JOHNSON: How would you describe the crisis facing Russia today?

MANN: Right at the moment, three images come to mind.  One is Boris Yeltsin tottering around at King Hussein's funeral, the second is that hopeless fire at the police building in Somara.  The fire fighters didn't have enough water pressure and the ladders were too short, which makes you wonder what would happen in the event of a nuclear crisis or another Chernobyl. And, the third is this brewing scandal over the central bank, which is worrisome because, if a great deal of Western aid money went off shore, was put into improper purposes, then you're faced with the possibility that people, Congress will say we've got to put a stop to things like non-luger.  I think the United States and the IMF are probably dead set against giving any more aid to Russia from here on in, at least for some years anyway, but, with the central bank scandal in Moscow, if the allegations prove founded, could really be damaging in our Congress.

JOHNSON: The state of the military is part of this crisis and the control of their nuclear weapons. Is that a significant issue, the national security dimensions of the crisis in Russia?

MANN: Some Russians argue that economic reform and democratic reform in Russia are indivisible from military reform because the Soviet state was a military, industrialized economy.  I think there's something to that, although some economists argue that's not true, some Russian economists as well as Americans say that you can have a budding reform market oriented economy alongside the military industrial complex, and it eventually will just kind of fade away.  That strikes me as kind of optimistic.

JOHNSON: How do these issues affect the United States?

MANN: Unfortunately, not enough.  What troubles me about the current situation is that, in Moscow, some Russians describe a situation of callousness that has arisen because of this sense of permanent crisis, and it's gone on for so many years that people become complacent. 

In a similar fashion here in the United States, there's a certain complacency induced by our peace and prosperity, post Cold War.  And, so there seems to be a lack of consciousness about the jam that Russia is in, and it may sound like a non-sequitur, but it's possible that the greatest thing we could do for Russia, at the moment, is institute real campaign finance reform in this country.  Because, I think that the impeachment crisis, if crisis is what is was, represented a failure of the political process. The campaign finance reform would make it possible for the right kinds of candidates and the rights of issues, like Russia, to make it to the national electoral agenda in this country so you could have a real national dialogue about it. 

But, as it is, with lawmakers and presidential candidates both completely consumed with raising funds, that is the dominant, you know, finding enough money for television is what everybody worries about rather than actually talking about issues the way Lincoln and Steven Douglas did in the 1858 senatorial debates. It's really a shame.  So, in a sense, yeah, campaign finance reform here might make it easier to get issues like Russia on the national agenda.

JOHNSON: What is the perception of Russia, both inside the Beltway and outside these days?  Is there any perception?  And, if there is, what, what sort of shape is that perception?

MANN: Well, my perception is there's a lack of a sense of urgency.  And, I don't know whether inside the administration and the Hill this lack of agency stems from a sense of what they would consider to be real politique, i.e., they're doing as much as political circumstances here and in Russia will allow, or whether there's simply preoccupation with domestic issues in both countries because, on the one hand, Russia faces such catastrophic problems and over here, we're preoccupied domestically because it's peace and prosperity. 

We don't feel threatened, so we, everybody says, post-impeachment, we're going to focus on social security, education.  You never hear campaign finance reform even mentioned, much less defense issues.  And, especially now that the president has increased defense funding for the next five years, I think defense and security issues may be even less of an issue in two thousand unless, at long last, Iraq does boil over or we do become involved in something difficult in Asia or Russia or somewhere else in the world that we haven't thought about yet.

JOHNSON: What should the US be doing with Russia? What kinds of programs should we be pursuing?

MANN: Well, we're in a difficult situation now.  I don't think it's plausible, given Russia's economic situation, for us to offer a great deal more aid.  Senator Moynihan suggested a $100 billion martial fund last fall.  I agreed with that at the time, but now I'm afraid it's already too late.  I think also that our decision to say we might pull out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty, coming on the heels of NATO expansion, is sending all the wrong messages to Russia. 

We're not giving the Russians a sense of inclusion. And, I think that is the most key issue at the moment.  If we could find some way to reassure Russia, and it isn't for us alone to say this, obviously.  But, if we could assure Russia that, someday, it will become a member of the European Union, that, someday, it will become a full-fledged member of the G-7, and we've kind of toyed with that hesitantly. 

All of that now, all the hope of that, seems to be going away.  Because, the Russians feel we're really doing everything we can to isolate them, whether the perception is accurate or not, the perception has psychological and political consequences for them. 

So, when you consider the centuries of Russian history, when Russia was torn between looking to the West and the East, we're not addressing that strategic issue.  We're not addressing Russia in the context of Europe.  We're not addressing any longer the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine, between a Russia and a Europe that might be led by Germany and France. All of these questions go begging because of the strategic drift in our country, and the economic catastrophe in Russia.  Very dangerous business to be just letting this go.

