#5522
[Second Issue of the Day]
#4
Vremya MN
November 2, 2001
SOME ADVICE FOR THE PRESIDENT
Foreign and Defense Policy Council offers Putin its recommendations
Author: Yevgeny Verlin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICY COUNCIL HAS PRESENTED ITS RECOMMENDATIONS. THE MOVE IS EVIDENTLY TIMED FOR THE LEAD-UP TO THE PUTIN-BUSH SUMMIT IN TEXAS. THE COUNCIL SUPPORTS PRESIDENT PUTIN'S DECISION ON PARTICIPATION IN THE BROAD MILITARY-POLITICAL COALITION AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM.
The document entitled "Russia and Processes of Globalization: What Should Be Done?" carries over 100 signatures from the Foreign and Defense Policy Council. Signatories include Alexei Arbatov, Kakha Bendukidze, Arkady Volsky, Yevgeny Kozhokin, Mikhail Kozhokin, Vladimir Lukin, Yevgeny Primakov, Dmitry Rogozin, Irina Khakamada, Nikolai Shmelev...
Authors of the theses drafted in the wake of some serious debates at the Council support President Putin's decision on participation in the broad military-political coalition against international terrorism. This "participation may mean trouble for Russia" but "all attempts to wait it out will eventually be even costlier." The report emphasizes that otherwise Russia will slide into the ranks of "backward and frustrated states without future, countries supporting radicalism and terrorism".
The Russian military-political and scientific beau monde also believes that the Kremlin may raise at the summit the issues of writing off Soviet-era debts and restructuring Russian debts, Russian membership in NATO or at least suspension of its expansion pending admission of Russia.
Authors of the report consider that the security system forming in Europe is de facto based on NATO. Instead of wasting political and other resources in the struggle against expansion of the Alliance, Russia should study the possibility of membership in NATO. Council Chairman Sergei Karaganov believes that "we should bring up the matter of Russia's membership in the political organization of the Alliance at least, and do it now." In this case NATO "will be transformed into a universal organization of European and global security and be stripped of its destabilizing features."
The Council advocates the strategy of avoiding confrontations with the United States and specifically in the matter of anti- ballistic missile defense. Its parameters are not known yet, and no one can say for a fact yet if the future national missile defense system is going to affect Russia's security. Relations with the United States in the near future will include cooperation in some spheres and limited rivalry in others. On the whole, parallel and common interests will prevail, authors of the recommendations say. The emphasis on the "multi-polar nature of the world" in the meaning of a stand-off with the United States in particular, and the West in general, will be "too expensive and impractical," the Council states.
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