In Russia, whose image as a military power has been shaped for decades, many citizens (41.1 per cent) still think the Russian armed forces are a reliable shield against external threats, while 33.5 per cent disagree with this idea and 23.4 per cent are undecided on the combat capability of the Russian army.

These figures have been published by the independent centre of Russian Public Opinion and Market Research (ROMIR - Gallup International) following an opinion poll conducted at the end of September involving 2,000 respondents from 115 populated areas in 40 Russian regions.

The poll showed that the Chechen conflict largely influences the Russian citizens' opinion of the army. Most of those polled (53.2 per cent) support the use of force in dealing with Chechen rebels, while 35.5 per cent oppose the federal antiterrorist operation in the North Caucasus.

The Chechen conflict and its further development arouses serious concern in society. For instance, 41.9 per cent of those polled think the threat of Chechen terrorism will grow, while 30.7 per cent said it will remain at its current level. So, although people mostly support the federal policy in Chechnya, which reflects the need to settle the Chechen problem, very few expect this problem to be settled in the near future. Only 15.4 per cent of citizens think the threat of Chechen terrorism will decrease, and 12 per cent of respondents were undecided.

The poll also revealed that 45.3 per cent of Russian citizens think the Russian army is inferior to the NATO armed forces, although 30.3 per cent of respondents think there is a military parity between NATO and Russia. About one quarter of those polled were undecided on the issue.

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#2
Missile shield linkage holding up disarmament accord
MOSCOW, Oct 19 (AFP)

Moscow accused Washington Thursday of holding up a major new arms reduction accord by demanding that Russia in exchange drop its opposition to US plans for a national missile defence system.

The Russian foreign ministry said the United States had tied progress on a START-3 treaty on slashing nuclear missiles to a revision of the 1972 ABM treaty that would allow it to build a national missile shield.

Washington says it needs the six billion dollar system to protect itself against the perceived danger posed by North Korea and other hostile nuclear threshold states.

But Moscow insists the threat has been exaggerated and can be countered using other means.

"The main obstacle in the path of launching negotiations (on START-3) is the position of the United States, which groundlessly links the start of talks with the 'adaptation' of the ABM treaty for the sake of deploying a national anti-missile system," the ministry said in statement.

"Adaptation is impossible as the essence of the treaty is a ban on deploying a territorial anti-missile system," said the statement, a copy of which was faxed to AFP.

Russia argues the US national missile defence system would undermine its own nuclear deterrent, spark a costly arms race it can ill-afford and undermine global security.

Russia's chief disarmament official Yury Kapralov restated Russia's objections during talks this week in Moscow with his opposite number John Holum, the US under-secretary of state for arms control.

During the talks, "we reaffirmed a proposal to cut strategic offensive armaments to 1,500 warheads each, which would be a radical move in nuclear disarmament compared to the level set by START-2 and the Helsinki accords," the foreign ministry statement said.

Under START-2, both sides agreed to slash warhead levels to 3,000-3,500 each, while in Helsinki the two countries' leaders agreed to work towards a 2,000-2,500 warhead threshold.

Moscow, much of whose Soviet-era nuclear arsenal experts warn is in danger of becoming obsolete due to cash constraints, is pressing for even lower force levels to minimise the United States's strategic advantage.

However, US military chiefs have said the levels proposed by Russia are too low, and would not allow them to fulfil the US battle plan in the unlikely event of an all-out conflict between the two nuclear superpowers.

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#3
BBC
19 October 2000
Kursk bodies could be abandoned

The Russian navy may have to abandon plans to retrieve the bodies of the 118 dead sailors from the nuclear submarine, the Kursk.

Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, commander-in-chief of the Russian navy, confirmed fears that the operation may be too dangerous.

He said "If the analysis of the situation inside the submarine shows too high a risk for the divers, I will be forced to give the order to cancel the operation." It is the first time that a Russian official has suggested abandoning the bodies - a step which would appear to contradict the original orders of the President, Vladimir Putin, after the Kursk sank in August killing all the crew.

The issue of rescuing the bodies has been mired in controversy since Mr Putin's announcement.

The Russians decided that the Norwegian company whose divers opened the hatch on the sunken submarine were asking for too much money.

So a deal was signed with the Norwegian branch of the US firm Halliburton, specialists in underwater oil exploration.

Donations row

The operation is due to start this week.

However, it is not known how many bodies were destroyed by the two on-board explosions. For this reason, and because of the dangers to be faced by the divers, some families are now prepared to let their loved ones rest where they are.

The announcement came as the widow of the Kursk's captain resigned from the commission which was set up to administer donations for the families of the crew.

Iran Lyachina, says that the money intended for them is being misspent.

She cites the spending of 5,000 roubles (nearly $200) on letters of thanks to those who had sent aid.

And a further 23,000 roubles (almost $900) went on copies of the first book about the tragedy.

Mrs Lyachina distinguished herself in the days after the Kursk sank by her composure and dignity.

