#9
Yezhenedelny Zhurnal
No. 4
February 2002
POTENTIAL FOR RESTORATION
Seeking new directions for cooperation between Russia and the United States
Author: Alexander Golts
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE UNITED STATES IS REVISING ITS NUCLEAR DOCTRINE. IT IS TIME MOSCOW REVISED ITS FOREIGN POLICY. THE OLD SYSTEM OF RELATIONS BASED ON CONFRONTATION AND MUTUAL CHECKS AND BALANCES HAS OUTLIVED ITS USEFULNESS: BUT THE POINT OF NO RETURN TO THE COLD WAR HAS NOT BEEN PASSED YET.

The latest Russian-American honeymoon was even shorter than all previous ones. It certainly seemed for a time that September 11 dramatically improved bilateral relations. Moscow made a number of moves clearly indicating that it viewed Washington as at least a trusted partner, if not an ally. The Kremlin gave it consent for deployment of the US troops in Central Asian states of the Commonwealth, turned down its ELINT-gathering center in Cuba, expressed its readiness to facilitate relations with NATO, and even accepted its expansion. Last but not the least, President Vladimir Putin took America's withdrawal from the ABM treaty in his stride.

Washington also took steps in the spirit of new relations of partnership at first. While announcing its withdrawal from the ABM treaty, the United States immediately announced its intention to cut nuclear arsenals from 6,000 warheads to 1,700 - 2,200. It isn't hard to see that the decision was made in order to placate the Russian military. It is common knowledge, after all, that Russian nuclear arsenals are ageing and will be down to 1,500 or so warheads by the end of the decade. If the Americans left their nuclear arsenals intact and deployed a national missile defense at the same time, even what relative nuclear parity there currently is would have been irreparably wrecked.

The Kremlin also expected the Americans to stop criticizing it over Chechnya after September 11, particularly in the light of evidence showing that Khattab's guerrillas had contacts with Osama bin Laden. The Americans did indeed stop criticizing the Kremlin. This situation lasted several months.

As soon as the Taliban's resistance in Afghanistan was broken, however, Moscow got a dose of reality. Washington made it clear during bilateral military consultations that it would not sign any new treaty on bilateral nuclear arms cuts, something like START I or START II. At best, Washington may agree to release some vague and not legally binding joint statement on mutual cuts in nuclear arsenals.

Moreover, the report on development of American nuclear forces drawn up by the Pentagon and forwarded to the US Congress on January 9 makes it absolutely clear that dismantling the warheads removed from ICBMs is out of the question. The Americans intend to store them - in order to be able to arm their ICBMs again whenever they consider it necessary.

The unofficial American moratorium on discussion of the Chechnya problem is over too. In mid-January the US Department of State accused Moscow of excessive use of force and human rights abuses in Chechnya several times in a row. Last week, head of the Russian Department of the US Department of State met with Iljas Akhmadov, "Foreign Minister" in Maskhadov's government.

So far, Moscow has been rather reserved in official expression of its disappointment. The Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry openly give vent to their disillusionment in Washington's treacherous behavior. When victory in Afghanistan was still in future, the Americans labored to create the illusion of cooperation and immediately turned their backs on Moscow as soon as the victory became indisputable.

At first sight, this construction of the developments is quite adequate. It is apparent at least that the victories in Afghanistan have seriously solidified the positions of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his followers who do not think that the United States should devote too much time and effort to establishment of relations of partnership with Russia. Particularly since this partnership may generate - and is actually generating - certain problems for the US Administration. Never missing a chance to whip George W. Bush and CO, The Washington Post does not criticize the fact of a meeting between a high ranking official of the US Department of State and Maskhadov's emissary. It criticizes the clandestine nature of the meeting. According to the newspaper, "Chechen and Afghani campaigns are not one and the same thing. The word "genocide" is misused too often but it is precisely this word that should be used to describe what has been happening in Chechnya."

Even assuming that Russia and the United States deal one and the same enemy, it is all too clear that they fight their wars differently. The Americans did not need sweeping operations to destroy the enemy. The latest informational technologies and high-precision weapons can be effectively used against guerrillas, as it turned out. Wars like that last mere weeks. The country's losses are minimal and the locals are mostly spared. The American victories in Afghanistan are another confirmation of the assumption that radical changes are taking place in the methods of waging a war and in military strategy. It is these changes that Moscow persists in neglecting.

The Russian military persists in thinking that a 100% guarantee of national security is maintained by preservation of nuclear parity with the United States. In the meantime, the Pentagon is out to drastically change the military-strategic situation in the world. From this point of view, the already mentioned report on development of the American nuclear forces is truly a revolutionary document, according to some experts. The Pentagon intends to abandon the old concept of the traditional nuclear triad comprising ground-based ICBMs, nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers. The future triad will include the strike force (along with the "traditional" nuclear forces, it will include high-precision weapons whose effectiveness is comparable to nuclear arms), strategic defense systems, and "fast response infrastructure" (as the Pentagon sees it, the matter concerns scientific-technical and industrial potential which will allow organization of nuclear arms production whenever necessary). All three components of the future nuclear triad will be incorporated into a single informational, intelligence, and command system.

Implementation of this plan will guarantee the United States global military superiority for decades to come.

