Johnson's Russia List
#6040
26 January 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Warm Spell Sets Moscow Record High.
2. The Times (UK): Michael Binyon, West offers Putin support as criticism 
grows in Moscow.
3. Nezavisimiye Voennoye Obozreniy: Sergei Rogov, RUSSIA AND USA ARE FACING 
A CHOICE.
4. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Vladimir Gerogiyev, YANKEE, GO TO CHECHNYA!
Russia has been shown how to fight a war.
5. Vremya Novostei: Yuri Golotyuk, WE CAN'T AFFORD PARITY. The Russian
military taught to think in terms of economics.
6. Novye Izvestia: Otto Latsis, WE'VE BEEN STANDING STILL SINCE SEPTEMBER.
But television news isn't going to tell us that. Russia is facing some
serious problems ahead.
7. Moscow Times: Jonas Bernstein, Chronicling a Political Era. (review of
Michael McFaul's Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from
Gorbachev to Putin)
8. The Economist (UK): Russian reform. Pay up, please. Will rich Russians' 
consciences make them pay more for housing?
9. Moscow Tribune: Stanislav Menshikov, RUSSIA'S DETERRENCE CAPACITY 
QUESTIONED. Will Moscow Loose Parity?
10. Izvestiya: Nataliya Alekseyeva, Putin and Putin. (Proliferation of Fake 
Putin Websites)
11. Obshchaya Gazeta: Grigory Yavlinsky, RUSSIA AND THE WEST AFTER 
SEPTEMBER 11.
12. Jamestown Foundation Monitor: FSB CHIEF ACCUSES BEREZOVSKY OF 
FINANCING CHECHEN REBELS.
13. The Russia Journal: Alexander Golts, Afghan lessons for Russian
generals.]

*******

#1
Warm Spell Sets Moscow Record High
January 25, 2002
  
MOSCOW (AP) - Muscovites left their fur hats and coats at home this week -
and were still sweating, as temperatures soared to record levels for Moscow
in late January. 

With daytime temperatures above freezing for the fourth day in a row,
residents of the Russian capital sloshed through pond-sized puddles instead
of trudging over the snowbanks that towered over streets just a week ago. 

Some got out their umbrellas to keep off the rain - another unusual
occurrence for January. 

The thermometer on Thursday showed 39 degrees - the highest on record in
Moscow for Jan. 24, according to the State Meteorological Center. On
Friday, the high was 37 degrees, the highest for Jan. 25 since 1904. 

The warm spell affected much of western and southern Russia, while Siberia
and the Russian Far East have remained seasonably cold. A snowstorm
paralyzed the Pacific port city of Vladivostok and the surrounding region
Monday. 

Hypothermia continued to claim lives in Moscow despite the warmer weather,
with five people freezing to death last weekend, bringing the total killed
by cold in the capital this winter to 314. 

*******

#2
The Times (UK)
January 25, 2002
West offers Putin support as criticism grows in Moscow 
MICHAEL BINYON IN MOSCOW 
 
THE West made gestures yesterday to bolster President Putin’s domestically
unpopular pro-Western policies by signalling its determination to improve
relations between Russia and America. 

President Havel of the Czech Republic sent a formal invitation to Mr Putin
to attend the Nato summit in Prague in November, where the admission of new
members, including the Baltic republics, will be discussed. 

At a press conference in Tashkent, General Tommy Franks, the US
Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan operation, praised Russia’s contribution
to the reconstruction of Afghanistan and spoke of the good liaison between
Russian and American servicemen. 

In Strasbourg the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe issued a
resolution on Chechnya which noted cautious progress there. It called on
countries to the south — referring to Georgia — to stop aiding Chechen
rebels. 

All three signals were intended to quell the rising chorus of condemnation
in Moscow of Western — and especially American — policies that are seen as
humiliating, insulting and an empty response to Mr Putin’s decisive
pro-Western tilt since September 11. 

Underlining Moscow’s anger with the Bush Administration, the Foreign
Ministry issued a sharp statement yesterday condemning as an “unfriendly
step” Washington’s recent reception of Ilyas Akhmadov, Chechnya’s
unofficial foreign minister. The reception ran counter to the spirit of
co-operation and partnership between the two countries in the fight against
international terrorism, the statement said. 

Despite talk of a new era of co-operation, Russia still strongly opposes
the enlargement of Nato to include the Baltic republics. It believes the
Americans are now “trigger-happy” and are planning to set up permanent
bases in Central Asia with the aim of undercutting Russian influence there. 

It sees recent Western criticism of Russian policy in Chechnya as breaking
the post-September 11 understanding for Moscow’s fight against Islamic
terrorism. 

Moscow was outraged by the reception in London and Strasbourg of Akhmad
Zakayev, a negotiator for Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen leader. Sir Roderick
Lyne, the British Ambassador, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on
Tuesday and told of the Russians’ anger. Mr Putin’s spokesman condemned Mr
Zakayev’s reception by the Council of Europe. 

The call last week by Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
for Moscow to negotiate with Mr Maskhadov, who he said was not a terrorist,
was received here with bitter sarcasm. Mr Putin’s critics have seized on
renewed Western criticism of Russian actions in Chechnya as proof that
support for the anti-terrorist coalition has brought Russia nothing. 

Claiming evidence of a new triumphalism in Washington and proof that the
Pentagon hawks are in the ascendant, they also point to the US withdrawal
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the US bases in Central Asia, Nato
enlargement and American sidelining of British and French calls for a more
substantial Russian partnership with Nato. 