This was despite the flood of lies and half-truths from the Russian authorities.

These gave hope to the families of the crew that their sons, husbands and fathers might be brought up from the sea bed alive, when it was already known that most, if not all, of those on board had died almost instantaneously.

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#4
Putin Has Kept His Suitcases Packed
Moscow Times
October 20, 2000
By Oksana Yablokova Staff Writer

"Boris Yeltsin pretended that he was not around, while Vladimir Putin pretends that he is around. " f Boris Berezovsky, speaking Monday at a news conference

Since taking over the Kremlin on Dec. 31, Vladimir Putin has set out to see Russia and the world.

He has been shown on television posing against a backdrop of Velasquez paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid and strolling with his wife outside the Taj Mahal in Agra.

He flew a fighter jet to Grozny, sailed on a nuclear submarine near Murmansk, effortlessly defeated a female arm-wrestling champion in Kazan and threw judo opponents in Japan.

Putin's domestic travels began on his first full day as acting president, with his New Year's Day trip to Chechnya, the first of almost 30 trips within the country so far this year.

He waited until after his election March 26 to indulge his international wanderlust, and beginning with a visit to Minsk on April 16, President Putin has paid 17 official visits abroad.

With trips to France, Canada and Cuba planned for the rest of 2000 and the acceptance of an invitation to Libya, Putin easily will outdo his predecessor. Putin's 30 days out of the country in the 206 days since his election is comparable to the total number of Boris Yeltsin's days abroad during his entire term.

Putin's itinerary of European visits this year has included Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain. He also has visited China, Japan, North Korea, India, the UN in New York, the countries of Central Asia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

A list of Putin's tours to various parts of Russia looks even more impressive and includes locations from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka and from Murmansk to Mozdok. He has spent 34 days working away from the Kremlin plus 16 days on vacation. Putin has been in Sochi since Sunday, officially on vacation, although he has met with the Ukrainian and Belarussian presidents. In total through Thursday, Putin has been out of Moscow for 80 of the 291 days of 2000.

If the pace of the president's trips remains the same over the next three years, he will be able to give Bill Clinton, considered the most well-traveled of the U.S. presidents, a run for his money.

Clinton, with more than 200 days out of the country during almost eight years in the White House, who once criticized former President George Bush for his frequent absences from the country, became the target of criticism himself last year from Republican senators for his long and costly foreign trips.

But analysts say that comparisons between Putin and Clinton are not terribly relevant because of the U.S. president's extensive international duties.

Then why does Putin travel so much?

Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center said that Putin is unsure of what to do as president and by staying constantly in motion he is able to distract attention from how little progress is being made on the economic and political front.

With the exception of the Tax Code and 2001 budget, other vital issues have been put off because of the president's travels, Ryabov said. "This creates the illusion of activity," he said.

Ryabov said Putin's international trips resemble PR events similar to those of the election campaign, with more show than substance. A good example, he said, was Putin's visit to North Korea in July and his meeting with Kim Jong Il. Putin announced Kim's offer to abandon his missile program in exchange for help in putting peaceful satellites into orbit, only to have the North Korean leader later say that it was all a joke.

While German Chancellor Gerhard SchrÚder and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, considered with Putin to belong to the new generation of world leaders, can afford to "promote" themselves abroad because the political and economic situation in their countries is stable, Putin cannot, Ryabov said.

Putin's limited experience in politics and a simplified perception of what it means to be a public figure have led him to seek the limelight and traveling is a good way to do this, analysts said.

"This is the logic of an election campaign but not of ruling the country. ... It might not be bad for him to work with documents a little bit," Ryabov said, referring to Yeltsin's frequent spells away from the Kremlin during which the only thing heard from him was that he was "working with documents."

"Yeltsin was not afraid to disappear for months. Gradually everybody realized that while being absent he was at the same time present," Ryabov said.

Yevgeny Volk of the Heritage Foundation said Putin is trying to make up for Yeltsin's long and frequent absences from the international political scene due to his poor health.

"[Putin's frequent trips] can be considered as an attempt to raise Russia's international status," Volk said.

As for the president's domestic trips, they show a desire to strengthen his grip on the regions, the analyst said.

"He wants to make the regions more controllable; 'control' is the key notion of his concept and his team," Volk said.

Vladimir Pribylovsky of the Panorama research center said Putin's propensity for travel predates his time in the Kremlin.

While serving as St. Petersburg first deputy major from 1994 to 1996, Putin traveled abroad more than any other City Hall officials and was known as someone who loved to travel abroad, Pribylovsky said.

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#5
Christian Science Monitor
October 18, 2000
Who stole Russia's election?
By Robert Bruce Ware

Robert Bruce Ware, an assistant professor of philosophical studies at Southern Illinois University, conducts fieldwork in the northeast Caucasus.

Relations between the United States and Russia are at their lowest point in a decade. Westerners worry that Russia is returning to a darker past, while Russians see a biased Western media at the base of widespread misunderstanding. Along with the war over Chechnya and the sunken Kursk, the controversy recently has focused on allegations that Russian authorities rigged the March 26 presidential election to produce a landslide victory for Vladimir Putin.

