#12
Wall Street
Journal October 22, 2001
Editorial
Putin's Gifts

The war against terrorism continues to rearrange global politics in unusual, often helpful ways. Consider Russian President Vladimir Putin's welcome decision last week to shutter two Cold War military relics in Cuba and Cam Ranh Bay.

Fidel Castro is lonelier than ever after Russia announced it will close its Lourdes electronic surveillance station south of Havana. The Cold War listening post was opened in 1964, two years after the Cuban missile crisis. For Cuba the base was both a symbol of its only big-power soul mate and a rare source of cash (some $200 million in barter).

So El Jefe Castro isn't happy. Cuban officials decried the "strange change in Russian policy" and protested that President Putin hadn't said a word about the plan when he visited with Fidel last December. The closure is nothing but a "special present" to President Bush, said an official Cuban statement.

The reality is that post-Soviet Russia can't afford to keep Cuba in the subsidies to which she has been accustomed. One Russian defense analyst noted that a military that can't defeat a Chechen guerrilla army has no business spending $200 million a year on a spy outpost half way around the world. Russian General Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the general staff, recently remarked that by closing the Cuban base, Russia could afford 20 more spy satellite launches and 100 army radar stations. President Putin has made it clear that, given scarce resources, the oil-rich Caucasus and volatile Central Asia are now Russia's main military focus.

Mr. Putin also may have wanted to do a symbolic favor to the U.S. on the eve of his weekend visit with Mr. Bush in Shanghai. For the U.S. still considers the base an irritant. In a 1998 report to Congress, former Defense Secretary William Cohen cited concern over "the use of Cuba as a base for intelligence activities directed against the United States." This came after a former Soviet military official claimed the base was used by Russia during the Gulf War to learn of U.S. battle plans. Last year Congress banned the U.S. from granting Russia debt relief until Lourdes was closed.

Similar calculations are no doubt behind the withdrawal from Russia's Cam Ranh Bay naval base. The base was originally used by the U.S. but Vietnam leased it to Moscow for nothing in 1979. That lease expires in 2004 and Vietnam has been trying to nudge Russia out. Still, the departure marks a major defeat for Russia's historic ambitions to be a global naval power with a warm-water port.

The bigger question here is whether Mr. Putin has really decided to align himself with the West, as various analysts are now asserting. It'd be nice to think so. But our own view is that these events represent a clear-eyed perception of Russia's national interests. Mr. Putin's support for the Afghan anti-terror war has certainly been full-throated, but then again he wants the U.S. to return the favor by winking at his Chechen cruelties. Russia also has a long wish list of financial and military needs that include debt rescheduling, World Trade Organization membership and U.S.-Russian bilateral arms control. He'd also like more say in the next round of NATO expansion.

The acid test of Mr. Putin's cooperation will be his attitude toward missile defenses. And on that score there has also been some progress, with negotiators reporting that Mr. Putin is willing to allow some U.S. program, even if he doesn't yet sanction complete U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. In return, Mr. Bush would agree to reduce the number of offensive nuclear missiles on both sides, which means less expense for Russia. This has always been the promise of defenses -- that they make the world safer by allowing smaller offensive arsenals.

The U.S. has to stay as clear-eyed about its own interests as Mr. Putin now is about his. If Mr. Bush does, then his visit next month with the Russian at his Texas ranch could be historic.