#8
Newsday
August 20, 2001
THE REAL STORY THIS SUMMER?
THE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY
By James Klurfeld
LEAFING through a month's worth of newspapers after an extended summer
vacation makes it appear that this has been one of those summers when
nothing much happened. When the lead story is the saga of a Little League
baseball team, you get that impression.
But a series of smaller headlines, some buried on inside pages, stuck in my
mind. It gradually dawned on me that an important story is not always a
dramatic single event.
What I'm referring to is this: Over the summer, the Bush administration has
gone from indicating that it might eventually withdraw from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to making an actual decision that the United
States will abrogate the 1972 treaty unilaterally if necessary. No matter
what the Russians think. No matter what the European allies think.
Now that's a fairly big story with some pretty heavy consequences.
First, remember that the ABM Treaty has been the basis of U.S. foreign
policy when it comes to nuclear weapons for almost 30 years now. It was
negotiated by the hardheaded, conservative Republican administration of
Richard Nixon. He signed the treaty, and the Senate ratified it, not
because it was some fuzzy-headed, good government thing to do, but because
it added an important element of stability to a dangerously unstable
nuclear world.
And despite what President George W. Bush keeps saying, not that much has
changed when it comes to nuclear weapons. The basis of U.S. security still
is - and will continue to be for years - deterrence. The debate over
deploying an anti-ballistic missile system is ridiculously premature
because a workable system is many years away. And even if such a system
existed - and it does not - it is far from clear that deploying it would
enhance security.
But the consequences of a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the treaty would
be far-reaching. It would only accelerate an unmistakable drift toward an
adversarial relationship with Russia.
This is not only the fault of the Bush administration. The Clinton
administration must share the blame, especially its decision to expand NATO
into Eastern Europe and closer to Russia's borders. It has set into motion
a seemingly unstoppable process. But it is also a policy the Bush
administration says it favors. By next year, the issue on the table will be
whether to move NATO's military protection to the Baltic states that
actually border Russia.
Russia is a weak country now. It is not a threat to the West. And it is
trying, with obvious difficulty, to become a normal state with a market
economy and democratic elections. It doesn't make sense to play into
Russia's historic insecurities. And it certainly doesn't make any sense to
drive the Russians and the Chinese closer together in an alliance against
what they believe is arrogant, dangerous, threatening U.S. behavior.
But that is what is happening. A unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the treaty
would dramatically accelerate the Russian-Chinese alliance.
A withdrawal would also cause a fundamental rift with the European allies.
The Bush administration is badly out of step with the Europeans on the ABM
issue, but both sides have tried to paper over differences.
An actual withdrawal, however, would create domestic political movements
against Washington's actions that allied leaders could not ignore. British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who have
both tried to work with Bush, will be faced with significant grass-roots
movements within their own parties if the Bush administration abrogates the
treaty. Have no doubt: The United States will be isolated on the issue of
missile defense.
The folly of all this, of course, is that the technical feasibility of such
an anti-missile system is years away.
Just this week, there was a report that the system would be ineffective
against the more primitive missiles that a third-world country - an Iran or
Iraq, for instance - might launch. And the week before, there was a report
that the administration was killing a program to purchase weapons-grade
plutonium that comes from dismantled nuclear bombs because, at a time of
tight budgets, it wanted the money for missile defense.
The more real national security threat, of course, is from terrorists
obtaining weapons- grade plutonium to build a suitcase bomb.
What I'm saying is that the story of the summer isn't the Bronx baby
bombers and how old they really are, but that there is a screw loose in the
Bush administration's approach to national security.
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#9
Kommersant - VLAST
No. 34
August 2001
AMERICA UBER ALLES
Russia should realize that opinion in the US favors missile defense
Author: Vladimir Abarinov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE UNITED STATES WILL BUILD ITS NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM
DESPITE MOSCOW'S PROTESTS. BUSH'S FIRST SIX MONTHS IN THE OVAL OFFICE
HAVE GENERATED AT LEAST TWO MYTHS ABOUT HIS TEAM AND THE SITUATION
WITH MISSILE DEFENSE. BOTH MYTHS ARE REGULARLY REPEATED BY THE RUSSIAN
AND WESTERN MEDIA.
