CDI Russia Weekly-#201 12 April 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. CDI's Weekly Defense Monitor: Ben Friedman, The Bush-Putin Nuclear Agreement: Rhetoric vs. Reality. 2. Jamestown Foundation RUSSIA'S WEEK: Foreign policy: westward ho? 3. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, Mayhem Minces Moderates.(re Middle East) 4. BBC Monitoring: Russia to transfer Cam Ranh navy base to Vietnam by 6 May. 5. The Guardian (UK): Ian Traynor, Russia relaxes opposition to Nato. The Kremlin's objections to Nato's predatory plans have fallen silent just as the western alliance is poised for its biggest expansion to date. 6. strana.ru: U.S. Business Chief Urges Cautious Marks for Russian Corporate Conduct. 7. RFE/RL: Jeremy Bransten, Putin Calls For Growth, Bolder Economic Vision. 8. San Francisco Chronicle: Anna Badkhen, Chechnya breeds discontent in Russian troops. Elite forces aren't returning for extra tours of duty there. 9. Baltimore Sun editorial: Improv in Kiev. 10. Moskovskii Komsomolets: Alexander Kornoshchenko, The Russian army will soon have no weapons left. 12. The Jamestown Foundation PRISM: Aleksandr Buzgalin, RUSSIA AND AMERICA: A NEW TWIST IN THE CONFRONTATION? ******* #1 Center for Defense Information Weekly Defense Monitor 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW * Washington, DC 20036 Volume 6, Issue #9 April 11, 2002 The Bush-Putin Nuclear Agreement: Rhetoric vs. Reality Ben Friedman, Research Assistant, bfriedman@cdi.org A new American-Russian strategic arms control agreement will be unveiled in May. The treaty, if that is the appropriate word, will not be finalized until U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Moscow in May for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but its outlines have emerged. Codifying Bush and Putin's handshake agreement reached in November, the accord will replace the START II treaty, which, while ratified by both nations, has never entered in to force. The agreement will be accompanied by a political statement outlining areas where the two countries aim to cooperate in the future. Under this new agreement, the United States and Russia will reduce their arsenals of operationally deployed strategic weapons from 6,000 to 1,700-2,200 by 2012. Barring a late American capitulation, the agreement, like the START treaties, will not dictate how the weapons are dealt with after being taken off their delivery vehicles and will not deal with the thousands of small, shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons. The new agreement will differ from START I and II, however, by counting nuclear warheads themselves rather than attributing an agreed number of warheads to a delivery vehicle -- a plane or missile. Moreover, unlike START II, the agreement will likely allow Russia to retain multiple independent reentry vehicles, which outfit missiles with several warheads. According to the lead U.S. negotiator, the undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, the agreement will include a withdrawal provision, like most major treaties, but it also will allow either side to readjust the warhead ceiling in the face of a major shift in international circumstances. Thus, faced with a major threat such as a rapidly arming China, the United States could choose to hold onto more than 2,000 operationally deployed warheads without withdrawing. According to Dr. Ivan Safranchuk of CDI Moscow, the agreement hinges on a simple quid pro quo: the Americans agree to make it subject to ratification -- more than the executive agreement the Bush administration initially wanted -- and the Russians agree to the U.S. counting rules for reductions, meaning that warheads taken off their delivery vehicles but kept nearby them in storage will not count towards the ceiling. Subjecting the treaty to ratification is important to the Russians because, symbolically, the arrangement mirrors the great power status they had in Cold War. Counting stored warheads is important to the Bush administration because it believes that having thousands of weapons in storage is essential for deterring other potential adversaries. The political declaration will discuss future cooperation on issues such as counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, and even missile defense. The two documents will likely illustrate the gap between rhetoric and reality. While the two sides say their relationship is no longer based on mutually assured destruction, the reality of 2,000 operationally deployed warheads tells a different story. No contingency short of deterring a nuclear first strike justifies keeping that many nuclear weapons. Bearing in mind former Secretary of State George Schultz's principle that it is the capabilities, not the intentions, of other states that govern national security decisions, it is clear that though we are moving toward a day where U.S.-Russian relations are no longer based on the prospect of annihilation, we have not yet arrived there. Bolton has said that getting the deal finished by May precludes discussion of what is to be done with the dismantled warheads. Yet surely something as essential as the security of thousands of nuclear weapons and their components should not be held hostage to political schedules. More likely, the treatment of the dismantled warheads is not being discussed because the Bush administration, fixated on the flexibility provided by a massive nuclear hedge force in storage, refuses to discuss the issue. That could be a dangerous error. The potential for leakage from the massive Russian weapons complex was called the greatest threat to American national security by the Baker-Cutler Task Force on Nonproliferation Programs in Russia, a bipartisan commission of national security experts chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler. As their report made clear, operationally deployed strategic weapons are just the most visible part of a this vast nuclear infrastructure and, in the age of suicidal terrorists, just one component of nuclear security. The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program, after the two senators that created it, former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., provides funds and assistance to aid the security of the Russian nuclear infrastructure. The Bush administration recently announced that it would withhold funding for some CTR programs pending greater Russian compliance with the treaties banning biological and chemical weapons. A reduction in American funds for disarmament programs coupled with the possibility that the Russians will mimic the U.S. hedge force could further strain Russia's overburdened system of storage and dismantlement, possibility making it more vulnerable to terrorists. The Russians have been asking the United States to agree to cuts on this order for the better part of a decade. With most of Moscow's ICBMs due to go out of service by the end of the decade and the nuclear submarine fleet too expensive to maintain, Russia has little choice but to reduce its arsenal substantially. Ironically, by exerting its considerable leverage to get the Russians to agree to their counting standards, the United States may have missed two opportunities to stem weapons proliferation -- the opportunity to block the sales of nuclear and missile technology to rogue states and the opportunity to reduce the vulnerability of Russia's nuclear infrastructure to theft by terrorists or their agents. These negative potentialities can still be avoided by increasing pressure through other measures to stem proliferation on one hand and by increasing funding for the CTR program on the other. Short of that, these missed opportunities may undermine any gains in security this agreement provides. Bringing the full influence bought by nuclear reductions to bear on non-proliferation issues could do more for American security than any nuclear hedge. ******** #2 Jamestown Foundation April 10, 2002 RUSSIA'S WEEK: News and analysis from Russia and the former Soviet States Foreign policy: westward ho? WESTERN EXPOSURES.... President Vladimir Putin's pro-Western foreign policy has been a source of much speculation, and even wonderment, among both Russian analysts and Russia-watchers in the West. According to one school of the