#1
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
3 December 1998

RUSSIA TAKES AIM AT NATO. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov used a meeting of the fifty-four-nation OSCE in Oslo yesterday to renew Moscow's attacks both on NATO's security role in Europe and on parallel proposals for the Western alliance to expand the scope of its activities. In remarks to the OSCE gathering, Ivanov urged the organization to carve out a greater peacekeeping role for itself in Europe and to intensify its efforts toward the drafting of a European security charter. More generally, Russian diplomats said that the Ivanov-led delegation would lobby actively against proposals currently being mooted in NATO that would authorize the alliance to conduct peacekeeping and other operations outside NATO territory--possibly without a UN mandate (Russian agencies, December 2).

Moscow has long opposed what it calls "NATO-centrism" in Europe and has urged that the OSCE, rather than NATO, assume the central role in Europe's security architecture. Russia has likewise led opposition on the UN Security Council to proposals that NATO's military might be employed in Yugoslavia--or that U.S. and British forces launch air strikes against Iraq--absent a direct UN mandate.

Moscow's diplomatic efforts in this area are likely to become more intensive as NATO moves in the coming months to redefine its goals and missions for the coming century. Moscow can be expected to exploit the unease felt in some European capitals over U.S. proposals seeking to broaden the alliance's mandate to include missions outside of NATO territory. The United States is

also said to be pushing for a stipulation which, under exceptional circumstances, the alliance should be free to act without a UN Security Council mandate. These and related issues will be at the center of discussions when NATO marks its fiftieth anniversary at a summit meeting in Washington next April (International Herald Tribune, November 28).

#2
Moscow Times
December 3, 1998 
DEFENSE DOSSIER: 2000 Bug Is No Risk Here 
By Pavel Felgenhauer

In a little more than a year, computers worldwide are expected to fail because of the millennium bug, also known as Y2K. As the millennium closes in, U.S. Defense Department officials are struggling to eradicate or rewrite all programs that are prone to malfunction because of Y2K problems. At the same time, the United States is offering Russia expertise and ideas to help handle the same problem. U.S. defense officials are afraid Russian nuclear early warning computers will display false or confusing messages that could result in some misguided general launching intercontinental ballistic missiles at North America.

The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to cope with the Y2K problem. The Russian Defense Ministry does not have enough money to feed its soldiers properly, so defense officials in Washington believe their Russian counterparts are not devoting enough time or attention to Y2K.

Western overtures of technical aid and assistance were flatly rejected by the Russian military, however. Last summer on a visit to Moscow, U.S. Defense Secretary, William Cohen, lectured Russian generals on the complexity of Y2K and told them it requires time and a lot of people to solve it. But Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and his aides seemed unimpressed. Cohen was told that in Russia there is no Y2K problem whatsoever and Moscow does not need any U.S. aid or expertise, thank you.

The chief of the main research institute of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, General Vladimir Dvorkin, says: "Russian nuclear forces have several separate computerized command and control systems that process early warning information, deliver launch orders to nuclear missile bases and so on. Some of the programs used by our computers can malfunction because of Y2K and we are working to rewrite them. But the time, effort and cost of solving the Y2K problem will require much less time and expenditure than in the United States."

A visitor to Russia's military departments or nuclear command bunkers might notice some more or less modern PCs. But these machines are used by military personnel to write reports or to play games. The most important Russian war computers, the ones used to launch nuclear war, are big old mainframes, designed in the late '70s and built in the '80s. These computers are vulnerable to the millennium bug because their programs use only two digits to describe a year. But even this problem is not as serious as it may seem

Most of these mainframes do not have proper hard disks, but use rolls of magnetic tape to load their programs, which are very short. Western experts apparently forgot that Russia's strategic forces were designed in the '70s when a 30 kilobyte program was considered "big." The Russian military planned to modernize its nuclear computerized command and control system in the 1990s, but the lack of funds made that plan impossible. The U.S. government will need thousands of people working around the clock to scan and rewrite programs, while just a handful of Russian computer experts can solve the strategic nuclear forces' Y2K problem in several weeks because the backlog of programs the Russian military needs to review is thousands of times smaller.

Even if Russian experts miss something, the Y2K problem in the Russian strategic forces can hardly cause nuclear war. Russia's old military command and control computers malfunction or crash from time to time anyway, without Y2K's interference. When that happens, they are simply reprogrammed and no one, of course, attacks U.S. cities simply because an ancient mainframe is out of order. Dvorkin is sure that, even if worst comes to worst, "negative" centralized control cannot be lost completely. An unauthorized launch will not be possible even if the whole system crashes.

