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The Defense Monitor
www.cdi.org
February 2002
The Center for Defense Information Moves to Russia

PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT is often remembered for the phrase,“speak softly but carry a big stick.” What is often forgotten is the rest of the proverb:“…and you will go far.”

Quietly,with the objective of going far along the road of breaking down the official “spin ” about the state of U..S.-Russian security relations, CDI opened a branch office in Moscow in July 2001.

CDI Moscow,headed by Dr.Ivan Safranchuk,provides the Russian media and public with clear,unfiltered, and – above all – independent information on security issues ranging from nuclear policy to NATO to the environment.And given the state of the media in Russia today,CDI Moscow is proving an immense success because truly independent sources of information are becoming rare.

Dr.Safranchuk is well-known in Russia as a nuclear analyst.He spent four years at the Moscow-based Center for Policy Studies in Russia (PIR Center)that,like CDI,is a non-profit research and public education institute.He directed the center ’s project, “Nuclear Weapons and Their Future.”

Writing in both Russian and English, Dr.Safranchuk continues to interpret security thinking in the United States for Russians by his frequent contributions to (among other outlets)two PIR publications:Arms Control Letters and Yaderny Kontrol Russia ’s leading journal on international security,arms control,and nonproliferation.

With its Moscow office,CDI has indeed,literally and metaphorically, succeeded in “going far.”

Excerpts from statements by Dr. Safranchuk:

From a Dec.14,2001,news conference at the Moscow Press Development Institute on the announced U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty:

“Sept.11 generated the hope that those who inclined towards a more international approach in the U.S.administration were gaining the upper hand,and that they would be in the ascendant for at least some time....Everybody realized that a roll back would have to occur sooner or later,a roll back from international cooperation to greater unilateralism of action. But few people expected it to happen so early,in December.”

From a Jan.10,2002,interview with the Associated Press in Moscow on U.S.plans to store,not destroy,nuclear warheads removed from operational deployment under President George W.Bush ’s Nuclear Posture Review:

Safranchuk said Russia would continue protesting even if it lacks the power to prevent the United States from going its own way.“Russia wants to show the harm of unilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament.”

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Washington ProFile and CDI

NO. THIS IS NOT ABOUT biographies of politicians or a gossip column about events in the nation's capital.

Washington ProFile is a Russian-language electronic publication whose purpose is to support freedom of the press -- an endangered species -- in Russia and other new countries that emerged from the former Soviet Union.CDI became Washington ProFile's home in September 2001.

Twice weekly,Washington ProFile funnels unbiased,non-partisan news and information about the United States to more than 30,000 e-mail subscribers,including national and local media,nongovernmental organizations,and government officials in the former Soviet states. Moreover,Washington ProFile articles are known to be widely reprinted in national,re-gional, and local news media,thereby multiplying circulation into the millions every week.Nor is circulation limited to the states of the former Soviet Union:Washington ProFile is read in 100 other countries.

Articles and other material are translated and assembled by Russian scholars and journalists.The prodigious work of producing this no-cost, 35-page electronic newsletter falls on three individuals:Editor-in-Chief Dr. Nikolai Zlobin (who is also a CDI Senior Fellow),Editor Aleksandr Grigoryev,and Database Manager Dr.Yuri Ruban.

For the many Russian publishers who are strapped by limited resources and reliable,unbiased sources of information,Washington ProFile is proving to be a real lifeline.

To view its contents, past publications are archived at www.washingtonprofile.org

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