CDI Russia Weekly-#197 15 March 2002 Edited by David Johnson Center for Defense Information 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington DC 20036 phone: 202-797-5277; fax: 202-462-4559 djohnson@cdi.org The CDI Russia Weekly is an e-mail newsletter that carries news and analysis on all aspects of today's Russia, including political, economic, social, military, and foreign policy issues. With support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation, CDI Russia Weekly is a project of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information (CDI), a nonprofit research and education organization. CDI Russia Weekly web page (with archive): http://www.cdi.org/russia/ Visit CDI's web site: http://www.cdi.org Contents: 1. RFE/RL: Kathleen Knox, Russia: Response To News Of U.S. 'Nuclear Posture Review' Is Muted. 2. AVN Military News Agency: Senior MP says Russia may follow suit if USA fails to destroy warheads. 3. Izvestia: Georgy Bovt, THE CULTURE OF CONSENSUS IS HARD TO MASTER. The Putin-Bush summit will not depend on the poultry exports problem. 4. Moskovsky Komsomolets: Victor Sokirko, NEANDERTHALS 2002. Opinions on the nuclear threats still faced by the world. 5. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Mikhail Khodarenok, THE LOT OF THE DEFEATED. The United States no longer takes a weak Russia into account. 6. RIA Novosti: EXPERTS THINK RUSSIA ENCOUNTERS NEW US GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGE IN CENTRAL ASIA. 7. Moscow Times: Vladimir Kovalyev, Problems of Patriotism In a Country of Sadists. 8. Asia Times: Sergei Blagov, Moscow shows steel resolve over 'Bush legs' 9. BBC: Stephen Dalziel, Russian germ centre faces power shutdown. 10. Omaha World-Herald: Don't be reckless, Gorbachev tells U.S. 11. Jamestown Foundation RUSSIA'S WEEK: MANAGED DEMOCRACY. 12. PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: NEW ALLIES. Margaret Warner and guests weigh the risks and benefits of the U.S.'s strategic alliance with former Soviet states. ******* #1 Russia: Response To News Of U.S. 'Nuclear Posture Review' Is Muted By Kathleen Knox Russia has asked the U.S. for an explanation of its "Nuclear Posture Review," presented to the U.S. Congress in January and leaked to the U.S. press in early March. The review outlines possible scenarios for using nuclear weapons against a number of countries, including Russia. Reports about the review came just ahead of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's visit to Washington, where he is taking up the issue in two days of talks with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld. Given the warming of relations between the two countries following 11 September, it seems odd to place Russia on a list of potential U.S. opponents. RFE/RL correspondent Kathleen Knox reports that reaction by Moscow to the review has so far been muted. Prague, 13 March 2002 (RFE/RL) -- The September terrorist attacks on the United States ushered in a period of warmer relations between the U.S. and Russia, as Moscow quickly offered to cooperate in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. But as the U.S. prepared to mark the six-month anniversary of those attacks, "The Los Angeles Times" published details of classified Pentagon contingency studies for nuclear strikes against a number of countries that have or are believed to be developing weapons of mass destruction. The "Nuclear Posture Review," the newspaper said, includes Russia on that list, along with China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria. U.S. officials downplayed the report. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said it is "long-standing American policy" for the U.S. president to reserve his options in determining how to respond should some state attack the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to reassure Russia that it is not considered an enemy. He told a U.S. Senate subcommittee yesterday that no country is being targeted day-to-day. He also reiterated that the U.S. will continue to cut its nuclear arsenal. The report prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry to ask Washington for an explanation. If the contents of the review are accurate as reported, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said, "This can only cause regret and concern not only in Russia, but in the international community as a whole." News of the review came just ahead of a visit to Washington by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who took up the issue yesterday during talks with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld. In Moscow, some articles in the Russian press report unease about the U.S. "Nuclear Posture Review" in military circles. These reports also label the study as the latest in a line of Russian humiliations at the hands of the U.S. and its allies. These alleged humiliations include the American withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, NATO's eastward expansion, and a perceived reluctance by Washington to commit arms cuts to a treaty. Outside of defense, recent trade disputes -- over U.S. steel import tariffs and Russia's ban on U.S. poultry imports -- have further cast a pall on relations. But while the "Nuclear Posture Review" may have ruffled some Russian feathers, official reaction in Moscow so far has been mixed. Russian President Vladimir Putin today -- while not referring directly to the review -- said U.S.-Russian relations still continue to be weighed down by the heavy legacy of the past. But he added, "I think they [U.S.-Russia relations] are developing positively. In fact, the quality of our relations has changed for the better. It doesn't mean, however, that we don't have interests that are different from American [interests]." Despite Foreign Minister Ivanov's demands for an explanation from Washington, he also appeared to try to assuage fears over the review when he spoke in the State Duma today. He told deputies there is nothing new in a nuclear state such as the U.S. defining sites that could be targeted in cases of crisis or conflict. But he added that the form the review takes, as well as its timing, is of concern. He said the review reads as if it was written "without any regard for the current state of relations between our two countries." Sergei Mikhailov is deputy director of Moscow's Russian Public Policy Center. He says reaction in Moscow has been a bit muted, especially compared to the sharp comments that would have been expected not so long ago. "Maybe it prompted a certain reaction from the Russian military, but I was surprised myself that in [Russian] society, it passed fairly quietly," Mikhailov says. He says the recent steel tariffs dispute with the U.S. caused much sharper reactions among ordinary Russians, since people can more easily see how the tariffs could affect a particular industry or specific areas of the country. "I think that Moscow was not especially concerned, since you could say the current level of Russian-U.S. relations in the last six months after September 11 are what you could call neighborly, though not those of allies. I don't think this [review] was seen as a threat," Mikhailov says. This is an opinion echoed by Andrew Kennedy, a fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute. He says the U.S. administration probably would have preferred to have issued the "Nuclear Posture Review" earlier, but he believes the relationship between Washington and Moscow can weather this particular storm. "Now is the time they can turn around and say to Russia, 'Look, we're publishing this new policy. Part of it may upset you slightly, but these are the reasons we're doing it.' And the better diplomatic relations between the two countries has maybe eased the path of this new policy to come out," Kennedy says. One potential point of tension is the perception that the review lowers the U.S. threshold for using nuclear weapons. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko said this could seriously weaken the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Kennedy says the problem is to strike a balance between the principles of nuclear deterrence and the actual use of nuclear weapons. He says the massive size of the nuclear arsenals in the Cold War era were deterrents in and of themselves, since it was hard to believe such arsenals would be used in response to a single nuclear strike from, say, a rogue state. "But it's much more believable if you're sitting in your palace in Baghdad that the U.S. might use a much smaller-sized nuclear weapon to attack me if I attack their troops with chemical weapons, or if I conduct a massive terrorist strike against a U.S. target," Kennedy says. "So the idea is that by making the whole arsenal seem more usable, you enhance their deterrent factor and therefore you stop potential opponents from attacking you, so therefore you don't have to use them. It's a perverse kind of logic, but it's that kind of logic that potentially kept the peace during the Cold War as well." Russian Defense Minister Ivanov emerged from his first round of talks with Rumsfeld yesterday urging patience from reporters eager to hear how the talks had progressed. He is due to hold a press conference after a second round of talks with Rumsfeld later today. ******* #2 Senior MP says Russia may follow suit if USA fails to destroy warheads Russian AVN Military News Agency web site Moscow, 14 March: Chairman of the State Duma international affairs committee Dmitriy Rogozin does not exclude that, if the United States decides to store dismantled nuclear warheads instead of destroying them, Russia may make similar moves. "If the Americans continue with this line, we may do the same", Rogozin told the press in Moscow on Thursday [14 March]. Two scenarios can be considered at the Russian-US negotiations on strategic offensive weapon cuts, the lawmaker said. The first scenario provides for an open procedure of reduction of dismantled nuclear warheads and missiles, that is their destruction. If the United States rejects it and prefers to limit itself to signing "a certain executive agreement" instead of a full-scale treaty, it means that the country "wants to set a large strategic reserve that will be kept in stock; this is not reduction anymore", Rogozin said. The second scenario leaves "a free choice of nuclear triad" to the parties. It means that "we will be able to store instead of reduce nuclear warheads, creating a similar reserve that can be recovered quickly in case of necessity", the lawmaker said. ******* #3 Izvestia March 14, 2002 THE CULTURE OF CONSENSUS IS HARD TO MASTER The Putin-Bush summit will not depend on the poultry exports problem Author: Georgy Bovt [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON ARE NOT GOING TO LET THE FORTHCOMING PUTIN- BUSH SUMMIT FAIL. ALL RECENT EVENTS IN RUSSIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS TESTIFY TO THIS, EVEN DESPITE THE "POULTRY-STEEL WAR". ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA, CLAIMS THE US-RUSSIA COOPERATION IS A SUCCESS. Western politicians seldom utter the phrase so common in Russia: the media is to blame for everything. This is somehow considered politically incorrect. Of course, U.S. ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow, who invited several journlists to his residence, Spaso- house, did not use this phrase. However, he did not fail to note the Russian media has lately been presenting Russian-American relations in an overly dramatic and negative tone. But there is nothing so bad in them: relations between the presidents have considerably improved after the Texas summit, there have been "some political achievements". Poultry imports and steel exports are not the be-all and end-all. The public activity of the U.S. ambassador in Moscow has lately increased: he gives lectures, arranges seminars, and gives interviews. If one takes into account the emphatic restraint with which the Russian government responds to some US actions that might previously have aroused political hysteria in Moscow (military cooperation with Georgia, restrictions on imports of Russian steel, and so on), the conclusion can be drawn that both parties are building on the successful Putin-Bush summit in Moscow, May 23. Vershbow believes a "legally binding" agreement on reduction of offensive nuclear weapons will most likely be managed by the meeting in Moscow, although one cannot "guarantee this fully". Meanwhile, the parties are known to differ fundamentally in one point (this is one of the topics Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov discusses at the talks in Washington): what is to be done with the warheads that are cut? Moscow favors destruction. Washington is only prepared for partial destruction; America would prefer to reserve a major part by removing it from action and storing in a safe place, "just in case". In answering our question whether there were exact figures on the negotiating table in respect to warheads suggested for storage, Vershbow did not name any figures, admitting there were certain "approximate estimates" and saying the overall number of destroyed and stored warheads would eventually be considerably less than START-1 had provided for. While arguing the American position, the ambassador said the US does not currently produce nuclear warheads at all and that some kind of insurance policy ought to exist in "our unpredictable world". Provided there are clear measures of mutual monitoring and transparency (they are to be developed in the agreement under preparation), Russia would have no further concerns for its security. The second important document of the Putin-Bush summit will be a text (its status - a statement, a declaration, or something else - is not yet known) about a "new strategic structure". The general idea is recognition by Russia and the US of threats common to both, and a statement of intention to fight them together. The question is about nonproliferation of mass destruction weapons and missile technologies, the fight against terrorism, and so on. The issue of transparency measures in the sphere of the national missile defense the US is creating will evidently be added to the same document (the six-month notification time will end right after the Moscow summit, after which the US will withdraw from the ABM Treaty of 1972 that banned creation of a national missile defense). The U.S. ambassador noted these measures might include "cooperation in the production sphere". Apparently, this may mean America's readiness to permit Russian participation in producing missile defense system components, as well as to share some technologies. However, the Russian political and military authorities have until now been skeptical about these promises. The agreement on the new architecture of strategic security is connected with prospects of cooperation between Russia and NATO discussed currently. In this connection, Mr. Vershbow did not share the skeptical assessment voiced by an Izvestia observer concerning development of these relations over the past six months after the known initiative of British Prime Minister Tony Blair who proposed drastically raising the status of Russian participation in discussing the NATO agenda and even decision making. Vershbow believes the new formula of relations - the so-called twenty - will be launched "before the NATO meeting in May", but not in autumn (a view prevails among the press adjustment of new mechanisms scheduled for the NATO May summit in Iceland was postponed until autumn). Another thing is what the agenda will be of Russia-NATO joint work. In the view of Vershbow, it will be limited at the starting stage. As far as the economy is concerned, not everything is that bad here, Vershbow believes. Thus, speaking about the prohibitive tariffs the US has recently introduced on steel imports, he emphasized that Russia suffered less than other countries. Russia can even increase export of certain types of steel produce (the so-called slabs - flat billets) by 20% compared to 2001, without any tariffs. The Americans are obviously going to stand firm on the poultry meat issue. Ambassador Vershbow said American veterinary monitoring was almost the strictest in the world. Something indicates, however, that the ban