During the Cold War, Russian arms designers often used ingenuity and secondhand technologies to produce defense systems that successfully matched U.S.-made technological marvels. The Soviet economy was much weaker and the country much poorer than the West. Only by maintaining its confrontational stance as cheaply as possible could Russia continue the race for so long. But after the arms race ended, Russia emerged totally bankrupt, with a backwoods militarized industrial base that is difficult to reform to meet open market challenges. The only thing Russia can do effectively nowadays on its own is to wipe out the United States and Western Europe in an all-out nuclear attack. To do anything positive, the country will have to undergo a new technological revolution.

Pavel Felgenhauer is a defense correspondent for Segodnya.

#3
Hearings Held on Russia's National Security 'Concept'

MOSCOW, November 30 (Itar-Tass) -- The Concept of Russia's national security must reckon with the current realities. This view was expressed by members of the upper house of the Russian parliament in the course of their hearings on ways to implement the Concept of the Russian Federation's national security.

This document, endorsed by a presidential decree a year ago, "is not ideal and some of its parts can be criticised, but it was a sort of necessary and useful compromise at a time when there were conflicting approaches to this problem," First Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Vyacheslav Mikhailov said. Speaking about the merits of the Concept, he noted that it "had determined both the existing menaces and the strategy of joint efforts to do away with them." Today, Mikhailov stressed, it is necessary to work out a legal foundation to expounding on the Concept and to ensure its implementation.

Mikhailov agreed with the view of the other speakers that one of the main ways to guarantee national security is to develop the national economy. "No other problems can be resolved without radically improving the economy," he stressed. The First Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council drew attention to the need to resolve the problems of constitutional security. He expressed regret that "discussions on what our Federation should be like are still continuing." In his opinion, a federal law on the signing of agreements between the central authorities and the region was badly needed. He pointed out that there was no single approach to this problem so far.

"It is important to ensure regional security, too," Mikhailov noted.

It is necessary, for instance, to settle the spate of problems existing in the Caspian region. The Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council noted that the United States, for instance, was claiming priorities in that region. He pointed out that "the problems of the Northern Caucasus cannot be settled without a clear-cut policy vis-a-vis the Transcaucasian states."

Clear-cut doctrines of energetic, food, and technological security are needed, too. Informational security is also an important area. Mikhailov drew attention to the "psychological conditioning of the population in the Russian regions and in the CIS countries." "Today, we must get down in earnest to the creation of the necessary psychological mood to counteract such actions on the informational field," he stated.

In drawing up the Concept, "it is necessary to reckon with the current realities," the participants of the deliberations stressed. Hence, we need a careful expert evaluation of all the documents, pertaining to the security Concept and its implementation. A representative of the Upper House's Committee for Security and Defence noted that "the Concept has still not become a compulsory document for all the branches of government." This document, he believes, must provide "the foundation for the entire state policy. The budget law should rest on it, too."

 
#4
Christian Science Monitor
December 3, 1998 
[for personal use only]
To him, life in Russia isn't a bear 
Judith Matloff

MOSCOW -- Daniil Dondurei is a man with a message. And it's one that's not often heard in these gloomy times.

Dire stories of the financial crisis, poverty, and hunger with a bleak winter ahead are familiar to Russia's 147 million people, who seem to accept that nothing can change the situation. But not Mr. Dondurei, the country's self- appointed custodian of good news.

One of his favorite clippings in a growing "good news" file is a tiny article about a motor factory in the town of Samara. The plant beat out European competitors for a tender to manufacture engines for American space shuttles.

"Positive thinking" is the answer, Dondurei declares, smiling emphatically as though to press his point. "Russia needs upbeat information."

And so this sociologist has made it his, some say quixotic, mission to compile statistics, facts, snippets, quotes, articles, and anything else he can get his hands on to prove that some things do go right in Russia, even at the worst of times.

"There is an exaggerated feeling that life is an abyss. If you analyze the evening news, you can point with a black pen to planes falling, hunger, women raped," he says.

"But lots of things have changed for the better, such as more private property and freedom of speech."

Dondurei is a film critic, trained as a sociologist with a specialty in mass psychology and culture. His pursuit of the affirmative began a year ago when he grew exasperated with what he saw as the media's obsession with bad news.

