JOHNSON: Well, actually we should talk a bit perhaps about maybe some of the things you learned from that experience there, but let's start with the subject of the war in Yugoslavia, what its impact has been on Russia and Russian perceptions of the United States in particular.

PIKAYEV: Well, even best Russian sociological services were not ready to predict what would be the real impact of the course of a crisis on the U.S.-Russian relations and perceptions among the ordinary Russians, vis-a-vis the Western force.

Outrage in Moscow was very high and according to public opinion polls, more than 90 percent of Russians denounced NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. This is not something in which the West should be surprised. Say, in Greece, which is a NATO member, the -- there was a similar number, more than 90%, which disapproved NATO action in Yugoslavia. And what we saw in Moscow around U.S. Embassy, one could also witness in Athens and in Skorpio, which is Macedonia capital.

What was important here, however, is that in Russia, although public opinion is now very critical -- it criticizes the U.S. and Western policy and is very suspicious to NATO, the slogan is popular, "Yesterday Iraq, today Serb, then Russia tomorrow," which I think is a bit unfair because it would put Russia into the same role with Slobodan Milosevic. But anyway, it's a very interesting development.

On the other hand, despite all these, I need to stress that it did not affect personal relationships. Russians like Americans, I mean, like individual Americans, and there was no any one reported case of assaulting against individual American in streets of the city of Moscow.

And though during first days of Kosovo crisis, I listened -- I heard a lot of French in Moscow streets like never before, presumably because English speakers prefer to speak French there, however, later on it returned back, and now you could speak English safely in Moscow.

JOHNSON: The main reasons why more than 90 percent of Russians are very uncomfortable with this war -- but what are the main reasons? What are the sources of their anger and discontent?

PIKAYEV: Well, the source was not definitely Milosevic, and Russia was not comfortable with Milosevic at all, and Russian public opinion was also shocked by the pictures of fleeing and the refugees from Kosovo.

The reason was that majority of Russians, who have much longer history of dealing with ethnic problems, were concerned that the prescription would be even worse than the disease, and as as it actually happened after air strikes...increased, and if before the conflict around 200,000 Albanians left Kosovo, after the air strikes, 600s more left for Albania and Macedonia, although definitely Milosevic is a primary source of that expelling.

So the other problem is that Russia's very concerned that NATO is starting to play a role of self-appointment policeman and a judge at the same time which could potentially have very ruinous effect on the overall international system because it would -- it could led to abrogation of the most important rules of the game, which were negotiated with such a big pay after World War II and after cold war ends, and that's a problem.

JOHNSON: Is there fears that NATO might find itself involved on the periphery of -- even closer to Russia, or in fact in parts of Russia in the future?

PIKAYEV: Oh, well, it's probably a very bad lesson for nuclear nonproliferation, but what was learned in Russia and elsewhere, that if you have nuclear weapon like Russia, China and now India and Pakistan, you are exempted from future NATO, most likely, though, are exempted against possible future NATO air strikes. And it represents a strong damage to international nonproliferation regime.

So I don't think that many Russians, or at least many of the Russian military, seriously -- are seriously concerned about possible NATO air strikes against Russia proper.

However, there are concerns about possible NATO involvement in the Caucasus, and we monitor discussions in NATO around that. And it would be even more severe, it would cause more severe damage for the West and Russian relationship than present disagreements, let's say, on that, around Kosovo.

JOHNSON: There's been some disruption of some of the military cooperation programs with the United States, and what are some of the sort of specific consequences of this disruption of relations in the sort of arms control/nuclear cooperation area?

PIKAYEV: Well, first of all, all relations with NATO were frozen. Russian military representative and Russian Ambassador were called back from NATO headquarters in Brussels in months. All military-to-military relations were frozen with -- between Russian and NATO military, too.

The same is true for the U.S.-Russian relationship. Russian military called back Russian officers training in the U.S. military academies and froze a military-to-military relations.