RUSSIAN-AMERICAN CONSULTATIONS OVER MISSILE DEFENSE IN MOSCOW
CONTINUE. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER CONDOLEEZZA RICE WAS IN MOSCOW IN
JULY. HER VISIT WAS FOLLOWED BY US DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD
RUMSFELD'S. US UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE JOHN BOLTON FLEW IN LAST WEEK.
SO FAR, THERE IS NOTHING TO SHOW FOR THE CHAIN OF VISITS.
Every American visitor is told in Moscow that Russia wants the
parameters of the future American national missile defense system in
order to see exactly where they collide with the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) treaty of 1972. Every visitor is forced to explain that
the parameters are something the United States cannot provide now.
Tests are needed to determine configuration and parameters of the
future system, and tests are precisely what the ABM treaty bans.
At first sight, Moscow and Washington are trying to break the
vicious circle. Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush are
meeting in November to discuss the matter. Deputy Chief of the General
Staff Yuri Baluyevsky, who met with his Pentagon counterparts shortly
before Rumsfeld's visit to Moscow, says military experts have prepared
for the summit "properly".
Talking to the journalists accompanying him to Moscow, Rumsfeld
was fairly optimistic. He said he did not perceive any obstacles to
establishing a strategic partnership with Russia, and that Moscow was
bound to become a supporter of the idea of national missile defense
systems soon. Rumsfeld was particularly happy that he was scheduled to
meet with Sergei Ivanov - a man who has the president's ear, is not a
hawk, and who speaks English into bargain.
Rumsfeld was disappointed.
On his return from Moscow, Rumsfeld said in an interview: "Russia
is still, I think, captured to a certain extent by the old Cold War
mentality and fear and apprehension and concern about the West. And
our country, of course, is a country that is open, it's transparent...
And they know that." Analysts evaluated the interview, broadcast by
PBS, as generally hostile.
Actually, Rumsfeld himself is to be blamed for the failure of his
visit to Moscow. He's a tough politician, and diplomatic finesse is
foreign to his nature. But how adequately does Moscow evaluate him and
other members of the US Administration?
Rumsfeld's latest visit was actually his tenth visit to Russia.
He made his first visit to Russia in 1974, accompanying Gerald Ford to
Vladivostok for a meeting with Leonid Brezhnev. The vital accord on
strategic arms limitations essentially inspired by the ABM treaty was
made in Vladivostok then. That is why Rumsfeld merely shrugged when
Russian officials implied that no one should discard the legacy left
him by predecessors. Rumsfeld is his own predecessor; all this is his
own legacy, which he has not left to anyone else yet. This is just one
example of misunderstanding on the part of the US officials Moscow is
dealing with.
Bush's first six months in the Oval Office have generated at
least two myths about his team and the situation with missile defense.
Both myths are regularly repeated by the Russian and Western media.
First myth: The presidential team is split into two camps.
Therefore, any particular decision of the White House is a result of
the personal ambitions and aspirations of the president or his closest
associates, not of a logical foreign policy (the team doesn't actually
have one). The correlation of forces is fairly simple - Secretary of
State Colin Powell on one flank, and Vice President Dick Cheney with
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on the other. The camps are titled doves
and hawks, idealists and pragmatists, internationalists and
isolationists.
Powell's doves or internationalists are the officials who care
about the image of the US and don't want its unilateral actions to
affect Washington's relations with the rest of the world (especially
with allies and states like Russia or China). Cheney's and Rumsfeld's
hawks or isolationists advocate telling the world to get lost and
withdrawing from international or bilateral treaties and agreements
that might conflict with the national interests of the United States.
In other words, America is above all others.
Every now and then members of Bush's team are forced to make
statements denying any split or discord in the US Administration.
Sure, there is the old axiom that there's no smoke without fire.
Moreover, there have been precedents in Washington. Political
scientists remember how Ronald Reagan's Defense Secretary George
Shultz and Secretary of State Caspar Weinberger battled one another.
However, there's a danger here of slipping into wishful thinking.
These days, all we have are the unconfirmed rumors about Powell's and
Cheney's rivalry for the influence over the Pentagon. Apart from that,
the worst "discord" in the US Administration comes down to differences
in interpretation of Rumsfeld's and Powell's statements on North Korea
and China, and Cheney's erroneous statement that Israeli reciprocal
strikes at the Palestinians were justified to some extent (the White
House immediately denied this statement).