thought, Putin has proven almost visionary in rejecting the reflexive anti-Americanism of his country's political class and steering foreign policy unequivocally westward--a shift best illustrated by his strong support for the antiterrorist campaign launched by the United States in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. For some of the adherents of this view, Putin's move in this direction has been heroic, given that it has powerful opponents throughout Russia's foreign policy, military and security establishments, not to mention its parliament. The other, more cynical view of Putin's foreign policy shift was perhaps articulated best by Pavel Felgenhauer, the independent Russian defense analyst. Putin's westward turn in foreign policy, he wrote last month in the Moscow Times, was aimed at winning the West's acquiescence to the suppression of press freedom, vote-rigging and human rights violations domestically. Felgenhauer even suggested that Kremlin propagandists were deliberately fanning nationalistic opposition to Putin's foreign policy in order to convince the West that he is surrounded by "nationalistic and anti-Western wolves" and thus deserves increased support. Putin, meanwhile, addressed the issue himself this week during a wide-ranging interview he gave to German and Russian journalists prior to leaving for talks in the German city of Weimar with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Unlike during the Soviet period, "Russia is cooperating with the West not because it wants to be liked or receive something return for its position," Putin told the journalists. "We are not standing with a held-out hand and not asking anybody for anything in return. I am carrying out this policy only because I believe it completely corresponds to Russia's national interests." Putin added he was certain an "overwhelming majority" of Russians supported his foreign policy line and that he always considered the views of "Russian diplomats, Russian politicians and Russian military men" before taking any major steps. CLOSER, BUT NOT TOO CLOSE.... Still, several developments over the past week underscored how Putin's foreign policy shift has not meant a complete reorientation westward--far from it. On the same day that President George W. Bush was denouncing Iranian "arms shipments and support for terror" for fuelling the Middle East conflict, his Russian counterpart was warmly welcoming Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, reiterated that the program to help build Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor, which Washington fears will help Tehran build a nuclear weapon, would continue, and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov dismissed as unproven the U.S. charges that Russian entities have leaked ballistic missile technologies to the Iranians. Ivanov also restated his government's disapproval of Bush's designation earlier this year of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil." On top of all this, a row broke out between Moscow and Washington after the latter froze millions of dollars in funding for Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) projects, citing in the U.S. State Department's words, "serious concerns about Russian chemical and biological weapons activities." Russia's Foreign Ministry said it was "deeply bewildered" by the U.S. decision, insisting that Russia "adheres very strictly" to the treaties banning chemical and biological weapons. CHECHEN WITH AN AMERICAN ACCENT.... Another cold front threatening the warmth between Washington and Moscow that has prevailed since September 11 appeared on the horizon last week, when Radio Liberty, the U.S. Congress-funded radio station, began broadcasting in three languages of Russia's North Caucasus region--Circassian, Avar and, most controversially, Chechen. The broadcasts had been delayed for a month at the U.S. State Department's request, but once the decision was made to proceed, Russia's Foreign Ministry lodged an official protest before the broadcasts' launch date, calling them "incompatible with the common fight against terrorism" and "the spirit of the partnership that is forming between Russia and the United States." Russian officialdom's reaction to the first broadcasts was even more outraged. Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, predicted the Chechen-language programming would become a "direct Udugov trumpet"--a reference to Chechen rebel ideologist Movladi Udugov--while both Chechen Prime Minister Stanislav Il'yasov and anonymous Russia's Defense Ministry officials were quoted as saying that if the broadcasts included "false," "dangerous," or "nonobjective" information, they would be jammed. The State Duma's international affairs committee reportedly began drafting an appeal to the Russian government asking it to revoke Radio Liberty's broadcasting license. Russian officials have previously hinted that the station, which has frequently interviewed various Chechen rebel leaders, could lose its license for violating Russia's antiterrorism law, which allows a court to order the withdrawal of a broadcasting outlet's license if it has received more than two warnings for interviewing or quoting "terrorists." The Kremlin was not much happier over Radio Liberty's new Caucasus focus. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's spokesman on Chechnya-related issues, noted that Radio Liberty's maiden broadcast in Chechen had featured excerpts from an article by Anna Politkovskaya, Chechnya correspondent for the biweekly Novaya Gazeta, concerning human rights abuses allegedly committed by Russian troops during a "zachistka," or antiguerrilla sweep, in the Chechen village of Starye Atagi this past January. Why, he asked rhetorically, hadn't the broadcast covered the order recently given by the commander of the Russian forces in Chechnya, Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi, setting out guidelines for forces carrying out such special operations aimed at increasing oversight and accountability and therefore reducing the possibility for abuses against civilians? All of this suggested, Yastrzhembsky said, that the "pessimistic prognoses" about the new Radio Liberty broadcasts were "beginning to come true." For his part, President Putin, perhaps regretting having commented on the detention of Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky back in early 2000, remained above the controversy. He even played good cop, insisting during his interview with German and Russian journalists in Moscow that he welcomed Western expressions of concern over Russian actions, including those in the Caucasus. He continued, however, to insist that Moscow's war in Chechnya and the U.S.-led war against international terrorism were one and the same, and, during an appearance with Gerhard Schroeder on a German television talk show, argued that it was impossible to avoid human rights violations while carrying out an antiterrorist operation. These comments came just days after Memorial, the Russian human rights group, reported that more than 2,000 people had disappeared in Chechnya, mostly as a result of antiguerrilla sweeps, since the start of the military operation there in September 1999. Meanwhile a chilling account by Anna Politkovskaya of alleged rapes, beating, torture and extortion by Russian forces during the security operation in Starye Atagi this past January appeared in various Western publications, including Britain's The Observer newspaper. In it, Politkovskaya, an honest journalist as well as a brave one, noted that inhabitants of the village had also been victimized by Islamist rebel forces, who entered the village just days after the Russian forces had completed their antiguerrilla sweep there (apparently unsuccessfully) and withdrew. ******* #3 Moscow Times April 11, 2002 Mayhem Minces Moderates By Pavel Felgenhauer Israeli military operations in occupied Palestinian territories are closed to public scrutiny as tightly as Russian zachistki in occupied Chechnya. In Chechnya, the Russian military (as its Israeli counterpart) has allowed in only "loyal" journalists who do not object to being censored, and kept out all the rest. The Israeli military has gone a step further: It shoots and kills journalists whose