Three observations on the Skripal affair

Joshua Loo

Supplement №2, Volume II

Joshua Loo]

Three observations seem particularly pertinent in the wake of the of the Skripal affair.

Who?

It is fairly trivial to narrow down possible perpetrators to those who would have a motive to commit such a crime, and those who were capable of developing the sort of chemical weapon in question. The suggestion of the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, that Sweden, the UK, Czechia and Slovakians were the most likely to have had the capacity to produce such weapons¹ may indeed be true.

What is missing is an explanation as to quite why the Swedes, Czechs, Slovakians, or British should wish to poison a fairly irrelevant spy. In particular, it is fairly trivial to rule out the first three. The Swedes, Czechs, and Slovakians have no interest in the spy; they do not need to demonstrate to anyone that they have chemical weapons capability, and gain far more from the perception that they are responsible international actors than any perception of international power. Equally, the United Kingdom still has one of the strongest armies in Europe²; they would not wish to alienate the United Kingdom.

The government equally has little incentive to poison spies under its protection. Most obviously, it is not a very good idea to poison spies whom one has used in the past, as this is likely to discourage future potential informants, who may think that the government is untrustworthy, or even malevolent. Further, its weakness has been shown in its response. Britain has no military leverage over Russia; to the extent that it could punish members of the Russian élite by a reduction of their influence in the United Kingdom, advocacy thereof has been responded to with cries of ‘politicisation’, ‘shame’, &c..^3,4 Given the government is so unwilling to remove Russians, even those who have significant connexions with the Putin régime, from London, it is not clear that it had some secret desire to end up in a conflict with the Russian government.

Since Israel is featured in conspiracy theories regularly, it would be surprising for Israel not to have been blamed somewhere; indeed, Craig Murray notes that Israel may have had the capability to carry out the attack. Most obviously, Israel would not desire to cause Russo-American tension, which appear to have been precipitated, because they both need American military aid, and Russian coöperation, in preventing Hezbollah from acquiring particularly threatening Iranian military hardware.

What of the Russians? It is fairly clear that the Russian government might have a motive: Skripal, after all, was described a ‘traitor’ by Russian state television⁵. There are several clear benefits. First, the attack deters future potential informants. Second, it publicly discredits the British state’s intelligence apparatus. Third, it shows, by contrast, their strength.

Equally, however, there are other ‘Russian’ actors who also would have benefited from the attack. There are many independently operating parts of the Russian state, who could plausibly have wished to demonstrate their loyalty to Putin in the attack. Had it been successful, and killed its target, Putin would have been more likely to reward a particular unit, for example. There are many different law enforcement agencies in Russia,⁶ each of which would likely wish to increase their funding, prominence, and power; as the attack can be disowned by the relevant unit, it may have been in the interest of a particular part of the Russian state to attack. Similarly, the Russian state has been associated with criminal organisations, who equally may have wished to please Putin.⁷

It is important to note that these claims are not definitive; there is no evidence to support them. However, establishing that it is possible that someone else could simultaneously have had a motive and the ability to attack other than Putin is important. Equally, however, the evidence which suggests that Russia was guilty has not been publicly produced either. Porton Down say that they are unable to verify the location of the novichok.⁸ Perhaps other sources have confirmed to the government that the Russian government are to blame. However, given that so much of the argument that the Russian government were to blame has rested upon the specious assertion that no other state or institution could possibly have had any motive other than the Russian government, it is important to rebut it. Of course, in finding the guilty party, one must rely on more than analysis of the motives of different parties.

Another possibility is that a Russian group desired to attack Putin. There was a reasonable risk after the attack of further restrictions on many of Putin’s friends and associates in London.

Boris Johnson says that the response of the Russian government does not suggest that it truly believes itself innocent.⁹ This is true; most of its statements have been rather combative. However, even were it not to have ordered the attack, it would still benefit, and indeed is benefiting, from the publicity surrounding the case. It would optically be something of a concession, especially for a state which cares so much about projecting its strength, to grovel before the government, explaining that it had not ordered the attack; such a strategy would require an explanation of how chemical weapons were lost, and international scrutiny of a most unwelcome kind.

Comparisons to Iraq

Comparisons to Iraq are somewhat helpful, but are not perfect. Craig Murray, whose blog is an excellent read, even for those who disagree with its contents, suggests that there is to some extent a rush to blame Russia.¹⁰ It is certainly politically expedient to do so, and so this is a plausible claim. Murray may be lying—it would be unwise to trust him absolutely—but, at the very least, he provides another narrative which is plausible, and so should be considered.