When something like that happens, the White House doesn't over-
dramatize. Powell explained in his recent interview with CNN that the
shades of opinion don't have any destructive effect on US foreign
policy.
Last but not least, the real or imagined discord in the White
House has absolutely nothing to do with Russia. The only difference is
minor. When Powell is trying to explain to Moscow that a national
missile defense system is essential for the United States, that it is
a hard fact of life, and that a compromise is needed, Rumsfeld doesn't
think any more explanations are needed. He assumes that the Russians
are deliberately playing dumb in order to buy themselves time.
Second myth: There are powerful forces in the United States on
which opponents of national missile defense can rely for support. The
Democrat-dominated Congress allegedly intends to challenge Bush on
missile defense. These speculations are based on the following
assumption - now that the Democrats have been defeated on several
occasions in domestic policy matters (expediency of the bills Bush had
American lawmakers pass may be doubted, their popularity certainly
now), they are about to attack the White House's foreign policy.
For some reason, Russian analysts particularly like Joseph Biden,
head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, who they think is a
bitter enemy of the US president's defense initiative. No matter how
heated debates in the Congress over national missile defense systems
become, Moscow should not rely on the Democrats too heavily. Whenever
cuts in defense spending are on the agenda, the Democrats become
militarists.
The cost of the future missile defense system is not even
considered by American taxpayers. The Pentagon requests only $8
billion for the next fiscal year (it begins on October 1, 2002), $3
billion more than what the Clinton Administration initially requested.
Since 1984 when the United States began its work on Reagan's SDI, a
total of $56 billion has been spent on research in the sphere of
missile shields. It is not that much, as far as the US budget is
concerned. Remember that Bush's tax plans call for tax cuts totalling
$1.3 trillion over the next decade.
Opinion polls show that 80% of Americans approve of the idea of
the anti-missile shield and consider the money spent on it as
investment in America's national security. That is why opponents of
the US Administration don't reject the idea of missile defense systems
as such. They only doubt the technological feasibility of the project
and fear diplomatic complications with Moscow and Beijing.
The missile defense system is more than a shield from the
hypothetical North Korean and Iranian missiles, as far as most
Americans are concerned. It is a guarantee of prosperity as well. The
military-industrial complex and defense contracts support thousands.
The economic benefits of the missile defense system is all the greater
in light of the impending slump in the US economy, which has already
cost thousands of jobs in other areas.
Reduction of defense spending would directly impact voter
interests. Politicians cannot do otherwise than keep this in mind.
They know the consequences of ignoring public opinion. Senator John
McCain lost the presidential primaries in Connecticut because his
political opponents discovered and let it be known that many years ago
he had voted against construction of new nuclear submarines (built in
Connecticut).
That is why the missile defense system will be built.
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#10
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
August 29, 2001
RUSSIA STEPS UP ARMS EXPORT EFFORTS.
A trio of recent developments has put
the practices and prospects of Russia's arms exports back in the spotlight.
These include the publication earlier this month of a U.S. congressional
study with new international arms sales figures, the holding of a
Russian-sponsored international airshow near Moscow, and new reports
suggesting that Moscow and Tehran may be on the verge of signing a fresh
package of arms sale agreements. All three developments appear to suggest
that the more aggressive export policy Russia's arms exporters have
undertaken under President Vladimir Putin is beginning to pay dividends.
Arms sales for the year 2000 appear to have been up, and key Russian defense
officials have been enthusiastic about the country's prospects in this area
over the next several years. There remain more than a few flies in the
ointment, however. It also remains to be seen both whether the figures
currently being bandied about reflect reality and whether Russia's current
pace of arms sales is sustainable. Another unanswered question, one crucial
to the sustainability issue, is whether Russia's arms export establishment
will achieve its goal of diversifying the country's current client base.
Success in sustaining high levels of arms exports is critical to Russia
because it currently lacks the financial wherewithal to make meaningful
purchases from--or significant investments in--its struggling defense
industrial sector. The sector's survival, therefore, not to mention the
government's hopes of being able to reequip what it intends to be a leaner
but more efficient armed forces over the next decade, could depend to an
important degree on the arms industry's success in raising revenues from
abroad.