reporting it does not like. In the 20 months since the beginning of the present intifada, more than 20 journalists are reported to have been killed or wounded -- mostly by Israeli guns. It's a sure thing that many thugs worldwide (particularly those in Chechnya) will follow the Israeli lead, and shooting unwanted journalists could well become a favorite method to restrain the press. It's also clear that Israeli soldiers attack foreign journalists not because they are undisciplined; just as the Russians in Chechnya, Israelis have good reason to want to hide their actions. Israel says its invasion of the West Bank, now well into its second week, was meant to uproot "terrorist infrastructure." The Israeli pogrom in the West Bank has already killed hundreds of Palestinian fighters, policemen and civilians, but has it actually ended terror? The pretext for the pogrom in Palestine was an Arab suicide bomb attack that ripped through a hotel dining room in Netanya on March 27 during a Passover Seder, killing 27 people. Hamas, a radical Islamic fundamentalist group, claimed responsibility for the Netanya bombing. The main stronghold of Hamas (and its birthplace) is the Gaza Strip, but for almost two weeks Israel's Operation Defensive Shield deliberately avoided Gaza. The Israeli military is ripping apart the West Bank, harassing and isolating Yasser Arafat, the first Palestinian leader who recognized Israel's right to exist and signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders are living in peace in Gaza, free to talk to journalists, and even gloating at what Israel is doing to the more moderate Palestinian Arab leaders. Last week, Israeli troops raided the house of Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian culture and information minister and a close aide to Arafat. Abed Rabbo was briefly detained while soldiers searched his house. Abed Rabbo is also the co-chairman of the joint Israeli-Palestinian peace coalition that was formed in January to try to stop the cycle of violence in the Middle East. In February, I spent several hours talking to Abed Rabbo, to former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and other Palestinians and Israelis from the peace coalition who came to Moscow seeking help in stopping the bloodshed. I was surprised to meet leading Palestinians and Israelis who obviously did not hate each other and undoubtedly wanted to make peace. But such people are in a minority. The radical nationalists and religious fanatics who are the political base of the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accuse Jews from the peace coalition of collaboration with the enemy. On the Arab side, Hamas leaders say the same about moderate Palestinians. A member of Beilin's team told me that their delegation actually begged European Union ministers to do something to stop Sharon, to impose at least symbolic sanctions on Israel to press it to make peace. The answer was: Europe is too weak and disunited to do anything. The main target of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield is clearly not terrorism, but the Oslo peace accords of 1993 that formed the Palestinian Authority. The other main target is moderates on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. In destroying the peace framework, the Sharon regime and Hamas are acting as allies, and it is clear that they have won: The peace process in the Middle East is dead. The United States and the EU may still press Sharon to pull back some of his tanks, and peace negotiations may resume. However, they will not last long: Hamas will surely again explode a bomb, the tanks will go back in and the pogrom will resume. Now even the most moderate Arabs believe that Sharon and all of his ministers, including Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, are war criminals. The Arabs also believe that the strategic intention of Sharon and his backers is to destroy completely the infrastructure of Arab Palestine, to change the demographic balance and finally to annex the West Bank. Such assumptions seem to be largely correct. While anyone from the present Israeli regime is still in power, peace in the Middle East is unattainable. Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst. ******* #4 BBC Monitoring Russia to transfer Cam Ranh navy base to Vietnam by 6 May Moscow, 11 April: The Russian naval base in Cam Ranh will be transferred to Vietnam before 6 May, Chief-of-Staff of the Russian navy Adm Viktor Kravchenko said on Thursday [11 April]. The deadline is final, it was fixed at the final round of Russian-Vietnamese consultations in Hanoi on Tuesday, Kravchenko told Interfax-Military News Agency. The last Il-76 Candid plane of the Russian naval aviation will leave the base on 6 May. It will carry the last Russian representatives of the base personnel. "The Sakhalin vessel that is now heading for Cam Ranh will leave the base this month carrying the last load of the base's equipment and property," Kravchenko said. The transfer ceremony will involve the Vietnamese deputy defence minister, while Russia is likely to be represented by Pacific Fleet Commander Vice-Adm Viktor Fedorov. Russia's pull-out does not mean that "ships of the Russian navy or naval aircraft will be unable to visit the Cam Ranh base as need be," Russian navy Commander Vladimir Kuroyedov earlier told Interfax-Military News Agency. "We will be able to use it as any other international port or airfield" on the basis of bilateral agreements at the level of foreign ministries or governments, he stressed. Kuroyedov refuted Western media reports claiming that Russian military specialists would remain at the Cam Ranh base after its official closure to maintain the facility in the interests of the Russian navy. Asked to comment on the reasons behind Russia's withdrawal from Cam Ranh, the commander said that "one cannot be great and poor at the same time". "It is necessary to redistribute resources so that they would correspond to the activity of the navy. After the USSR collapsed, the Russian navy has fewer vessels, and its missions have changed. Economy should correspond to those missions, and they will be real and possible in that case," Kuroyedov stressed. ******* #5 The Guardian (UK) 11 April 2002 Moscow dispatch Russia relaxes opposition to Nato The Kremlin's objections to Nato's predatory plans have fallen silent just as the western alliance is poised for its biggest expansion to date By Ian Traynor Ever since the mid-1990s when the Clinton administration responded to the end of the cold war by expanding Nato into the earlier Kremlin satellites of eastern Europe, Moscow has been crying foul. It wasn't fair. The Warsaw Pact had been dissolved. The red army had beat a retreat from east Gemany and the Baltic states. And yet Nato, left without the great enemy and its raison d'etre, not only persisted but got bigger and mightier. Nato should be consigned to history's dustbin, supplanted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in which Russia has an equal voice, the Kremlin argued. Fat chance, Washington responded, reluctant to entrust European security to the OSCE, a feeble if occasionally useful talking shop. But the whingeing from Moscow about Nato's predatory plans has fallen silent, at least at the policy-making level, just as, paradoxically, the western alliance is poised for its biggest expansion to date. The Russians have recognised that bigger means smaller as far as Nato is concerned, and that if by the end of the year Nato has added seven new members to become an alliance of 26 (as opposed to 16 as recently as four years ago), it will be taking the fast road to irrelevance. It remains difficult for Russian generals and great power nostalgics to accept a Nato that includes the Baltic troika of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and the former Soviet states who look likely to be admitted at a Nato summit in Prague in November. But the realists around President Vladimir Putin see weakness in size and discern a military alliance morphing into a political community - a Nato, in fact, which is becoming the OSCE by another name. The shift in both perception and policy has been catalysed by September 11. Nato has been marginal to the war in Afghanistan. The White House has made