June 20, 2001 

This Date's Issues:   5310 • 5311

Johnson's Russia List
#5311
20 June 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Capitalism hits home in Russia. Next month, the Kremlin unveils a plan to wean the country away from housing and other subsidies.
2. Moscow Times: Yevgenia Borisova, Protesters Declare Labor Code Won't Work.
3. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
4. Interfax: MOSCOW TO DO AWAY WITH TRANSIT VISAS FOR U.S. CITIZENS.
5. UPI: Uwe Siemon-Netto, Analysis: Pope off to hornets nest. (Ukraine)
6. The Times (UK): Giles Whittell and Ben MacIntyre, Putin threat to launch new arms race.
7. RFE/RL: Andrew Tully, Smiles From Ljubljana -- Are U.S.-Russian Relations Really That Good?
8. Moscow Times: Gregory Feifer, Ljubljana Low Point.
9. Dmitri Glinski-Vassiliev: Russian-American Relations in the Post-Reform Era: Paradoxes of Ideological Gravitation.]

*******

#1
Christian Science Monitor
20 June 2001
Capitalism hits home in Russia
Next month, the Kremlin unveils a plan to wean the country 
away from housing and other subsidies.
By Fred Weir
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

The USSR collapsed 10 years ago, but for most Russians, Communism never
really ended. It has lived on in the form of nearly cost-free housing,
municipal services, heating, and electricity. But a capitalist jolt is on the
way.

In early July the Kremlin will hand down a plan to carry out Russia's
long-delayed "housing reform" - a set of dull-sounding but potentially
explosive changes. Experts say the reform will have to navigate a fine line
between infrastructural collapse and social chaos. "There must be a swift and
fundamental shift from state subsidy to market relations in the housing
sphere," says Anwar Shamuzafarov, head of the State Committee on Housing and
main author of the plan. "It is extremely urgent," he adds, citing dire
figures on the deterioration of housing stock and physical infrastructure
over the past decade.

The plan aims to shift the full burden of housing, utilities, and municipal
service costs to the consumer by 2003. Then follows a program to privatize
such functions as garbage collection, apartment maintenance, repair, and the
huge Soviet-era central heating stations that warm entire city quarters.

But Valery Mansurov, president of the Russian Society of Sociologists, and a
critic of the plan, says that "in putting this reform on the agenda before
the living standards of Russians have been radically improved, the Kremlin is
planting a bomb under the foundations of our social stability." He adds, "All
of our studies show that over 60 percent of the population cannot afford to
pay anything near market value for their housing, heat, and utilities."

Almost every Russian family received an apartment or house free of charge, as
a gift from the departed USSR. Fearful of popular backlash, successive
post-Soviet governments have been reluctant to tamper with the massive
subsidies that kept the charges for maintenance, utilities, and municipal
services almost negligible. That helps explain how most Russians have
weathered the past 10 winters on average salaries hovering around $100 per
month.

But there has been little investment in infrastructure over the same period.
Mr. Shamuzafarov says 60 percent of crumbling, Soviet-era apartment blocs
require major repairs, one-third of all water pipes and 17 percent of sewage
pipes urgently need to be replaced, and the natural-gas distribution network
has become dangerous due to decaying lines and equipment. Leaks in central
heating networks waste the equivalent of 80 million tons of oil annually.

Accidents and breakdowns have increased fivefold in the past 10 years. "If we
don't energetically start reform now, the system may collapse and create
multiple catastrophes," says Franz Sheregi, director of the Center for Social
Forecasting, an independent Moscow think tank. He cites breakdowns of central
heating systems in several Russian Far East communities, and rolling power
blackouts that swept across Siberia last winter. "That's what awaits the
whole country if we don't act quickly."

At least $20 billion must be raised to make immediate repairs, and the only
possible source for these funds is the Russian consumer, Mr. Sheregi says.
"The poorest people must be subsidized, but I believe the majority of
Russians can pay. In the longer run, most municipal services should be
privatized and turned into profitable, competitive businesses."

Critics say Russia's beleaguered middle class will be undermined by the
reform, and that the country's tentative industrial recovery could suffocate
as consumers shift their spending to cover escalating housing costs.

"In Russia, a family of three whose combined income is 6,000 rubles (about
$200) per month is considered solidly middle class," says Vladimir Grishanov,
a researcher with the independent Institute for Social and Economic
Population Studies in Moscow, which has surveyed possible effects of housing
reform in several Russian cities.

"Right now, that typical middle class family's bill for housing and utilities
comes to around 400 rubles (about $12) per month," he says. "That leaves them
enough disposable income for food, clothes, maybe newspaper subscriptions, a
few consumer goods, perhaps even an occasional vacation."

But, Mr. Grishanov continues, if the same family is forced to pay market
value for housing and services, that will devour at least a quarter of its
income. "Under the plan being prepared, this family would still not be
eligible for state relief. But the family's disposable income will be gone,
and it will have to give up most of those extra purchases. So much for our
middle class, and so much for our fragile economic recovery, too."

The plan is unlikely to meet much resistance in the State Duma, where
pro-Kremlin parties comprise a majority. But an unlikely combination of
liberal and communist deputies say they intend to put up a stiff resistance
to it.

"It is just wrong to shift the burden of a decade of neglect onto our
citizens," says Sergei Metrokhin, a deputy with the liberal Yabloko party.
"The state must find ways to pay for renovation of housing and
infrastructure, and then only raise prices as it improves the quality of
services."

Options suggested by lawmakers opposed to the plan include: using the
windfall the Russian government has reaped over the past year from high
global oil prices, asking the West to reschedule Russia's debt payments, and
ending the costly war in Chechnya.

"The state has an obligation to create a properly functioning economy before
it squeezes people," says Alevtina Aparina, a Communist member of the Duma's
social policy commission. "Prices should only rise in line with peoples'
salaries.

"We believe this so-called reform could lead to a mass refusal to pay in many
regions of Russia. The government is flirting with social explosion and
economic collapse," she says.