Since then, he has published several series of articles in leading newspapers and journals and is widely quoted.

TV's 'brainwashing' bosses

His pet peeve is television bosses, whom he accuses of "brainwashing" akin to the censorship of the Soviet period.

"The private mass media are giving our people the perverted impression that things are going from bad to worse," he says.

To prove that there can be a silver lining to all the clouds, Dondurei sits at his desk late at night scouring the back pages of journals and newspapers for buried facts.

Dondurei ecstatically rattles off statistics that he says illustrate Russia's increased wealth since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union:

* "In July 1998 there were 16.8 million cars versus 7.9 million in January 1992. That means more than one-third of Russia's 45 million households have a car!"

* "There are 10,500 tourist agencies. Some 4.5 million people traveled abroad last year!"

* "Millions of square meters of new apartments were built in Moscow last year! Fantastic!"

Too much of a bad thing?

Dondurei's positivity campaign has stirred debate in Russia, with a series of commentaries published in both highbrow journals and popular newspapers, including Izvestia.

His David versus Goliath struggle against what he terms "the colossal propaganda machine" may seem like folly, especially to those he criticizes most, such as the big television channel NTV.

"Our principal task is objectivity and truth," was the stiff response from an NTV spokeswoman, who declined to be named. "An event is valuable in itself, whether it is good or bad. It should be represented the way it is in real like."

Dondurei's fans, however, have written letters to show their support - including ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who extols him as a "real patriot."

Not unique to Russia

The debate over bad news and good news is not unique to Russia, and Western media have long debated the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality.

But Dondurei asserts that there is a particularly exaggerated sense of tragedy in Russia, tracing the tradition to great writers such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.

As for the here and now, how does he find a bright spot in the financial crisis that prompted Russia to seek foreign food aid?

Dondurei pauses and stirs his cup thoughtfully before looking up cheerily.

"Sure, we keep reading that the grain crop this year was the lowest in 45 years at 48 to 49 million tons. But everyone glosses over the fact that last year's harvest was 89.5 million tons, well above what was expected.

"This will help us survive this year," he says. "You don't read much about that, do you?"

#5
Russia: Armed Forces Crime Figures for 1998 Announced 

Moscow, Dec 1 (Interfax) -- About 10,500 crimes and incidents have been registered in the Russian armed forces this year, compared to about 10,000 in 1997, the Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax Tuesday [1December].

Nearly 2,000 crimes have been committed in the navy, about 1,000 in the air force and about 1,000 in the strategic rocket forces. In the ground forces the largest number of crimes (1,620) were committed in the North Caucasus military district.

About 500 servicemen have been killed or died while on duty (against 600 in 1997) and more than 800 off duty (compared to about 1,000 lastyear).

One hundred and fifty civilians have died through the fault of servicemen (165 in 1997). Servicemen this year have committed about 1,500 crimes against civilians, the same as last year.

In 1998, 3,350 people avoided army service, which was fewer than last year (3,580).This year there were 1,800 cases of servicemen violating the rules regulating relations in the armed forces (1,200 in 1997).

Instances of theft of ammunition, explosives and weapons have decreased 1.5 times compared to last year and stood at 300 (450 in 1997).

The Defense Ministry is particularly concerned about the growing number of suicides in the army. Three hundred and fifty people committed suicide in the armed forces this year. More than 60% of the suicides were committed by officers. The main cause of suicide is delayed payment of salaries and the poverty of servicemen's families.

#6
Transitions
November 1998
Discharge of the Light Brigade
THE RUSSIAN ARMY, REELING FROM THE WAR IN CHECHNYA AND FACING BRUTALITY
WITHIN ITS RANKS, HAS FOUND A NEW ENEMY: ITSELF
by Victor Kalashnikov

Victor Kalashnikov is a Moscow-based contributing editor to Transitions.

On the eve of widespread demonstrations across Russia in October, which brought angry citizens into the streets demanding payment of back wages and the resignation of President Boris Yeltsin, Victor Anpilov, leader of the radical Working Russia movement, commented with a sense of malicious joy at the prospect of his striking workers being met by troops of the Russian army. "What a chance!" he exclaimed to Russian television. "The authorities have ordered troops into the major cities to hold protesters in check. We'll bring them over to our side!"