Viewed from this angle, the question of where the warheads removed from ICBMs will be sent is certainly of secondary importance. Some experts are convinced that this whole potential for restoration game is but a deceptive maneuver on the Pentagon's part. On the one hand, it has to convince the US Congress that America will retain the capacity to respond to nuclear threats in the traditional manner - all through the decade the radical reorganization of the nuclear forces is going to take. On the other hand, this whole scheme will serve to send any nations intent on challenging America's military superiority along the wrong track entirely: toward a steady buildup of nuclear arsenals.

At least from official Washington's point of view, the new American strategy has little to do with Russia. Rumsfeld's letter to the US Congress states that as of now, America in its nuclear planning should not view the threat posed by Russia adequate to the one posed by the Soviet Union once. According to Rumsfeld, the new relations of partnership with Russia are the major precondition for a revision of the whole nuclear policy of the United States. Essentially, the plan of development of the American nuclear forces is the first military- strategic document specifying partnership with Russia as a fact. This way Washington officially calls Russia not an enemy anymore.

Official Moscow should rejoice. The Americans do mean to dismantle the material foundation of the Cold War. Neither the military nor diplomats are, however, overjoyed. The change is too much for them. Logic of partnership the United States offers makes pointless all long-winded speculations on military-strategic parity, nuclear balance, and new treaties with devious systems of verification and control. Redtape would not have that.

Had the supreme political leadership really viewed strategic deterrent as the top priority in the sphere of national security, the Kremlin should have transformed the country into "a vast military camp" now that the potential enemy is after absolute military superiority and nullification of the Russian nuclear potential (the Kremlin's last trump card). As a matter of fact, the Kremlin does not view the United States as a source of military threat.

The new and unusual position of the sides opens a vista of prospects, but the fragile trend is in jeopardy.

Four decades of the Cold War concentrated relations between Moscow and Washington on a single issue vital for both countries - the need to prevent mutual deterrence from resulting in mutual destruction. These relations took the form of a whole framework of arms limitation and reduction treaties and agreements. Contacts between Moscow and Washington were restricted almost exclusively to these consultations. Even when the Soviet Union collapsed and became history, Moscow went on thinking by inertia that the nuclear arsenals comparable to the American made Russia and the United States equals. No one wanted to see the plain fact that preservation of organizational structures of the Cold War inevitably led to restoration of a confrontation.

Now that the Americans mean to dismantle the system, there are fears that neither Washington nor Moscow know yet what shall be used to replace it. Washington regularly mentions some relations of strategic partnership but cannot explain what it means.

Dismantlement of the antique Cold War infrastructure is the first step on the road to reliable peace. This infrastructure is not restricted to Russia alone. It also exists in the United States. The Jackson-Vanick amendment still applying to Russia is an atavism like that. Everyone is free to emigrate whenever he or she decides to - has been able to emigrate for over a decade already - but the amendment has not been cancelled yet.

The Treaty on Conventional Arms in Europe is another Cold War relic. It was drawn in the first place as an agreement between NATO and the Warsaw Pact to prevent a dangerous concentration of troops on what might have become the front line. The Warsaw Pact is history, former socialist states and former republics of the Soviet Union are queueing for NATO membership, but Russia is still subject to flanking limitations that make troops movement on its own territory difficult. It is high time Moscow discussed the matter with the United States, which has been steadily losing interest in Europe for some time already.

The American military presence in Central Asian states of the CIS remains an important military-strategic matter. Russian generals and diplomats say that Moscow is prepared to put up with US military bases there for the duration of the counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan. Neither are the Americans themselves eager to settle in the post-Soviet Asia for long. General Thomas Franks, commander of the operation in Afghanistan, has just reiterated the absence of plans to quarter the American troops in the region on a permanent basis. Is it good for Russia or is it not? Aleksei Arbatov, military expert and Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Duma, ventured the opinion when the operation in Afghanistan was just beginning that the Americans would disturb the Central Asian anthill only in order to withdraw afterwards leaving Moscow to face the music.

The Americans will surely destroy the Taliban and weaken Al- Qaida. Yet, there is nothing to stop extremists deprived of their bases in Afghanistan from moving to Central Asian states of the Commonwealth. Russia cannot build a wall to safeguard itself from this states. It does not have the money nowadays - nor will have it in the foreseeable future - to offer economic assistance to these states or assist them in state construction and development of fully fledged national armies. The Russian 201st Motorized Infantry Division alone cannot hope to maintain stability all over Central Asia. American military presence in the region might have facilitated economic development and gradual evolution of the native regimes toward civilization. In other words, maintenance of stability in Central Asia is a task that may initiate productive Russian-American interaction on a new basis.

Some analysts also consider that nonproliferation of mass destruction weapons and missile technologies might become another important sphere of Russian-American cooperation. Moscow and Washington should only refrain from reducing it to mutual accusations and threats of sanctions.

Last but not least, the war on terrorism should not be restricted to information exchange between Russian and American secret services. Arbatov believes it would be much more helpful to set up joint working groups to evaluate the degree of vulnerability of industrial and defense facilities.

These are just a few potential aspects of Russian-American cooperation. It is hard to say at this point exactly where joint efforts will be needed. It is important, however, to realize that the old system of relations based on confrontation and mutual checks and balances has outlived its usefulness: but the point of no return to the Cold War has not been passed yet.

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