The allegations were made by the English-language Moscow Times in a Sept. 9 report, based on a lengthy investigation by the paper. The Times bases its charges in part on a sampling it took in Dagestan, a crescent-shaped territory that lies between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea. Based on that sampling, the Times says, 551,000 votes were stolen in Dagestan. According to the report, "a conservative guess would be that fraud [throughout Russia] was on a scale of that of Dagestan, meaning hundreds of thousands of votes were stolen for Putin in each republic," or 2.2 million overall.

If the report is accurate, then Mr. Putin stole the election and his government is illegitimate. But my own analysis of the Times's methods raises questions about this conclusion, and considering the fragility of US-Russia relations, caution is due in our reaction to the report's findings.

My expertise is in Dagestani politics, so this is the portion of the Times investigation I will address. While the report is correct in its description of some fraudulent procedures employed in Dagestan, my concerns about the investigation are twofold First, the Times's figures are based on unscientific methods. And second, the interpretation of the figures lacks a historical perspective, which may change the significance of the fraud.

Back to the question of methodology. The Times analyzed 16 percent of Dagestani precincts, but it did not take into consideration the ethnic makeup of the sample population. Dagestan is a complex mosaic of 34 distinct ethno-linguistic groups that vary in their approach to party politics. Since ethnicity affects the way people vote, the sample on which the study is based must reflect the same ethnic divisions found in the larger population. In this case, it didn't. And since there is no way to determine the ethnic composition of its sample, it's impossible to ascertain the reliability of the Times's projection to 551,000 fraudulent votes.

Furthermore, the data for this 16 percent is drawn disproportionately from Dagestan's capital city, Makhachkala. Voter fraud has generally occurred at its highest levels in the capital, where Dagestani government officials are most effective at manipulating ballots.

To put the problems with this methodology into perspective, the Times concludes that, based on this 16 percent sampling, 88,263 votes were stolen from the Communist presidential candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, and transferred to the winning candidate, Putin. Times further assumes that fraud occurred at the same level in all other precincts in Dagestan, and extrapolates to the conclusion that 551,000 Dagestani votes were illegally allocated to Putin. If the original sampling is flawed, then the distortion will grow as the report projects it throughout the rest of Dagestan, and then accepts it as a standard by which to gauge the rest of the Russian vote.

The Times report is correct that there was electoral fraud in Dagestan during the election. But based on the electoral history in this region, the motives for and outcome of voting fraud may be quite different from that suggested by the Times.

Dagestan is a mountainous, rural region, where more than 60 percent of the population lives below Russia's poverty level - which is very low indeed. Only Chechnya is poorer. As such, it relies heavily on Moscow for economic subsidies. Dagestan's overriding political agenda, then, has less to do with party politics and more to do with cultivating its relations with Moscow.

Because Dagestanis depend on Moscow for economic support, they have long taken a manipulative approach toward the Kremlin. Dagestani leaders offer support to Kremlin officials while also playing on Kremlin fears of instability. In 1996 there was at least as much fraud in Dagestan's election of Boris Yeltsin as in its recent support for Putin, though it went largely unreported in the media. What's important here is that voting fraud does not appear to be orchestrated by Moscow, but to originate among Dagestani officials.

Consider the December 1999 state Duma election. As in the US, Russia's representatives are elected in each legislative district. But in Russia, parties get to send additional representatives based on how many votes the party receives. Dagestan has only two legislative districts, and Dagestanis feel they are misunderstood in Moscow. So it was not surprising in the December elections that Dagestani leaders began to maneuver to place Dagestanis high on party lists to increase the chances that several Dagestanis would be elected to the Duma. Then Dagestani leaders openly, if illegally, shifted votes from one party to another to maximize the number of Dagestanis elected - six, instead of two.

If the motives for fraud have been misunderstood, so have its methods. In its report, the Times makes the following statement "Everyone from collective farm workers to college professors was forced to vote for Putin. Some critics have gone so far as to argue that on the eve of the 21st century, such bullying excluded villagers as a class from the democratic process."

With respect to Dagestan, these statements are false. I spent two weeks there this summer talking with many Dagestanis, including key political observers, without finding confirmation for such claims. Moreover, these claims have been refuted by Dagestan's leading independent political observer, and are not supported by Times's anecdotal field notes from Dagestan, which the reporter was candid enough to share with me.

My own analysis suggests that, considering Putin's strong support in the republic, and that "turnout" in the presidential election was about 20 percent greater than expected, it's likely that 350,000 to 400,000 votes were allocated illegally to Putin. While this is a large sum, it doesn't appear to support the Times's projection of 2.2 million. Of course, fraud is fraud. The Times is right to expose its prevalence throughout Russia's electoral system, and to her credit, the principal reporter has been very responsive to my queries. But if the West mistakes the motives, methods, sources, and significance of that fraud, its reaction will be skewed.