which the Russian Agricultural Ministry imposed on imports of American poultry meat for two months is not a coincidence. It will expire on May 10, two weeks before President Bush arrives in Moscow. There is every reason to believe that Bush will not have to mention the issue of poultry meat - if there is no unforeseen deterioration in Russia-US relations. (Translated by P. Pikhnovsky) ******* #4 Moskovsky Komsomolets March 14, 2002 NEANDERTHALS 2002 Opinions on the nuclear threats still faced by the world Author: Victor Sokirko [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] THE LOS ANGELES TIMES PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE ON THE PENTAGON'S PLANS, IN WHICH RUSSIA WAS LISTED AMONG POSSIBLE TARGETS FOR NUCLEAR STRIKES. MOSCOW TOOK THIS NEWS ABSOLUTELY CALMLY. RUSSIAN WARHEADS ARE ALSO AIMED AT THE US, AND BOTH COUNTRIES ARE CONCERNED ABOUT DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. The Russian government's official response to the "information leak" which listed Russia among states targetted for an American nuclear strike proved quite restrained. Moscow merely ignored the article in an American newspaper, and did not make response statements. Even Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is currently visiting the US, did not try to find out from President Bush whether American nuclear missiles were aimed at Russia. The Foreign Ministry was perhaps the only one to respond to the missile threat, sending an official inquiry to Washington, but this is more like a diplomatic move than the position of Russia as a whole. However, this attitude of Russia's political and military leaders to the probability of a nuclear attack is quite understandable: it has long been known we are in the nuclear gun-sights. To be fair, one should note Russian missiles are not all aimed at test targets on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is just not accepted to say out loud that the entire U.S. map is marked with small flags of our nuclear strikes. This is tactless, and carries the risk of international discord. Well, the missiles are aimed and let it be so; those who need to know will know. When Boris Yeltsin suddenly revealed that Russian missiles would no longer be aimed at Britain and the US, residents of these countries were shocked: "Why, all this time we have been facing a threat of nuclear annihilation!" It was perhaps only British and American military people who were not surprised, for they knew our plans. Whether charts with position data for objects were removed from the warheads of missiles or not remains secret (placing them back takes little time, experts view), but one can surmise these "signs" also marked every other NATO member country, as well as some very unfriendly states like, for instance, Japan. And even today, one would hardly throw away schemes of blows striking - this thing is useful in the household and may come in handy. Six thousand Russian warheads are sure to not lie at depots as wasteful load that turned out to be unclaimed after completion of the Cold War. AT least, battle watch at rocket troops has not yet been canceled. It would be naive to believe rocket warheads do not look in our direction from overseas. Agreements on reducing strategic offensive weapons signed by Washington and Moscow were far from canceling Pentagon plans for striking nuclear blows. Moreover, every year brought more objects for attack. It is not by chance Americans are not ready to reduce nuclear arms below the level of 1,700-2,200 warheads that are capable of tearing apart the whole globe. And the Russian Defense Ministry is perfectly aware of this. Therefore, the present publication in The Los-Angeles Times has hardly become a revelation for our military people. Why then Americans seemingly by chance show the nuclear club from behind the back, if this is know without that? There are several versions here. The first and simplest is that this is a usual show of strength and scaring rivals. The entire world diplomacy indulges in this. The second is that there are many opponents in the US itself to creation of a National ABM: for example, leaders of the U.S. democratic party doubt the reason of the Bush administration's stake on ABM systems in the cause of providing national security. On the verge of the counter-terrorist operation, democrats attained reducing assignments for the ABM system by $1,3 billion addressing this money for battling terrorism and purchasing usual armaments. This means one needs a scary story, in which America gets many enemies who can be calmed down with nuclear strikes, while hiding behind the ABM "umbrella". For if one fires missiles at Russia or China, atomic doughnuts will fly back. And the third reason is the fear of Americans to lose their world superiority cracked after September 11 last year when it became evident the US were vulnerable to strike a non-standard blow for the part of the enemy. It is not by chance concerned American congress people assigned their army to make a fundamental survey of the nuclear doctrine, in order to determine the lines to build their nuclear forces along in the next ten years. the cock sparrows worked hard and reported the new situation in the sphere of security requires going farther, performing a transformation of the American armed forces and getting ready to act in a new, unpredictable world. The military people suggested creating a New Triad consisting of offensive shock systems, defense and offensive defensive, and a renewed defense infrastructure. The substance of creating the Triad is to bring down danger for the US in conditions of reducing nuclear forces (to that very minimum of 1,700- 2,200 operatively deployed strategic nuclear charges). Thus, Russia was included in this concept of striking preventive nuclear blows (to be more precise, it has never been excluded from it). Without entering us to the list of terrorist countries, the US marked Russia with a cross simply because we dispose of a powerful nuclear reserve. The two nuclear powers are all even here, as they say: Russia's military doctrine also clearly states the possibility of striking the first blow in case there arises a threat to national security. At the same time, our missiles are unlikely to fly to Mongolia or Honduras... The Cold War has long since ended, but "cold times" remain: the probability of a nuclear war is invisibly lingering. Fortunately, in the form of mutual threats so far... until one of the Neanderthals gets a bigger club. Leonid Ivashov, a former chief of the Defense Ministry Main Administration for international military cooperation: Since the moment of appearance of nuclear weapons and means of their delivery, our territory has always been the first target for American missiles. Just like US territory was for ours. Besides, one should bear it in mind every previous statement about non-aiming missiles was a sort of political trick that to a certain extent guaranteed from unsanctioned strikes. Meanwhile, position data have always been installed at missiles. One ought to picture clearly Russia has always been and will be a geopolitical rival for the US. Without control over Russia, or more widely, Eurasia, there is no control over the world, which Americans strive for. This is the corner stone of the entire American geopolitics. Henry Kissinger, a former aide of the U.S. president for national security, noted once; "Russia is not a partner, but a client for the US". Therefore, the article in the newspaper delicately put us in our place, among the countries supposed to make the "axis of evil". Andrei Nikolayev, chairperson of the Duma committee for defense: there is no wonder the Pentagon has plans for striking nuclear blows. Countries presenting the greatest probable threat as a rule find themselves among the first candidates for such strikes. These are countries possessing analogous weapons that can reach definite territories. Russian is among them: its missiles are capable of hitting targets in the US. At the same time, this problem should be divided into two components: the political and the military-technical. The fact is very important