Foreign Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Madam Oliker.

We're going right to questions because we'll end up getting a good chance to ask a lot about where this is going. We'll start with Mr. Kent.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks, Ms. Oliker, for your availability today and your testimony.

I'd like to ask you about what you think is going on in Belarus. After a long period of repression, we've seen an easing somewhat. There are visas, and the borders have opened up to tourists. Demonstrations have been allowed, but some of them seem to be getting almost to the tipping point of the beginnings of another colour revolution. Russia has imposed border controls in reaction. Is that still under control, or is the way the west responds to the situation in Ukraine likely to have an influence on the direction that Belarus finds itself going?

[Olga Oliker]

Those are great questions. I think it's very interesting to watch Belarus, because I think Lukashenko has been playing what he at least sees as a fairly calibrated game, in which he keeps the Russians on the side. Belarus and Russia will be doing the West 2017 exercise shortly. There's no reason to think that's being called off. On the other hand, I think what the Ukraine crisis has given him is an opportunity to woo the west and to try to suggest that, really, they're not the same as the Russians. It's a calibrated game, and I think he does think he still maintains control.

I saw something interesting in the news this morning, which was accusations that there are efforts to send a “little green men” scenario into Belarus, apparently instigated by Ukrainians and Poles and so forth, which, I have to say, strikes me as highly unlikely, but I think it is part of this game Lukashenko is playing. I think it's incumbent on the west not to be too trusting of the Lukashenko government. It is not going to be a useful way to poke at the Russians for the sake of poking at the Russians, because Lukashenko is not going to back away from Moscow. His fundamental mode of rule is not one that trends towards liberal democracy, assuming all of our governments continue to be interested in promoting that.

I think we do want political prisoners to be free and we do want protests to be allowed, but we also want to be very careful of our hopes. I think in Belarus they understand what goes on in Ukraine perhaps better than we tend to in the west, and they're watching us for opportunities rather than because they are looking at this as pressure to democratize.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I have just one other question. Moving to the west, what are your views on Russia's ambitions in the Balkans? Russia doesn't have to propagandize in Serbia, because Serbia is rushing to Moscow's embrace, becoming increasingly provocative with Kosovo. We have Montenegro, and the NATO accession, and issues with all of the former countries of Yugoslavia. I'm just wondering what you perceive from your visits to Moscow and your contacts in Russia as far as the Russian ambition in the Balkans goes.

[Olga Oliker]

I think Russia sees the Balkans as one more area to destabilize European unity, which is a project that has gone surprisingly well for it—I don't think it expected the levels of success it's had either in the Balkans or elsewhere in Europe—and it's going to keep pushing.

I think it's interesting, in terms of Russian policy going forward, that Russia's success is based on a disruptive strategy. It doesn't actually have a positive agenda that it's putting forward as an alternative. Its agenda is that it is unhappy with the post-Cold War order. It wants to poke and prod at it, find its weaknesses, look for ways to destroy it—the Balkans are one way to do that, and interference in elections is another way to do it—and try to pull all of these things together.

But I don't think it expected this to work, so if it works, what is it offering as an alternative? One argument is that it's offering us all the 19th century back, but I'm not sure even it wants the 19th century back really. I think it has enjoyed being able to put itself up as a counterweight to the United States. If the United States is gone, if it's not a real actor on the scene, or if it's not an effective one, I wonder if Russia will be forced to develop more of a constructive agenda.

We aren't seeing this in the Balkans yet, but that might be one area to watch to see if it can actually offer something. It does have a lot of public support there. It's not entirely clear what that comes from other than a certain historical affinity.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Kent.

Now we'll go to Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for taking the time today.

I have a question about Russian minorities in eastern Europe. As you know, we, as a committee, travelled to eastern Europe. It feels like yesterday but it has been quite a while now. It was back in January. What we understood, in Latvia, for example, where we visited especially, was that there are contrasting views on the political orientation of the Russian minority in Latvia, in Estonia, and in Lithuania as well. Could you touch on that? Could you speak to that?