Reportedly, they also halted consultations on solving the Year 2000 problem and on missile early warning. However, there are some hints that those two consultations could be resumed in the foreseeable future.

In the area of arms control, the damage was much more severe. As a result of course, Soviet Duma had realistic chances to ratify Star 2 on April 2nd. After NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia started, it formally called President Yeltsin to call back the draft ratification resolution, and now most likely Star 2 is dead. There is almost no chances that present Duma would ratify until at least parliamentary elections would be held in December. However, personally I think that we, unfortunately despite all efforts we spent in Carnegie to facilitate the ratification, we would have to say goodbye to that important treaty.

It means that future of strategic arms control is in question because of the U.S. official position, because of position of the Clinton Administration, formal Star 3 negotiations could resu -- could start only after Star 2 enters into force, which would never happen most likely now.

We also see that another very important, I will say crucial, nonproliferation and disarmament treaty complete test ban treaty has also very minor chances to be ratified by the Russian Duma before to be the special conference will open in October, sometimes in October this year. Together with Indian inaction, it could led to possible Chinese inaction and likely inaction here in the U.S. Senate so that damage to this important has been also inflicted. That's sad, especially prior the next year NPT -- nonproliferation treaty -- extension conference by which nuclear powers need to demonstrate progress in fulfilling their obligations under Article 6 of the NPT where they oblige themself to move nuclear disarmament.

And now when U.S.-Russian arms control, strategic arms control, collapsed, when entered into forces under question, B-5 nuclear powers would have almost nothing to demonstrate prior to the NPT extension conference, and it would damage the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, too.

JOHNSON: Russian military in very bad condition, some movement towards greater reliance on nuclear weapons -- now with this latest development, the Russian military kind of bringing itself back to public notice. What do you think are -- is this issue of wanting to be strengthening the military, wanting perhaps to be strengthening the nuclear side of the Russian military, what's likely to happen in this regard?

PIKAYEV: There are two potential problems in that regard. First one is political. As a result of march to Pristina, this march for the first time provides us indications that military are ready to act on their own, ignoring other agencies, other civilian agencies -- first of all, Minister of Foreign Affairs -- and coercing the national authorities like President Yeltsin. We definitely don't know whether they forced President Yeltsin to make such decision or they simply acted on their own last weekend.

However, irrespectively to that, we see that Russian military are starting to play their own politburo in Russia, and like if previously we almost discarded possibility of coup d'etat, military coup d'etat, in Russia, now I'm afraid it is becoming more and more realistic. And this very new position is very instrumental in gaining more concessions from Russian civilian authorities, including increase of military budget, including modernization of Russian conventional forces, and including some developments in nuclear area.

And here we come to the second problem. When Russian GDP is around $200 billion, which is less than the GDP of state of New York, for instance, Russia has very limited resources to allocate for its military buildup. Conventional forces has been severely reduced after the end of the cold war, and there are concerns that they're not sufficient for deterring conventional, possible conventional, aggression against Russia.

It forces Russian military to play -- to pay more attention to the nuclear deterrents, and nuclear deterrents are playing growing role in Russia military doctrine. As a result of the Kosovo crisis, the military became even more concerns about Russian conventional inferiorities and they probably made certain steps in order to revision scenarios of the first use of nuclear weapons. So now they're thinking of not how to reduce nuclear threshold, how to make easier to pass that crucial thing.

And secondly, they started to think on earlier use of nuclear weapons, not after they face conventional defeat sometimes in the late -- later stage of the hostilities. But now they're think -- started to think on preemptive use of nuclear weapons in the beginning of hostilities, or even before them, like Russian Chief of General Staff General Krashnian [spelling phonetic] stated, Russia is considering to use nuclear weapons in times of crisis. And this is very significant change and very disturbing change in Russian nuclear posture.