At the last minute, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov declared partial payment of the soldiers' back wages, thus subverting Anpilov's mock recruitment drive. But Anpilov's jest provokes the question: how reliable a force is today's Russian army? Several factors have converted the once undefeatable and legendary symbol of Russian might, whose last great manifestation was the Red Army, into a potential source of domestic tension and a receptive ground for radicalism of any color.

First, there is a desperate lack of funding. The Moscow-based Soldiers' Mothers Committee, an organization of about 2,000 women whose sons have been drafted, has appealed to Yeltsin to cancel the draft this autumn in reaction to reports that just twice-daily meals are about to be introduced in some units. In St. Petersburg, an organization of army officers recently formed a Homeless Union of their own to pressure Moscow to demand their rights to decent shelter as guaranteed by the Russian constitution.

Secondly, military service in Russia has lost much of its meaning and objective over the past several years, as the empire dwindles and its arch-enemies have disappeared. The new foes, in the view of many servicemen, are sitting in the Kremlin itself. The Chechen war had a particularly harsh effect on morale; the experience of fighting fellow Russians, say psychologists brought in by the army to deal with the discord, destroyed the friend-foe dynamic essential to maintaining military discipline and ended whatever esprit de corps remained after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Many in the army feel they are living in a hostile environment in their own country -- that the military is engaged in a continuous battle within itself.

Soldier vs. Soldier

Violence within the army has increased dramatically; according to official figures, 50 soldiers were killed by their fellow servicemen last year, and thousands were injured in beatings.

Army studies have concluded that most of these incidents bear no relationship to ethnic or regional tensions among soldiers (those from Moscow vs. those from the provinces for example); rather, the roots are in the abysmal and abusive living and work conditions.

One-third of these attacks were committed by officers -- 70 percent of whom served in Chechnya -- against subordinate soldiers. The most technically sophisticated units hold the lead in the decline of discipline and rising violence. For example, the Strategic Rocket Forces have shown the highest -- around 25 percent -- increase of violations of service regulations this year, followed by the navy with 20 percent.

Dozens of officers have been prosecuted for abusing their troops over the past year. The abuses are not only physical; numerous officers force their troops to toil as a slave-like workforce at their private country homes or "rent" them to private firms. There has also been an alarming rise in suicides within the military ranks. Between January and August, the Russian Army reported 276 suicides, among both soldiers and officers. In October, two top officers -- a major and a lieutenant colonel -- committed suicide in Moscow; an investigation revealed that their families were starving.

An average of two to three legal proceedings related to killings and suicides in the Russian Army are initiated daily by the military prosecutor.

Those who are sickened by the violence and the abusive conditions are simply abandoning their posts. More than 12,000 delinquencies have been registered so far this year -- notably higher than in 1997. Some 40,000 men are on the run from the army across Russia, according to the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, which has helped found a network of military service centers across the country where soldiers who leave their unit for short periods of time can request counseling and, in conjunction with the Military Prosecutor's Office, an investigation into charges of abuse.

A recruit who has not unequivocally refused to return to the service is not treated as a deserter; the service centers offer the prospect of either reintegration into the unit -- without the severe disciplining arising from desertions -- or even discharge, if their charges of abuse or medical problems prove true.

Valentina Melnikova, head of the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, says the centers serve more than 2,000 runaway draftees each year, many of whom come with complaints of aggressive bullying, theft, hunger, and illness. Nearly a third of those who have reported to the centers have obtained discharges on medical grounds, indicating serious health damage sustained during their period of compulsory service.

The People's Army

As it heads toward the all-volunteer force that Yeltsin declared to be his aim by 2000, and with about 10 percent of its intended conscripts dodging the draft in 1997, the Russian army continues to shrink.

Today, the Russian army is a 2.3 million-strong force; by the year 2000, that will be reduced to 1.8 million, and by 2005, the army has stated its ranks will be reduced to 1.5 million. The number of draftees has declined accordingly: from 530,000 in 1996 to 300,000 this year, and an estimated 200,000 in 1999.

In the run-up to 2000, every Russian man between the ages of 18 and 27 is still subject to two years of compulsory military service (three years in the navy) -- with a few exemptions related to family or educational status. As the semiannual autumn conscription began this year, new draftees were entering a force that has undergone profound demographic changes.