little effort to exploit the resources of America's fundamental military allies and treaty partners. Unlike in the US-led Nato war against Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia in 1999 which caused a crisis in relations between Russia and the west, Nato has been irrelevant to all intents and purposes in the Afghan campaign. Russia, indeed, has been more useful than Nato to the Americans in supplying intelligence and giving a green light to US military deployments in post-Soviet central Asia. Furthermore, in the broader war on terrorism, the US has made plain it will concentrate on building "coalitions of the willing" for its support, meaning ad hoc alliances with partners which can be summoned or discarded as dictated by events. Nato might be useful to the Americans here, but not indispensable. Marginalised by the seismic shift in geopolitics since September 11, Nato's European members (Britain apart) find themselves concentrating on peacekeeping in Macedonia and elsewhere in the Balkans, coaxing wannabe members in eastern Europe into military reforms, resolution of ethnic tensions, and monitoring human rights. It is all valuable work, but it is a far cry from the functioning war-fighting machine of the original Nato. It resembles rather an OSCE with (some) guns. Russia's relaxed new approach to Nato is also helped by the plans for a new inclusive Russia-Nato council which is to give Moscow an equal say in various policy areas - not in core matters of Nato self-defence, but in the areas that now dominate the alliance's activities such as peacekeeping, arms and nuclear proliferation, crisis management, and search-and-rescue missions. In Madrid on Thursday, the Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, argued that this new relationship should be sealed at summit level, meaning that President Putin should attend Nato's summit in Reykjavik in May. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, did not appear to object to the idea. The prospect is of Mr Putin welcoming George Bush to his native St Petersburg and to Moscow next month for both men to sign a sheaf of papers sealing a new "strategic framework" between Russia and America and then Mr Putin going to Iceland a few weeks earlier to meet Nato heads of government as an equal ally and partner, confident that the bigger Nato becomes the more it withers away. ****** #6 strana.ru April 11, 20002 U.S. Business Chief Urges Cautious Marks for Russian Corporate Conduct Transition historical and unprecedented, chamber boss tells those bringing in a verdict By Michael Stedman Observers judging Russia's corporate laws and standards against international norms have been cautioned by a top U.S. business leader to return their verdict in the light of the "truly historical feat" achieved in the last decade. His appeal asked foreign critics to recognize that "from a historical perspective, the speed of this economic transformation is unprecedented." The plea was delivered to members of Moscow's U.S. business community by their representative leader, American Chamber of Commerce Russia President Andrew Somers. Russia's achievements should be kept in mind by those "assessing gaps still prevailing in the Russian marketplace when measured against international standards," he said, noting the state's transition from one-party rule to democratic government in just ten years. Somers made his views known in comments recalling the chamber's decision to file with the U.S. Secretary of Commerce a 46-page memorandum supporting Russia's request to be treated under U.S. trade law as a market economy. The gaps between business practice in Russia and that applied internationally had "narrowed considerably in the past year on the legislative front," he writes in the current issue of AmCham magazine. Market status for Russia had been backed in the memorandum, he said, by examples of "substantial legislative successes." These included a new Labor Code balancing rights and obligations of employer and employee, legislation reducing business tax to 24 percent, "one of the lowest in the world," and a revolutionary Land Code granting rights to buy and sell land. This was "a watershed event for the Russian marketplace," Somers said. With these developments setting the stage, alongside two consecutive years of solid GDP growth and expansion forecast again this year, "American investment in Russia should and will substantially increase," he predicted among Russian operations of some American companies "outperforming all other business units within their worldwide corporate structures." The challenge would come, though, in moving from paper to practice. "Will the bureaucracy charged with carrying out the new laws be sufficiently trained, motivated and supervised to make radical adjustments in their tasks and behavior?" he asked. ****** #7 Russia: Putin Calls For Growth, Bolder Economic Vision By Jeremy Bransten Russian President Vladimir Putin reprimanded his cabinet this week for what he termed their modest economic forecasts. Putin demanded that his ministers come up with "more ambitious" plans to help Russia catch up with the world's other major industrialized countries. With the Russian leader due to deliver his annual state-of-the-nation address soon, Monday's criticism is being seen by some analysts as a signal that Putin could be preparing to announce bolder reforms. Prague, 10 April 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Ministers responsible for Russia's economy might have expected praise from their boss for their four-year forecast predicting cumulative growth rates of 15 to 17.5 percent. But instead, at an 8 April cabinet meeting in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin berated them for insufficient effort and lack of innovation. Putin said neither of his ministers' plans -- the optimistic version predicting 17.5 percent growth or the more sober alternative predicting 15 percent growth by the year 2005 -- would narrow the large gap between Russia and the world's other leading industrialized countries. Russia's leader demanded more. Presumably, following Putin's reprimand, a chastened cabinet could easily go back to the drawing board and put together a rosier forecast for Russia's economic growth. Unless higher numbers are supported by concrete ideas, however, they will be little more than wishful thinking on paper. Surely, that is not what Putin had in mind -- so what was behind his criticism and what is Russia's president seeking from his ministers? Alexei Bayer tracks political and economic developments in Russia for the Moscow-based "Vedomosti" newspaper and "The Globalist," a daily Internet magazine. He tells RFE/RL that Putin's outburst was motivated largely by frustration. "I think that he is a dynamic leader at the head of a fairly inert bureaucracy. He reminds me of [former Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev, making a lot of noise and trying to move the rather entrenched train forward. He's sort of jerking up and down but by the time his policy gets to the last car, you really don't feel any movement at all," says Bayer. Stephan De Spiegeleire, an analyst at the RAND Europe think tank, concurs. High oil prices and the 1998 devaluation of the ruble have helped Russian growth in recent years, but many sectors of the economy continue to stagnate. Now that Putin and his Kremlin advisers have managed to concentrate political power in their hands, through moves in recent months designed to curb the power of regional leaders and opposition legislators, the Russian leader appears to feel confident enough to demand more economic reforms. "The sort of growth rates that we've seen over the past couple of years seem to no longer be sustainable. Oil prices are very strong and yet the actual economic results of Russia are not all that bright. So I guess increasingly the reaction dawned on Putin and on his team that even more bold moves were necessary. I think that's one thing -- this frustration with the state of reform. But the second thing is also this idea that they now really feel that they have a grip on the system -- all across the board. The Duma's under control, the Federation Council's under control, the regions seem to be under control. At least they seem to think that