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#6
PRESS CONFERENCE REGARDING RUSSIA-WEST PARTNERSHIP IN THE SPHERE OF SECURITY
(ARBAT HOTEL, 1230, OCTOBER 17, 2000)
SOURCE FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE

Oznobishchev Ladies and gentlemen, participants and guests, members of the press, we are beginning our press conference. Taking part in it, from left to right, are Sergei Vadimovich Kortunov, adviser to the head of the presidential administration, Alexander Konovalov, President of the Institute for Strategic Assessments, Alexei Arbatov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, Academician Shmelev, Academician Ryzhov, Alexei Salmin, President of the foundation Russian Public-Political Center and Doctor Schulze, Director of the Ebert Foundation in Moscow.

Very briefly about our project. Oh, I forgot to mention myself. I am Director of the Institute for Strategic Assessments. Briefly about our project and what we did here. We are discussing a book that we decided on some time ago. This book will analyze Russia's relations with the West. It is called On the Eve of the Millennium, Prospects of Russia's Cooperation with the West. It is based on our profound concern about the present state of our relations.

In this work we are trying to analyze the causes of the present state of these relations. The partnership has been undermined, in the 1990s we witnessed an obvious degradation of our relations. True, a lot has been preserved.

We are also trying to outline the prospects of these relations, the possibilities of further cooperation between Russia and the West, we are trying to determine Russia's place in the multipolar world that is now taking shape.

The remarkable composition of authors and participants in the project allows us to hope that we will be able to offer an objective picture of what is now happening in our relations.

I will now speak about our partners, the participants in the project. We have international participation. Our partners include the Institute for Strategic Assessments in Russia. Its President is Konovalov, Oznobishchev is its Director. Also the Marshall Center for European Studies. It is represented here by Professor Gary Guertner who for some reason is sitting in the hall and not with us. I ask him to join us. We are grateful to the Ebert Foundation for supporting the project. Its Director is present here. We also got support from Rand Corporation and the Bertelsmann Foundation. This support gives us hope that the project is going to be a success. We are all adherents of discipline and this gives us reason to hope that the deadline will be met.

Now I would want to know if the organizers of the project would like to say anything about it. After that we will take questions.

Guertner I would just say that the Marshall Center is very pleased to act as a partner in this project. We will deal not with purely theoretical matters, but with practical steps that may be taken in the next 10-15 years to improve relations between Russia and the West. We will not concentrate on the past even though the past is of great importance. The project offers some very practical ideas and some very practical steps that the policy-making community in every major capital can give very hard consideration to and that will be steps that will take us down the right path over the next ten or fifteen years and I think very broadly refine, that is one of the things we are here this week in Moscow to help refine. Thank you.

Oznobishchev Now we will take questions.

Q A question to Mr. Arbatov. What do you think of the passage of the federal budget, particularly the part dealing with defense spending? Do you expect spending on defense to be increased? I mean by the sum that is mentioned in today's press.

And I have another question. I do not know who is going to answer it. Your project is called On the Threshold of the Millennium, Prospects of Cooperation in Security. How can we study security without discussing the things it rests on? For instance, economic problems which can explode the situation, for instance, trade wars, oil prices and so on. To what extent was this aspect discussed at your conference? Thank you.

Arbatov I will answer the first question. I hope somebody else answers the second one.

Yesterday, indeed, the Budget Committee approved by majority vote the amendment to the federal budget in accordance with which 12.6 billion rubles were added to spending on national defense.

This, of course, is very good. But this is not a source of particular joy. Firstly because this is a comparatively small sum. Especially if we compare it with the needs of the armed forces, the needs of military reform. This is not as much as it may seem.

Secondly, we should remember that a roughly similar sum was included in the new budget in the section National Defense although this money has nothing to do with national defense. For instance, spending on peacekeeping operations, spending on railway troops and so on. And this adds up to these 12.6 billion rubles.

This is really not an addition to national spending. It is simply money that is being returned to the defense budget. This is really a small addition. This is small as percentage of GDP and the spending part of the federal budget.

How is this money going to be spent, on what needs? If this is going to be thinly spread out among a multitude of spending items, the effect will be insignificant. If this is concentrated on some very important matters, then the effect might be bigger.

As to further increases in defense spending, I think there will be no further increase in spending on national defense within the framework of the draft federal budget that was adopted in the first reading. On the other hand, there might be a small increase in the course of the implementation of the budget next year if we make use of additional revenue generated by high oil prices. We export oil.

I think it will be stated in the text of the federal budget that a certain percentage of additional revenue will also be spent on the needs of national defense. But this will not be more than the sum that has already been added.

Konovalov I will try to answer your second question. First of all, I will say that the project does not deal specially with economic problems. We are speaking about the prospects of cooperation between Russia and the West in the sphere of security. But I will quite agree with you that it is not serious to speak about these prospects if we do not mention the economic aspects.