Those who have the means to evade service are doing so in ever-increasing numbers: according to Melnikova, a payment of $3,000 to $7,000 placed in the correct pocket can ensure one's exclusion from the draft. Other means are also coming to light, including "temporary" enrollment in elite officer-training academies, intended to provide a high level of education to those planning a military career (thus exempting students from conscription as low-level recruits). Many leave the institutions after just two or three years, fulfilling their compulsory service by getting an education, then fleeing into private business or civilian colleges. (That loophole was just closed, however: the newly adopted Military Service Law provides a disincentive for such maneuvers by equating one year of compulsory service with two years in a military school.)

The caliber of those conscripted is declining precipitously, according to three-star Gen. Vladislav Putilin, the deputy head of the army general staff, responsible for recruitment and mobilization. The number of drug- and alcohol-addicted conscripts has soared 10 times over the past four years. The percentage of those who have dropped out of school after only four years of education before being drafted has increased a hundred-fold since 1985. Thirty-seven percent of young men were neither employed nor studying at the time of their spring conscription this year; an ever greater proportion of conscripts are coming from lower social strata and from the impoverished countryside.

"We're in the process of becoming a genuine workers' and peasants' army," Putilin has joked, bitterly. "The army will increasingly have to perform social rehabilitation rather than military training."

This article is reprinted from the November issue of Transitions, a monthly magazine about Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union

(http://www.ijt.cz/transitions).

#7
Excerpt
USIA
Foreign Media Reaction 
December 1, 1998

'THE END OF A SUPERPOWER': RUSSIA FACING POLITICAL PARALYSIS, ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

News out of Russia in recent weeks--including Mr. Yeltsin's string of illnesses that have left the country with an absentee president, the Primakov government's inability to stanch the economic crisis and draft a 1999 budget whose adoption is crucial to winning Western aid, and the "political assassination" of parliamentarian Galina Starovoitova that is viewed by many as evidence that "Russian democracy is as fragile as its president"--has triggered extensive overseas comment, leaving all media to agree with one writer's bleak assessment that "Russia, as a whole, is in pieces." Several analysts shared the opinion that Russia's internal problems have diminished "its international status [to] that of a beggar." A Hong Kong paper summed up the predominant view: "With its economy in tatters and a president too ill to leave hospital, Russia is close to falling off the edge of the world map." While pundits welcomed Mr. Yeltsin's divesting himself of some powers as long overdue, many warned that the "power vacuum" created by his remaining in office, even in a largely ceremonial role, will continue to hamstring the "rudderless" government. As Germany's right-of-center Main Post put it: "Yeltsin is basically unable to function as president. This fact is turning into a serious burden for Russia, which is sliding even deeper into an economic and social crisis." With Mr. Yeltsin turning over the day-to-day management of government affairs to Premier Primakov, many commentators wondered whether the prime minister and his colleagues were capable of "pulling Russia out of [its] economic and fiscal quagmire." Themes in the commentary follow:

YELTSIN'S LEGACY--Calls for Yeltsin to resign and force an early election are increasing, with many echoing the opinion of Toronto's leading Globe and Mail which declared, "These are extraordinary times in Russia, calling for a leadership that is self-confident, aggressive and committed to reform. Instead, Russia has...Yeltsin.... Most of the leading candidates may be unattractive, but at least they're better than the alternative: A nuclear-armed Russia, drifting rudderless toward civil collapse." A London writer agreed, "Russia urgently needs a steadier hand than [Yeltsin's] to...lead it through the economic dangers ahead."

WHAT THE WEST CAN DO--The question of what, if anything, the West can or should do to help Russia was raised by many commentators. Most concurred with a French paper that "we need to be concerned with the political, economic and moral chaos taking over in the former second-largest world power." Many commentators were of two minds--believing that Russia must first help itself by formulating a credible recovery plan and not expect an IMF bailout to remedy irresponsible fiscal policies, yet, at the same time, fretting that to leave Russia to its own devices was fraught with risk. "Reforms or no, Russia is at stake," intoned a German paper. Many analysts judged that the West was distancing itself from Moscow, while insisting on Western prescriptions for the Russian economy. According to a Moscow writer: "[While] disclaiming responsibility for Russia's economic ruin, our foreign 'partners' are again attempting to force Moscow to give up its own anti-crisis measures.... The West is trying to hedge itself against a possible failure, holding Russia solely responsible for whatever might happen."