in the political sense U.S. and Russian missiles are not aimed at each other. This is not fundamental; in the military- technical sense. A few seconds are enough to enter position data to warheads from computers. Nuclear weapons is the armament of last century. However, one should take into account that in case a full-scale war still bursts out for various reasons, nuclear weapons will be utilized in it. By the way, it is not at all certain the US will be the first to use it. There are currently seven countries in the world that are already nuclear powers. War undoubtedly remains in this century as a way to solve political, economic, and other contradictions in the world. Nevertheless, practically no document of the General Staff contains the notion of war. This means the General Staff does not know conditions and the form, in which a war may happen, and consequently, it does not develop a system of measures (protective, mobilizing, offensive, and other) in case it starts. Pavel Felgengauer, an independent military observer: It is quite natural the information aroused absolutely calm response in Moscow: everyone knows without that we are at their gun point and they are at ours. Since the Cold war times, Russia and the US have had lists of priority targets for attack. Both parties naturally maintain these lists despite they signed in 1994 an agreement of non-aiming: aiming at a target is known to take one minute and missiles start in a few minutes... The Pentagon plans have of course been changing over the last decade. Thus, when Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus liquidated their nuclear weapons, they were supposedly excluded from the list. However, it is not the plans, but the priorities that mostly change, accents are shifted. We were the main military threat for the US during the Cold War, while both our and their military people view currently this threat as quite unlikely. The new thing in this document is only that Americans are seemingly beginning to create a new generation of small and super- small nuclear bombs to use in local conflicts or even simple counter- terrorist operations. These are bombs with regulated discharge and power, with a capacity of a few tons (ten, one hundred...). But again, there is nothing sensational here, because small and super-small charges and bombs intended to destroy underground targets have been developed in Russia and the US over many decades. As long as the end of the Cold War canceled the necessity to develop improved strategic warheads, "bomb-makers" are seemingly going to design new ones, for other - non-strategic - targets. Including in this country, which is by the way one of the reasons for this report to be met with benevolent neutrality in Moscow... Americans will have to launch tests for this and we are ready to resume them on Novaya Zemlya too. If Americans use such weapons, we will use it somewhere too - for instance in Chechnya. The Atomic Ministry has long been pushing the idea of regulated power through. This is when the power of usual strategic ammunition intended for a large war is reduced by 10 or even 50-100 times by pressing a couple of buttons, so that they can be used in small wars. The Security Council has also adopted special resolutions for this matter. Conditions, under which utilization of this armament is possible, is a necessary routine. As a matter of fact, such decisions are made by supreme command, while the latter is by no means restricted in its actions. There is of course an agreement that non-nuclear countries will not be threatened with nuclear weapons, but no one currently takes it seriously. It has been observed so far, but what the future will bring... To my mind, the very fact of designing these weapons says its utilization is quite probable. (Translated by P. Pikhnovsky) ******* #5 Nezavisimaya Gazeta March 14, 2002, THE LOT OF THE DEFEATED The United States no longer takes a weak Russia into account Author: Mikhail Khodarenok [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] DESPITE ALL THE TRADITIONALLY FRIENDLY RHETORIC, THE WHITE HOUSE UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE KREMLIN AS A FACTOR. THE EXPLANATION IS SIMPLE AND WELL-KNOWN: THE OUTCOME OF THE COLD WAR. IT ENDED ON DECEMBER 13, 2001, WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH ANNOUNCED AMERICA'S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE ABM TREATY. Russia has lost its military strength - so it no longer counts The tone of Russia's relations with the United States has noticeably changed. Washington's moves in the international arena do not take Moscow's opinion into account (or almost do not). Observers are under the impression that despite all the traditionally friendly rhetoric, the White House utterly disregards the Kremlin as a factor. The explanation is simple and well-known: the outcome of the Cold War. The explanation is fairly logical, but the question remains open: exactly when all the details were finalized in the 55-year confrontation between the East and the West. If we define this moment precisely, much of what has been happening nowadays becomes more understandable. Over the past few years, Russians have been persistently brainwashed into thinking that all wars end in negotiations and eventually in peace. The leader of one Russian political party recently even interpreted as peace talks what happened on the Berlin outskirts on May 8, 1945. This is where another false assumption is rooted, an assumption which is a logical corollary of the first - that "there can be no military solution to a problem". Any specialist acquainted with the fundamentals of military strategy knows all too well that there can be no military solution to a problem only when the political objectives of the war were not defined correctly in the first place. In fact, wars end in victory for one side and defeat for the other. Human history shows that there can be no "draws" in armed confrontations, whether "cold" or otherwise, between nations and military coalitions. Even situations in military conflicts that appear to offer no way out at first sight actually mean someone's unconditional victory. As for the defeats, they are so shattering sometimes that the feeling of shame weighs down the mentality of the nation for centuries to come. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States began on March 5, 1946. The confrontation, spanning more than half a century, was initiated by Winston Churchill in Fultown, where he demanded the establishment of a British-American alliance for a resolute war on communism. And when did the Cold War end? Some observers say that it ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. But collapse of the empire caught the White House unprepared. It had not been predicted. Hence the advances the Clinton Administration made to leaders of post-Soviet Russia. Most probably, disintegration of the Soviet Union was ringed the bell for the last round of the confrontation. The moment of truth came when the White House became finally convinced that the Russian bear had quietly passed away thanks to collapse of the Soviet empire and reckless reforms. This is a fact that cannot be disputed anymore - the Russian Armed Forces are not an organized force able to match on equal terms armies of industrially- advanced states in a conventional conflict for any more or less lengthy period. Russia does not have a modern combat ready military organization, it is as simple as that. What counts, however, is that Washington now knows - there can be no situation, not even hypothetical, when Moscow with its dependance on the West will use nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies. The half- century threat of nuclear apocalypse is history. The date when the Cold War ended can be determined exactly: December 13, 2001. This was the day President George W. Bush announced America's withdrawal from the 1972 ABM treaty. It was difficult to see three months ago that December 13 could be the day when the confrontation ended, but the nature of the White House's ensuing steps makes it absolutely clear that this is precisely the day