If you look at the draft of the final book that would sum up the results of our efforts there are such chapters as "The Political Economy of the Relations between Russia and the West." Governor Prusak has agreed to contribute a chapter on the role of the regions in Russian foreign policy. There is a chapter on the new security risks and challenges which of course include eruptions of instability in world economy. But I repeat the book is not specifically devoted to economics issues.

We were worried about the fact that in spite of the optimistic statements of both Russian and American leaders. If you listen to Strobe Talbott and Madeleine Albright, Igor Ivanov and even our President everything is fine in our relations with America. But in my view the real situation is a far cry from this picture. We are losing each other. We increasingly base our policy on misconceptions, on misinterpreted intentions and on misunderstanding of each other's motives.

This project has been prompted by concern and the wish to reverse the trend. It is our deep conviction that Russia and the West, Russia and America need each other and they have spheres of common interests.

Oznobishchev Academician Nikolai Shmelev.

Shmelev The problems of security are inseparable of course from economic interests, ours and those of our Western partners. But briefly to answer your question, I see many dangers but there are three key issues.

How can oil prices affect our relations? I don't think we need fear much. There have been two great oil shocks in the world in 1973 and again in 1979. We survived them. Oil prices are determined by market factors. And in general I personally agree with Sheikh Yamani who says that in 30 years time nobody will need oil. So, even in the vulnerable area of the Caspian where there is a clash between our interests and surprisingly, the newly developed interests on the part of the United States -- I think this has more to do with some sort of games than with economic problems. America doesn't need Caspian oil, nor does Europe need it. It is a storeroom for the next fifty years and perhaps nobody will ever need it.

The second very sensitive question for us is our naive intention that can hardly be put down to professional considerations, but rather some religious motives -- our desire to join the World Trade Organization being totally unprepared for it. Apparently we didn't have enough trouble in the 90s when we flung the doors open to our economy and Yuri Alexeyevich, though he doesn't always agree with me, will confirm that the conversion of the defense industry was ruined to a large extent by the open doors and uncontrolled competition of import.

And today too, it is a wonderful goal which we should seek to achieve, but if we want to do it overnight we will have to pay a very high price for it. It takes at least fifteen years.

In effect we have an uncompetitive economy. What are the competitive items that we produce? Oil, gas, Kalashnikov automatic rifle, the Baltika beer and perhaps, missiles. And that is all. All the rest is unable to compete with imports. And in these conditions if we join the WTO we will have just one weapon left and that is artificial undervaluation of the ruble, artificially keeping the ruble at a very low level. It is a very dangerous weapon. All the Russian assets, I mean the property existing now, can be bought by the citizens of a small American town if they pool their resources. We are so undervalued as it is and any devaluation, while having its pluses, has one important minus, namely, it devalues the assets of the country.

And finally, the third and the most painful question of where the world community must work out a concerted position. The drain from the Russian economy in the shape of the flight of Russian capital abroad that lasted throughout the 1990s cannot be tolerated any longer. When we are told that we got help in implementing reform, this is absolutely untrue. Throughout the 1990s Russia has been helping the West. To every dollar that comes into Russia four dollars leave Russia. I am not blaming anyone, this is the result of our own stupidity. We have only ourselves to blame. But this is a totally unnatural situation.

And until the drain stops, it would be very naive to dream about the resurgence of Russia. This, too, is a world problem and it could be discussed by G-7 or G-8.

Oznobishchev Thank you. Are there any more questions?

Q The Moscow Industrial Gazette. A Nobel Prize Winner, Alfyorov, recently addressed the State Duma and he spoke about the disastrous state of the funding of science. And he said that without the development of science-intensive technologies Russia will remain a developing country. The question, I think, should be addressed to Yuri Ryzhov. How could we strengthen our position in the world in this area?

Ryzhov This is not a new question. What Zhores Ivanovich said at the Duma, I mean the part that you quoted, is a very well-justified fear. But the proposed ways of dealing with the problem are somewhat utopian. Being a super power, the Soviet Union artificially, especially over the last 30-40 years, maintained the whole range of sciences existed in the world from the ultra-violet to the infra-red, to put it crudely. But financing of science and defense was going down in relative terms beginning from the late 1960s. So, when they say that everything collapsed in the last 10-15 years, this is untrue.

But under the circumstances the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and now the Russian Academy of Sciences, were aware that they couldn't finance everything. But choosing the areas that must be at least kept afloat in such a big state as Russia is very difficult because there is the phenomenon of lobbying in the scientific community. It is not based on money or political clout, but on the authority of names. It is a difficult problem, it faced President Osipov during his first term. And I am not talking about applied sciences.

Mr. Rubanov today showed me some very interesting notes which are very relevant to the question, what is the main link that we should pull at in order to try to salvage something of the intellectual legacy of our society today? Global informatization -- lagging behind informatization -- poses a certain threat to the existence of the country. The question about security was already mentioned here. Security has many aspects to it. Security has to do with information, the environment and so on. And the threat of society lagging behind the process of informatization is one of the main threats because the intellectual potential is so far the only asset that we still have.