JOHNSON: Russia was perceived in the United States as kind of being helpful in terminating the war. Many Russians were kind of uncomfortable with what Chernomyrdin was doing, sensed that they were just the messenger boy for NATO. However, insofar as Americans seem to be willing to see Russia as a partner in solving issues, are there other issues around the world where what happened in Yugoslavia in terms of a constructive Russian role, from the American point of view, could be duplicated? Are there some other issues that exist, or might exist, in the future where a kind of partnership might be useful?

PIKAYEV: Well, Russia and the United States share very fundamental national security and geopolitical interests, first of all because Russia and the United States are located in the opposite parts of the globe and to the country, say, Russia and Germany, Russia and China, they have much less overlap in their geopolitical thinking. They face much less problems comparing to what NATO's might have with very controversial and sometimes very brutal history in their bilateral relationship.

Fortunately, Russia and the United States are free for them, and even despite present problems with NATO enlargement, with Yugoslavia, with disagreements and even open geopolitical competition, the former Soviet space including the Caspian basin and the Ukraine, still I think the U.S. and Russia share important geopolitical interest. First of all, in the Far East. Russia and I believe Washington, especially now after -- on the verge of that spy scandal -- has mutual concerns about potential instability there which could be a result of potential noncooperative rise of the Chinese minds so that Russia is interested in maintaining U.S. geopolitical presence in Western Pacific.

And for the United States, Russia could also play a very important role as the only continental power in Asia which still, and for few next decades, ten, 15 or even 20 years, could provide the useful geopolitical balance for emerging Chinese superpower.

Russia and the United States are also interested in settling conflicts along Russian periphery in Asia. It's a crisis in Kashmir which could led potentially to a nuclear war. It remains in Pakistan. There are joint basic understanding on necessity to solve Arab-Israeli conflict. And we can also find a couple of dozens of other conflicts where Russian and U.S. interests are in parallel.

And here -- and this gives us some hint of the future possibility of reconstituting U.S.-Russian political relationship. However, it depends on results on whether better for military presence, peacekeeping presence, in Kosovo would be solved in a mutually satisfactory way.

JOHNSON: American policy with Russia has been very much focused on President Yeltsin and almost to the exclusion of other political actors on the Russian scene, and of course the end of the Yeltsin era is approaching. This is sort of getting into a different kind of subject matter, but is it your sense as a Russian that Russia can look forward in some constructive way to the post-Yeltsin era, that this is not a period where Americans or Russians should be fearing that horrible things are going to happen, that -- is Russia going to get through this and a new generation of leaders and perhaps economic turnaround? Are you optimistic, are you pessimistic, about this sort of unknown?

PIKAYEV: Well, on the one hand, I think that President Yeltsin played very important role in Russian history because he was the first President who was freely elected in '90 and then in 1995, for the first time in the 1,000-long history of Russia. President Yeltsin also played very important role in establishing and preserving major democratic values, including freedom of speech, which Russia has never experienced in such extent in its history.

However, Mr. Yeltsin made a lot of mistakes, especially in economic area, and majority of Russians recognize that the Yeltsin economic reform policy failed completely.

And it gives us some grounds for being both optimistic and concerned -- optimistic because as a result of Yeltsin almost decade, democratic values and free market relationship established themselves in Russia and it would be very difficult to return back to planned economy and to authoritarian Soviet type Communist regime.

On the other hand, disillusionment is so high that public opinion is now moving downwards, more pro-Communist and authoritarian leaders. It is very likely that, especially as a result of the Kosovo disagreements with the United States which, as I said previously, radically changed Russian public opinion overall Russian policy the West.

The Communists now have reasonable chances to gain two-thirds majority in the Duma, and it would -- under certain scenarios it would help them to establish their own power in Russia, and it is subject of concern, it is subject of concern, because Communists, they would make -- they would have very erroneous economic policy. They could spiral inflation. As a result, we might face an economic house which was open way to even more dangerous personality, someone like Russian Hitler, and already now Russia has some very strong Fascist, Nazi-type political movements whose influence is growing very rapidly against a background of anti-U.S. in sentiments and economic impoverishment of vast majority of Russians.