But supporters of the plan say it's more likely that Russia will muddle
through this difficult passage, as usual. "A decade ago people were terrified
when market reforms began, but step by step they adjusted," says Mr. Sheregi.
"I'm sure the same thing will happen when the housing reform takes hold."

*******

#2
Moscow Times
June 20, 2001
Protesters Declare Labor Code Won't Work
By Yevgenia Borisova
Staff Writer

The State Duma agreed Tuesday to take up the long-awaited new Labor Code on
July 5, now that the government has resolved differences with the main
labor unions that put the legislation on hold last year.

Two small unions, however, still object to the government draft and
organized protests in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

For a few minutes, dockworkers in the Far East, Murmansk, Novorossiisk and
St. Petersburg stopped their work Tuesday, said organizers of the actions
from Zashchita Truda (Defense of Labor) and SotsProf, which have several
hundred thousand members throughout Russia. In Moscow, small groups
picketed outside the Duma and near industrial enterprises.

"We believe that trade unions in no fewer than 60 cities organized such
actions and at least 100,000 people participated," Oleg Shein, who is
member of the Duma's labor committee, said in a telephone interview.

The protests were to demonstrate support for an alternative Labor Code
drafted by Shein, said SotsProf leader Sergei Khramov, Interfax reported.

Shein's draft is one of seven that will be presented to the Duma on July 5
for a first reading. But only the government draft is likely to win
approval, especially now that it has the support of the Federation of
Independent Unions of Russia, which claims to represent 40 million workers.

Last December, the federation organized a week of protests against the
government's proposed Labor Code. In the face of the fierce union
opposition, Labor Minister Alexander Pochinok agreed to sit down and work
out a compromise, which is what has happened in recent months.

It was not clear Tuesday precisely how the new government-supported draft
of the Labor Code differs from the draft proposed last year.

Shein, however, said it still violates workers' rights. For instance, as in
the government's original version, employers are able to fire workers
without union consent. This is a change from the existing Labor Code, and
labor leaders have argued that excluding unions from the dismissal process
could lead to arbitrary firings and vindictive dismissals of union activists.

Shein said the government draft also allows employers to extend the working
week to 58 hours from the current 40 hours and to employ workers on a
contract basis rather than as staff, which in many cases means they are not
provided with social benefits.

"It also allows up to 20 percent of wages to be paid in kind," Shein said.

Employers in Russia are quite inventive about paying workers in kind;
everything from tinned pineapples to manure, meat grinders and coffins have
been given to people instead of money.

Pochinok and a spokesman for the Federation of Independent Trade Unions,
Gennady Khodakov, defended the compromise version. Khodakov said workers'
hours can be extended by no more than a total of 120 hours a year and only
with their written agreement, and workers must be paid overtime wages. Only
certain jobs can be done under contract, he said.

Pochinok, in an interview with Interfax, also said the eight-hour work day
has been maintained and "everything above that will be paid extra." The
labor minister said the draft code defends workers' rights, for instance by
providing a list of the reasons someone can be fired. But he said the list
includes a "one-time gross violation of work discipline," which would seem
to be open to an employer's interpretation.

Shein said his draft demands that wages be at least at subsistence level,
now considered to be an average of 1,400 rubles ($48) a month, and must be
indexed to inflation.

Pochinok said this was an impossible demand that would require billions of
rubles from the budget. "We have agreed to discuss the terms when we are
able to do this," he was quoted as saying.

Shein said he would like to take the debate over the Labor Code to the
regions, but there is no time. Under Duma regulations, if 30 percent of
regional legislatures oppose legislation, it must be removed from the Duma
agenda.

Khodakov called Shein's talk of regional support a "provocation aimed at
splitting the trade unions of Russia."

Shein stayed out of the "extended debates" with the government, and
representatives of the independent unions "had to single-handedly fight
with the government, entrepreneurs and the deputies who support them,"
Khodakov said.

"He is talking about regional debates — but we have been debating this
draft for a half a year already," the federation spokesman said. "Our
leader Mikhail Shmakov spoke on television, we have published all the
details in our Solidarnost newspaper. We don't need to delay the hearings
because of the personal ambitions of Shein."

*******

#3
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research intern at the Center for Defense Information
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University

Tuesday, June 19, 2001

HEADLINES

- Putin met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The fishing
industry, nuclear and environmental security, and economic questions
figured in the discussion. Stoltenberg also met with counterpart Mikhail
Kasyanov.

- The Council of the State Duma has scheduled a second reading for the
bill on the profit tax for Friday, June 22. Finance Minister Aleksei
Kudrin has said that Duma leaders are prepared to support the government
recommendation to reduce the tax.

- Putin met with the new ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin. They
spoke about the potential for the development of relations in key economic
areas. They will meet regularly in the future.

- Sukhoi design bureau was the center of attention at the aerospace show
in Le Bourget. French President Jacques Chirac chatted with Ilya
Klebanov, who headed the Russian delegation, and told journalists that he
will discuss aerospace industry cooperation between the two countries
during his upcoming visit to Russia.

- Vladimir Putin met with representatives of the parliamentary
associaltions of the Russian regions today.

- The annual international investment conference is taking place in Moscow

- speakers include Stanley Fischer, Aleksei Kudrin, Sergei Stepashin.

- Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov met with his Ukranian colleague Aleksandr
Kuz'muk in Sevastopol to discuss the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

- Vice-Premier Valentina Matvienko visited a center for gifted children in
Nizhny Novgorod. She emphasized again the need to give budget sphere
employees pay-raises.

- An internal troops patrolman was killed last night in Ryazan'. His
machine gun and ammunition were stolen.

- Shots were exchanged in Karachevo-Cherkessiya last night after police
officers attempted to stop a car for inspection. Two police officers were
wounded. Two of the bandits were killed on the spot, the third died
shortly thereafter at a hospital.

- Chechen fighters blew up three cars almost simultaneously in different
areas of Gudermes.

- The remains of the terrorist band suspected of the terrorist acts in
Yessentiuki and Mineral'nye Vody have been eliminated.

- An SU-17 plane crashed near Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Both pilots died.

