NARRATOR: Much has changed in Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Life has become better for some, worse for many. The Russian military is a shadow of the once ominous Red Army, but Russia remains a nuclear superpower. And now the expansion of the NATO military alliance raises new questions and potential dangers.

["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]

ADM JOHN SHANAHAN (USN, Ret.): I'm Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, director of the Center for Defense Information.

For all of my career in the Navy, the Soviet Union was the enemy. There was no hot war, but the Cold War was the consuming obsession of our country. All that is changed today. A new Russia has emerged. It is not easy for Americans to understand the confusing, but important events in that distant land. I hope that our program today will clarify and enlighten.

JAMIE SHEA: The Cold War can't come back, that is all gone. So, that kind of titanic, global struggle cannot possibly come back. Russia is not a miniature Soviet Union, it's a profoundly different country.

NARRATOR: Russia has gone through extraordinary and wrenching changes in the past few years. These changes are difficult for outsiders to comprehend. All aspects of life have been affected. Until now, mostly for the worse. There has been a drastic decline in living standards and life expectancy. Russia's population has been declining. Moscow, however, has become an island of glitz and prosperity. The old and the new intermingled as Moscow recently celebrated its 850th anniversary. But for most Russians, life is difficult and hope has been hard to come by.

Americans, once fixated on the Soviet threat, have not been paying much attention to Russia. The United States Government, however, has been providing considerable support for President Boris Yeltsin. The prospect of the expansion of NATO towards Russia's borders raises new questions and potential dangers.

There has been considerable turmoil in Russia. The attempted coup in August 1991 established the heroic image of Boris Yeltsin as the centerpiece of contemporary Russia and led to the departure of Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of reform in the Soviet Union. But the early romantic period was quickly followed by the so-called "shock therapy" economic reform program which destroyed the pensions and savings of most Russians.

Then came the backlash of opposition that led to President Yeltsin's military assault on the recalcitrant parliament in October 1993. Shortly afterwards, the disastrous war in Chechnya began, finally ending in 1996 with Russia's defeat. Protests have sometimes let to violent confrontations on the streets.

These experiences of violence and radical reform have had a sobering effect on the Russian population and most political leaders. No one wants to be the subject of a new historical experiment in social engineering.

In the midst of this turmoil and distress, Russia has gone through a series of elections at the national and local level. Russians have shown a remarkable commitment to democratic government, even in the face of demoralizing problems. Citizen action and protest have steadily grown.

The presidential election in 1996 was a tough campaign in which Western campaign techniques were widely used. Boris Yeltsin drove himself to collapse and remained secluded in illness for many months after winning reelection.

A newly elected parliament, or Duma, although deprived of powers by President Yeltsin, has sought to play a role in government and to articulate the views and concerns of 150 million citizens.

With widespread corruption and crime, continued economic decline and social disruption, it is easy to feel pessimistic about Russia. But there are reasons for optimism.

Susan Eisenhower is a leading expert on Russia and head of the Center for Political and Strategic Studies. She sees Russians acquiring habits of democratic government.

SUSAN EISENHOWER: Time is proving to be everybody's best ally and I think that there's very impressive news with respect to how people are cooperating with each other. I have talked to members of the Duma who actually say that they are learning how to accommodate people with a differing viewpoint. This is a very big piece of news.

Somebody once asked me is it a big problem that there isn't a two-party system there. Actually, a four-party system, which is basically what they have, forces all of them to form coalitions on various issues and on various bills. And this is a kind of democratic experience they haven't had before.

NARRATOR: The spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jamie Shea, also finds positive developments.

Mr. SHEA: And we see increasing signs in Russia that the decision to introduce the free market, the decision to introduce democracy, the decision to integrate into the West, although not without problems, is nonetheless irreversible. It's not a question of will Russia go backwards, it's simply a question of how quickly can Russia go forwards.

I think I am optimistic because despite what may seem on the surface to be chaotic conditions or turbulence in such a multi-ethnic society as Russia, despite the vastness of the place, there are signs that democracy is taking root, and not only at the national level, but at local levels.

NARRATOR: American policy has been very much focussed on President Yeltsin. We have seen him as the personification of reform and democracy in Russia. And the US Government has been a vocal participant in Russian economic and political life. Americans played an active role in Yeltsin's 1996 election campaign.

President BILL CLINTON (Denver Summit):

"Russia's role here at the summit reflects the great strides that Russia has made in its historic transformation. We look forward to Russia's continued leadership and participation and we thank President Yeltsin for all he has done."