they have enough grip on the system now to make the next push," says De Spiegeleire. What would this new push entail? Putin, over the past few weeks, has given some hints. He has talked about easing red tape to help foster a new entrepreneurial class. The Russian leader has consistently aimed for such a policy since coming into office. Two years ago, Russia's parliament -- at Putin's instigation -- approved a major reform aimed at supporting entrepreneurs by abolishing different tax categories in favor of a 13 percent flat tax. This year, a new Labor Code that reduces the power of trade unions in favor of employers entered into force. But Bayer says much more remains to be done. "A banking sector, obviously, would need to be created in Russia. It really doesn't exist as an engine of economic growth. Banks don't really lend money to companies that can put it to work. There is practically no consumer lending and this would have to be built from scratch, basically, to create a mechanism for growth. The stock market will also need to become more of a market -- again, taking savers' funds or foreign investment funds and putting them to productive use, which hasn't been happening. And bureaucracy is a huge problem in Russia." Bureaucracy, in the Russian context, is often a euphemism for outright corruption -- possibly the biggest brake on economic growth. Bayer says, "Everybody who does business in Russia knows that every time you have to deal with bureaucracy, which happens all the time, you have to cut them into the deal. And that can't work like that." Putin has argued that his moves to recentralize power in Russia are aimed at taking power away from corrupt regional officials who have been running their territories like fiefdoms since the breakup of the Soviet Union. But Bayer questions whether ultimately, a high degree of centralization will benefit the Russian economy. "While probably it's a positive development for Russia that Putin has made things more centralized and more responsive to central authority, I think that this cannot be a long-term solution, because no centrally organized economy is really successful in today's world and something like Russia I don't think could actually function from Moscow downward," says Bayer. Analysts agree that Putin's public reprimand of his cabinet's work foreshadows his upcoming state-of-the-nation address. A date for the speech has not yet been announced, but it is expected to take place later this month. Following the reorganization of Russia's political institutions and the adoption of tax and labor legislation, the stage is now set for the passage of key banking reforms and the possible breakup of Russia's public-utilities monopoly -- a so-called "third wave" of change. "I think the third wave is just ahead of us," says De Spiegeleire. "I think the state-of-the-nation address will probably spell it out in some more detail and I think Putin's record on implementing what he says in these state-of-the-nation addresses is actually quite good. He really put forward his priorities last time and we also have seen those being implemented. So I think we should really take a very close look at what he says and I think all the signs point in the direction of a new wave of economic reforms, given the fact that politically speaking, they seem to think that they've toned down the potential for opposition. That's certainly their calculation. Whether this calculation will turn out to be realized is still a different matter." De Spiegeleire remains skeptical on this point and notes that despite Putin's apparent control of Russia's political institutions, the Kremlin could still be in for a rough ride, especially if economic reforms mean more immediate pain for the electorate. "It's anybody's call as to whether this will be possible or not. I still think that we tend to underestimate the political allergies that have been awakened and will be awakened by this new push for economic reform. Governors have been lying low but there's no reason for them to remain that way if things really do change. The Communists -- at least most of the Communists -- have now entered into overt opposition to the president and we know that this third wave of reform will be quite unpopular on a couple of issues. People will have to pay more for their energy; they may have to pay more for their rent. So you know, every Russian will be affected by these changes, which I think most economists and political scientists will agree are necessary but which will still be quite painful. So the high public-opinion ratings of Putin might get affected by this. And I still think there's a lot of potential for political struggles, despite the fact that they do seem to have a remarkable grip on the political system," says De Spiegeleire. For now, Putin's approval ratings remain well over 70 percent, giving the Russian leader a lot of political capital for further reforms. All eyes will be focused on his state-of-the-nation address for details of how he chooses to spend it. ******* #8 San Francisco Chronicle April 10, 2002 Chechnya breeds discontent in Russian troops Elite forces aren't returning for extra tours of duty there By Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer Komi Region, Russia -- As Lt. Col. Dmitri Lyutoyev drove his jeep along a road in war-torn Chechnya, on his way to make a rare phone call to his wife in northern Russia, an armored personnel carrier sped by. Three seconds later, it exploded into jagged pieces of smoldering metal, having hit a land mine planted by Chechen separatists. The Russian crew inside the carrier, who were also on their way to call relatives, died instantly. That was Lyutoyev's last tour of duty in Chechnya. The commander of an elite Russian counterterrorist police unit decided to join hundreds of other Russian elite troops, including members of his own unit, who don't want to fight in Chechnya any more. Such displays of dissent reflects a collapse in morale on the front lines of Russia's own self-declared war on terrorism in the northern Caucasus republic. So far, the Kremlin has taken little public action against the dissidents except to force the resignations of eight counterterrorism officers who refused a new six-month stint in Chechnya. But political observers say Russia's civilian leaders are becoming increasingly concerned. Moscow is fighting its second war in Chechnya since 1994 -- a war without borders and front lines, with clusters of rebels mounting hit-and-run attacks on Russian troops, killing several soldiers each day. Two years after a shaky peace collapsed in 1999, Russia went back on the offensive, committing 80,000 troops to the latest war. But insurgent leaders remain at large, while the death toll and discontent among Moscow's troops grow. Last week, the Kremlin announced that 3,220 Russian soldiers had been killed and nearly 9,000 injured in Chechnya since 1999. Human rights groups such as the Soldiers' Mothers' Committee in Moscow say the losses are at least twice as high. Most of those dying are ill-prepared teenage draftees, many of whom have barely learned how to handle a gun in basic training before being sent to fight. To fill in the holes, and to boost morale, elite police officers, who -- like U.S. Delta Forces -- are trained to capture terrorists and free hostages, have been sent to join the fight, on extended tours of duty. "American special forces are not used as infantry. They have special tasks - - go behind enemy lines, capture bases," said Igor Nevzorov, an officer under Lyutoyev's command. "Our commanders send us along with the infantry to raise the spirits of the troops." These elite forces are equally unhappy with the low pay of $100 a month, incompetent officers and antiquated equipment. Counterterrorism police officers in the city of Cherepovets wrote a letter to their commanders saying they would no longer act as "cannon fodder" in the campaign against Muslim rebels struggling for independence. Lyutoyev and others also complain that the campaign in Chechnya is also being undermined by pressure to improve Russia's much-criticized human rights record in Chechnya. Human Rights Watch of New York has charged that Russian troops "detain, torture and kill civilians in a climate of lawlessness." An average