- Dock workers in Primoriye stopped work for ten minutes this morning in
the spirit of the All-Russian Day to Support the Professional Union
Version of the Labor Code.

- Miners planned to picket at Gorbatyi bridge despite the disapproval of
the Moscow Mayor's office. [It is unclear whether they are protesting the
critical deterioration of equipment or whether the report lists this as an
additional problem].

- The Primorskii Krai court has postponed the case concerning
gubernatorial candidates by two days.

- Genetic passports - predicting likely diseases - to be given to Estonian
citizens in the future.

ODNAKO

Today's "ODNAKO" program with Mikhail Leontiev covered the following
points:

- [Appointments of amateurs to responsible positions (Viktor Artiukhov -
Ministry of the Environment; Igor Yusufov - Ministry of Fuel and Energy).]

Leontiev bitterly suggested that perhaps the hope is that those who
know less about the industry will steal less.

- [The Le Berget aerospace show. In response to a journalist's question
of whether the West will cooperate with Russia in weapons development Ilya
Klebanov said: "they don't have a choice."]

Leontiev warned that the choice is clear and mentioned the joint
projects with former Soviet Satellites: SU-25 "Scorpion" (Israel/Georgia);
last year's MIG-29 (Romania); the MI-8 helicopters (Uzbekistan).

- [Recent problems with SU-25s - according to government sources six have
been lost in Chechnya since August of 1999, mainly because of "bad
visibility."]

Leontiev noted that bombers either should be equipped to fly in all
weather, at all times of day - or should not fly at all.

- [The general perception that a "dreadfully liberal reform" to the
judiciary system is being carried out.]

Leontiev listed some of the recent gains for the Procurator's office.

*******

#4
MOSCOW TO DO AWAY WITH TRANSIT VISAS FOR U.S. CITIZENS

MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - Russia is expected to do away shortly
with transit visas for U.S. citizens traveling via Russian territory.

This regime in relation to U.S. citizens "will definitely be
canceled against the background of a general positive development in
Russian-American relations," sources with Russian authorities told
Interfax on Tuesday.

Russia introduced transit visas on May 6 in response to an
analogous move by the U.S. in relation to Russian citizens traveling to
third countries via the U.S. Moscow then described this Washington
measure as discriminatory.

Meanwhile, the U.S. made a decision to do away with transit visas
for Russian citizens on the eve of the Ljubljana summit on June 16. The
decision was published in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations on June
15 and came into force immediately.

Experts note that the transit visa regime chiefly affected
Americans, as the number of Russian citizens traveling via the U.S. is
very small.

******

#5
Analysis: Pope off to hornets nest
By UWE SIEMON-NETTO, UPI religion correspondent

WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- Pope John Paul II will enter an ecclesial
hornets' nest when he flies to the Ukraine on a four-day visit Saturday.

Four Eastern-rite denominations with almost identical liturgies await him
there -- one with open arms, two with lukewarm feelings, and the fourth with
animosity. The trouble is the latter is the largest of the lot.

There are also Latin-rite Roman Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals,
Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hungarian Reformed and Lutheran Christians
of German stock. A decade after the Ukraine had freed itself from Russian
domination, this nation of 50 million strikes outsiders as a bewildering
denominational mosaic.

Two of John Paul's most urgent desires have driven this 81-year old man to
undertake this strenuous journey. One is his wish to advance the unity of
Christianity, heeding Jesus' prayer "that they all be one."

But his other objective is to pay tribute to the martyrdom suffered under
Soviet rule by Ukrainian Catholics -- Eastern as well as Latin rite. This
was a martyrdom the Pope observed from close quarters when he was archbishop
of Krakow in Poland. And the two goals are in conflict.

One has to go back more than 1,000 years to try to establish a red ribbon
to guide one through the Ukraine's religious maze. In a sense, the Pope's
destination Saturday is the heartland of Eastern Slavic Orthodoxy.

It was in Kiev that Christianity's "Eastern lung" began to breathe in what
later became the Russian empire and then the Soviet Union. It all started
when a cleric from Constantinople baptized prince Vladimir in 988 AD. From
that moment on, the faith spread rapidly over the prince's vast realm.

But in 1240, the Tatars destroyed Kiev and laid waste much of Rus.
Eventually, in 1326, the metropolitan heading the Kiev church moved his see
to Moscow, then the capital of a relatively insignificant principality.

One hundred years later, the Lithuanians and Poles conquered important
Kiev territories from the Tatars. As a result, the Polish-Lithuanian realm,
a Roman Catholic land, acquired millions of Belo-Russians and Ukrainians,
who were Orthodox. In 1596, some of their bishops recognized the ecclesial
authority of the Pope, who in turn allowed them to maintain their Byzantine
rite and married priests, though not bishops.

Not all orthodox bishops acceded to this arrangement called the Union of
Brest. As a result, two Eastern-rite churches competed with each other until
the Ukraine and Belo-Russia fell to Russia in 1659. At that point both
denominations were integrated into the Russian church.

But then came Communism. First the Russian Orthodox Church in the Ukraine
broke up. Anti-Russian nationalists founded an autocephalous (independent)
Ukrainian National Church that did not use Church Slavonic but the
vernacular in its liturgy.

It vanished in Stalin's reign of terror and did not re-emerge until 1989.
Currently, three Orthodox denominations are rivaling each other in the
Ukraine: a huge body under the control of the patriarch of Moscow with 8,000
parishes, a Kiev patriarchate with 2,200 congregations, and the renascent
autocephalous church with 1,000.

During his first two days in Kiev, the Pope will have to muster all his
diplomatic skills to stay clear of the inter-orthodox squabbles and soothe
the outright hostility of the Moscow Patriarchate. But its protest may well
reach a crescendo when he goes west to pay tribute to "a church which
suffered in an indescribable way for years," as papal spokesman Joachin
Navarro-Valls put it.

John Paul II will do this in a part of the present-day Ukraine, where his
father was once stationed as an Austro-Hungarian officer -- in Galicia,
whose capital was then called Lemberg and is now called Lviv in Ukrainian
and Lvov in Polish.