#8
Excerpt
Mistakes, Prospects in Bilateral Relations 
Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn 
Autumn 1998
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Sergey Mikhaylovich Rogov, director of the Institute of the
United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
doctor of historical sciences: "In and Around Russia. Russia and the
United States. Trial By Crisis" 

In the autumn of 1998 a principally new situation appeared in Russian-American relations, one that will have long-term consequences for the emerging model of interaction between the two countries at the beginning of the next century. The meeting at the beginning of September between Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton took place under conditions of extremely severe crises in Moscow and in Washington. But if the sex scandal in the United States, which forced the President to face the prospect of impeachment, will not cause radical changes in the economic and political structure in the United States, the assumption of power by Yevgeniy Primakov's government could be a turning point in the development of Russian reforms after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Soviet- American confrontation in 1991. A new stage Russia's history has begun, and its outcome will determine our country's position and role in the world arena in the 21st century.

Results of Seven Years

The eclectic economy that had been formed in Russia-- capriciously combining elements of primitive market relations, "real socialism," and barter--practically collapsed at the end of the summer of 1998. The corrupt, criminal market demonstrated its absolute lack of capacity for self-development. The authoritarian presidential republic, maneuvering between bureaucratic and "oligarchic" clans, proved its ineffectiveness as well. A constitutional system capable of maintaining a balance among the branches of power could not provide for political stability.

As a result of the crisis in Russia, for the first time a government came to power relying on support from the majority of factions in the Duma, except for the Zhirinovskiy group or the ultra-liberals. Thus preconditions for a fundamental constitutional reform were created and a new system of political checks and balances began to be created. One can assume that economic policy will change significantly as well. Although it would be difficult to predict its final parameters yet, the state will clearly play a significantly larger role in economic life. At the same time, the catastrophic situation in the market could lead to the adoption of emergency measures with far-reaching consequences.

In the post of minister of foreign affairs, Yevgeniy Primakov was able to achieve a broad consensus regarding questions of foreign policy. While under Kozyrev the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] lost all of its support in the domestic political arena, Primakov was able to win respect among supporters of the most diverse political circles in the country. The apparently impossible happened: The Duma recognized the authority of the minister of foreign affairs and his ability to reach compromise solutions that corresponded to Russia's interests, even with the most unfavorable alignment of forces.

This is precisely the kind of consensus that is required today in order to bring Russia out of its systemic crisis. Judging from everything, the assumption of power by Primakov's government is not the end but the beginning of perhaps the most difficult and painful period in Russia's "crawl" to the market. The process of forming a democratic state in our country will be extremely painful as well. ....'

Prospects

Thus Russian-American relations could undergo serious tests in near future. The mechanisms that stabilize them, including the regime for arms control, the bilateral economic commission (Gore- Chernomyrdin), and high-level diplomacy, have been paralyzed.

One should not forget that the Russian-American summit meeting held at the beginning of September in Moscow took place in an unusual situation where the domestic political position of both presidents had been severely undermined. It is not only that they cannot be elected for another term and have become, as they say in American political jargon, "lame ducks." Both Clinton and Yeltsin have encountered a serious crisis of confidence. Calls for impeachment or early voluntary resignation of the President are ringing out in both countries. The Monica Lewinsky affair has undermined Clinton's moral authority, and the report submitted by the special prosecutor investigating the accusations against the President to Congress may be used by the Republican opposition for impeachment.

The domestic political situation in Russia is still unstable. It must be admitted that our domestic problems are not comparable with the American ones. Therefore a great deal, especially in the economic sphere, will depend on Washington.

Will Washington understand that the failure of the team of favorites of the IMF and the US Department of the Treasury means not Russia's rejection of reforms but a transition to a real process of creating a modern market in our country and Moscow's integration into the world system as a predictable and responsible partner that fulfills its obligations? Or will the Clinton Administration proceed toward re-ideoligization of its policy with respect to Russia?

Speaking at the Carnegie Foundation on 17 September, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated: "The financial crisis led to a situation where Russia was faced with extraordinarily difficult and uncertain prospects. Russia's economic problems are complex and comprehensive. We cannot solve them--only the Russians themselves can do that. But it is not in our interests to say that Russia has failed and withdraw to the sidelines." (Footnote 10) (Remarks by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. "USIS Washington File," 17 September 1998.)

As representatives of the American Administration state, "In the forefront for the United States is not so much Russian political personalities as global interests." Moreover, the United States is primarily interested in the predictability of Moscow's behavior in the international arena and not the fluctuations in the Russian domestic political situation.