of 10 to 15 civilians are killed daily during random sweeps for suspected rebel sympathizers. Although Russian officials have steadfastly denied the abuse charges, the Kremlin two weeks ago ordered troops in Chechnya to abstain from violence while searching for weapons and insurgents. To Lyutoyev and his fellow officers, the order came as a shock. "Imagine in Afghanistan, your troops come to a village and say: 'We will come here tomorrow and see if bin Laden is here, do you mind?' " Lyutoyev said. "Losses among the civilian population are not only necessary -- they are unavoidable." For Lyutoyev and his fellow officers, many of whom hail from the subarctic Komi Region some 900 miles east of Moscow, the crowning insult came last month, when they were told their next tour of duty would be increased from three months to six months, a move they condemned as a "psychological blow to families." According to Nevzorov, some fellow police officers have come home from three-month tours to find that their wives had left them. Mothers of officers have been hospitalized with heart problems that resulted, he says, from stress caused by their sons being in Chechnya. "Our wives don't know where we are. We can only call once a month or so," said Nevzorov. "Sometimes, we have to beg journalists to use their satellite phones, and risk our lives to drive someplace to make a phone call." Nevzorov, who was riding with Lyutoyev the day the armored personnel carrier exploded, says he will not tell his wife about the incident or return to Chechnya. "If a general came up to me and said: 'Your fatherland is in danger. Everything depends on you,' I would go," he said. "But in Chechnya, this is not the case." ******* #9 Baltimore Sun April 11, 2002 Editorial Improv in Kiev UKRAINE IS A confounding sort of country, where the usual scripts just keep going awry. After emerging from the wreckage of the Soviet Union, Ukraine first went through a period of infatuation with the West, coupled with such a complete inability to adopt any Western ways of doing business that neighboring Russia looked positively gold-plated by comparison. More recently, Ukraine slid into a sort of state gangsterism and officially paranoid anti-Americanism, as if it were trying to wrest the title of worst-run European nation away from Belarus. At the end of March, Ukrainians went to the polls to elect a new parliament. International observers were unanimous in decrying the cheating, rigging and patently unfair practices of the party associated with President Leonid Kuchma. In most places, when you hear charges like that, the only question to ask is whether the winners got 80 percent or 95 percent of the ballots cast. Not in Ukraine. The people around Mr. Kuchma rigged the election -- and they still got only 12 percent of the vote. They came in third. The largest bloc in the new parliament will consist of pro-Western reformers who call themselves Our Ukraine. Their leader is Viktor Yushchenko, Mr. Kuchma's former prime minister. While he held that post, the Ukrainian economy briefly seemed to be staggering to its feet. He railed against the thievery of corrupt business interests, most of which have ties to Russia. This made Mr. Yushchenko exceptionally popular among ordinary Ukrainians, which naturally did not endear him to the jealous Mr. Kuchma. A year ago, the monopolists and the Communists joined forces and rounded up enough votes in the old parliament to push Mr. Yushchenko from office. Now he's back. It's a serious and very pleasant surprise. But it's not quite a glorious revolution. None of the six parties in parliament has a controlling bloc. Our Ukraine will have to look for allies. Mr. Kuchma, who is as malleable as he is incompetent, might try to make up. The Russians are likely to stir up trouble, which isn't hard in a country where there's a bitter divide between Russian-speakers and Ukrainian-speakers, and where a lot of the electricity and all of the natural gas come from the big neighbor to the north. Ukraine is the size of France, and it straddles Europe's east-west divide. It's not quite a lost cause. But history is improvisational there. Watch the action, and forget the script. ******* #10 Moskovskii Komsomolets April 11, 2002 MIG-29, SU-30, AND FAVORIT The Russian army will soon have no weapons left Author: Alexander Kornoshchenko [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] RUSSIA'S DEFENSE SPENDING SITUATION CAN ONLY BE CALLED A DISASTER. THE DEFENSE SECTOR IS DECAYING, AND FUNDING SHORTAGES AND LACK OF STATE SUPPORT ARE ACCELERATING THE PROCESS. NEW ARMAMENTS ARE NEITHER BEING PRODUCED NOR DEVELOPED. THE GOVERNMENT PAYS LITTLE ATTENTION TO THIS. Last week and this week have been marked by significant events in the world of arms and arms producers. On April 3-5, there was a specialized international exhibition-conference for military and dual- use technologies in Nizhny Novgorod, "New technologies in radio electronics and control systems". On April 8, an international exhibition of armaments and military materiel opened in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: "Defense Services Asia 2002" (DSA 2002). These two "parades of military producers" had much in common; both the domestic and the foreign exhibition displayed one and the same Russian armament. It could have been observed a year, and two, and... seven years ago. As far back as in 1994, we signed a contract with the same Malaysia for sale of 18 MiG-29 pursuit planes, which was doubtless a success of the Russian arms traders. Today, we are trying to foist off on Kuala Lumpur the same MiG-29. Although, there are also Su-30 that cannot be either called the season novelty. Malaysians have ceased to be trustful and want to purchase American F-18 for their Air Forces. From our files: According to the data of the Stockholm Institute for Strategic Research, the U.S. share in the world trade in arms amounts to 50%, while that of Russia is 3%. The situation is worsening on the world market, the demand is falling; specialists expect this trend to remain for another 10-15 years. Another probable confusion at DSA-2002 is the failure of our tanks. Yes, tanks cannot fly: although Russian T-90 was nicknamed "the flying tank" for its good riding properties, Malaysia, however, is going to prefer Polish T-91. Warsaw has recently signed a provisional contract on sale of 64 of its armored machines, wherewith it has outdone Russian producers. Missile sales are becoming minor too, although Russian anti-aircraft defense means are considered one of the best in the world. It might be that we consider this by ourselves, but Malaysians are far from it, since they are negotiating with Pakistan on purchasing anti-aircraft defense systems. Although, it is exactly this region where a major part of buyers for Russian arms are concentrated, in the view of specialists from Rosoboronexport (Russia's Defense Export)... There was no similar cases in Nizhny Novgorod: Russian armorers did not admit much competition on their own territory. The "cover" was also secure - in the person of presidential envoy for the Volga Federal District Sergey Kirienko, Nizhny Novgorod region governor Gennady Khodyrev, director general of the Russian Control Systems Agency (RCSA) Vladimir Simonov, Rosoboronexport director general Andrey Beliyaninov, and deputy director general of the Russian Usual Armament Agency Nikolai Baranov. Industry, science, and technology minister Ilya Klebanov was also expected, but the "godfather of the Russian defense sector preferred to meet with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Representatives of foreign delegations - from the UK, France, Korea, China, and the United Arab Emirates - were demonstrated samples of Russian military materiel, already worn out at international exhibitions: anti-aircraft missile systems and emplacements Shilka, Buk, and Tunguska. From our files: In Russia, the share of up-to-date arms and military materiel in the armed forces is reaching today 20%. The share of arms operated over ten years is about 80%. About a third of military materiel (about 50% of combat planes and tanks, almost 80% shock helicopters) is not ready for combat use as to its technical condition. Above 40% requires medium and full repair. The state defense