It has two cardinals. One is Major Archbishop Lubomyr Husar, the head of
the Eastern-rite Catholic Church, which has 5 million members. The other is
John Paul's old friend Marian Jaworski, whose 900,000 Latin-rite Catholics
are mainly of Polish descent.

The Eastern-rite Catholics were the ones who suffered the most under
Soviet rule. Moscow outlawed them altogether, imprisoned all their bishops
and confiscated their property or gave it to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Many of the priests, religious and faithful were either arrested or
deported. The others have had to practice their faith in secret.

The Latin-rite church suffered severe restrictions. Their seminaries were
closed, their bishops forbidden to pursue their ministry.

To the dismay of the Russian Orthodox Church, Catholicism rebounded in
Galicia when Communism collapsed. It has almost completely replaced
Orthodoxy in this territory, and this in turn has poisoned the atmosphere
between the church hierarchies in Moscow and Rome. The Moscow patriarchate
claims that the Catholics are infringing on its own "canonical territory" by
stealing its faithful.

"Moscow is peeved because it has lost more than one thousand
congregations," Cardinal Husar told the German weekly newspaper, Rheinischer
Merkur. "It claims that we had grabbed more than 1,000 parishes with
violence.

"But the point is that in their hearts these people have always remained
Catholics even when they had to pretend to be Orthodox under Soviet rule."

******

#6
The Times (UK)
JUNE 20 2001
Putin threat to launch new arms race
FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW AND BEN MACINTYRE IN WASHINGTON

PRESIDENT BUSH'S efforts to win President Putin over to a new global
security structure were in tatters last night after Russia threatened to
launch an arms race if America pressed ahead with plans for a missile
defence shield.

Days after an apparently convivial meeting with President Bush in Slovenia,
Mr Putin made clear that he would tear up existing arms control treaties
and install multiple warheads on the latest nuclear missiles to counter the
perceived American threat.

He brushed aside doubts about whether Russia’s gravely underfunded forces
could match the American challenge. “We will reinforce our capability” with
multiple warheads that would cost “a meagre sum” but would boost Russia’s
nuclear stockpile “many times over”, he said.

“When we hear that some programme or other will be carried out ‘with or
without us’ — well, we cannot force anyone to co-operate with us, nor will
we try to. We have offered to work together. If that is not needed, fine.
We are ready to act on our own.”

A unilateral American decision to proceed with a missile defence system
could also trigger “a hectic, uncontrolled arms race” along Russia’s
longest border as China boosted its own nuclear stockpile, he added.

The State Department in Washington sought to play down the implications of
Mr Putin’s words, but its spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that Mr Bush
remained committed to America’s ‘Son of Star Wars’ programme. “Russia is
not an enemy,” he said. “We seek to work with Russia to develop a new
framework that reflects a co-operative relationship based on openness and
mutual confidence.” But he said the US had no intention of backing away
from its missile defence plans. “The President and his national security
team have explained that we will move forward with a programme to counter
new threats that is not directed against Russia.”

Noting Mr Putin’s suggestion that US missile defence would not damage
Russian national security for “the coming 25 years” — a pointed reference
to failed test launches — Mr Boucher added: “We welcome President Putin’s
offer of co-operation and his recognition that US missile defences will not
undermine Russian national security.”

Mr Putin was responding to remarks by Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s National
Security Adviser, who reiterated on Sunday that America was ready to build
a £60 billion anti-missile shield with or without international support.

The Russian leader admitted that installing multiple warheads would violate
the Start treaties, but he said they would have been rendered obsolete
because an American missile shield would itself violate the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that Russia considers the basis of all
subsequent arms control accords.

Without Start II, the US would lose most of its rights of inspection and
verification at Russian disarmament sites and disarmament itself would be
at risk of grinding to a halt, leaving Moscow with some 3,500 nuclear
warheads at the end of the decade instead of the 1,000 to 1,500 envisaged
under the draft Start III treaty.

Mr Putin’s strong language put substance behind his much more subtle
refusal to give ground on Saturday, when he avoided discussion of the
glaring disagreement.

Experts acknowledge that it would be relatively easy for Russia to upgrade
its new Topol-M intercontinental missiles with multiple warheads that would
defeat all but the most comprehensive space-based missile shield.

Russia is so far thought to have deployed three battalions of Topol-Ms in
central Russia, each fielding ten missiles. Currently armed with one
warhead each, in accordance with the Start I and Start II treaties, they
have been test-fired successfully from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in
northwestern Russia to a target range in the Russian Far East.

The Topol-M programme has drained Russia’s conventional armed forces of
funds but to strategic effect: the missiles are already designed to
“wobble” during atmospheric re-entry to evade the kind of US defence shield
first planned in the 1980s under President Reagan.

Nuclear arms experts in Washington reacted with dismay to Mr Putin’s
remarks. Tomas Valasek, security analyst at the Centre for Defence
Information in Washington, said that an increase in Russian nuclear
warheads could pose a serious danger. “This is a demonstration that there
may be a price to pay for national missile defence: by limiting the threat
from one part of the world, we might be creating another.”

******

#7
U.S./Russia:
Smiles From Ljubljana -- Are U.S.-Russian Relations Really That Good?
By Andrew Tully

The world was treated to images of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin smiling
and laughing as the presidents of the U.S. and Russia met for the first time
in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Bush even called Putin "trustworthy" after just one
meeting. But as our correspondent Andrew Tully reports, profound differences
remain between the two countries.

Washington, 19 June 2001 (RFE/RL) -- A conference on the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction in Washington on Monday was a good forum to gauge
the new relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

When George W. Bush became the American president nearly five months ago, it
was clear that his administration would make Russia less of a foreign-policy
priority than did his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

But Russia's importance has increased since then. Bush spoke in Warsaw on
Friday of expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include
the Baltic states -- a step that Moscow strongly opposes.

Yet on the very next day, Bush had a meeting in Ljubljana with Russian
President Vladimir Putin, which he described in amiable terms. On Monday,
Bush restated this assessment.

"Conversation with President Putin was positive. It indicated to me that we
can have a very frank and honest relationship, that there's areas where we
can work together."