The role of the only superpower requires a concentration of resources and political will which, in our opinion, the United States does not have. With all of Washington's political, economic, information, and especially military leadership, its current power does not enable it to unilaterally dictate its will to the world community and establish a Pax Americana. If the United States chooses a course toward adaptation to the realities of a multipolar world, in this system of international relations Russia will be an important partner for the United States of America. This makes it possible to hope that we will succeed in preventing the growth of discrepancies and the return to the geopolitical confrontation and ultimately provide for positive interaction on the basis of the national interests of both powers.

The formation of a truly mutually advantageous partnership between the Russian Federation and the United States will not be a simple task--the capabilities of the two states are too different. The situation can change only if Russia is able to surmount its systemic crisis and restore its economic, political, and military might, being transformed into one of the centers of power in the world arena in the 21st century. This will create a potential basis for more equal partnership relations between the United States and the Russian Federation in the 21st century.

#9
Intellectualcapital.com
The Farce of Russian Food Aid
by Anne Applebaum (106474.1333@compuserve.com)
December 3, 1998   
Anne Applebaum is a writer for London's Evening Standard. She is a regular
commentator for IntellectualCapital.com. 

Ten years have passed since the process of economic and political reform first began in Russia. In those 10 years, we have learned a few lessons, and we can with certainty state at least three things Russia does not need.

One is the addition of more loans to those that already cannot be paid. Two is more financial resources placed in the hands of corrupt bureaucrats. Three is more economic measures that will harm any of the fragile Russian domestic industries.

What, then, is the West doing to help Russia in the winter of 1998?

The good, the bad and the terrible

You do not need three guesses to decipher that the West is giving Russia the one form of "aid" guaranteed to achieve all three of these negative goals: selling large quantities of cheap food to Russia. This is called "humanitarian aid," and it is a farce.

This is not to say that there are not hungry people in Russia or that hungry people should not be helped. Even in Moscow, Russia's richest city, old ladies with single packs of cigarettes or bits of dried fish now crowd the metro stations. The sale of these pathetic items will finance the potato they will eat for dinner.

It is equally true that the harvest was poor this year and that Russians are more prone than ever to recount horror stories: starving Siberians, children unable to concentrate in school out of hunger and worse.

Although these must be taken with a grain of salt -- Russians have found ways to survive without starving in the past -- one does not have to look hard in Russia to see poverty that is worse than it has been in recent years. But there are good and bad ways to help people. There also are terrible ways, and the West, most notably the United States, appears to have picked the most terrible way of all.

At least the European Union has the decency to give its $500 million worth of surplus subsidized food to Russia for free. The United States, on the other hand, has graciously offered to lend the Russian government money to buy its $600 million worth of surplus subsidized food, thereby adding to the Russian government's vast and unpayable debts.

The United States also is currently doing almost nothing to ensure that this food will go to those who actually need it. Under the current plan, the aid will be distributed by "private companies," which in Russia means fat, sluggish, semi-private companies stuffed with former Agriculture Ministry bureaucrats.

The cost of cheap chicken

Inevitably, those companies will have close links to the politicians who selected them to implement said aid distribution. Equally inevitably, this distribution will go wrong.

The chairman of one of the companies likely to be picked for this task, Roskhleboprodukt, already has admitted that the last time food aid was distributed in Russia, in 1991 and 1992, not everything was entirely as it should have been. Naturally, he denies that his company had anything to do with the food or the money that went missing at the time.

Yet it is not as if this aid is likely to do much to help the Russian domestic food industry, either. When a few semi-private companies sell free food below cost, what happens to Russian food producers in the meantime? First they have trouble competing. Then they go out of business.

Cheap chicken legs from Americans mean that producers of Russian chickens might as well go home. Ditto cheap wheat, rye, rice, beef, whatever.

Unless, of course, those domestic producers simply start selling their produce abroad at higher prices, which they almost certainly will. They already are, in fact: Russia has exported 1.5 million tons of wheat this year, reports the Institute for Agrarian Market Research in Moscow.

Hundreds of thousands more tons of wheat go abroad every month, and nobody has any intention of stopping them. Gennady Kulik, the deputy prime minister whose pet project this is, insisted earlier this month, "No, we are not going to stop exporting," and that is that.

Meanwhile, Russia does appear to have the money to open an expensive new radar base in Belarus. There is grain for export, in other words, and money for the military, but no food or money for the poor in Moscow or anywhere else.