when Moscow lost the Cold War. No one has been taking Russia into account since Bush's announcement, not in any sphere of relations. Even the latest Olympic Games confirm this assumption. It is not another round of confrontation in the spirit of the Cold War (or Cold Peace). It is an entirely different nature of relations between Russia and the United States. This is how one behaves only with regard to a loser who will not be able to put up any adequate resistance in the foreseeable future. Even in the negotiations over reduction of offensive nuclear arms, Washington ceased to heed Moscow. It informed the former enemy of the number of warheads it meant to retain - and that was that. Vae Victis! Woe to the defeated! History does not teach us anything else. ******* #6 EXPERTS THINK RUSSIA ENCOUNTERS NEW US GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGE IN CENTRAL ASIA MOSCOW, March 14. /From RIA Novosti correspondent Alexander Shyshlo/. -Konstantin Zatulin, head of the Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States- states said Thursday, Russia encountered a new US geopolitical challenge in Central Asia. He said the US military presence in Central Asian states is dangerous not only for CIS states but to Collective Security Treaty (CST) as well. The Treaty was signed by Russia, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia. Dwelling on the theme: Post- Afghan Central Asia and Challenges to Russia - the Loss of Positions or New Relationship at the seminar, Zatulin stressed that though some consultations had been conducted as part of CST no adequate measures were taken. Participants of the seminar think, Russia has made a serious strategic mistake when it left its own zone of influence in Central Asia voluntary and it is not simple to correct it. Zatulin thinks, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the key states in Central Asia, specialists say stability of the whole region depends upon them. Experts are sure, Russia should pursue new policy towards these states. Temporary strengthening of ties with Kazakhstan and peaceful political divorce with Uzbekistan are to be the basis of new Russian policy. ******* #7 Moscow Times March 14, 2002 Problems of Patriotism In a Country of Sadists By Vladimir Kovalyev It's an old story. Last week, another soldier at a military base in the Leningrad region grabbed his machine gun and made a break for it, looking for a better life. Although his weapon was found soon after, the soldier is still at large, one of about 5,000 young conscripts who escape from the army each year. Last month, the government and the State Duma spent a lot of time and energy debating proposed laws on alternative military service. Last week I was approached by a colleague taking a poll on the issue and one of the questions he asked was, "Should alternative service take place far away from the homes of those serving?" When I said that I didn't understand the question very well, he helpfully explained that "there is always the hidden question about whether or not each individual would suffer sufficiently." No one seems to be talking about the effectiveness of alternative service or, for that matter, of military service in general. Everyone seems to just accept that soldiers are running away in droves, that they spend an inordinate amount of time drunk and that they are always being beaten by their comrades and officers . Take my own military experience as an example. During my two years of active duty, I fired a machine gun twice (missed both times) and once I fired from a tank (a direct hit). I spent one year in what was then East Germany, working with the German police who were sorting out traffic accidents caused by drunken Russian officers who were smashing cars into trees all over the Sachsen-Anhalt region. Most of them hadn't managed to learn a single word of German despite living there for several years. As a result, I spent a lot of time translating for them while they bought new cars and the like. Sometimes this got to be pretty funny. Once I dropped by the quarters of an officer in my unit just as he was finishing his dinner. He welcomed me in a friendly way and said, "By the way, can you tell me what this package says. I bought it the other day and, you know ... Damn Germans, the stuff is breaking my teeth." "It's dog food," I said meekly. Anyway, I told the pollster that everyone should be given the chance to choose alternative service without conditions. The army would end up with the same number of soldiers, since those who are now goofing off or running away would likely opt to serve in hospitals or clean streets instead. When we have volunteer soldiers getting a decent wage, the army's problems should be much diminished. "But what about patriotism?" the pollster asked. It's hard to feel patriotic about a country that wants its soldiers to suffer, I thought to myself. Vladimir Kovalyev is a reporter for The St. Petersburg Times. ******* #8 Asia Times March 14, 2002 Moscow shows steel resolve over 'Bush legs' By Sergei Blagov MOSCOW - It is not exactly war, hot or cold, but Russia and the US are trying to talk their way around a standoff where the Americans are hitting the Russians with steel and the Russians are replying with chicken legs. Upset over the US decision to impose tariffs up to 30 percent on steel imports from Russia and other countries, the Russian Agriculture Ministry stopped issuing import licenses for US poultry on March 1. Imports were banned from March 10. Russian authorities did not connect their move to the steel tariffs publicly. Health Minister Yuri Shevchenko declared that US poultry had an unacceptably high level of antibiotics. But there are few doubts that the poultry ban has more to do with the US tariffs on steel imports than with antibiotics in chickens. The Russian ban matches the US tariffs in value if not in kind. Russian officials say the US tariffs could cost Russian steel producers more than US$1 billion a year, and lead to massive layoffs in the steel sector that employs 750,000 people. The Russian ban could cost US chicken farmers up to $700 million a year. Russia imported about 1.3 million tonnes of poultry last year, with more than a million tonnes coming from the United States. US agriculture and trade officials met on Monday and Tuesday with their Russian counterparts in Moscow to press for an end to the ban. Russian officials took the line that the ban reflects their concerns about sanitary conditions, the use of antibiotics, and feed additives. US officials said the objections are scientifically unjustified and accused Moscow of protectionism. Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev sought to underline the seriousness of the Russian government's stated position. He said that the total ban on American chicken could be lifted eventually but US poultry with certain categories of antibiotics would remain barred from the Russian market. Members of parliament made strong statements against the imports from the US. "A lot of trash is being imported into Russia" and the country is being turned into a "dumping ground", State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Volodin said on Tuesday. The influential mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, supported the ban. Meat with antibiotics and feed additives is no good for consumers, he told TV3 channel. He suggested that this was the reason behind so many overweight people in the US. Some Russian government officials have also voiced concern over the country's heavy reliance on imports. Gordeyev said this level of reliance on food imports was a national security issue. Russia imports 20 percent of the meat consumed in the country; in the major cities the figure is about 80 percent, Gordeyev told a conference on food security convened in Moscow on Tuesday. Local farmers were quick to step in to take advantage of the ban. The same day, Tuesday, a group of businessmen, local governors, and parliament deputies created a union to lobby the government on behalf of the country's farmers and the food industry. The farmers' group, the Russian Agrarian Food Union, claims to