Evidently, Putin shares the sentiment. He telephoned Chinese President Jiang
Zemin -- also on Monday -- to report that, like Russia, Beijing also has an
opportunity to develop "wide-ranging and constructive" relations with Bush's
administration.

As the Ljubljana summit was approaching, policy analysts in the U.S. and in
Europe -- even in Russia -- agreed that the two men would focus less on
substantive agreement and more on developing a rapport, or "chemistry," as
the Americans call it. Television and newspaper images from Slovenia showed
Bush and Putin smiling and laughing like old friends.

In fact, Washington and Moscow have much in common in a 21st-century world
that at times seems as dangerous as it did during the Cold War. This was made
clear during Monday's conference on the spread of weapons of mass
destruction. Two important speakers at the forum agreed that the end of the
Cold War led some to believe hastily that the threat of nuclear war had
diminished dramatically.

One speaker was Igor Sergeyev, formerly Russia's defense minister, now
Putin's adviser on strategic issues. He called this belief "unfounded"
because "marginal nations" now have nuclear weapons. And he spoke
emphatically about controlling the spread of these devices.

"The situation with the proliferation of nuclear arms is now more of concern
than ever before."

Another speaker at the conference was Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), a
leading member of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. He is the
co-author of legislation under which Washington helps Russia secure the
weapons of the defunct Soviet Union that were left within the borders of four
former Soviet states.

Lugar agreed with Sergeyev that the nuclear threat had shifted after the
Soviet breakup of 1991. As he put it, the nuclear threat during the Cold War
was "high-risk" and "low-probability." Today, he said, the risk is lower, but
the probability is higher -- again because of proliferation.

The senator had praise for the cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on
making sure these weapons do not get into the wrong hands. But he also saw no
immediate end to the two nations' dispute over Bush's plans to deploy a
missile-defense system.

The American administration says the system is not meant to defend against
Russia, but against what it calls "rogue states" -- North Korea and Iran, for
instance. Russia counters that deployment would only generate a new arms
race. Besides, it says, the missile-defense system would violate the
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972.

Like the possible admission of the Baltic states to NATO, the dispute over an
American missile-defense system runs deep. And Lugar said a resolution is
probably a long way off.

"Let there be no doubt: This will require heavy lifting [hard work].
Negotiations will not be easy or quick. A successful conclusion to these
negotiations will require patience and statesmanship."

Another disagreement between the U.S. and Russia involves weapons
proliferation itself. Washington accuses Moscow of helping Iran in its
efforts to develop a nuclear-weapons program. Sergeyev was asked about that
suspicion at Monday's forum in Washington. He replied -- as Russian officials
have said before -- that Russia is helping Iran to build only a kind of
nuclear power plant, and that this technology cannot be used to develop
weapons.

The manner of Sergeyev's reply demonstrated the depth of difference between
the U.S. and Russia on the issue. First, the former foreign minister accused
his questioner of being ignorant of Moscow's relationship with Tehran. And he
accused Washington of applying a double standard to this relationship, saying
that the U.S. is simultaneously helping North Korea build a similar reactor.

Further evidence of distance between America and Russia was the reaction of
some members of the U.S. Congress to Bush's positive appraisal of Putin.
Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) wondered how Bush could make so
sweeping an assessment after only a single two-hour meeting.

And Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) expressed surprise that Bush called
Putin "trustworthy." Biden noted that Putin once was an agent for the KGB in
East Germany, and later was the director of Russia's internal intelligence
service.

Biden dismissed the smiling images and warm talk from Ljubljana, and said he
frankly does not trust Putin. As for Bush's assessment of the Russian
president, the senator said he hopes Bush doesn't really believe his own
praise.

*******

#8
Moscow Times
June 20, 2001
Ljubljana Low Point
By Gregory Feifer
Gregory Feifer is a Moscow-based fellow at the Institute of Current World
Affairs.

The amount of hoopla generated by summit meetings between the United States
and Russia often forces commentators to read as much as possible into the
events. It may be self-reinforcing: The hype somehow has to be justified.
After last weekend's meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and
President Vladimir Putin in Slovenia, the spin boiled down to the general
opinion that the occasion constituted a positive step forward in bilateral
relations. Both leaders were lauded for agreeing to look beyond Cold
War-era relations and at the very least work toward reconciling a spate of
differences.

While I do not mean to deny that the summit was indeed a step away from
confrontation and toward cooperation, I think it merits mentioning that the
two leaders' rhetoric and body language also showed just how much relations
between the two countries have deteriorated. The fact that liberal and
conservative commentators — with a couple of notable exceptions —
unanimously declared the meeting a success only underlines the extent of
the estrangement between Washington and Moscow, chiefly because of the
amount of wishful thinking displayed.

No two presidents who really trust each other and are confident relations
will indeed improve between their countries would have waxed so effusive
about one another before the world media in Ljubljana. Bush spoke about the
end of the Cold War and declared that Russia is not America's enemy. (What
about the past 10 years in which Russia, for all its faults, was at least
ostensibly a pretty good friend?) Bush repeated ad nauseam that he trusts
Putin, going so far as to say he "was able to get a sense of his soul." Is
the dialogue between the two countries so bottlenecked that it needs the
U.S. president to transcend it by engaging in metaphysical communion?
Later, when asked by a reporter what he offered Putin in the meeting, Bush
answered, "logic." After some minutes of listening to the president's
confused rambling, the correspondent asked again, and again received
nothing but more embarrassing rambling.

Putin, by comparison, seemed a seasoned diplomat. Instead of confusion, he
stated the obvious. "Friends don't destroy each other," he said in response
to a question. "People who cooperate do not base peace on destruction."
Much of the discussion at the news conference following the meeting
centered on NATO expansion. The delicate fact is that the military alliance
does in fact function in opposition to Russia because it aims in part to
act as a guarantor of values and behavior antithetical to Russia's.