Some people say with some reason that Russia has three factors, a vast territory, vast natural resources and an educated population. And they say with some reason that the first two factors have had a negative impact on the development of the country over decades and, perhaps, centuries. They stimulated the extensive mode of the country's development. Russia was not creating anything that could be bought. The previous speaker has just mentioned the Kalashnikov rifle and some other items.

So, we should invest not in the development of the experimental base or fundamental or applied research, but in the future intellectual potential. We should preserve the scientific schools that exist. For example, the Ioffe institute is a brilliant example. I won't multiply my examples because I may end up giving you a martyrology, but perhaps, there is some hope in this area that Russian science will survive.

Rubanov I looked at the plan of the book and I listened to you and it is connected with the millennium. And I would like to single out the information sphere from amongst the challenges facing the world community. Clearly, it is a little removed from the day-to-day problems. But specialists know that for twenty years now a struggle has been going on in the world for a new information order, that if one leaves aside the conflict between the authorities and the media over information security, there exists the information warfare dictionary developed in the United States which differs little from a nuclear warfare dictionary. There are such terms as "information aggression against national territory". There is such a notion as information deterrence. These are not some absurdities invented by Russian bureaucrats. This has been recognized by the UN. This is one context.

Another context. What threats to the international community do exist? There are physical threats because there have been cases when information networks were invaded, people were cut off from life-support systems in intensive care units, which caused their death. These threats are quite real and palpable.

Some problems are common problems because humankind become very vulnerable in this new virtual reality. When some say that Russia is Upper Volta with missiles, I'd say that this is not quite so. Upper Volta does not have and will never have an academy of cryptography. As long as control systems in the armed forces and life-support systems are protected from invasion by teenager hackers who have nothing else to do, this is one thing. But when structures which specialize in this start doing the same, we will have a totally different situation.

Now, those who hold the lead ignore what the rest of the world says or thinks. But everything may turn the other way round very quickly. Having created vulnerable life-support and control systems, they may fall victim to professional actions aimed at destroying these systems. I just want to address this question to the authors of this book. Is this an oversight or is it that the establishment dealing with foreign policy considers it unimportant or is this a gap that needs to be filled in and look for areas of cooperation between the two information superpowers, because I can assure you that the only match to the US National Security Agency is our FAPSI and vice versa. Will they fight each other or will they look for points of contact in order to protect the world from new threats in the new millennium?

Oznobishchev Thank you, Vladimir Vasilyevich, for your constructive criticism. These issues are addressed in our draft, but this is a signal to us that we should pay them even more attention.

Q I think, and I am sure you will support me on this, that Russia will not enter the new millennium with the need to start its relations with the West anew. Which problems in relations, do you think, will be carried over into the new millennium?

Oznobishchev You know what, the border between millenniums, and I am very glad that we have Sergei Vadimovich Kortunov here. He helps us move from one millennium to another and he is a participant in this project. We feel this all the time. To me, the border between millenniums is a rather artificial thing. This is just a good occasion to sum up results.

We see this as a good occasion to begin this work and conclude it successfully in the very near future and evaluate where we are and why we are where we are in our relations with the West. This is how I would answer your question in brief.

Q Mass media, particularly in the West, talk a lot today about globalization and its impact. There are 200 countries in the world compared to slightly more than 50 last century. How does this process, that has been promoted so energetically, match Russia's strategic interests?

Konovalov Let me try to answer this question. I think there is an objective process of globalization which includes information links, transnational corporations and the dilution of borders. There is no need to counter this process, because this is objective development.

But there is also a political aspect when we try to counter what we call American hegemonism with a multipolar world which we think would be safer and more beneficial to us, and we cannot accept the world organized by the US scenario. I think the concept of multipolar world -- while globalization is an objective process and must be taken as it is and we need to adjust to it, all talk about a multipolar world -- first of all there are already centers of force. You can't ignore this. Secondly, Russia must be very careful with this trend, I mean with this concept because if you look at the perimeters of our border, from West to East, you may find out that for the first time in history, at least I cannot recall anything different, Russia is surrounded by centers or poles of force that develop more dynamically than Russia.

Now imagine Russia with weak centripetal binding forces surrounded by a large number of gravitating centers because any political pole, a pole of force, has its own magnetism. Laws of physics and politics suggest that Russia will be torn apart in such a situation if it fails to create internal forces stronger than the outside impact. Some say, although not officially, but scientists like Brzezinski say that it would be easier for Russia if there were four Russias, not just one Russia.

This is why we have to be very careful with the multipolarity concept and not to focus on it too much because otherwise we will have to decide which pole to lean on.

Oznobishchev You have cut us to the quick and participants in the conference want to comment on this briefly.

Guertner Your question reminded me -- (inaudible) -- can find a great deal of Russian-Western cooperation. You mentioned globalism and also the proliferation of states. This is quite true. These may be contradictory trends. The end of World War II, as I recall, there were 75 nation states. I think at the end of the Cold War there were 165, and I think there are 288 or, as you suggested, nearly 300 nation states today.