NARRATOR: Thomas Pickering is Under-Secretary of State and the former US Ambassador to Russia.

Amb. THOMAS PICKERING (before Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, 30 October 1997):

"Russia today is still in the throes of a titanic political struggle over its future. We cannot be neutral bystanders in that struggle for its outcome is not predetermined and American national interests are at stake. Our goal, like that of many Russians, must be to see Russia become a normal, modern state, democratic in its governance, abiding by the rule of law, market-oriented and prosperous, at peace with itself, with its neighbors and with the rest of the world, and playing its full, constructive role in the world community.

"Quite simply, we want to see the ascendancy of Russian reformers, those who look outward and forward, rather than inward and backward. Ultimately, however, Russia's future rests squarely and completely in the hands of its people."

[Video of Vice President Gore in Moscow with Yeltsin.]

NARRATOR: Yeltsin has spent a lot of time with foreign leaders, but success and popularity at home have been harder to come by.

VIKTOR KREMENYUK: The future prospects of this country, the future prospects of the president, the future prospects of his government depend not on the foreign policy successes, but on the situation in the country. And the situation in the country continues to be very questionable.

NARRATOR: In response to citizen discontent and under the shadow of President Yeltsin, a new generation of political leaders has emerged, one of whom will likely be his successor.

Some experts believe the United States Government has been too much focussed on one political leader, one political faction in Russia.

Dimitri Simes is the head of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom.

DIMITRI SIMES (before Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

30 October 1997):

"I think that the administration did not level with the American people about President Yeltsin's undemocratic practices, including gross violations of human rights in Chechnya, real atrocities perfectly comparable to what happened in Bosnia. I think the Clinton administration did not level with the American people and the Congress about the level of corruption which reaches the highest echelons of the Russian government. And some of the people who are labeled by the administration as reformers are labeled in Moscow as thieves."

Ms. EISENHOWER: Where the United States has misdirected its efforts, I think, is not so much in what it's trying to promote, but it's the attitude on the part of many people who are over there. The notion sort of if you're so smart, why'd your system collapse. And I think this is very, very difficult for many people to take.

NARRATOR: Russians were very positive and optimistic about the United States a few years ago. They hoped for rapid improvement in their lives and substantial support for their efforts to move away from an old system. But many of these hopes have proved misplaced and Russians are now suspicious and cautious. The US-endorsed economic reform program has disrupted the lives of most Russians and has delivered few of the promises made by Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton.

Russian anxieties have been stimulated by the prospect of the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe.

Dr. SIMES (at same Senate hearing):

"I've yet to find a single Russian who believes that NATO enlargement, which they assumed would exclude Russia, is a good idea."

Ms. EISENHOWER: It doesn't matter what the administration says about all these lofty goals about democratization and creating stability. The truth of the matter is, it's a military alliance. And obviously, the Russian military has to be responsible to its own people and to its own national security interests. And this is a kind of pressure, I think, regrettably, they don't need right now.

NARRATOR: Contributing to the Russian rejection of NATO expansion is the fact that Russian officials believe the United States and the West have gone back on promises made when the Soviets withdrew military forces from Eastern Europe and went along with the unification of Germany.

Dan Plesch is head of the British-American Security Information Council, a nonprofit research organization.

DAN PLESCH: Gorbachev believes and senior American officials at the time believed that he was given specific verbal guarantees that NATO would not expand and that we would develop a collective security arrangement, perhaps based on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in which Russia was a full and equal partner. Now that undertaking, which was given by the Bush administration, has been betrayed by the Clinton administration.

NARRATOR: The Russians made many concessions and radical changes that, according to Dan Plesch, are not understood or appreciated by Americans.

Mr. PLESCH: Broadly speaking, they see themselves having given up everything, the Soviet Union. If you imagine, say an equivalent of the United States, the United States back to the borders of the Thirteen Colonies, Mexico back in charge of California, New Mexico and Arizona. Imagine the mental impact on Americans of that sort of retreat to 18th Century borders and you have some idea the way in which the average Russian is feeling today.

Ms. EISENHOWER (before Senate Appropriations Committee,

29 October 1997):

"We have to think of what the Soviet Union, then Russia did. They withdrew their troops back thousands. Moscow used to be the rear end of any of their military preparedness, today it's the front line. And I have to say that there is a general desire on the part of the Russian people to abandon senseless military spending. This was one of the great developments, so clear at the end of the Cold War. Even the war in Chechyna had zero support inside of Russia. People don't want to live like that in Russia."

