#6
Gazeta
No. 85
May 2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
RUSSIAN POLITICAL SCIENTISTS ON RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY AND DEFENSE CAPABILITY
Ivan YEGOROV, Andrei REUT

Two very important for Russia military-political events took place on one and the same day. Firstly, we were admitted, in "the twenty" format, to the NATO bloc, which the Warsaw Pact, led by the USSR, had opposed throughout its existence. Secondly, - the creation, on the basis of the collective security treaty (CST), of a military organization with the participation of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Tajikistan. This organization will become the first military bloc in what was formerly the USSR after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, this alliance will not be aimed against NATO or anyone else. Gazeta has collected the opinions of political scientists Vyacheslav NIKONOV, Sergei KARAGANOV and military expert Maxim PYADUSHKIN, which reflect different viewpoints on the importance of these events for Russia's foreign policy and defense capability.

Vyacheslav NIKONOV, president of the Politika (Politics) Foundation: "we should ensure security ourselves." That on one and the same day we came to terms with NATO concerning "the twenty" and created the CST alliance is highly symbolical. For some reason, we got used to opposing ourselves to the West and seeing everything connected with the CIS through an anti-western prism. This is an obviously obsolete view. The integration of the post-Soviet environment and cooperation with the west are not at variance with each other. It is beyond doubt that we had to do something about the CST treaty because over the past decade it had not shown its efficiency, considering the fact that military cooperation between the CIS countries had always been more advanced than in other fields. Today, no matter how Russia-NATO cooperation may develop, none of the CST countries will be admitted to NATO. This is why we should ensure security ourselves. From the military point of view, the CST is a stronger alliance for Russia than one with NATO, of course.

I would not exaggerate the importance of what was reached in Reykjavik and what will be signed by Vladimir Putin in Rome on May 28. So far, all this is just a modified "19+1" formula. There is nothing principally new about it, because NATO proper does not pass any decisions. NATO is bureaucratic structure, while all decision-making is done in Washington. Brussels only formalizes these decisions.

Sergei KARAGANOV, president of the council for foreign and defense policies: "saying that the CST is another Warsaw Pact is ridiculous."

Russia does not need the CST in the form it existed, because most countries that are party to it are security "consumers," not "suppliers." On the other hand, we need to cooperate with neighboring countries in order to ward off new global threats and prevent "the Georgian disease," that is, complete disintegration.

However, saying that the CST is another Warsaw Pact is at least ridiculous. The Warsaw Pact made the Soviet Union with weak allies an enemy of all developed countries. Today, Russia has to deal with even weaker allies. The new treaty can serve as a counterbalance to NATO only in the political-psychological sense, for certain groups of the nostalgic elite, while its real possibilities are even weaker. The CST might be a useful step, of course, but I am skeptical about it. It did not work in the past and I do not see why it should start working now.

On the contrary, cooperation with NATO will become a step towards the creation of a new alliance, possibly on the basis of NATO. This alliance will help us meet challenges to security and avoid conflicts with NATO, when we are unable to prevent its expansion.

Maxim PYADUSHKIN, deputy director of the Center of the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies: "the new military bloc has no enemies."

Speaking of the transformation of the treaty into an organization, this step has long been overdue. This is a natural process for any viable treaty, which has been exiting for a long time. The CST treaty cannot be called another Warsaw Pact - they differ in scale and region. The CST does not resemble NATO either, although it is not ruled out that the experience of NATO transformation may be used in creating it. However, several questions about the real capability of this organization arise right away.

Firstly, the new military organization is being created actually without a real aim. The wording that its creation is due to "the fast changing geopolitical situation and the need to meet new non-traditional challenges and threats facing the CST member- states" is vague, to put it mildly. That the specific enemy is not named is politically correct, of course, although usually, military coalitions are created against a specific enemy. This was the case with NATO, created as an alternative to the Warsaw Pact. After the latter was disbanded, the alliance had serious problems finding a new enemy and threats, something that led to the transformation of the whole organization, as a result. Secondly, in the CST organization the mechanism of giving assistance to the member-states will radically differ from NATO, where it is given automatically in case of aggression against any of the NATO countries.

In the CST, even in case of aggression against any of its member-states, consultations will be held first, after which the presidents will decide whether to give aid or not.

This is a very unstable mechanism which may, in the future, undermine the viability of the whole organization. The more so that we should not forget about the alternative to the CST - the nascent pro-western GUUAM alliance (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova). Earlier, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan were also party to the CST but then they withdrew from it. One should not rule out that our current partners may do the same.

On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that in the near future any of the CST members may be subjected to an aggression from outside. The only thing that is really possible is an attack by terrorist units, as was the case with Kirghizia two years ago. However, even in this case, far from all parties to the CST will be able to dispatch forces to help others. Attempts to create CIS collective peacekeeping forces have been made for ten years. Formally, they exist but in actual fact, these are 100% Russian troops.

As to the direct military cooperation between the states party to the CST, it has long been developing actively enough. There is a joint air-defense system, joint exercises are constantly being held and officers from these republics are being trained in Russia. There are also normative documents on arms supplies to the CIS countries. Thus, today they all must be carried out at internal Russian prices, although the notion of "internal prices" is vague enough and quite often "internal prices" practically do not differ from market ones. But even if these deliveries are carried out at prices lower than on the external market, Russia will not lose from it either economically or politically. The times when we could supply huge amounts of technology abroad on a gratuitous basis, proceeding from political expediency only, are a thing of the past. Today, such supplies are possible only in one case - if real threats to some of the CST countries arise.

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