A comparison to Iraq might suggest that there is some sort of conspiracy within the government to start a war with Russia. This is fairly obviously a bad idea. A significant proportion of its instigators would die in a nuclear strike from Russia. There is no effective defence against this. Russia’s defence against nuclear attack is a system which uses nuclear bombs to cause missiles not to hit their targets. Since the West is less willing to take such risks, we instead have systems which work approximately half the time, when the test projectiles have been fired in idealised conditions.¹¹ Britain is obviously behind the United States in such matters, so there is no reason for it to start a war. Further, as demonstrated above, it was not particularly politically expedient to highlight British weakness at this point in time. Those who could be behind such a conspiracy clearly operate in knowledge of these concerns. There is no motive which could possibly outweigh the risk of nuclear war arising from an attempt to cause war. Even arms manufacturers would prefer to lose business than to initially sell lots of arms before dying in such a war.

Further, if one trusts Murray, one should note that it seems that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not being very successful in attempting to prevent leaks. Consequently, were there such a conspiracy, Murray would have noticed this, and published this on his blog. There are a sufficient number of people who read his blog, especially after the revelations, to grant him effective immunity from prosecution; certainly, there would be a great embarrassment for the government were he to be prosecuted for revealing an attempt to deceive parliament in an attempt to start a war.

Discussion

Discussion has been predictably suboptimal. Consider Corbyn’s article in The Guardian¹². There are several issues with the view espoused in the article. First, it is not clear how the responses Corbyn outlined—that ‘Russian money be excluded from our political system’, ‘Magnitsky-style sanctions’, and ‘measures to tackle the oligarchs[sic] and their loot’ can be reconciled with a desire to ‘reduce tensions and conflict wherever possible.’ Clearly, it is possible to do nothing in this situation; Corbyn takes the intellectually lazy option of using the phrase ‘wherever possible’ to omit from his article that there is necessarily a trade-off between strong action and the avoidance of conflict. The article, rather than providing a mechanism by which the optimal trade-off can be determined, ignores the need for a trade-off, whilst criticising May’s.

Second, Corbyn ignores the possibility that we may not find the ultimate perpetrator with a satisfying degree of certainty. Many crimes remain unsolved, leaving a list of suspects; the risk of this always exists, and this attack is no exception. If we do not find the culprit with any certainty, what then? Should we proceed with something less than certainty? Corbyn is right to call for rigour—‘the perpetrators …must be identified’, but equally important is what should happen were one unable to definitively determine the identity of the perpetrator.

Third, Corbyn resorts to rhetoric appealing primarily to his own base in rebus Libya and Afghanistan. Certainly, the liberation of Libya was suboptimally executed; it is even possible that Libya is worse off than it would have been had Gadaffi stayed. None of these conclusions are, however, prima facie true, at least to a significant number of people. Corbyn’s call for calm is important; the inclusion of not particularly rigorous references to these examples reduces the appeal of this argument.

Criticism of Corbyn has, however, focused on his ‘politicisation’ of the attack. Quite why a political leader should not ‘politicise’ an issue, when politics clearly is clearly an important determinant of the outcome of such cases, is unclear. Critics need to explain why the normal democratic process of criticism and replacement is inadequate in this scenario. ‘Politicisation’, that is, the treating of this affair in a political manner, could expel thousands of Russian oligarchs in London, prevent the use of the London Stock Exchange by large numbers of Russian companies, prevent the use of the financial system to launder and transfer money, prevent the use of financial consultancy services in London, and significantly disrupt the lives of large numbers of Putin’s cronies; ‘politicisation’ could also alter our response, whether by inducing the government to supply samples to the Russians, or the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, altering the number of diplomats expelled, or a change in policy on chemical weapons. These may be bad ideas; equally, they may be good ideas. Politics, presumably, is about determining whether these are indeed good or bad ideas, and then their implementation, if they are good ideas. It is no use declaring an area affected by politics to be sacrosanct, because there is no particular reason why the status quo, almost certainly implemented as a result of some previous political situation, should be superior to any alternative.

As the government has relatively few options, what seems most likely is that we shall soon forget about the affair; occasionally, articles on progress in the investigation will be found, but little further action will be taken. More interesting and difficult to predict will be the effect on Corbyn’s reputation, especially in relation to foreign policy; if the affair were to stop his political rise, that would likely be its greatest effect.