I think it is not in the interests of the West or Russia necessarily to see the proliferation of small states continue. I think this may be more of a negative trend in international politics than a positive trend. What is more promising, it seems to me, is the trends in globalization, and globalization -- I think its heart can be defined as a willingness of a particular state to give up sovereignty in exchange for power.

The reason Europeans joined the European Union, they sacrificed sovereignty for more economic strength. Nations that join NATO, they give up a certain amount of sovereignty in order to enjoy more security. These are just two examples of some of the trends towards whether you call it globalism or regional organizations. I think it is very often in the interests of states to have a willingness to sacrifice some of their own sovereignty in exchange for greater power be it the economic sphere or the security sphere or the other sphere that you can think of. That is what your question reminded me of. And it certainly is an area, I think, where Western and Russian cooperation could take place on many fronts indeed.

Oznobishchev Thank you. Mr. Schulze.

Schulze Thank you. I mean this is a very interesting topic you have raised. I don't see any substantial transfer of sovereignty either from the United States or from Russia to any international body. And if you talk about counter-trends to globalization, there may be counter-trends, but I think they swim well within the stream of globalization, the whole process of regionalization.

Regionalization as such may be a kind of protective tendency and it may be a kind of tendency which is unleashed because only aggregated countries can survive in the future. And I think in Europe this is very true.

The transfer of certain sovereign rights even within the European Union is very very difficult. A very, very difficult thing. I think sovereignty as such may be not even at the core of the problem because what is sovereignty today? Do we have sovereignty of the so-called nation state in communications? No. Do we have it in defense or security? No. Do we have it in the environmental sphere? No. Definitely we don't have it in economy.

So, maybe we have to define an anachronistic or maybe anachronistic concept which dates from the seventeen up to the nineteen century and adopt it to a new situation. And I think every nation, every country has its problems with this. This is only a short remark.

What I find very touching, and I agree 100 percent with what Mr. Shmelev has said, and I am very pleased that he came up with an analogy of the seventies and the end of the nineties when you had oil crises and the dramatic increase in prices. But I would go a little big further.

If we look, for example, what was the reaction of developed capitalist countries to the oil crises of the seventies, to both oil crises of the seventies. It was a development of new technologies in the immediate attempt to cut costs, to rationalize production, to change the basis of the production system in the West. This was one of the means of enabling most of the so-called Western countries, Europe, Japan or the United States, to survive and to enter on a new level, in a new race of competition, international competition.

The answer the Russians or the Soviets gave in the seventies was basically a traditional answer giant projects which did not look at the potential development of the world economy in the future. Brezhnev's era basically misused all the profits you got as windfall profits from the increases in the seventies. You built huge projects which were not used for the development of your economy.

I think you had some moment in a similar situation, I hope not in a similar situation, but a similar negative outcome. You have, you are ripping at the moment windfall profits. The oil price is around $30, maybe $35 at the moment, and you base your budget on $20. So, the question which is very crucial for this country is, What do you do with the windfall profits? Do you modernize your infrastructure, railroad system, telecommunications, build up aviation and so forth? Or do you invest them in, as was very clearly mentioned by you, I forgot your name, education, in basic research, in applied research to make this country able to master the challenges from globalization or from internationalization or just to become an active competitor in the world economy?

In this regard, I would say, the military is the least and the most insignificant sector in this global equation. Of course, you have to do this. You have to modernize, you have to streamline, you have to push forward with your reform. But the main thing for the survival of this country is how to use the present situation in favor of reform and to become an active, prosperous, socially stable and politically stable factor in the future of the international development.

Oznobishchev Thank you. -- (inaudible) -- I think it is inevitable because we are discussing a very big project that affects many factors. Alexei.

Salmin Everybody talks about globalization. I have just returned from a round-the-world trip and everywhere large conferences on globalization were held. If globalization itself has not yet become a problem for humankind, the discussion of this issue has.

Speaking seriously, I think globalization is a very multifaceted phenomenon, although I cannot say that it is a new phenomenon. Sometimes when I hear the word "globalization", I have this feeling of deja vu. Many things that are discussed today in connection with this myth of globalization -- this is a myth not because there is no globalization but because this very topic has become mythical. All this was discussed exactly 100 years ago at the turn of the 20th century when people said that the growing international economy had been internationalized and had gone beyond national frameworks of political regulation.

All this led to the development of the two projects that were mentioned by Sergei Kortunov. They were developed after World War I which crowned the first process of globalization. Today we have to remember that the current process of globalization carries a number of predictable but at the same time unpleasant consequences. First of all, a storm on a lake and a storm in the ocean are two different things. This is why the common world economy generates such storms. As we know, the crisis in Southeast Asia has swept through the whole world.

