including us, because the extremists will end up in the north Caucasus” part of Russia.

Missile defense was the other main subject of discussion during my visit. Medvedev had made new proposals for NATO-Russian cooperation in this area at the NATO summit in Lisbon the preceding November, and he had followed up with a letter to Obama. Serdyukov began our discussion by noting that Medvedev’s letter had said it was “high
time” for a breakthrough in this area. Among other things, Medvedev had proposed a “sectoral approach”—that is, Russian missile defense systems would protect Russia and “neighboring states,” thus “minimizing the negative impact of the U.S. system on Russia’s nuclear forces.” There should be a legally binding agreement assuring that U.S.-NATO missile defenses would not weaken or undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent. I told Serdyukov we were interested in the proposals Medvedev made at Lisbon. Building on Serdyukov’s suggestion for operational data exchanges, I proposed that we establish two missile defense data centers, one in Russia and one in western Europe, where both Russian and NATO officers would be assigned. The centers could do collaborative planning, establish rules of engagement for missile defense, develop preplanned responses to various missile threat scenarios, and carry out joint exercises focused on countering common missile threats.

I met with Medvedev that evening at his modernistic dacha outside Moscow. He insisted that Russia needed legal guarantees that missile defenses were not aimed at Russia. “Either we reach agreement or we increase our combat potential,” he said. I repeated what I had told Serdyukov about the impossibility of getting a legal agreement ratified by the Senate and that the Baltic states would never accept Russian responsibility for their security. I knew that the Russians’ concern over Obama’s new missile defense approach was focused on the danger posed by future improvements to our SM-3 missile systems. I told Medvedev I understood their concerns. He and I both knew the early phases were of no concern to Russia, but as the United States continued to develop more advanced capabilities, “over time we can persuade you that nothing we have in mind will jeopardize Russia’s nuclear or ballistic missile capabilities.”

Medvedev said he was grateful that Obama was president, that “I can work with him, make deals, and respect each other when we disagree.” He acknowledged that the Iranian threat was real. As we parted, he wished me “success in this part of your life and the next one. May they both be interesting.”

My program in Russia concluded with a dinner cruise that evening on the Moscow River, hosted by Serdyukov. It was an elegant affair, reciprocating a similar cruise I had hosted for him on the Potomac the previous year. On my last night in Russia as secretary of defense, as we glided by
the Kremlin, I thought about the remarkable path I had followed during the forty-three years since I began work as a junior Soviet analyst at CIA two days before the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia.

Had Putin allowed Medvedev to run for reelection as president in 2012, the prospects for the Russian people and for the U.S.-Russian relationship would be far brighter. I felt that Medvedev understood Russia’s deep internal problems—economic, demographic, and political, as well as the absence of the rule of law, among others—and had realistic ideas about how to deal with them, including the need to more closely align Russia with the West and to attract foreign investment. However, Putin’s lust for power led him to shoulder Medvedev aside and reclaim the presidency. I believe Putin is a man of Russia’s past, haunted by lost empire, lost glory, and lost power. Putin potentially can serve as president until 2024. As long as he remains in that office, I believe Russia’s internal problems will not be addressed. Russia’s neighbors will continue to be subject to bullying from Moscow, and while the tensions and threats of the Cold War period will not return, opportunities for Russian cooperation with the United States and Europe will be limited. It’s a pity. Russia is a great country too long burdened and held back by autocrats.

I flew from Moscow to Egypt, a visit described earlier, and then on March 24 to Israel. The day before, there had been a terrorist attack on a bus in Jerusalem, leaving one dead and thirty-nine injured. Rocket attacks on Israeli towns from Gaza were continuing, and a little over a week before my visit the Israelis had seized a ship carrying fifty tons of rockets and missiles to Gaza, including missiles from Iran. Political unrest across the Middle East had not interrupted the security threats to Israel.

I had not been to Israel since July 2009, although Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited me in Washington every two or three months. As I said earlier, we had developed a close relationship and were very candid with each other. After a formal welcoming ceremony at the ministry in Tel Aviv (seeing the Stars and Stripes and the Star of David flying together always moved me), we went to Barak’s office to meet privately. I was there primarily to reassure the Israelis of American steadfastness in the midst of the political earthquake under way in the Middle East.

I opened the conversation by expressing condolences over the terrorist attack, to which Barak simply replied, “We will respond shortly to what happened.”

For once, we had more than Iran to discuss. He was interested in my meetings in Egypt, and the bombing of Libya, which had begun just a few days before. He was, naturally, very concerned about developments in the region. He told me Egypt was losing its grip on the Sinai peninsula and hoped it was only temporary because of the potential for large-scale smuggling of weapons into Gaza. I told him that both Tantawi and the prime minister in Cairo had reaffirmed to me their commitment to the Egyptian peace treaty with Israel and said that they would continue to work with the Israeli government. Speaking as a friend, I said now was the time for Israel not to hunker down but to act boldly in the region—to move on the peace process with the Palestinians, to reconcile with Turkey, and to help Jordan. I added that the good news about the turmoil in the region was that it was not about Israel or the United States—“No one is burning U.S. or Israeli flags, yet”—but about internal problems in the Arab countries, and we needed to make sure that that remained the focus. Barak said the best approach on Libya would be to keep hitting the military until they turned on Qaddafi. He hoped the regional turmoil would spread to Iran, where he said the mullahs were celebrating Mubarak’s fall and the increase in oil prices because of the broad unrest. We need to accelerate the sanctions, he continued, in order “to help this earthquake to reach Tehran.”

Barak asked about Obama’s view of events in the region, and I told him that while some in the United States thought the president wasn’t tough enough in international affairs, I totally disagreed. Obama had sent 60,000 troops to Afghanistan and had now attacked Libya. He was aggressively pursuing al Qaeda. While he was willing to talk with adversaries such as Iran, I said, “when push comes to shove, he is willing to push back and protect the interests of the United States and our allies.”

At a subsequent joint press conference, Barak said that the security relationship between Israel and the United States had never been stronger, and that cooperation between his ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense was unprecedented. On the unrest across the Middle East, he said that nothing like what was going on had been seen since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and it was a moving and inspiring phenomenon. He added, though, that “a pessimist in the Middle East is an optimist with experience.”

The next morning we drove up the Israeli coast to Caesarea for a breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Caesarea was built
by King Herod the Great a few years before the birth of Christ, and I would have liked to explore some of the ruins, but business left no time for pleasure. There were about twenty people at the breakfast, so both Netanyahu and I stuck pretty close to our script, although the prime minister understandably took a very tough line on the need to respond forcefully to the recent terrorist attacks. We talked about the continuing problem of Iran and, of course, about Libya and the political unrest across the region. The Israelis clearly were nervous about events, seeing considerable potential for trouble and little opportunity for outcomes that were in Israel’s interest. As I had with Barak, I urged Netanyahu not to go into a defensive crouch but to seize the moment with bold moves in the peace process. Bibi wasn’t buying.