Bush knows that, of course. His administration has contributed its part to
souring the relations with its hard-line rhetoric. But instead of taking
real actions to demonstrate that Moscow must respect Western values if it
is to be accepted in the international community, the Bush White House has
resorted to fruitless rhetoric about Russia's diminished role on the world
stage. Instead of carrots to encourage Russia to end its brutal campaign in
Chechnya, for example, Washington offers provocation that has inflamed
Moscow's existing bias toward the United States. It has done so with such
counterproductive displays as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's
snubbing of then-Security Council chief Sergei Ivanov in Munich earlier
this year. For members of an administration purportedly interested in
protecting U.S. security, the Bush team could hardly have done more in so
little time to undermine it.

When it counts, such as during the summit, the Bush administration
evidently does little to actively encourage change in Russia. The usual
Republican bluster was not in evidence at Brdo Castle, and that does even
more to undermine America's position by showing it to be all bark and
little bite.

Putin, unlike Bush, has nothing to lose and everything to gain on the
diplomatic stage at this point. Russia has brought worsening relations with
the United States upon itself. Russian politicians, Putin not least among
them, have exploited the suffering and frustration of their subjects by
stoking general xenophobia and more direct anti-Americanism when it suits
their political ends. Moscow railed against NATO bombing in Yugoslavia in
1999, for example, accusing the United States of preparing an attack on
Russian soil. (Now that the Russian-backed dictator Slobodan Milosevic is
out of power, Putin seems to see no irony in preaching about combating
"intolerance and extremism" in the Balkans, as he did during his trip to
Belgrade after the summit last weekend.)

Putin's credentials as a hard liner are well established in Moscow. His
administration has brought back a measure of the fear and arbitrary power
once central to the functioning of the Soviet apparatus. When the president
acts magnanimously toward Bush on foreign soil — such as by offering
documentary proof that Russia had not initially seen NATO as an enemy — he
seems stronger at home for doing so. But if Putin's outward role echoes
that of Richard Nixon in China, it does not mean the role is substantively
the same.

U.S.-Russian relations are held hostage by leaders eager to please domestic
constituents. They say and do things at home they wouldn't dream of
engaging in face-to-face. That is a necessary part of diplomacy, but the
hypocrisy cheapens these moments of seeming reconciliation. When Bush and
Putin feel the need to assure each other of their personal decency, it
shows just how far apart the two really are.

*******

#9
From: "Dmitri Glinski-Vassiliev" <dmitri_glinski@mtu-net.ru>
Subject: Russian-American Relations in the Post-Reform Era
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001

Dmitri Glinski-Vassiliev
Russian-American Relations in the Post-Reform Era:
Paradoxes of Ideological Gravitation

Summary of remarks at the Gorbachev Foundation roundtable chaired by Mikhail
Gorbachev

[translation from Russian]

1. Transnational Community of Elites and Extended Unipolarity

The development of the Russian-American relations cannot be objectively
evaluated or forecast outside of the historical context - both in global
terms and in terms of internal development of both societies. As we know,
over the past ten years distance between the United States and Russia was
increasing by all objective parameters. American GDP grew by 30%, while
Russian decreased almost twofold and is now comparable to the GDP of the
single state of New York. Against this background, Russia's ruling "elite"
was remarkably successful in finding its place in the U.S.-centered system
of international relations. In spite of all the intra-systemic
contradictions and unequal integration of various groups in the
transnational community of elites, the interests of Russia's ruling stratum
are in no way antagonistic to the de-facto unipolar world order that has
taken shape. This order is acceptable to Russia's elite as long as the
latter is affiliated with the U.S.-dominated "pole" through G-8, the Davos
Economic Forum and a web of other institutions. This convergence of elites'
interests and worldviews which had already begun back in the Soviet era,
when contrasted with the growing asymmetry between the two nations and
societies, represents, in my view, the major paradox of the Russian-American
relations. While being a source of considerable short-term opportunities for
the two sides, this contradiction may be fraught with rather unwelcome
consequences in the longer-term future.

The last decade was the era of the elites' expansion: while U.S. globalists
were busy spreading Pax Americana onto new territories, Russian "compradors"
were expanding their wealth at the expense of their nation's majority. The
enrichment of the latter and military-political offensive of the former were
but the two sides of the same coin. The limits to both developments were
clearly shown by the 1998 financial collapse in Russia's case and by the war
against Yugoslavia in the case of the U.S. interventionists. By then, both
sides had run out of resources for further expansion. Hence the somewhat
illusory feeling of estrangement, which in reality reflected the natural
exhaustion of the unprecedented mutual support characteristic of the 1990s -
politically motivated loans, cheerleading for the reform policies, a series
of unthinkable diplomatic concessions on the Russian side etc. To forestall
the growth of opposition forces, in both countries power shifted into the
hands of status quo politicians - people and groups interested primarily in
the consolidation of internal resources and fantastic gains acquired in the
1990s.

Today, in the United States in Russia we can observe not only a coincidence
of political cycles, but also an unprecedented ideological rapprochement
between the major groups in power. Politicians in the Kremlin and the White
House are of the same conservative, and rather heavily conservative vintage.
They do not pursue expansion, their foreign policy priorities are primarily
of a defensive and reactive nature. This is neither an ideology of global
leadership nor an ideology of development. (More actively conservative
policies are being pursued by both on the domestic stage - certainly, within
constraints imposed respectively by each political system and culture. Thus,
both in Russia and the U.S., we see the introduction of elements of
regressive taxation, attacks against social rights, attacks against
environmental regulations, anti-intellectual trend in government agencies,
and so on.) For a while, such an ideological affinity may become the
cornerstone of relations between the two. This was apparently the
calculation of those Russian politicians and political technologists who
played, often quite carelessly, on the Republicans' side in the course of
the last year's electoral campaign.

2. The Politics of Status Quo and Differences in Its Understanding

In foreign policy, conservative leanings find their expression in the
rhetoric of "pragmatism" and "Realism", which are variations of ideology,
namely, the ideology of preserving the status quo. This is so in spite of
the occasional radicalism of the Republicans' pronouncements about rejecting
the legacies of the Cold War, including some of the arms control agreements.
It is for the first time in many decades that both Russia and the U.S. are
at once in the position of the status quo powers.

