#3
Trud
No. 3
January 10, 2002
[translation for personal use only]
ON PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF RUSSIA-US COOPERATION

The Putin-Bush mutual understanding and working collaboration, which nobody envisaged, yielded ripe fruit by the end of 2001. The common enemy - the fighters of bin Laden's Al Qaeda, who also trained terrorists for Chechnya with the connivance of the Taliban - has been routed. And it was done not only with the help of the Northern Alliance, but also by Americans, Sergei ROGOV, non-voting member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director of the Institute of the USA and Canada, told Vladimir MIKHEYEV of Trud. Such quick military defeat of the Taliban would have been impossible without the large-scale pressure on Taliban's recent sponsor - Pakistan, who also enjoyed financial privileges from the USA, or without massive bombing and concentration of an expeditionary corps on the Afghan border.

Question: You have stated recently that Moscow-Washington collaboration in the struggle against international terrorism has turned the two states into de facto allies. Do you want to take back this evaluation now that the USA has announced its decision to withdraw from the 1972 ABM treaty, for which the Russian leaders fought "to the last drop of blood"?

Answer: Allies do not necessarily think alike. Did Stalin and Roosevelt, who were reliable partners in the anti-Hitler coalition, agree on the nature of the Second World War or on the post-war order in Europe? Don't the USA and its current allies - Japan and EU countries - wage banana, cod and automobile wars, firmly upholding, when they can, their national economic interests? It is another thing that there is a package of common basic values shared by all those who see more benefits in cooperation than in confrontation. Alliances are born also of the awareness of threats emanating from a common enemy. For the USA and Russia, this common enemy today is international terrorism.

Question: But the Kremlin continues to chide the West for dividing terrorists into good and bad, for seeing a difference between bin Laden's fighters and Chechen separatists who survive on drug money.

Answer: Of course, there are differences in their views. In particular, Moscow and Washington still cannot agree on the Kosovo Liberation Army. But one thing is indisputable: our union in the struggle against bin Laden and the Taliban is a reality. It is another question if it will be tactical and temporary, falling apart after the completion of the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan.

Question: Do you have an answer to this question?

Answer: I believe we should use this favourable situation to step up cooperation in other spheres, such as the strengthening of the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. It is true that we have not yet coordinated our stances on many disarmament issues. In particular, the Bush Administration does not want to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Yet Moscow and Washington are kept together by a common desire to preclude further proliferation of mass destruction weapons.

We should also encourage the economic dialogue. Indeed, there is no mutual economic dependence of our countries. What we have is Russia's dependent position. It is being constantly pressurised by discrimination measures, which greatly complicate the revival of our national economic potential.

I think that a bilateral treaty on mutual security, which will take into account the national and state interests of the two powers, should become an inalienable part of the legal base of our partnership.

Question: Don't you think that such a treaty may have the same fate as the ABM treaty?

Answer: No, I don't think so, because it would not be a mutual control treaty but a treaty on political and military partnership.

But we should also modernise the arms control regime. We have actually admitted that the ABM treaty has grown obsolete. Russia has changed and rivalry based on mutual assured destruction and balance of fear has become a thing of the past. We face new threats in the geopolitical context now. However, the 1972 ABM treaty is inseparably linked with about 30 security agreements, in particular START-1.

Consequently, we need a new arms control regime involving other nuclear countries. The US NMD system will not create practical security threats to Russia in the next 7-10 years. But it can nullify the modest nuclear potential of China, which may be tempted to try to catch up with and overtake the USA. Nobody can guarantee that China's accelerated nuclear missile programme would not worry the neighbouring India. And if India takes up the challenge, Pakistan will join the race.

As a result, we will have a race with many participants and an unpredictable but surely frightening outcome. This will have extremely negative consequences for Russia. If we notice this adverse scenario becoming a reality, we will have to take adequate military-technical measures. This is why we should start testing and deploying MIRVed warheads on our mobile Topol-M missiles, which will be cheap. And it will protect us from unpleasant surprises.

Question: Maybe the reduction of nuclear warheads proclaimed by Putin and Bush will lower the level of confrontation?

Answer: Further reduction of offensive weapons is a step in the right direction. Yet I think that a new agreement, which is to be formalised by the visit of the US president in mid-2002, should not stipulate the slightest details. But it should include references to the START-1 verification procedure. Such a link may be the compromise that will suit both sides.

Another positive change could be clearly worded rules of Russia's participation in the NATO operation within the framework of the nascent cooperation council. Besides, Russia and the USA may sign an agreement stipulating the area of cooperation in the struggle against the common enemy, international terrorism.

BACK TO THE TOP    #188 CONTENTS    NEXT SECTION