The claim that Russia is meeting with increasing success on the
international arms market appears to be borne out by the U.S. Congressional
Research Service's recently published annual report on conventional arms
transfers. Written once again this year by defense expert Richard Grimmett,
the study placed Russia second--albeit a distant second--to the United
States with regard to the value of arms contracts signed on the world market
in 2000. In a year when overall international arms sales reportedly rose
about 8 percent, U.S. arms manufacturers signed contracts for just under
US$18.6 billion, about half of all weapons sold on the world market last
year, while Russian companies inked contracts of their own worth about
US$7.7 billion. The Russian figure was up considerably over the reported
US$4.1 billion for 1999. Of the total US$36.9 billion in international arms
purchases made last year, US$25.4 billion involved sales to developing
countries--the highest total since 1994. The Congressional Research Service
study also tracked the value of actual weapons deliveries last year--as
opposed to the value of contracts signed. The United States also led in this
category, with reported sales of US$8.7 billion. Russia fell to third,
coming in behind both the United States and Britain (New York Times News
Service, August 21; Reuters, August 20; AP, August 21).
The statements of Russian arms officials gathered for the Zhukovsky air show
near Moscow this month appeared to corroborate the Congressional Research
Service study's suggestion that Russian arms exports are on the rise.
According to Sergei Chemezov, senior deputy general director of the Russian
state arms trading company Rosoboroneksport, his company has already signed
US$6.5 billion in arms contracts since Rosoboroneksport came into existence
just last November. The company's total contracts portfolio is valued at
close to US$13 billion, Chemezov said, and another US$2 billion worth of
contracts is pending. Chemezov, who some reports say will soon replace
Andrei Belianinov as chief executive of Rosoboroneksport, also claimed that
the company expects to export military hardware worth about US$3.2 billion
this year, and that its arms contracts have already earned US$2.8 billion in
revenues so far in 2001. Rosoboroneksport was created late last year as part
of a Kremlin-ordered consolidation effort within Russia's arms export
establishment. As the country's only state arms trading company it handles
the bulk--though not all--of Russia's arms export deals (Vremya MN,
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 16).
One weakness of Russia's arms export policy has been its failure to
diversify the country's client base, and it is Moscow's effort to remedy
this situation that could bring it into conflict with Washington. To date,
Russia's post-Soviet arms trading has been dominated by sales to two
customers--China and India. But the Kremlin appears more recently to have
targeted Iran as a prospective new market, and negotiations between the two
countries on a package of arms deals are believed to be progressing
steadily. Indeed, the Congressional Research Service study highlighted both
an increased flow of Russian arms to Iran--Moscow reportedly delivered
US$800 million to Iran between 1997 and 2000--and the growing possibility
that Moscow and Tehran will eventually conclude new arms agreements.
That this could happen sooner rather than later was suggested by Deputy
Defense Minister Mikhail Dmitriev, another top Russian arms official.
Dmitriev, who was appointed to his post earlier this year as part of the
reshuffle that accompanied the naming of Sergei Ivanov as defense minister,
told reporters on August 24 that the Russian and Iranian governments were
expected in the near future to sign a framework agreement on
military-technical cooperation. Dmitriev provided no details, but did say
that a draft of the agreement was being examined by the Russian government
(Interfax, August 24). In an interview with the main military journal
Krasnaya Zvezda on August 28, moreover, Dmitriev suggested that Moscow was
already looking at the Russian-Iranian agreement as a potential breakthrough
for Russia's arms exporters. He said that a contract for the sale of more
than 500 armored personnel carriers has already been readied for signing and
that the two countries are discussing a host of other potential arms
sales--from anti-aircraft systems to military aircraft (Krasnaya Zvezda,
August 28).
But is Moscow really making significant progress on the arms export front?
