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Accidental conflict is true danger of Russia-West clash: experts
By Joshua MELVIN, Val�rie LEROUX
Paris (AFP) June 19, 2015


Filipinos fear 'armed conflict' with China over sea row: poll
Manila (AFP) June 19, 2015 - Eight in 10 Filipinos are worried a festering South China Sea territorial dispute could lead to "armed conflict" with the world's most populous nation, an independent polling outfit said Friday.

Manila-based Social Weather Stations said this sentiment had weighed on people's minds since the Philippines backed down from a tense standoff with China over control of rich fishing grounds around Scarborough Shoal in 2012.

The study showed 84 percent of 1,200 respondents were "worried" about armed conflict with China.

About half were "worried a great deal" while more than a third were "somewhat worried".

The same poll has been conducted every year since 2012, and in each of the surveys at least 80 percent of respondents have been concerned that the sea dispute could escalate into a full-blown conflict with the Philippines' powerful Asian neighbour.

"It is natural for us to worry about armed conflict as it is a fact that it does not benefit anyone," presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte told AFP, reacting to the survey results.

"This is precisely why our government has pursued peaceful means to resolving the dispute."

The Scarborough Shoal standoff ended with Beijing taking control of the fishing area, which lies 220 kilometres (140 miles) off the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The shoal lies 650 kilometres from Hainan island, the nearest major Chinese land mass.

China and the Philippines are also in dispute over other islands and reefs in the South China Sea, with the Philippines seeking arbitration from a United Nations-backed body.

China has refused to participate in the proceedings.

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims over the South China Sea, which hosts major shipping lanes and is believed to hold vast mineral reserves.

China has ramped up construction of artificial islands in the area to reinforce its sovereignty claim over most of the sea, even waters close to the shores of its neighbours.

The Philippine poll also showed a rising number of Filipinos disapproved of their government's handling of the dispute as China undertook other actions to reinforce its claim, including alleged harassment of Filipino fishermen.

In April, Philippine authorities accused the Chinese coast guard of robbing Filipino fishermen of their catch at gunpoint at Scarborough Shoal and shooing away one group with a water cannon.

Forty-six percent of respondents disapproved of their government's response to the Chinese actions at the shoal, higher than 32 percent last year and 27 percent in 2013.

Forty-nine percent in the most recent survey, which was carried out over four days in March, said they approved of government response.

Military posturing and increasingly hostile rhetoric between Russia and the West are raising the risk of an accidental slide towards a wider conflict that neither nuclear-armed side wants, experts warn.

Within days of reports that the United States was poised to send heavy military equipment to eastern Europe and the Baltic states, Russia retorted by announcing it planned to add 40 intercontinental nuclear missiles to its arsenal.

It was the latest in a string of threats and confrontations that have included Russian aircraft buzzing a US destroyer and British fighter jets scrambling after two Russian military aircraft flew near UK airspace.

The bellicose talk on both sides has raised speculation that Russia and the West are involved in a Cold War-style arms race, yet it also presents a more imminent danger: an accidental clash, experts said.

"I think it is seriously dangerous. There is a genuine misreading of the other side's intentions, I think on both sides, but especially from Russia," said Kadri Liik, a Russia expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

"There is a real danger that Russia will respond to an attack that happens only in its own head. They would retaliate in the real world."

Liik is among the experts who have called for direct "military-to-military" communication channels between Russia and Western-allied forces to keep any unintended clashes from "escalating into something more."

- 'Dramatically bad' -

Relations between Western powers and Moscow have plummeted to their lowest point since the depths of the Cold War over the Russian annexation of Crimea and its political backing for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

For Jeffrey Mankoff, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the tension raises the possibility for miscalculation and accidents.

"But I don't think anybody on either side wants that," he said.

Instead the West's stance is intended to send "a message about resolve that is aimed both at the Eastern European states and Moscow."

What concerns him is the talk from some Russian analysts about limited use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield as well as President Vladimir Putin's recent reminders that Moscow is a nuclear power.

Yet he believes the West and Russia are well aware of the stakes in escalating to the point of fighting.

"Both sides understand that if it gets to a military confrontation, both sides have nuclear weapons and the consequences could be dramatically bad for everybody."

- 'We are serious' -

From a Russian perspective, the West's involvement in a region that used to be under Soviet sway is not innocent, experts said. In fact in Moscow's view, it was the West that fomented the uprising that forced Ukraine's pro-Russian president from power last year.

Accordingly, Putin's announcement about adding to Russia's nuclear missile arsenal was a logical response to the American plans to send heavy military equipment to Eastern Europe, said Dmitry Orlov, the pro-Kremlin director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications.

He said Russia was obliged to respond to a threat from the United States, but it is not trying to pick a fight. Still, Orlov said there would not be a direct military confrontation.

"This is swordplay, a mutual exchange of rebukes," he said.

There are those, however, who think the real risk is in not responding to Russia's actions and rhetoric.

The West's lack of military action in Ukraine has only empowered Russia and given it an opportunity to pick up momentum, said Igor Sutyagin, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank.

"They (Russians) are like water. If they see a gap they go forward, if they see concrete they just stop," said Sutyagin.

"America is just telling them, 'We are serious'," he added. "On a psychological level that reduces the risk of confrontation and clash."

Besides, he noted: "Last year Russia bought 38 new ICBMs, this year it will be 40. What is fundamentally different between these two situations? Nothing."

On top of that, Putin's "going to retire 72 (ICBMs)," said the researcher.


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