However, already at the stage of defining the substance of this policy,
there are inevitable fractures between the two: indeed, for the United
States and Russia the meanings of status quo are fundamentally different. If
for the Americans it implies the preservation of their real financial,
technological and military hegemony within and, to an extent, outside the
Western world, Russia's status quo means its symbolic position as a
privileged partner of the U.S. in the process of arms control and as a G-8
member. This position is increasingly at odds with reality and is largely
seen as being preserved or obtained by the elite "in exchange" for the
geopolitical self-destruction and de-industrialization of its own country.
Thus, if for the U.S. the maintenance of its status quo depends primarily
upon the dynamism of its economy and diplomatic efforts, Russia's status quo
is presently a function of the American (and, to a lesser extent, German)
interests and Washington's readiness to keep staging Potyomkin village
scenes for the Russian elite. On the other hand, throughout the past decade
the Americans, in their turn, were asserting and strengthening their global
hegemony not least due to the favorable stance taken by the Russian elite.
This is the gist of the special logic of the Russian-American relationship:
the symbolic remnants of bipolarity and mutual recognition as the two
historically legitimate "poles" that are structuring global politics exist
primarily, if not exclusively, within the framework of the Russian-American
relations. Hence the psychological sensitivities that are dogging the
Russian elite in its relationships with the Third World countries: it is
subconsciously afraid of eventually falling into this category, which would
mean that its "services" in the maintenance of a quasi-bipolar system
evolving into a unipolar one would become totally devalued.

Initially after the arrival of the Bush Jr. Administration Russia's status
quo was put in jeopardy as a result of the Republicans' poorly thought out
moves including an ostentatious downgrading of Russia among foreign policy
priorities, reinforced by organizational and bureaucratic changes. Yet the
abrupt deterioration of relations within the Western community, especially
between the U.S. and the Europeans, on a very broad range of issues (from
the Kyoto Protocol to the NMD), and the worsening of U.S. relations with
China have brought to light some unexpected or not obvious points of
convergence between the U.S. and the Russian governments. And, more
recently, the Republican Administration has been further weakened by the
power shift in the Senate to the Democrats. As a result of all this, it
turns out that the basic elements of Russia's status quo are now being
restored at a high speed, and not without assistance on the part of the Bush
Administration. Paradoxically, on a whole range of practical issues,
including the NMD, Putin's Russia may find itself closer to this
administration than some of its leading NATO and G-8 allies together with
domestic critics of its current plans of an antimissile shield.

What is common to the understanding of status quo by most of the American
and Russian elites is the assumed undesirability of emergence of new global
powers, whose technological resources would be commensurate with those of
the U.S. and whose nuclear and missile inventory would put it on an equal
footing with Russia. It is not by chance that one of the most visible
ideologists of the present Administration is Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz, who as early as in 1992 in the famous Wolfowitz memo was
proclaiming the goal of impeding the formation of new global powers. From
this standpoint, the most likely violator of the status quo is, of course,
China, together with those Third World countries that try to raise their
standing in the global hierarchy and the distribution of resources in their
favor, including through the acquisition of WMD and the means of their
delivery. Incidentally, the list of the so-called rogue states includes
potential leaders or claimants for leadership of the Third World who do not
disguise their revisionist position to the present world order. Let us note
that from the Russian authorities' viewpoint, the major revisionist force is
"Islamic fundamentalism" which so far encounters a more tolerant attitude on
the part of the people in the Bush Administration - hence differences not
only in the perception of status quo but also in the definition of specific
threats.

3. Internal Contradictions in Russian and American Policies

Of the two governments, the Bush Administration is at present a relatively
weaker partner that needs positive accomplishments in relations with Russia
both to solve its own internal problems and to reinforce its so far unstable
position among Western leaders. Unlike the Russian president, George Bush
Jr. is not the only and, perhaps, not the most important participant of the
decision making processes that shape the foreign policy of the current
administration. In addition, the shift of the Senate majority and the
takeover of its committees by the Democrats substantially alters the overall
agenda, including in foreign policy. The Democrats, including the Chairman
of Armed Forces Committee Carl Levin, are firmly against the unilateral
abrogation of the ABM Treaty and are not eager to fund the NMD deployment.
This makes the whole diplomatic bargaining over NMD somewhat detached from
reality, not to speak of the scientists' conclusion that an antimissile
shield is no less of a technological utopia than the now defunct SDI.

On the contrary, the issue of NATO enlargement, first and foremost to
include the Baltic states, is being reinvigorated due to the position of the
Democratic leaders, including the new Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman
Joseph Biden - a longstanding and active proponent of the expansion. In the
following months, one can expect a series of "bottom up" initiatives - such
as Senate resolutions and bills, coupled with the heightened activity of the
Baltic lobby and East European governments interested in further expansion.
All this may put serious pressure on the Bush Administration which so far
has not been inclined to hasty decisions on this issue.

Assuming NATO expansion to the Baltic states is undesirable for Russia, one
would have to speak about diplomatic countermeasures to this lobbying. In
reality, Russian foreign policy establishment is prone to forget about the
existence of the U.S. Congress, not to speak of the U.S. civil society and
public opinion, as the monopolistic nature of Russian political system is
often unconsciously projected onto a different political setting. In
addition, Russia's resources of public diplomacy are drastically limited
given the narrowing space for public politics in Russia proper. And most
importantly, over the past ten years Russia's political elite and expert
community have not approached a semblance of consensus regarding Russia's
national interests vis-a-vis NATO expansion. Thus, taking any diplomatic
countermeasures whatsoever is not among the Kremlin's foreign policy
priorities. To the contrary, its present position on this issue is defined
by Western observers as quite loyal. These conclusions are based both on
Vladimir Putin's "why not" remark about membership in the Alliance and on
his statement in the course of recent talks with the Lithuanian president
that was interpreted by Westerners as a consent to the inevitability of
Lithuania's membership in the Alliance.