For instance, those Russians who happen to be in rural areas might be more inclined to be supportive of the Russian presence in eastern Europe or Russian influence in eastern Europe—in fact quite open to it—but those who are in urban areas are not of that view and are more integrated into the politics, society, and economy of those particular states, whether we are talking about Latvia, the country that we saw, or Estonia or Lithuania.

[Olga Oliker]

I would say that education, integration, and media all have a very important role to play in this. I would say the Baltic countries to varying degrees have worked harder or less hard to actually integrate these communities and trust them more and less. The less they're trusted and the less they're integrated the more they will turn to Russian sources of information and Russian media because they don't have domestic sources of media and information.

This said, a lot of these folks travel to Russia or they have family in Russia that they talk to. They know what it's like to live in Russia and they know what it's like to live in Europe. They understand at some level that they are better off. I am very hesitant about parallels between Ukraine and the Baltics as these are very different cases, but I would say that an interesting thing about what's happening in eastern Ukraine is that in places like Kharkiv a lot of the population that had thought of itself as Russian now thinks of itself as Ukrainian as a result of all these events. Maybe early on in the crisis, back in 2014, they thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they had closer ties with Russia as a lot of their economic prosperity, they felt, was dependent on the Russians, but this has shifted. It's shifted because of Russian policy, not because of very much of anything Ukraine has done other than fight back.

I think it's a mistake to view ethnic Russians in the Baltic countries as a fifth column. I think it is very important to continue with programs of integration and outreach. It's also important to look at this generationally. If younger or urban people tend to be more integrated then I worry less than I do if I see real moves towards affinity and idealization of Russia among the younger generation. Again, this varies from country to country. The Baltics are also not a monolith. It's incumbent on those governments to do more to integrate those populations.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

You mentioned something quite interesting there, that there have been different experiences of integration and that there have been successes and quite frankly, failures.

I hate to put you on the spot with this but as far as an example of successful integration, something that has really worked, could you point to a particular illustration?

[Olga Oliker]

A lot of this is about citizenship laws and language laws. These countries are more successful when they.... You could sort of line it up. There are all sorts of things in play here. You're looking at the extent to which populations are intermingled as well as the policies and you can't ignore that, so you don't have perfectly controlled experiments.

I would argue that policies that allow for multiple languages, for citizenship and access, are going to be more effective because they make the older generation more comfortable. The younger generation is going to learn the local language anyway but it's a way of making their parents more comfortable as well, and that eases the transition. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Who has done it well and who hasn't done it well?

[Olga Oliker]

I haven't done this study. Estonia has had a tense relationship with its Russian-speaking population. Lithuania has a different model because proportions are different and so has Latvia. I would actually want to put them side by side and look at the numbers to give you a good answer but this is the sort of thing I would be looking at.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I hate to put you on the spot but I'll defer to my colleague, Mr. Saini, since I don't think he'll have time to ask a question because we're going alphabetically on this side.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

You'll have time. Go ahead and use it.

Carry on, Mr. Saini. I'll include you later.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Oliker, for being here.

You have written in your previous articles of how Russia wants to come back into a bipolar world and how it wants to increase its prestige. You have also written that according to their national strategy they are trying to have these lofty goals, but there's a lack of surety around how they are going to reach these.

My question to you is purely economic, just to start off. We see the rise of China, especially in Eurasia. You have the One Belt, One Road Initiative, which has isolated Moscow. You have the Eurasian economic zone, which is more Russian-influenced than it is for the other countries. You have an economy now in Russia that is pretty well equivalent to New York City.

Their national strategy has lofty goals. They have great desires. You have written that they want to oppose Washington, but in many cases they need Washington. After the election of Trump, the media in Russia stated four points on which they wanted to have some negotiation with the Americans: joint operations against terror, agreeing that Montenegro is the last NATO country, maintaining the spheres of influence of the near abroad, and considering Crimea a part of Russia.