represent about 40 million people in the agriculture sector. It came as no surprise that the group's first move was to support the Agriculture Ministry's decision to ban import of US poultry. But the Russian ban on inexpensive US poultry could also hit the Russian poor. According to market research, about 60 percent of Russians regularly buy chicken, or what they call "Bush legs". The vast majority of consumers are low-income people who need these Bush legs. The price of Russian poultry is 30 percent higher than the imports from the US. Despite the high level of imports, Gordeyev announced Tuesday that there will be no poultry shortages in Russia after the ban. He said also that the ban would remain in force at least 60 days. US trade officials have reportedly hinted that failure to scrap the ban would hurt Russia's chances of getting access to reduced US import tariff levels, and undermine Russia's World Trade Organization (WTO) bid. Both sides, however, played down talk of a trade war, officially denying any link between the two issues. The chicken-for-steel dispute is raising new questions about Russia joining the WTO. Guennady Zyuganov, leader of Russia's Communist Party, said on Monday that joining the WTO would hit the country's agricultural and industrial sectors. At least 20 million Russians could lose their jobs, Zyuganov told parliamentary hearings on the WTO. (Inter Press Service) ******* #9 BBC 14 March 2002 Russian germ centre faces power shutdown By Stephen Dalziel BBC Russian Affairs Analyst A leading Russian scientific institute which researches dangerous bacteria and viruses is being threatened with a complete power shutdown. Its electricity supplier says that the research centre owes it more than $1.25m in unpaid bills. But scientists say that if the power is switched off, the institute will become contaminated - and making it safe again would be a lengthy process. The Centre for Applied Microbiology carries out research into extremely dangerous bacteria and viruses, such as plague and anthrax. In anticipation of the power shutdown, the animals used in the experiments have already been destroyed. Armed guards Scientists who work at the institute, in Serpukhov, 90 kilometres (56 miles) south of Moscow, say that they have sealed the laboratories. But they add that if the electricity is switched off, security systems will not function and they will have to post armed guards around the perimeter to prevent break-ins. If the institute is without power for 24 hours, it will become contaminated. And the shutdown would also affect several villages in the area. Harsh fact Some 7,000 people would be left without electricity, water and telephone lines. Power shutdowns have become a harsh fact of life for many Russians. And, as the armed forces have found in various parts of the country, the importance of an institution for Russia's security is no protection if the bills have not been paid. The Centre for Applied Microbiology receives a budget of 18 million roubles ($579,000) a year from the state. But this covers only the wages of the research scientists. The energy company, Mosenergo, is demanding more than twice that just to meet the institute's debts. ******* #10 Omaha World-Herald March 14, 2002 Don't be reckless, Gorbachev tells U.S. BY STEPHEN BUTTRY WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER In an emotional visit to Ground Zero on Monday, Mikhail Gorbachev noted the many nationalities of the people who died at the World Trade Center. "The workers there represented practically the entire world," Gorbachev said Wednesday in an interview before the first of two Nebraska speeches. Photographs of the victims of the Sept. 11 attack underscored his belief "that we needed to unite in the face of this kind of attack, this kind of merciless aggression by international terrorists." The last president of the Soviet Union discussed the war on terrorism and other world issues in a half-hour interview at the Doubletree Hotel in Omaha, with translation by his aide Pavel Palazhchenko. Gesturing frequently for emphasis, Gorbachev praised the United States for developing international support for the war on terrorism and encouraged Americans to continue working with other nations as the fight proceeds. "It's important to preserve the unity that emerged out of this," he said. "I think the solidarity helped the American people to go through this trial." Gorbachev twice visited the World Trade Center when it was a symbol not of tragedy but "of the achievements of America." Monday's visit, on the six-month anniversary of the attack, "brought back very vividly what happened on Sept. 11," he said. He had watched on television in his office at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow as the plane hit the second tower of the World Trade Center. Gorbachev did not leave his office until 4a.m., almost 10 hours after the attack. "It was something incredible and unreal, like a Hollywood movie, and it was a shock." He was especially moved in this week's visit by seeing photographs of children whom the victims left behind. "One could imagine the trauma that these people are living." While Gorbachev supported the military response against terrorists, he cautioned against "what I call a victory complex, a superiority complex." In the apparent victory in Afghanistan over Taliban and al-Qaida forces, "The United States played a decisive role, but it was not alone," Gorbachev said. "It would be better to be affected by a different complex, a partnership complex." He criticized President Bush's characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil." "Barbecuing countries and lumping together countries that are so different is not proper policy. It is more like literary rhetoric," Gorbachev said. He noted that secular leaders in Iran are in a power struggle with the Muslim clerics who have ruled since the late 1970s. "When the Iranians hear that they are part of an 'axis of evil,' this could unite them all in the face of what they would feel is danger." Gorbachev said Bush's statement might hurt efforts to unite North and South Korea. Gorbachev urged the United States to continue working through the United Nations to seek inspections to verify that Iraq is not producing weapons of mass destruction. "Let us not start by bombing, by waging war, by doing battle," he said. "If we go recklessly into war, this could lead to a situation that would go out of control completely." The war on terrorism must go beyond military battles and attack the root cause, Gorbachev said. "It is very important to put an end to the situation where half of the population of the world lives in dire poverty. If we think that we can fight poverty with the help of aircraft, tanks, missiles and artillery, that we can defeat terrorism just by waging war, that is wrong." With end of the arms race, he said, "we released resources that we hoped after the end of the Cold War would be used to fight poverty and backwardness." Instead, he said, a recent U.N. report showed that "the number of poor people has not diminished. It has actually increased, and the gap between the rich and poor countries has grown significantly." Gorbachev was disturbed by news reports last weekend that the Pentagon is developing plans for possible nuclear-war scenarios involving Russia and six other nations. He cautioned against reacting too strongly to leaks and partial information, and he said the disclosure could harm relations with other nations. "On the one hand," Gorbachev said, "the United States and Russia and other nuclear powers demand that other countries don't develop nuclear weapons. The United States wants nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the United States in this way is brandishing nuclear weapons. "It smacks of the Cold War again." ******* #11 Jamestown Foundation 13 March 2002--Volume VII, Issue 10 RUSSIA'S WEEK: News and analysis from Russia and the former Soviet States MANAGED DEMOCRACY.... So powerful is the democratic idea that its enemies must usurp it. Thus Lenin's democratic centralism, the old German Democratic Republic, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A