To conclude, Russia's foreign policy at the current stage is captive to
internal contradictions. This will be true no matter how much power is
concentrated in one person's hands. The source of these contradictions is
the post-reforms' Russia's socio-economic and psychological split between
the two worlds, with the remaining threat of the ruling elite's sinking,
after the country itself, into the "Third World" (as a result of either
internal destabilization or international isolation). This mood of suspense
results in the characteristic paradox of Putin's foreign policy: the
readiness to compromise with the Americans on key strategic issues, against
the background of a nationalistic campaign within the country on a scale
that has not been seen for decades, leading to the formation of a syndrome
of a "besieged fortress". Such a condition may last indefinitely, as long as
the Russian elite is welcome as a relatively loyal negotiator in the context
of the Bush Administration's growing rifts with its own Congress, the
Europeans, and China.

4. The U.S. and Russia in the Mirror of International Public Opinion

Today's Russia and the U.S. are also brought together by a "public relations
problem": that is, a persistently negative image of both states,
occasionally in the same countries and circles of world public opinion.
Those who dislike the U.S. for their hegemonic behavior and proclivity to
violence, often also see Russia as the major center of global corruption and
a nation responsible, to a significant extent, for the current unipolar
distortion and lack of alternatives in international politics. This leaves
Russia and the U.S. to compete for the title of the Lesser Evil, at least in
the former Soviet space and, to an extent, in the Balkans. They clearly need
each other in these circumstances, like two unpopular but unrivaled
candidates in an electoral campaign. This looks somewhat like a reversal to
the detente model of relationship, only on a much narrower geopolitical
space.

These days, few people in Russia realize the extent of interdependence
between the U.S. and Russia's negative "ratings". For example, the recent
scandal resulting from the non-election of the U.S. in the UN Human Rights
Commission should not be cheering up for the present Russian government,
since out of the two governments now representing the West in this
Commission, at least two - that is, France and Sweden - are more critically
minded than Washington as regards human rights violations in Chechnya and
the issue of the freedom of the press.

To sum up, if we speak not of the Russian-American relations in abstract,
but of the relationship between the political forces currently in power in
both countries, these forces are clearly in need of each other. The Kremlin
badly needs a conservative partner in the White House that will not
intervene in the Russian elite's unpredictable relations with Russia's
citizens. The Bush Administration benefits from an "elective monarchy"
regime in Russia which bears sole responsibility for every decision and,
therefore, is a comfortable negotiator on the whole spectrum of issues, from
strategic ones to debt repayment. (In this context, it is telling that
during the Media-MOST crisis The Washington Post, generally more critical of
the Bush Administration, was the only newspaper to advocate Russia's
expulsion from the G-8.) On top of that, such a regime in Russia may serve
to some American voters as a handy reminder of the collapse of Clinton's
policies, and it does not elicit much sympathy from influential opponents of
the Republican course, either in the U.S. or in the outside world.

The negative aspect of this situation for Russia is that Russia's status quo
remains a function of external variables, given that internal resources for
socio-economic and political development outside of the raw materials' based
strategy are safely blocked. Thus, a major jolt on the raw materials'
markets, a return of the Democrats who have burnt their fingers in Russia to
power in Washington, as well as the potential erosion of the US-centered
unipolarity may lead to the further marginalization of Russia. Meanwhile, an
attempt to build a corporate police state, even with the consent and
assistance of some Western conservatives, can only hopelessly complicate the
resolution of Russia's problems, whether in foreign or in domestic policy.

5. Alternatives: The Real and the Mythical Ones

As follows from these observations, basic parameters of Russia's relations
with the U.S. for the foreseeable future are defined not just by Russia's
objective weakness, but no less by the interests of the elite that bind it
to the U.S.-centered "pole" of the international system. Conflicts with the
Americans are inevitable when an attempt is perceived to push the Russian
elite (or its individual representatives, as in the case of Pavel Borodin)
out of this framework. But there is not the slightest intention on the
Russian part to initiate a fundamental reconstruction of the system.

Finally, a few words about the so-called "anti-Western" or "anti-American"
alternative. In my view, this is a stark example of a virtual political
reality. The "anti-Western" alternative in Russia exists only at the level
of marginal rhetoric that is utterly devoid of substance. In the context of
globalization, both "pro-" and "anti-Western" policies become increasingly
meaningless. Given the very broad spectrum of real interests and views that
exist in the American, not to speak of the Western elite as a whole, almost
any imaginable "pro-" or "anti-Western" policy in reality coincides with the
position of at least some forces within the Western society. Thus, the
Yeltsin-Kozyrev course contributed to the strengthening of the Euro-Atlantic
expansionists and, eventually, unilateralists in the U.S., at the expense of
other forces and interests that otherwise would be shaping U.S. foreign
policy in the 1990s.

Arguments over pro- or anti-Western course often disguise the real gist of
the problem, that is, Russia's current peripheral position vis-a-vis the
global "core", and the variety of imaginable configurations of this
peripheral relationship. The fact is that Russian society is still of a
"pyramidal" structure. In the post-reform era, the shape of this "pyramid"
has become clearer and sharper, and its different facets are differently
positioned with respect to the core of the globalized economy. In these
conditions, the actual threat to the development of Russian economy and
society toward a fuller and more balanced integration in the outside world
arises from the growing monopolization of foreign contacts by the corporate
bureaucratic elite and intelligence agencies. This monopolization, in turn,
will provoke anti-Western mood and rhetoric in those parts of the societal
pyramid that will find themselves isolated from the globalization
developments. The real alternative to the extremes should be seen in the
emergence of new social and political actors across Russian society with a
more equitable access to contacts with the outer world. Then the West would
not be seen any more as a monolithic and purposeful unit, while different
forces and interests of civil society would be free to choose their own
partners whether in the West and in the East according to their own
priorities and values. This, however, is not an issue of Russian-American
relations, but rather a matter of development and self-assertion of society
vis-a-vis the elite in Russia itself.

*******

Johnson's Russia List Archive (under construction):  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson

CDI Russia Weekly:  http://www.cdi.org/russia

CDI Headlines:  http://www.cdi.org/

Defense Monitor:  http://www.cdi.org/dm/2001

Weekly Defense Monitor:  http://www.cdi.org/weekly/