When you look at all these things, on the one hand they want to create a bipolar world, but on the other hand they need Washington. More importantly, above and beyond anything else, they need an economy that will fund their ambitions.

Could you explain how? Because it seems to me that somewhere down the line China is going to play a predominantly greater role in Russian affairs than any other country.

[Olga Oliker]

There are three questions in one here, I think.

In terms of bipolarity, I would say that Russia needs the United States because it needs the North Pole, right? When it talks, it talks about multi-polarity, but China is a component here; Europe, maybe, is a component here. In its ideal universe, you're back to the Cold War. It's the United States and Russia. If the United States is less active and you do have the emergence of a true multi-polarity, I don't know that Russia has a clear sense of what it would do, and I don't know if it's going to develop one.

There has long been tension between co-operating with the United States and standing up to the United States. I think what's dangerous, over the last three years, is how much of a benefit it feels it's gained from standing up and not co-operating. When we talk about co-operating in Syria, I mean, we're talking mostly about joining together to bomb the same people. It doesn't actually stabilize Syria, and it doesn't make any progress towards solving that fundamental problem. It's an interesting kind of co-operation. I suppose it gives everybody, then, the opportunity to blame the other guy for the failure later, but again, Russia's agenda in Syria is a positive one: keeping the Syrian government in power. It's probably a more clear agenda than that of the United States, to be honest. What it does from there it doesn't have a plan for, and neither does anybody else. This idea that it'll co-operate by continuing to bomb is a bit incomplete.

In terms of Russia's economy, don't underestimate Russia's capacity to punch above its economic weight. It does that by drawing on its population's willingness to deal with hardship and accept it, and its willingness to put more money into defence when the economy goes down, which is what it's done. As Russian growth started to drop in 2009, that's when the defence budget, as a share of GDP, started to go up. Until then it had been pretty stable as a share of GDP. If you listen to Russians in how they defend Putin, you hear a lot of “He is the only one under whom we've experienced growth. He's the only one under whom we've experienced prosperity.”

Prosperity is not normal to the average Russian. Hardship and difficulties are. Putin is the only guy who's ever made it better. That it's back to normal isn't necessarily a failure of Putin. It's still his success that after the 1990s Russia was better. Russia's capacity to spend less on infrastructure, health care, and education and to continue to spend more on defence is higher than that of a lot of other countries for these historical reasons. That's not to say that there isn't a breaking point, but I don't think the breaking point is economic. I think overreach in Ukraine, if the Ukraine crisis gets worse and the Russians become more militarily involved and get bogged down, that sort of thing, is where I see the fault lines and the failures—maybe the north Caucasus also.

China is interesting because I think the Russians have always been nervous about China, but it's not polite to say so these days. China is the alternative to Europe, though it hasn't proven to be as economically feasible a one as had been hoped. China is also Russia's gateway to Asia in terms of being an Asian power. However, as Russia's ambitions in Asia develop, Russia will start to think about how a real great power doesn't follow in somebody else's footsteps. As it thinks about rapprochement with Japan and as it reaches out to southeast Asian countries, you very easily see areas where its relationship with China could break down—not immediately, though I would argue that real rapprochement with Japan would certainly give China pause.

Over time, I think this is going to be a real point of tension in that relationship. When you hear Vladimir Putin talk about the INF treaty, while he says that Russia is not violating it, he also points out that other countries on its borders have similar capabilities and that Russia doesn't develop them because of the treaty. I don't think it's just Europe he's talking about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Madame Laverdière, please go ahead.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Oliker, thank you for your presentation.

In your response to the last question, you referred to the issue that I believe you mentioned during your presentation, namely, that a number of people in Russia think the Ukrainian adventure was a mistake and that it could become a burden to bear.

I was wondering how prevalent this view was within the Russian population in general.