So this is a concern, and everybody in Russia and I think in the United States must be really concerned by that scenario. However, right now we have a few more months to add together in order to avoid this worst case scenario, and it requires, definitely it requires, more responsible economic po -- economic and domestic policy from Russian authorities and President Yeltsin.

But on the other side of the ocean, I think it requires more creative thinking about Russia here. It requires to make some attempts in order to improve U.S.-Russian relationship and here peacekeeping operation in Kosovo opens very good prospects for that.

Also, it requires to engage non-Communist, more or less democratically oriented Russian politician into some sort of exchanges with the West in order to engage them into let's say openly pro-Western policy from the -- of Moscow. And here I think it would be very important if Clinton Administration would stop concentrating primarily of Mr. Yeltsin, irrespectively to his historic, very positive role for Russia and for the U.S.-Russian relations, but to start to think more creatively in order to approach other important political figures in Moscow, including Moscow Mayor Lushkov [spelling phonetic] and including former Prime Minister Primakov who on the public opinion polls is now number one politician in Russia.

JOHNSON: Okay. What are some specific proposals in this sort of area of arms control and military cooperation that might be part of a kind of U.S. initiative to kind of regain some confidence on the part of Russians?

PIKAYEV: Well, this reconstitution wouldn't be very easy, wouldn't be very easy. However...

JOHNSON: This constitution would not be very easy, you said?

PIKAYEV: Yeah.

JOHNSON: Okay. Let's start with that again.

PIKAYEV: This reconstitution would not be very easy. However, it would be a big mistake to have a pause in U.S.-Russian security and arms control dialogue until next administration will come into power in Moscow and here in Washington. So this gap between now and early in the year 2001 should be filled by I think some informal consultations, negotiations, exchanges, where both sides would think on what would be the next century type of their offense -- defense relationship? What new steps could be given in arms control area, strategic nuclear arms reductions which would help Russia to avoid suspicious and concerns about Chinese buildup, about potential U.S. missile defenses deployments?

On the other hand, Russians will need to think more creatively on current use debates around the ballistic missile defenses and they would have to realize that if certain guarantees were made, such deployments could not affect U.S.-Russian strategic balance too much, let's say that, so we need to start formal or semi-formal consultations which would help us to avoid present deadlock on Star 2 thresholds, the ABM treaty, and now Star 3.

And this could be done while there is forums, probably including the bilateral working group on strategic stability which I think would be very important channel of bilateral dialogue in the foreseeable future.

JOHNSON: You've had a lot of contact with American officials in this sort of arms control and defense community. Are they -- are you sensing that they are still respectful of Russia, they're still -- have some capacity to cooperate on a way that is satisfactory to Russians? Yeah. You know, some people might think that Americans have kind of dismissed Russia; they see it as a third-rate power, it's unimportant and -- but what's your personal experience with perceptions of Russia?

PIKAYEV: Well, definitely Russia is responsible itself for its present troubles and inability of Yeltsin Administration to renovate Russian economy, to initiate economic growth, definitely has its setbacks, and it's not surprisingly that more and more people in Washington are starting to think that Russia is irrelevant.

The main problem here, however, is that if Russia would move from the partnership and from cooperation with the United States and with the West, it will become very relevant. And it is exactly what we see during the brave, brave march of Russian company from Bosnia to Pristina. Russia became relevant again, Russia became on the top of the news, and CNN paid a lot of attention to Russia like never before probably since 1993.

A d I think what is the best American interest is to avoid such relevance, such type of relevance. Russia is probably -- probably it lacks economic power to play important role inside the Europe community. However, if it is thrown out, it could make a lot of problems for the West and the United States so that I think that it is in the best U.S. interest to avoid such scenario. Russia should be kept in. It should be -- Russian sensitivities should be kept -- should be met seriously here because even despite Russian weaknesses, mainly Russian economic weaknesses, because everyone I think would have to remember that if it is not done, Russia would be very dangerous again, very dangerous again.