Doomed to repeat failure

There will be winners out of this aid package, of course: American farmers. In fact, when he announced the package, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman openly described the deal as "good news for American farmers and ranchers."

And there will be losers: the Russians, and not only the hungry Russians. When, once again, a Western campaign to help Russia collapses into chaos and corruption, the appetite for doing something -- anything -- on Russia's behalf will shrink further.

There are intelligent ways to spend money in Russia. There are provincial reformers who need support, local charities to advise and schools that need Western books. But so far, no one involved in the official "help Russia" movement appears to be interested in spending money intelligently. They are interested in other things: keeping Boris Yeltsin in power, say, or helping American farmers.

No wonder our aid efforts have failed in the past, and no wonder they will fail again.

 #10
Sergeyev: Topol-M Launchers Added to Strategic Rocket Force 

Moscow, Dec 1 (Interfax)--The 104th missile regiment of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces' 60th division on November 23 added the Topol-M launching complex to its arsenal, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev toldInterfax.

He said eight Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles had already been supplied to the strategic rocket troops and would be guided and controlled by these particular complexes.

The launching complex consists of control systems as well as systems for the maintenance of missiles and launching pads.

Sergeyev expressed confidence that ten intercontinental ballistic missiles would be supplied to the Strategic Rocket Forces before the end of the year.

#11
The Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/

Paper Released December 3, 1998

Accept No Russian Conditions to START II Treaty
by Baker Spring

After years of delay, the Russian Duma seems prepared to approve the 1993 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II). However, as Baker Spring, Senior Defense Policy Analyst in The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis International Studies Center, reveals in this Executive Memorandum, it appears that the Duma may decide to attach unacceptable preconditions that could prevent the Russian government from ratifying the treaty or require Russia to withdraw from it altogether. One condition reportedly would require the United States to observe the terms of the defunct 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with the former Soviet Union. Others could restrict U.S. nuclear or anti-satellite weapons deployment.

Since START II would reduce-if not eliminate-Russia's current advantage over the United States in deployed warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, Senate approval of the treaty (as modified in 1997 to extend the implementation period from January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2007) is in the United States' best interest. Acceding to the Duma's conditions, especially one that links START II to an ABM Treaty that leaves Americans and U.S. territory vulnerable to ballistic missile attack, clearly would not serve U.S. interests. The Senate should not heed such conditions. It should approve START II on its own merits, without allowing it to be linked to any other treaty or agreement.

http://www.heritage.org/library/execmemo/em561.html

 #12
Excerpt
Human Rights Watch
World Report 1999


The Russian Federation

http://www.hrw.org/hrw/worldreport99/europe/russian.html
Human Rights Developments

The collapse of the ruble and the Russian banking system triggered a sharp political crisis in what President Boris Yeltsin had named the Year of Human Rights in Russia. In August, the Russian government defaulted on its short-term foreign debt and devalued the ruble, and the already crisis-stricken economy went into free-fall. President Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Kiriyenko, and, after a month of political haggling that nearly plunged the country into chaos, the parliament approved former Foreign Minister Evgenii Primakov as Prime Minister.

The financial crisis came after years of government arrears on wages and pensions, widespread corruption, and insider privatization deals. The government’s response to these festering problems —inertia, empty promises, and neglect—was similar toits response to human rights problems in 1998. The government neglected long-standing problems of police torture, appalling prison conditions and the grave abuse of conscripts. The federal government imposed further restrictions on freedom of information and freedom of conscience, and it did nothing to redress infringements on civil rights by regional leaders. Indeed the only positive developments were the transfer of the prison system to the Ministry of Justice, the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.

Political freedoms were increasingly under attack in 1998, both on a federal and regional level. Freedom of expression, which had flourished since the end of the cold war, suffered several blows in 1998. Prime Minister Evgenii Primakov’s decision immediately following his appointment in mid-September to ban government officials from talking to reporters without prior permission was reminiscent of attempts by other governments in the C.I.S. to stifle freedom of information. New rules under discussion at the time of this writing threatened to compromise freedom of speech on the Internet and endanger the further development of Russia’s emerging civil society. Draft regulations submitted by the Federal Security Service (FSB) regarding the Internet and E-mail would allow the security services to monitor all such communications without obtaining prior permission, through a black box Internet service providers would have to pay for themselves....