[Olga Oliker]

That's a great question.

What I said was that when I was there in November, I heard a number of people say it was a mistake. Now I've heard people characterize the mistake differently. Some people thought the mistake was not marching to Kiev; other people thought the mistake was getting involved in the first place. I heard both sets of viewpoints.

I don't have good public opinion polling on the Russian population as a whole. I think overall the sense is that the annexation of Crimea continues to be seen as a great thing, and what Russia actually is or is not doing in Ukraine continues to be a subject for debate, though I've noticed that in elite circles, people have become more and more comfortable admitting that Russian forces are in fact fighting in Ukraine.

I think the October-November opinions before the U.S. election, to be blunt, had a lot to do with both the Ukrainian response and the western response. I think the election of Donald Trump has made Russia think that this might be more salvageable than it was, and Ukraine's continuing inability to solve some problems also feeds into that. I haven't gone back to the people to ask whether they've rethought those positions since then. I think it would be an interesting exercise.

Russia has a different problem, one that's not talked about, which is it's not just the Russian military in the Ukraine. There are Russian volunteers, folks who just decide to pick up a gun and go to Ukraine. There is a certain class of Russians, mostly men, some women, who have limited economic prospects, who are frustrated with their lives. Some of them will go to Syria; some will go to Ukraine.

If they've gone to Syria, they're going to have a hard time coming back. If they do come back, they will be arrested. If they go to Ukraine, they come back with their weapons to Russia, and there they may be part of the Russian right wing. They may be part of the groups that are frustrated with the Russian government for not pressing on in Ukraine and not rescuing Ukraine, and not backing them up. They don't get veterans' benefits, so I think that's something Russia is going to face going forward.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

That's very interesting. Thank you.

You also talked about reform fatigue in Ukraine. You gave us the impression that reform efforts are viewed as a demand from the west, rather than as a need from within the country.

Can you elaborate on this?

[Olga Oliker]

Yes, I think that's right. There is a tendency on the part of reformers to cast it that way, because it's a better sell to the opposition, rather than saying that we have to deal with this because of this neighbour who is stronger. That worked early on, and I think they really made a mistake in selling the reforms as “this is our path into western institutions”, as opposed to “this is our path to being a sustainable, effective country that Russia would not have been able to invade if we had done this earlier”.

I've worked most closely on security sector reform and I found there is just so much opposition from within to cleaning this stuff up, to doing these things. We talk about vested interests, but vested interests aren't just at the top. It isn't just that there are people making a ton of money. There are people making very small amounts of money, but it's still money that they need. They're the folks in the defence contracting world who have their relationships and it works for them. If all of this goes away and gets cleaned up, then that goes away and gets cleaned up too. How do they continue?

They have a system that they know is not effective. It's an incredibly inefficient system. It's a system getting young people killed in east Ukraine, but it's also paying the rent and paying for the household, and people are very frightened of it. In part because of the failure of reform in the past, reform now is really difficult. They don't have a gas meter, which means that when you raise the prices for gas, electricity is not efficient and people are asked to pay on the basis of the square footage of their homes, or some such, and they get frustrated and they get angry. Older folks on pensions can't scrape the money together, and some of them get subsidies and some of them don't, so again you have this vicious cycle.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Madame Laverdière.

Mr. Levitt, please.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Russian activism and interference in other countries' domestic politics is something eastern Europeans have lived with for years, but most recently it has been on our doorstep, both south of the border and also very recently in Canada.

You wrote, in an article in The National Interest from July of 2016, that

...the survival of European institutions and U.S. internationalism depends most not on responding to Russian meddling, but on bolstering the viability of the values and systems under threat. Those who seek to preserve these must therefore strengthen, adapt, and rebuild them, so that they more effectively respond to today’s requirements.

That was written in July of 2016. Much has happened—a lot of water has gone under the bridge—between then and now. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that situation, this same Russian interference, as it sits today.