JOHNSON: Some specific programs that you've been endorsing or suggesting.

MANN: Well, in view of the fact that we probably, it's too late to do a martial plan, I think the best thing we could do of an immediate nature is greatly to increase the Nunn/Lugar funding that helps Russia with its de-nuclearization.  In fact, it might be wise, at this point, to go one big step further and just simply say to the Russians, let's buy every single nuclear device, every part of their nuclear inventory that they're willing to sell and presumably they'd be willing to sell almost all of it because they're broke. And, likewise, with North Korea.  I think we should just -- I mean, we would save so many tens of billions of dollars in future defense expenditures if we would just simply buy all of Russia's nuclear stuff and it would be an enormous security plus for the whole world that I think would bring tremendous diplomatic advantage to the United States, would make it much easier, for example, for the United States to influence India and Pakistan to go ahead and sign the comprehensive test ban treaty. 

We need a master stroke.  We need a dramatic action.  And, for ten, twenty, even thirty billion dollars, that would be peanuts compared to what we may be facing if we don't do something about what Graham Allison called lose nukes.

JOHNSON: The kinds of programs the US has been pursuing vis-a-vis Russia, non-luger, a positive kind of program, has the US, apart from that, been a constructive force?  You mentioned NATO expansion.  There are some of these problem areas.  What, how would you describe what we've been doing with Russia up to this point?

MANN: Well, I think we've been, I think we've made a lot of mistakes. I think the better course would have been for us to continue and expand the partnership for peace, well beyond the turn of the century. At the same time, we did a wonderful thing, Clinton building on, President Bush did a wonderful thing in 1994 when we got all the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kzakistan.  That was a major achievement.  And, really put us on the road to adopting START II.  But, as you know, a lot of things got in the way of START II.

I wish we had continued with the partnership for peace, made sure that START II and START III were secure.  And, then begin thinking about whether we want to expand NATO. And, if we had, we should have kept Russia much more involved in the process of expansion.

At the same time, we should have been laying the groundwork. You can't do it too quickly, but we should have been laying the groundwork for Russia to join the European Union, and Ukraine, as well.  None of that's happened.  That's why I think there's this, as I said, a need for a master stroke to buy out the Russian nuclear program, to buy out North Korea's program, because you're buying time to try to get things back on the track.  Right now, US and Russian relations are, at the least, irritable.  And, there's terrible drift in Russia because of President's Yeltsin's uncertain fate and there's drift here because we don't have a strategic focus. 

And, I think part of the reason we don't have a strategic focus in this country is because these large issues are now being debated, and that brings me back again to campaign finance reform.  If you had a campaign system that brought forth the right kinds of candidates and the right kinds of issues, no kidding, I think the situation might, geo-politically, might be much different.

JOHNSON: How do the American military look at Russia today?  What's their perception of this country that used to be the threat?

MANN: I think that there's Cold War nostalgia.  But, I think that it goes right along with the perception of the dire straights that Russia is in.  I think there are a lot of military people who are sympathetic to the Russian military's plight.  If you're well informed about the terrible living conditions, for example, of the Russian military, you would have to be sensible of the risks and the dangers and the suffering that that situation confronts Russia with. 

And, military people know what a proud national history Russia has, and I think US military people are sensitive to the fact that the justifiable Russian nationalism could, once again, evolve into this kind of mystic, Slavic, nationalistic chauvinism that could be very dangerous to us. 

I don't know whether our military would recommend any kind of aid to the Russian military or not. My guess would be no because, from its point of view, it's been lacking resources all these years.  Now we've got a few defense hikes coming.  I don't think there will be much sentiment for helping out Russia to that extent, especially with its conventional forces.  Although, surely, there's a full consciousness, I think, in the Pentagon on how important non-luger is.

JOHNSON: There was a headline in the Washington Post last week, Russia's Missile Defense is Eroding, about their ability to detect radar and satellites. What's your reading of that? Is that a significant issue, the eroding of their nuclear defenses?

MANN: It certainly is a significant issue because it has partly to do with whether they've got enough satellites to keep track of missile launches.  And, as you know, the United States is making arrangements to supply Russia with missile launch data that helps fill some of these gaps. And, Itartoss reported, I think through the Center for Defense Information last week, data from the Russian space agency to the affect that about half the 131 satellites still up there, sixty of them are pure military satellites and their service life is fifty to seventy-five percent expended.  No doubt it's an issue. 

Now, I think some strategic thinkers would suggest, however, that the more immediate danger in nuclear terms might be control over tactical nuclear weapons rather than a breech of strategic command. Because, tactical nukes, there are tens of thousands of them, literally, and they're spread among about fifty storage depots.  And, that very dispersion is cause for concern.  And, in some instances, we know that security is not good, physical security is not good.  And, I think people on our side, at least some of them think that those tactical nukes are the thing that might get away from the Russians easiest. 

