#2
Moscow Times
December 5, 2002
Multipolar World Revived?
By Pavel Felgenhauer

After meeting with his "close friend" George W. Bush in St. Petersburg, President Vladimir Putin embarked on a trip to China and India -- Russia's major "strategic partners" in Asia. For more than a year, official Kremlin foreign policy has been westward-leaning. But the preceding "multipolar world" doctrine, based on the idea of a strategic triangle between Moscow, Delhi and Beijing to oppose U.S. influence, seems to have survived.

In St. Petersburg, Putin and Bush discussed regime change in Iraq. Despite some remaining differences, Moscow and Washington seem to have reached a tentative understanding. Putin, it would appear, does not care much about the imminent demise of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Of course, Hussein has many influential pals in Moscow, including such political heavyweights as LUKoil, the biggest national oil company, which has been making hundreds of millions of dollars on deals with Iraq.

On behalf of this pro- Hussein lobby, Putin has been seeking U.S. assurances that military action in Iraq will not endanger Russia's economic interests in the region. Many in Moscow also fret that occupation of Iraq by allied forces would bring world oil prices, currently well over $20 a barrel, down to $10 or less -- devastating Russia's still-ailing economy.

Russian and U.S. officials say Bush suggested that Moscow would play a major role in a post-Hussein Iraq; that it would be offered a seat on a possible future international commission helping to govern an occupied Iraq; that Russian oil companies would have a role in developing Iraqi oil wealth; and that the Kremlin would be able to recover more than $8 billion of Soviet-era Iraqi debt.

Some in the Moscow elite believe Bush's overtures are no more than empty talk. But a vague promise is better than none at all, and since there is nothing much Russia can do to save Hussein, Putin decided not to make Iraq a contentious issue in bilateral relations.

The Kremlin also decided not to protest publicly NATO's announced expansion into the Baltics, although there are many in the military and political elite who still believe the West, and above all the United States, is Russia's prime enemy. However, there are limits to how far Putin may move westward. Up to now, Bush's "close friend" has flatly rejected attempts by Washington to curtail Russian transfers of sophisticated modern weapons and sensitive nuclear technologies to Iran and China.

"We don't agree 100 percent of the time," Bush said in St. Petersburg, "but we always agree to discuss things in a frank way." This agreement to disagree, apparently, had much to do with the issue of arms and nuke trade with Iran and China.

This week in Beijing, Putin cited the multipolar world concept -- the first time he has done so in a public statement since Sept. 11, 2001, when Russian foreign policy supposedly became pro-Western. It is now clear that the Kremlin could shift back again at any time.

It's obvious that Putin wants to have it both ways: To have close relations with the West, receive capital and technologies to modernize, while selling Iran and China weapons -- supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, long-range anti-aircraft missiles, fighters and radars -- that may some day be used against the United States and its allies.

It has been reported that Moscow is close to signing a deal with Delhi to lease the Indian navy a nuclear attack submarine, equipped with long-range cruise missiles, specifically designed to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers. Beijing has for some years been negotiating to get similar weapons, and if India gets one sub, China may soon have several.

Moscow may earn $1 billion or more from the sale or long-term lease to China of such submarines. But its relations with Washington, already severely strained by continuous transfers of dangerous technologies to "undesirable" states, may be ruined. Putin appears to be a reasonable, pragmatic person. China buys $1 billion to $2 billion worth of arms and technology per year; Iran buys $400 million worth, at best. It's genuinely hard to figure out why, for the sake of a sum that is 10 percent or less of annual capital flight, he would risk his hard-won status as a pro-Western leader.

Arms and nuclear trade, while relatively small in volume, produce staggering sums of illicit money that bypass the budget and line the pockets of selected bureaucrats and generals. A genuine and consistent pro-Western shift in Kremlin policies would end or severely curtail this racket -- which means such a change won't be occurring anytime soon.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.

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