Some analysts appear to have their doubts. A report in Kommersant, for
example, points to barter arrangements and other unorthodox payment schemes
still prevalent in Russian arms deals--not to mention the fact that some
companies in this sector still fail to provide official or reliable arms
sales figures--to suggest that a recent rating of Russian defense companies
in a respected U.S. defense publication may be suspect (Kommersant, August
14). Other critics offer a more blanket condemnation of current Russian arms
sales policies. A report of the Zhukovsky air show, for example, included
the assertion that the show in fact amounted to little more than a desperate
fire sale of Russian aviation technology, one conducted in hopes of raising
enough revenue to keep at least some leading Russian aircraft makers--or a
favored weapons development program--afloat. Indeed, the respected Russian
military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer warned that the ranks of gleaming fighter
planes and other aircraft lined up on Zhukovsky field were in fact little
more than repainted Soviet-era jobs that are likely to disappoint any
customer who takes a closer look. "Russia has long since lost its
technological edge," he was quoted by as saying. "The truth is that Russia's
military industry is incapable any longer of building complete weapons
systems. They may sign contracts and take the money, but they can't deliver"
(The Independent, August 17).
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#11
strana.ru
August 30, 2001
Khasavyurt accords signed five years ago
Chechen militants needed independence to prepare for new war against Russia
By Nikolai Vladimirov
Exactly five years ago, on August 30-31, 1996, the Secretary of Russia's
Security Council, Alexander Lebed, and the chief of staff of the armed forces
of unrecognized Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, held talks in the Dagestan town of
Khasavyurt. The talks resulted in the signing of accords that were
subsequently called the Khasavyurt accords that stopped the armed actions in
Chechnya.
The beginning of August 1996 saw heavy battles in Grozny, and on August 6,
the city was taken by Maskhadov's armed groups. A week later, on August 13,
President Yeltsin signed a decree on additional measures for settling the
crisis in the Chechen republic. In accordance with the decree, the State
Commission on settling the crisis was to be dissolved, just like several
working and negotiating groups were to be dissolved, while supervision of the
process of a settlement in Chechnya was placed in the hands of the Security
Council.
On August 14, Lebed and Maskhadov came to their first agreement on a
temporary ceasefire. The second agreement on disengaging the troops and
handing control over Grozny to joint patrols of Federal and separatist troops
was reached on the backdrop of an ultimatum from the commander of the group
of Russian forces, Pulikovsky, to withdraw the Chechen formations from Grozny
within 48 hours, otherwise the city would be stormed and bombed. After
meeting with Maskhadov, Lebed publicly announced there would be no bombings.
On August 19, Lebed received from Yeltsin an official order to settle the
situation in Chechnya. In the evening of August 27, units of joint patrols
entered Grozny to ensure public order and guarding of state facilities. And
in the morning of August 28, the Federal forces and units of the militants
began pulling out of the city.
In the night of August 31, 1996 Maskhadov and Lebed signed a joint statement
and protocol on the principles of determining the basis of mutual relations
between Russia and Chechnya.
The documents signed in Khasavyurt were the result of eight hours of
negotiations between Lebed and Maskhadov. The sides pledged not to resort to
the use of force or threats of using force, as well as to proceed from the
principles of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International
Pact on civil and political rights. The key aspects of the settlement were
stipulated in a special protocol. The main issue was the principle concerning
"postponement of status": the question of Chechnya's status was to be settled
by December 23, 2001.
The Khasavyurt accords actually meant granting independence to Chechnya under
the rule of the Dudayev-Maskhadov regime, although it was not totally made
legal.
Having been elected president of Chechnya-Ichkeria, Maskhadov did not want or
was unable to fulfill the Khasavyurt accords, in particular, Article 3
concerning the principles of determining the basis of mutual relations
between the Russian Federation and the Chechen republic.
It reads: "The laws in the Chechen republic shall be based on observance of
human and civil rights, the right of people to self-determination, principles
of equal rights for people, ensuring civil peace, inter-ethnic concord and
security of citizens living in the territory of the Chechen republic,
irrespective of national affiliation, religion and other differences."
Instead of that, after the Russian troops were withdrawn, Chechnya-Ichkeria
witnessed public executions of people by firing squad without trial or
investigation (on decisions of Shariat courts), genocide against Russians and
other people of non-Chechen nationality, the murder of Orthodox priests and
destruction of churches. But the main thing was preparations for a new big
war with Russia to create "a Great Ichkeria from sea to sea" - a war that was
unleashed by Basayev and other of Maskhadov's "brigadier generals" by
intruding into Dagestan in 1999.
The aggression was repulsed by Russian forces and the Maskhadov regime was
destroyed. Such was the inglorious end to Ichkeria's independence that was
received by the separatists from Russia as a result of the Khasavyurt
accords.
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