JOHNSON: I guess sort of to conclude, as someone who has, I think, some historical perspective on Russia and knowledge of the sort of history of the country, your personal kind of feeling about what is likely to happen in terms of optimism, pessimism, can the Russians get their act together, is the post-Yeltsin period going to be something that we can look to with some optimism that things will improve. Where is Russia going?

MANN: I think the most honest answer you can give, really, the only answer, is we're in the dark.  We're already in the post-Yeltsin era, in my opinion.  But, you're right, we're in a transition, but we're in a transition of multiple unknowns.  Prophecy is usually a fool's errand, but, in this case, it's a damn fool's errand.

JOHNSON: Anything else we should do or --

MANN: I don't know if this is relevant. Maybe this is too broad.  But, we've heard so much talk in this country over the last, well, since the Berlin wall came down in '89, about the global economy and global technology.  And, we're not having any corresponding debate about the global political economy.  And, that raises questions about what is Russia's place in the world going to be.  And, it's presumptuous for us to say what it might or should be, but we still ought to be thinking about it, and we ought to be examining, very carefully, what Russia's sense is of where it thinks it ought to be in the world constellation in 2010, 2020. 

Now, I think some people will dismiss that kind of consideration out of hand and say Russia has so many immediate problems that to talk about such things is to simply go off into the ether.  But, there again, we're in strategic drift, as are they, and raising these kinds of questions might be a way to bring some kind of focus to our thinking about is Russia going to be part of Europe some day. Is it going to be part of Asia.  What are the future alliances going to be.  Are we really going to share ballistic missile defense technology and operations with Russia?  And, if we do against whom?  Those are the questions that are not being asked, as far as I can tell.

JOHNSON: Good.

MANN: When our congressional candidates and our presidential candidates talk about the global economy and how Americas are affected at home by what happens in international trade and so on, they, at the same time, ought to be talking about how global politics affect us.  The presidential oval office is the bully pulpit. And, I think we need to explain and educate the public to the notion that, not only are they affected by the global economy, global technology, technology dispersion, but this is also an issue of global politics and that, yes, indeed, we here in the United States who are very lucky are, nevertheless, effected by what goes on in India and Pakistan and Russia, etc., etc., etc. 

Part of this, though, is routed in educational problems, and I would like to see the President of the United States lobby a great deal harder for a return to the study of civics, government, and history, in our schools.  Because, that's where the beginning of international consciousness begins. And, I have my doubts about whether our social studies classes in our nation's high schools are dealing with issues like lose nukes, chemical and biological warfare, the ABM treaty. 

I don't know if this happened to you when you were going to school, but, when I was in high school, you got to, oh, about 1910 and then you raced to 1960 in two days, and that was it. That was contemporary 20th century history.  It's an education problem as much as a campaign finance problem.

JOHNSON: Is part of the problem also that, in our sense of being the world's only superpower, we won the Cold War, the world's our oyster, our culture is the world's culture, that we're even more prone to be dis-interested in the problems of other people. We have it so good, we're just not learning foreign languages. We're just not plugged into the details of the lives of other people, in part because we have this sort of extremely self-congratulatory attitude these days.

MANN: Absolutely. I do think there's a spirit of triumphalism abroad in the land.  It certainly was accentuated by the Persian Gulf war. I think it's accentuated by low oil prices and the fact that you can buy gasoline for seventy cents a gallon in some parts of the country right now. We're almost on a novocaine high in terms of our peace and prosperity, and, sure, I think that inoculates us from much awareness or worry about the rest of the world. 

And, my concern is that the democracies innately tend not to respond until a crisis is upon them anyway.  Until there's a disaster, until there's a lose nuke that goes off in America or there's a chemical warfare attack. It's frightening to behold, but there just seems to be this sense of insularity that we have that, you know, obviously, could have very unfortunate consequences.

We're at one of those crucial divides in history, in the history of civilization, in which we can exploit a fantastic opportunity to change our relationship with Russia.  Actually, to transform the relationship between the West and Russia in ways that have been unsuccessful, literally, for centuries.  But, if we continue to create apprehension in Moscow instead of offering a helping hand, if we continue to base our strategic relations with Russia on personalities, on the relationship, say, between Clinton and Yeltsin, rather than on an institutionalized strategic partnership, which is what this administration has alluded to a number of times in years gone past, and which now seems to be going away, then there's no question that the new world order that George Bush spoke about in such vague terms could really become something concrete.  When we think of a West united with Russia.  That would be an extraordinary kind of phenomenon, and it seems to me it could be a very stabilizing one. 

But, the root to this is being willing to invest some money up front, as in buying out Russia's nuclear stockpile. We need a master stroke, we need a dramatic gesture, we haven't really done that yet.  And, time is running out.  We've got to move and move quickly or we're going to lose it all together.

JOHNSON: Great.