phrase gaining currency in Russia today is "managed democracy," in which law serves the state and ensures that governors can claim the consent of the governed. Pro-democracy stalwarts of the 1980s and 1990s--including Yuly Rybakov, Sergei Yushenkov, Yelena Bonner, Lev Ponomarev, Valeria Novodvorskaya and Igor Yakovenko--accuse the government of seeking the "liquidation" of liberal reforms. In an open letter published last week in Boris Berezovsky's Nezavisimaya Gazeta, they said the government "deletes" the opposition from national politics by denying it television exposure. Grigory Yavlinsky, a Duma deputy and founder of the small but fiercely independent Yabloko party, said "managed democracy" includes government control of the mass media, elections in which candidates suddenly withdraw or are disqualified, politically inspired or directed judicial decisions, and the transfer of power from the regions to the Kremlin. The Kremlin's efforts to create a broad pro-government political coalition are either managed democracy at its most subtle, or political management at its most crass. In 1999, then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin created Unity, a nonideological "party of power" that swapped Kremlin favors and access for political support. In 2000 Unity cut a deal with the Communists that squeezed Fatherland, the party of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, out of leadership positions in the parliament. After a brief show of petulance Primakov came to understand his situation clearly. He withdrew from the 2000 presidential race and left Putin an easy winner as the only serious alternative to the Communists. Last year, Unity took control of the legislature through a political fusion with Fatherland and the antifederalist All-Russia movement led by Tatarstan's President Mintimer Shaimiev. Last week regional branches of the new organization, called United Russia, held founding conferences. The meetings were often ragged and rivalrous, with losers asking Moscow to change the outcome. For example: --Chelyabinsk: A group of dissident "Afghantsy," veterans of the Afghan war, gained control of the conference and excluded the local Unity leader, deputy governor Vladimir Dyatlov. When Dyatlov complained, the national leadership declared the local results invalid. --Lipetsk: Yevgeny Syrov was supposed to win the local leadership, but he didn't even make it to the council from which the leader is chosen. Now the national Unity party has the ballots under review. --Saratov: Governor Dmitry Ayatskov kept two Unity members out of the conference and provoked a walkout by several others, who appealed to the national leadership for relief. --Conferences in Altai Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Region and Orel had similar conflicts. Press reports say the national party wants to expel defiant regional branches and get rid of "gubernatorial license." But high-handed bosses like Dmitry Ayatskov are more the rule than the exception in much of the country, and the Kremlin is likely to tell the party leadership that sometimes, politics really is local. ******* #12 PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer NEW ALLIES March 12, 2002 Margaret Warner and guests weigh the risks and benefits of the U.S.'s strategic alliance with former Soviet states. Assessing U.S. strategy in former Soviet states MARGARET WARNER: We look now at the benefits and risks of applying this new Bush doctrine in one particular corner of the world, Central Asia. Joining us are Tobi Gati, former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence in the Clinton Administration, she is now a consultant at a Washington law firm; retired Lieutenant General William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency in the 1980s, he's now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an adjunct professor at Yale; and Martha Brill Olcott, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of a new book entitled Kazakhstan, Unfulfilled Promise. Welcome to you all. Tobi Gati, beginning with you, what do you make of this commitment the President made yesterday to help governments everywhere, as he put it, militarily to fight terror? TOBI GATI: Well, I think it's a breathtaking commitment because it's open ended. It has no exit strategy, as we used to talk about, and basically the president is saying we expect countries to help us. We expect them to act and if they don't have the resources that's not an excuse, we will help with the resources. What he has left unsaid is that if countries don't help us we will probably act unilaterally. And that's a theme, which was in his speech but not as dominant as in other speeches like when he talked about axis of evil and things like that. He also in effect said things like the Middle East peace process will have to wait until we deal with the really important problem and that is to deny sanctuary to terrorists. His theme was to terrorists nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and we're going to make sure that takes place. MARGARET WARNER: General Odom, does this strike you as a wise or smart commitment on a military level? LT. GENERAL WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): I think at present it's a good rally speech. In other words, it I think sharpens the pace and it gathers attention and makes countries take us seriously in a way that they haven't probably in the past. If one speculates about where this leads down the road, I think there will have to be some changes. I think the president has enough room to make the appropriate changes as the situation requires. Of course it's open ended, keeping peace and order in the world is an open-ended requirement, particularly for a country as wealthy as we are. MARGARET WARNER: Martha Brill Olcott, your view particularly on expanding this into Central Asia. MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT: I think the president's speech really makes it clear that the post-Cold War period is really over. No longer the states of caucuses a Russian sphere of influence, the U.S. will make its presence known wherever it feels it's appropriate. This really changes the whole future of states. If you like you can say the period of independence began for them in earnest after Sept. 11. Finding new allies in Georgia MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's take Georgia as a specific example, and that's the going and actually training the local military. Tell us about the terrorists in Georgia, who are they? Who are these folks in the Pankisi Gorge, who are they a threat to? MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT: Well, the people in the Pankisi Gorge are Chechens as well as members of the al-Qaida network so people of various nation nationalities, including Arabs. They are a threat to Russia, they are a threat to Georgia and to the degree to which they have safe haven they are a threat to the global community, but most particularly the introduction of U.S. trainers and U.S. equipment in Georgia really changes the equation potentially for the Georgian government. It means for the first time Georgia can look at the Russians and say we now have the capacity to maintain our security, which is something they hadn't had previously. MARGARET WARNER: General Odom, what can the U.S. Military do -- let's use Georgia as an example -- with just 100 advisers and trainers that the Georgian military couldn't do itself? LT. GENERAL WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): Well, these trainers, Special Forces teams, have skills and competences that the Georgians don't have at all. They'll simply be in a basic training mode. They will set up basic training programs for units. I suspect that certain units will be singled out, put under their training regime and they will introduce probably some new and more effective weapons. They will teach them tactics and techniques that are not necessarily natural to them, and just raise the tactical operational confidence of these units. It's not that the Americans are going to fight. It's my understanding that this