spending is scarcely enough to maintain the army and the Navy. Annual funding for scientific- research and experimental-design jobs, which defines the future appearance of the defense sector, does not exceed 10-15% of the level required. Purchases of latest armament samples after 1995 are sporadic in all kinds of the armed forces. Favorit was traditionally called the "hit" of the exhibitions. This is the very same S-300P air defense missile system that has set everyone's teeth on edge. It is famous for the scandalous tender with Cyprus, to where Turkey categorically refused to admit our missiles. This episode might well be called the greatest PR action for Favorit. However, the systems remain a secure and, unfortunately, the only anti-aircraft means of the Russian army - the existent 100 S-300P systems cover the sky of the Motherland only in part. The produce of the leading anti-aircraft systems developer, the Almaz Scientific Production Association (NPO Almaz), is currently presented as the world's best for a number of properties. It is intended for high- performance defense from attacks of aviation and cruise, tactical, and operational-tactical ballistic missiles. Overall, the Americans are far behind with their plans for the National Missile Defense against our S-300P system. To render justice, it should be noted that S-300P is good in fact, but it is plainly a little out of date compared to the current rates of development of state-of-the-art technology. The S-400 system that was expected to replace S-300P has never been created. If there are no Russian arms on international markets, the Russian army doesn't have them either. However, the domestic defense sector is not to blame for this, since it has somehow managed to preserve its resources and is ready for up-to-minute projects and production of modern weapons. But... never was a story of more woe, than this of the state and the defense sector. Above 40% of enterprises are on the brink of bankruptcy and actual liquidation because the state has systematically non-fulfilled its obligations for payments against defense contracts already executed. In a situation of permanent arrears, the Defense Ministry can only buy single samples of armaments and materiel, which does not allow enterprises to establish economicly profitable full-scale production. From our files: Russia has never managed to raise the level of funding for arms procurement to 10% of defense spending. To compare: the US allocates 14-16% and the Pentagon believes it possible to enhance these figures to 22-24%. Russia spends 30 times less on scientific-research and experimental-design work as the US and 10 times less than European NATO states. If the situation persists, in a few years Russia will cease to handle technical projects in the defense sphere; new models of pursuit planes and armored troops carriers will not be tested; new automatic security providing systems will not be designed. The forecast is not good. However, it somehow does not scare the government which persistently avoids seeing the catastrophic state, in which both the army and all its armaments have found themselves. The main excuse is "no money". However, the present "economy" threatens to ensue incommensurably greater spending in the foreseeable future. Of course, if the country is going to save its face not only as a seller of "rarity" arms, but also as a strong independent state. For the "last bit" - merely information ad notam: Russia's entire defense spending is comparable with that of Brasilia. The latter's armed forces enroll not more than 350,000 people, have no nuclear weapons and high-end state-of-the-art armament... (Translated by P. Pikhnovsky) ******** #11 The Jamestown Foundation PRISM A monthly on the post-Soviet states March 2002 Volume VIII, Issue 3, Part 2 RUSSIA AND AMERICA: A NEW TWIST IN THE CONFRONTATION? By Aleksandr Buzgalin Aleksandr Buzgalin is a doctor of economics and a professor at Moscow State University. He is a leader of Russia's Democratic Socialist Movement. Ever since the recent war in Yugoslavia (though that now seems to belong to a different era), almost every public opinion poll in Russia has shown increasing numbers of Russians taking a generally negative view of the United States. The proportion of respondents expressing this opinion fluctuates between 30 percent and 40 percent, approximately the same as those holding a generally positive view. Not what might have been expected after ten years of reforms, carried out in a generally pro-American spirit and under the leadership of generally pro-American presidents and governments. The attitude of the media towards the United States has been somewhat more correct, though it remains preoccupied with the issue of Russia's (former? expected?) national and geopolitical greatness. Normally, there doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. But, as the experience of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City demonstrated, it doesn't take much for Russian patriotism and anti-American sentiment to become heated almost to boiling point. What are the reasons for this? PREHISTORY Amongst the more obvious are, first, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss not only of Russia's national status as a superpower, but also of Russia's standing as a country whose geopolitical interests need to be given some consideration by today's world leaders (meaning, above all, the United States). Second, the sharp fall in production, the drop in income for most workers, de-industrialization, unemployment, increasing poverty and other adverse consequences of the reforms for a substantial part of the population, are all associated with the pro-American line taken by the Russian authorities. (The reformers have never hidden the fact that they have been conducting an economic policy in the spirit of American neo-liberal standards). Third, the reforms have been accompanied by an Americanization not only of the economy, but also of culture and even language, the latter being the cruelest blow to the Russian people, who are extremely sensitive in this respect. These reasons are familiar and seem to be with us for the long term. Until recently, they were for the most part counterbalanced by positive changes in public life across the social spectrum. For the top 30 percent of the population (politically and economically the most active group), the economic crisis and the fall in production brought no visible drop in living standards, and for 15 percent it made a radical rise in income possible. The shift to a market economy and the elimination of the budget deficit gave consumer-oriented elements of society (the overwhelming majority of Russians) potential access to foreign goods (and even though in most instances they come in via Turkey or China, for most people this is still a benefit of Westernization and even Americanization). For most young people, being part of the westernized and Americanized world of popular culture is an essential aspect of life. For the oligarchs and a significant proportion of medium-sized businesses (though Russia does also have patriotically inclined entrepreneurs, of course) the openness of the economy (which is evidently one aspect of this Americanization) and the freedom to take capital out of the country are factors conducive to the accelerated accumulation of wealth. The list goes on. As a result, almost the only active criticism of Russia's Americanization has come from the patriotic opposition, with no more than lukewarm support from the majority of the population, who are not prepared to take any decisive steps that might threaten their conformist existence. Periodically (usually in connection with some economic downturn) the situation has become tense, but has remained--over all--under control. SOMETHING HAS CHANGED: PATRIOTS VERSUS LIBERALS There has, over the last few years, been a subtle change in the situation. Against a background of greater stability in the economy and in the consumer sector, the geoeconomic, geopolitical and spiritual contradictions in the modern world have become more sharply focused. The phenomenon of globalization, which has already become the world's focus, has become even more prominent. We have come to feel that it is part of our