NARRATOR: While the near-term expansion of NATO to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic poses no great security threat to Russia, in the larger perspective, Russians are very concerned about the prospect of further isolation.

Senator Joseph Biden is a leading member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent visitor to Russia. He has had many discussions of NATO expansion with Russians.

Senator JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE) (30 October 1997 Senate Foreign

Relations Committee):

"I just have never gotten the sense that it was viewed by most Russian intellectuals, think-tankers, legislators in a security context as much as in a context of 'Are we equals? What's this relationship going to be? What does this say about where it's going? Do you love me?'"

NARRATOR: What is very clear is that even though the Russian government is grudgingly going along with the initial phase of expansion, the continued growth of the NATO military alliance could have grave consequences.

Ms. EISENHOWER (before Senate Appropriations Committee,

29 October 1997):

"If we bring in the Baltic republics, I can tell you there will be a complete and total meltdown in US-Russian relations and we will -- all bets are off on whether any of the arms reduction agreements on the table now will be passed.

"In the final analysis, the post-Cold War era is really about gaining control over weapons of mass destruction and reshaping our new world to take on the challenges of economic competition. NATO expansion and the costs associated with it actually set back the cause in Eastern Europe."

NARRATOR: Russia's progress toward a prosperous democracy is important to Americans. But even more important today is the fact that Russia remains a nuclear superpower.

Jack Matlock was the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union. Today, he is the George F. Kennan Professor at Princeton University.

Amb. JACK MATLOCK (before Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, 30 October 1997):

"In Russia today, there are somewhere between 40- and 50,000 nuclear warheads, maybe even more, 22,000 of them tactical weapons relatively easy to transport. Furthermore, there are enormous stocks of highly-enriched uranium of weapons grade and plutonium at research institutes, naval facilities and warehouses scattered throughout that vast country.

"Equally important, it has a veritable army of scientists and engineers who are adept at turning these materials into weapons and devising ingenious delivery systems.

"The sad fact is that the Russian authorities may no longer have an ability to ensure their safety. When the people guarding them have not been paid for six months and weapons scientists literally have trouble feeding their families and heating their apartments in sub-zero weather, it is totally unreasonable to expect that all are going to resist the temptation of selling dangerous materials to local criminals or going to work for some unsavory regime."

NARRATOR: Some observers believe that we are treating Russia as a defeated power. In this view, the expansion of NATO is perceived as the West exploiting and taking advantage of Russia in its current weakness.

Dimitri Simes seems to confirm this suspicion.

Dr. SIMES (Senate hearing, 30 Oct. '97):

"The time is precisely now, when the Russians are preoccupied with their domestic issues, and when we have a fairly benign relationship with Yeltsin, and when they are still modestly dependent upon foreign aid, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. If you are looking for a window of opportunity to expand NATO without entering into confrontation with Moscow, I believe this time is now."

NARRATOR: But there are dangers in this. What we do today could come back to haunt us tomorrow.

Amb. MATLOCK (same hearing):

"Those who say we won the Cold War, of course they're right. But we won the Cold War over the Soviet Union and we won it, in part, because we convinced the Russians it was in their interest, as well, to end it -- and it was. So, to treat them now psychologically as if they were somehow a defeated enemy and a potential threat to the future would be making the same mistake we made after World War I."

Mr. PLESCH: There is the country of Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy, the country that in great measure was responsible for the military defeat of Adolf Hitler. And the Russians are very proud about that and they see themselves as part of the West. And indeed, the whole of the European state system since Peter the Great has treated Russia as an equal partner. For the Russians, this is the first time since the Middle Ages that they have been kept out of Europe.

NARRATOR: Ambassador Matlock says we need to get our priorities straight in dealing with Russia. Dealing with the problem of weapons of mass destruction should be job one.

Amb. MATLOCK (30 Oct. '97 Senate hearing):

"Adding members to NATO will do nothing to protect us from the real threat I have described. But it does convey to the Russian nation, and particularly their military, that we still consider Russia at least a potential enemy, unsuited for the same security guarantees and the same degree of cooperation that countries in Central and Eastern Europe are being offered.

"Even if the Russian government is forced to acquiesce to the enlargement of NATO, which in effect it has, there's no question that our decision to take on new members now, when no country in Eastern Europe faces a security threat from the outside, will greatly complicate our efforts to see to it that the vast stocks of nuclear weapons now in Russia are never used against us or our allies."