commitment is pretty much on the lines of commitment to the Philippines where U.S. Forces are not there to be the trigger pullers or the fighters, except in the extreme incidence where they would have to defend themselves, but as trainers to raise the competence level. That's what I see them doing. I see them creating forces that can go up into the Pankisi Gorge and do pointed operations to pull out particular people and be successful at it. Risks within Georgia MARGARET WARNER: What do you see, Tobi Gati, as both the benefits in terms of anti-terror and the risks of this? TOBI GATI: I think it's important to strength the Georgian capabilities because the Georgian military now is not in control of Georgia. And there are parts of Georgia where the central government is not in control. But we're assuming a rational process where you train people to do something and then they do what you have told them to do. MARGARET WARNER: And no more? TOBI GATI: And no more. And if we look at the history Afghanistan we trained a lot of people to do things during the Soviet occupation and now they're doing and it's biting us in the leg. So I think we have learned that you can't control always what these troops may do. For example, parts of Georgia are not under Georgian control, Abkhazia and Agaria, two regions of Georgia. These -- the Georgian government has been smarting at having lost control of these areas, which are really under Russian domination. There's no guarantee over time that the Georgians feel they now have the capability to take , and you set in motion a process which the president laid out of helping countries and leading toward a more peaceful freer world, but in some of these regions you really open a Pandora's box. MARGARET WARNER: And that brings -- you wanted to add something to that? LT. GENERAL WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): I think you also close some Pandora's boxes because the Pandora's boxes are the lack of control over Georgian control over its own provinces in Agaria and Abkhazia, and I wouldn't be at all disappointed to see the Georgians go in and do that. I quite agree that it's a Pandora's box of a kind, but any commitment like this anywhere has these kinds of risks. And any American president has to make judgments about whether the payoffs are worth the risks and the problems that arise. I don't think anybody is naive at this stage of our history, after Vietnam and many other commitments, Latin America, and Africa and elsewhere, about what is it involved. The issue is the balance and judgments about how much risk to take and when to turn around to the regime that is running awry on you, doing what you don't want them to do, and say you're not going to do that or say we're abandoning you if you continue to do it. Balancing risks and benefits in Uzbekistan MARGARET WARNER: But that of course raises the issue of so-called "stans" -- the former Soviet republics, which are predominantly Muslims, like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and so forth, which some of them have terrible human right records. Do you think the U.S. Military can go in and help and not get dragged into seeming to be supporting these regimes? MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT: I think it can if U.S. foreign policy is multifaceted enough. I'm encouraged by the talk of how we're going focus our policy in Uzbekistan and by the agreements that are going be signed today and are in the process of being signed in the future with Uzbekistan. If we just give Uzbekistan military assistance, then I think we're entering a long and difficult friendship with a repressive regime, but if, as we're doing, we really push the Uzbeks to engage in economic reform, to have respect for human rights, to have respect for property, then I think we really have a good chance of affecting the outcome to our liking and to the liking of the Uzbek people. MARGARET WARNER: Is Uzbekistan facing a terrorist threat in this united movement for Uzbekistan or Islamic movement for Uzbekistan? Are these really terrorists and are they terrorists that could pose a threat to U.S. interests? MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT: The Islamic movement of Uzbekistan are or were terrorists because a lot of them have been destroyed in the operation in Afghanistan. And with any terrorist group they are certainly detrimental to U.S. Interests But one of the problems with Uzbekistan's policy has been that it didn't distinguish with radical Islamic groups and violent terrorist groups, and thousands of peaceful Islamic radicals have been arrested in the last few years since the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan heated up. MARGARET WARNER: So that really complicates the U.S. role there? TOBI GATI: I think it complicates it a lot. We're in a region where each leader is looking over all of his many of shoulders, looking at the other countries in the region, looking at his own people sometimes as an enemy, sometimes thinking how to keep them malleable and under control, and also looking up North in many cases at the Russians, a factor we haven't mentioned, which is -- and I agree with Martha -- that this is -- the era of Russian control is over, but the fact is that Russia is located very, very close to all these countries, has had an influence, will have an economic influence, will always regard these countries and what happens in them as important to its security. And, one of the main accomplishments of Sept. 11 was of course the changed policy towards Russia. And if we are serious about dealing with terrorism and saying to the Russians lets deal with it together, there couldn't be an area of more concern to the Russians and now to us than Georgia. If we're going distinguish between al-Qaida fighters and Chechen fighters, I think we're going to somehow have to some involve the Russians, and the question is how do you do that without making it look like year dealing over the heads of countries involved. LT. GENERAL WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): I think Martha is on to a very important point. As we go down the path with countries in central Asia, those regimes have created the Islamic problem to a large degree by their repressive measures -- MARGARET WARNER: You mean because the Islamic movement is in a way -- it's really the only outlet people have. LT. GENERAL WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): It is the vocabulary with which they can articulate their problems with repressive Karimo - MARGARET WARNER: All these various leaders - LT. GENERAL WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): Yeah. -- It's the rally... it's the rallying language, it's the only political language of the area, and so it's going to be very complicated for us. I think the problem for the president is going to be making judgments about the advantage we gain from the military operation of having bases there and these kind of political problems. I'm not as optimistic as Martha that putting pressure on Karimo is going to bring about general structural reform in Uzbekistan. These regimes are best understood as models very much like Iraq and Syria, Baathis regimes with Soviet type institutions and sort of a vague socialist rhetoric where they are pretty well state controlled economies with large private sectors underneath, and those don't behave very well in political transformation. So I think we're going to have some difficulties with these new allies out there. TOBI GATI: Let me mention one thing that is really amazing -- we're giving Georgia $64 million, which is three times it's entirely military budget. We're giving Uzbekistan in aid $150 million. When I was in government, if we could find a million dollars to help build democratic institutions or a free press or any of the institutions, which we say are so important, we would have been ecstatic. And we have now poured money in places and it's only for military options. So the question remains what do these countries see that we think is important. MARGARET WARNER: On that note we have to leave it. Thank you all three, very much. *******