Second, globalization is a great mix of tribes and peoples, and among other things the movement of people. It means not only the social effects of economic changes when people become poorer or richer, seemingly irrespective of their own efforts, just because the economy develops in such a way. It also means other effects, such as new and still unusual ethnic and religious tension that can be relatively described as new nationalism. I do not think that these phenomena can be regulated only at the transnational or supranational level. There must be some subnational institutions as well, institutions that would facilitate contacts between various cultural groups. Thank you.

Arbatov I want to add a little to the question of Russian interests and the process of globalization. Whether or not this serves Russia's interests depends on two moments, firstly, on the extent to which the process of globalization is objective, on the possibility to influence it in one way or another. Here, of course, stronger states may have a bigger influence and weaker states will have a smaller influence. The fact that today Russia does not rank among the strongest states places it in a more difficult position as compared to the United States, the states of integrated Europe, China, Japan and even some sub-regional countries.

The second aspect of this matter is in what exactly are Russia's interests. This is a very important question. It is far from clear. At this moment of change, this new change in Russia's historical development there are very serious differences in society's political elite about what Russia's interests exactly are. Proceeding from an answer to this question we can say if the processes of globalization are in our interests or not.

I do not want to philosophize but I want to stress just one more moment. I agree with what Dr. Konovalov said. He said the stronger the internal ties are of the state, the less the danger of the influence of the centrifugal forces. I would only add to this that another extreme is also possible -- self-isolation, information, economic, military, political self-isolation. An attempt by a weak state to lessen the impact of globalization.

There is much support for exactly this approach in Russia. We should not understate this. It is true of all levels, including very high levels of state power. This is a road to backwardness. We may turn into a big North Korea, live our own life but such a big country as Russia will hardly be able to hold out for as long as North Korea. After the initial consolidation there will be a very rapid and stormy disintegration.

But it is possible to take to another path -- to increase the internal unifying forces, not by way of self-isolation, but by properly developing the national economy, by maintaining the military potential at the necessary level, taking part in the international division of labor and trade, in financial systems, rapidly developing national information systems so as to successfully compete on the world market. We have really begun doing this but our strongest and most effective information systems are under strong political pressure and may be suspended for a certain period of time.

We should strengthen law and order inside the country. A country badly hit by corruption and crime is very vulnerable to the most negative influences of globalization. And so on. I will not give you the full list. I only wanted to describe two possible ways of adjusting to globalization, to be more correct, two ways of protecting national interests in conditions of globalization. These two ways are by far not identical. They lead in opposite directions.

Oznobishchev Thank you, Alexei Georgiyevich. I would like to give the floor to a participant in our project Stephen De Spiegeleire from RAND Corporation.

Spiegeleire Thank you. Yes, I wanted to jump on this question because it also allows me to explain why Rand was actually interested in this project. And it has to do with the self-consciously trilateral nature of this exercise. It is not just a Russia-US conference, it is a Russia-US-Europe conference.

The reason I tied this to your question is because in all these three different entities there is a different conception of the concept of power, the concept of globalization. You are probably aware of the fact that this phenomenon of globalization is perceived differently in Western Europe than it is in the United States.

Actually, let me refer to another participant in this book who is not present here today, Ambassador Robert Cooper, from the British Cabinet Office who talks about three different groups of countries that exist in the world today. The pre-modern countries, and he has mainly in view here countries in Africa and so is still very much engaged in ethnic warfare, then a group of modern countries to which he counts both Russia and the United States and then a group of what he calls may be a little bit unfortunately post-modern countries.

The idea is that these post-modern countries have sort of developed a very different concept of what it is to behave in international politics today, what power means in the world today and also what this concept of globalization means. And to tie a political point to that I am always struck as a European, and I work for Rand which is a European-American outfit these days, I am always struck by the fact that this US-Russia interface is still a lot more developed than the interface between Russia and Europe. And although at the rhetorical level Russia talks a lot more about Europe these days than about the United States, it is still very hard to see any concrete policy initiatives coming out of that.

And that is sort of one of these reasons why, I think, we are particularly interested in that. The European Union has developed an enormous amount of energy into coming to some kind of an agreement with Russia on a variety of foreign policy issues and it has proved to be very difficult. The Russian academic elite is still very much bipolar in its mindset and it is very much oriented towards the United States.

One of the intentions of this project is also to establish some more networks not just between the US and Russia or between Russia and the European Union academics but really to have organic networks between these three partners. This is what I wanted to say. Thank you.

Oznobishchev Thank you. Before summing up I am giving the floor for brief remarks to Mr. Schulze.

Schulze Maybe in your referring to the financial elite and to the security elite, but the Russian parts of elites are coming from economics, regional policy, from regional administration, from municipal and local government and as well from the national government here. I think they have very well understood in the course of the last years, especially after the 1998 financial crisis, to diversify their orientations.

This is the second in every public survey that has come out in the last years, which is based on an all-Russian basis -- Europe is not the flower on the wall anymore.

Oznobishchev I thank everybody and I invite everybody to lunch on the 1st floor of this building. Thank you.

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