NARRATOR: Controlling and reducing nuclear weapons is one gigantic task facing Russia and the United States. But Russia also has a major challenge of military reform and restructuring. The Russian military, as all other sectors of Russian society, has been undergoing enormous disruption and deprivation. Soldiers and officers often live in desperate conditions and don't receive their pay. Where once the military had prestige, today many young Russians reject military service.

YOUNG RUSSIAN:

"I don't want to serve in the army where people are killed, people are thrown to different wars. And if I don't want to serve in army which takes a lot of money of the people of this country."

NARRATOR: Getting military reform right will be a crucial test for Russia's new democracy. The military can be a powerful force for good, or bad. Several retired military officers, including General Lebed, are leading political opponents of President Yeltsin.

According to Susan Eisenhower, NATO expansion could throw a monkey wrench into military reform in Russia.

Ms. EISENHOWER: It worries me because it's a huge undertaking. Their effort is going to be vast, it's going to affect a lot of people. They're talking about cutting a half-a-million troops. This is a substantial number. And, of course, where are they going to go? Is the economy really ready to absorb that many people? It's not as if, by the way, life is really good in the Russian military anyway, but I think it could be very dispiriting.

Mr. SHEA: There has to be restructuring. The Russian army is simply too big. It has already gone down from five million to about a million-and-a-half today, but that is simply too large financially for the Russians to maintain and to modernize. Russia needs to go towards a professional army, rather like the countries of the NATO alliance. But, of course, that is very expensive and it's very difficult, as we find in our own European countries, to convert from an army of conscripts to an army of professionals. And we need to help the Russians in that respect, as well.

NARRATOR: The United States has provided assistance to Russia to help get rid of nuclear weapons and safeguard those that remain. American officials speak positively about Russia.

Amb. PICKERING (at 30 Oct. '97 Senate hearing):

"Russia is a considerable power. It has significant interests. It can speak with an important voice. To have Russia 'inside the tent,' to borrow a phrase from Lyndon Johnson, rather than outside, I think is extremely important."

NARRATOR: But some experts don't find words matching actions. Dan Plesch sees no real commitment of resources to help Russia and its neighbors reconstruct their economies along the lines of the Marshall Plan after World War II.

Mr. PLESCH: The problem is that Eastern Europe and Eurasia in the former Soviet Union is being left to rot, that we have no major program of economic development. They're being treated as second class citizens and most of the people in Washington seem to only have one idea in mind with respect to Russia, and that is to keep them saying "uncle" at every possible opportunity.

NARRATOR: Before we abandon hope for Russia, perhaps we should remember Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev, in his day, captured the imagination of Russians, Americans and the rest of the world. The changes that he introduced, including the end of the Cold War, transformed international relations and Russia. Today, Gorbachev fears that Russia could degenerate into a Third World country unless the government takes FDR New Deal-style measures.

But Russians are a highly educated and talented people, capable of remarkable achievements. If we take care not to place too many obstacles in their way, there is every likelihood that they will find their own road ahead.

ADM SHANAHAN: There are many issues out there on which Russian cooperation is essential. I have in mind nuclear weapons stockpile reductions, nuclear non-proliferation, environmental pollution, conventional arms control and sales, access to new oil resources, strategic relationships in the Middle East and the Far East, and the success or failure of a series of treaties either signed or on the table.

There is a real danger that NATO expansion will undercut our long-term relations with Russia as we pursue an ill-conceived plan to haphazardly expand an outmoded military alliance. We have an enormous opportunity to engage Russia in our common interests. I hope we will be wise enough to sense and seize this opportunity.

For "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I am Jack Shanahan.

[Over credits]

DAN PLESCH: If NATO insists upon establishing itself as the only game in town, then they really have to let the Russians in, at least politically. They don't have to allow them in to all the military planning.

But really, NATO expansion is a completely irrelevant idea in the minds of most Europeans. They're doing it because the Americans want it and they quite like NATO, and they don't want to be nasty to the Czechs. But they don't believe in NATO expansion and they certainly don't believe in any kind of military buildup.

But what there is a need for is economic development and demilitarization. If you look at the scale of armaments in Europe, it's absolutely massive today.

SUSAN EISENHOWER: Well, somebody once said to me, which I think was a brilliant point, that even if you live inside a socialist country, and that is the economic mechanism, in fact the world operates on a market economy. And so, I think that the Russians understood that they had no choice but to move to a market economy to make their whole economic system consistent.

But at the same time, I think they also understood that it was going to require pluralism in order to have a market economy. So, I don't think that they have any resistance to those basic values. As we mentioned earlier, the Duma is actually functioning as a body, people are actually working together. All of these are very good developments.