lives, that it isn't just about an open economy and an open society, but signifies the real economic, political and spiritual power of the global players. In this context, the ideology of Russia's derzhavniki of both the left and the center (who want to restore the country's great power status) has proved to be more relevant than ever before. Indeed, the derzhavniki have begun to reduce the objective problem of finding alternatives to globalization to a confrontation between Russia, as a more or less self-sufficient economic and sociocultural system, and the United States, as the home of the majority of the most powerful multinational corporations, and the main partner (or big brother) in all the most powerful international organizations (from the World Bank to NATO). This thinking has not evolved and developed without reason, and does have some basis in fact. It is true that the American establishment itself makes no great effort to conceal the fact that the new world order is in reality a U.S. hegemony. In a March interview on the "Post Scriptum" program on the TVTs channel, Zbigniew Brzezinski said quite frankly that the United States is an empire, but a new type of empire, where membership is voluntary, leaving other countries with just one choice--either become a U.S. partner, on equal terms, or be numbered amongst the states that make up the so-called axis of evil. What will happen if they go for the latter option is clear; what might result from opting for the former is becoming increasingly apparent to Russia. So the geopolitical games of recent years have shown that the United States sees its interests coinciding with Russia's in only one sense: That what's good for the United States must be good for Russia too. The reverse does not apply. It is only in mathematics that if A = B, then B = A. Things are more complicated in geopolitics. Thus, for example, "creating the conditions for peace and democracy" through the use of American military forces based in CIS countries is deemed a good thing, in the general interests of the United States and its allies (including Russia). But, unsurprisingly, a hypothetical effort on Russia's part to support the United States in its struggle against the enemies of democracy in Latin America, by deploying a Russian "limited contingent," would be seen by the American establishment as a monstrous infringement of U.S. national interests. In reality, the United States is perfectly well aware of all the advantages of its position at the head of the current geoeconomic and geopolitical hegemony, and makes full use of them, never forgetting, in so doing, to put a good face on it. Thus they and their partners disguise this hegemony (and so the fact of subordination to it) behind a facade of egalitarian cooperation in the defense of human rights, the development of free international economic relations, the collective struggle against world terrorism and the countries on the "axis of evil" that support it, and so on. In Russia an increasing number of people believe that there is no real mutual benefit or equality of status for partners of this kind (especially as concerns Russia and the United States). This belief is being exploited to the full, with some grounds, by the derzhavniki. It derives in large measure from the continuing dissatisfaction of most Russians with both the negative effects of neo-liberal reform and the real infringement of Russia's interests in internationally and internally. The neo-liberal response to this sentiment is not just tired, but positively outdated: The Russian Right has nothing new to offer, apart from a repetition of ideas, already discredited in Russia, about moving towards a "world civilization," where success is measured by U.S. standards. And so the right is losing the argument. It is no coincidence that by the beginning of 2002 the Union of Right Forces (which holds 9 percent of the seats in the Duma) saw its rating fall to 4 percent. For its part, the rhetoric of the derzhavniki, for all its populist appeal, now looks unrealistic: Russia has almost no scope for adopting an independent geoeconomic and geopolitical strategy, and the limited potential it still has is of no use to anyone: The pro-liberal elements running the country take the corresponding line on joining the civilized world (joining the WTO, support for NATO operations--including its wars--and so on). Moreover, a strategy of self-sufficient development in today's truly global world, even for a relatively major country such as Russia, has absolutely no prospect of success. GLOBAL HEGEMONY, THE ALTER EGO OF GREAT POWER AMBITIONS AND ANTI-AMERICANISM Both sides have valid points. The derzhavniki are essentially correct when they stress that, hidden behind the facade of free trade, financial assistance and the struggle against world terrorism, lurks a global hegemony run chiefly by the multinational corporations and the U.S. government. The liberals are right to criticize the isolationist and anti-Western ambitions of the derzhavniki and to characterize their real position as protectionist, patriarchal and essentially conservative. The question, therefore--as always--is whether there is any alternative, or any scope to choose other models for an open economy and society. And for us the most important issue of all is the future of our country in the world order. Before suggesting some possible answers, I will stress that, in the confrontation referred to above, the paradigms of the global players (and the United States as the biggest of them) and of Russia's derzhavniki largely coincide, but in antithesis. The position of the U.S. establishment and the multinationals consists of a thinly disguised and basically rather cynical exploitation of the advantages they possess as leaders of the hegemony (that is, economic, political and other modes of domination) in today's monopolar world. The position of Russia's derzhavniki involves resisting this hegemony by whatever methods are available--namely by trying, wherever possible, (the North Caucasus, the CIS, Iraq) to counter the U.S. hegemony with their own mini-hegemonism and, where that is not possible, by screening us off behind as solid a 'curtain' as possible. Moreover, it seems that, in this confrontation, the United States knows it is in the winning position and the Russian derzhavniki know they must be the losers. However, in practice (and, incidentally, in theory) things are not quite so simple. In reality, the countries that aspire to take an independent geopolitical line are powerless before the U.S. hegemony. The unification of these countries into some sort of alliance is unrealistic for the foreseeable future. The peaceful life of the United States is therefore threatened neither by the governments nor by the business activities of third countries (such as Russia). The real threat (not only to the United States, but also to those countries, including ourselves) is from the effects of the hegemony of the global players: powerful social and economic contradictions, cultural degradation and the growth of nationalism in its most primitive forms, an intensification of conflicts between classes and civilizations, the growing role and influence of informal institutions (ranging from bribery and corruption to organized crime and international drugs syndicates) and a lessening of the role of legal and moral restraints. The danger from the global problems of poverty and the increasing polarization of the world, and the threat of a "clash of civilizations" are by now familiar, so I will concentrate on the last factor: The persistent application of double standards and unilateral use of force in big politics--which even the apolitical cannot ignore--are making it extremely tempting for the broad mass of the people to resort to amoral and illegitimate behaviour, and this is fueling the wave of crime and violence which is such a serious threat to the world. This is why the quest for alternatives to Russia's growing anti-Americanism, which is so dangerous for everyone (especially for we Russians), needs to be pursued in the context of looking at alternatives to the current model of globalization. It must not be reduced to denunciations of conservative derzhavniki or asocial, cosmopolitan neo-liberals. *******