*******

#3
Nezavisimiye Voennoye Obozreniy
No. 1
2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only] 
RUSSIA AND USA ARE FACING A CHOICE
     They need to elaborate a new model of interstate relations 
     Russo-American negotiations, above all on the reduction of 
strategic offensive weapons, registered a new outbreak of 
activity in early 2002. Sergei ROGOV, Director of the Institute 
of the USA and Canada, analyses the military policy of the Bush 
administration and prospects of Russia-US relations.
     
                        Dangerous Vagueness
     
     On December 13, 2001 Washington officially notified Moscow 
of its intention to withdraw from the ABM treaty in six months, 
thus showing that it would no longer maintain a semblance of 
strategic parity. The Bush administration thus put a full stop 
in the history of the Cold War. By launching a policy of 
attaining absolute military superiority, Washington showed that 
it would not recognise Moscow, Beijing or anyone else as an 
equal in terms of strategic status. 
     The USA did this despite major improvement in Russia-US 
relationship after the September 11 tragedy, when the USA and 
Russia actually became allies in the war against the Taliban 
and bin Laden. This created conditions for shifting bilateral 
ties to the principles of partnership and allied relations. 
     However, our hopes for the strengthening of the budding 
breakthrough in bilateral relations were smothered by a 
dangerous vagueness in Russo-American relations. It is clear 
that the US choice of the moment for announcing the decision to 
withdraw from the ABM treaty was influenced by the euphoria of 
its military victories in Afghanistan. The routing of the 
Taliban regime and the expected imminent capture of bin Laden 
made Russia's assistance in the struggle against international 
terrorism less important in the eyes of the Bush 
administration. 
     The USA will presumably make fresh attempts to carry on 
its unilateral policy. In particular, it is feared that the 
Bush administration may choose to escalate the war and spread 
military operations to several other territories on the US list 
of the rogue countries. 
     Of course, the unilateral US actions are seriously 
complicating the international relations and are hindering the 
build-up of trust in Russia-US relationship. The system of 
control of strategic offensive and defensive weapons is being 
destroyed at a time when a new mechanism of partner relations 
between the two countries has not been created yet. But the USA 
is not omnipotent and Washington will have to take into 
consideration the political, economic and technological 
limitations of its might. 
     Many experts believe that the USA will hardly be able to 
deploy its NMD system in 2004. It is more probable that the 
tests of ground-, air- and sea-based NMD elements will be 
completed only in the second half of this decade. And the 
deployment of a full-scale echeloned NMD system will take many 
more years after that. 
     It should be also remembered that there are major 
differences over ABM between Republicans and Democrats in the 
USA. If Democrats assume control over the two houses of the US 
congress in the autumn of 2002 and win the presidential 
elections in 2004, the implementation of the NMD programme may 
be put off and the scale of the NMD may prove to be more 
limited that what the current administration may try to attain 
if Bush is re-elected.
     As for the strategic offensive weapons, the Pentagon has 
announced its intention to reduce the number of nuclear 
warheads to 3,800 by 2007 and 1,750-2,250 by 2012 (irrespective 
of agreements with Russia). 
     Consequently, the threat to the Russian nuclear deterrence 
potential can appear no sooner than in 2010-15. By that time we 
should modernise our strategic nuclear forces without damaging 
the national economy or the priorities of the military reform. 
We should not strive for quantitative parity, which will only 
draw away our limited funds from the gradual modernisation of 
conventional forces. 
     The above prompts the conclusion that there is still a 
"window of possibilities" for changing the nature of bilateral 
relations and the model of Russia-US and Russia-NATO 
interaction.
But to be able to use this window we should formalise the 
achievements scored at the top political level in practical 
agreements and treaties and new mechanisms of collaboration. 
The Bush administration has been talking at length about "the 
new strategic framework" but what is its essence? We will get 
the answer to this question within the next few months. 
     
                  For Fundamentally New Relations
     
     We must ensure the legal and institutional formalisation 
of the new Russia-US and Russia-West relations in the next six 
months. 
     First, the sides should proclaim a common goal - the 
creation of a new, positive model of relations based on 
cooperation and common interests. They should replace the 
framework of mutual assured destruction with a new framework of 
mutual assured security. 
     Second, the new framework of Russia-US strategic relations 
should be formalised and institutionalised, for example in a 
bilateral treaty of mutual security, which should be signed 
when conditions are ripe for it. 
     And third, there should be a transition period for a 
radical transformation of Russia-US relationship, when new 
mechanisms of strategic cooperation should be gradually created 
and confrontation elements inherited from the old 
Soviet-American rivalry liquidated. 
     It should be said that the main goal is not arms control 
but a practical creation of the new strategic framework, a 
transition to partner relations with the USA and NATO. 
     We should revise the problem of pooling efforts for the 
creation of an ABM system. For despite its financial and 
economic weakness Russia has major technological achievements 
in this sphere. We have rather effective tactical ABM systems. 
And lastly, Russia played the leading role in such multilateral 
civilian projects as the creation of a multinational space 
station and a sea-based launching pad. This invaluable 
experience, or parts of it, could be used in the military 
sphere.
It would be expedient to offer the USA consultations on this 
issue. 
     We must seriously analyse the consequences of the 
potential writing off of Russia's debts by the USA and possibly 
by the Paris Club on the condition that Russia would spend the 
money on the liquidation of mass destruction weapons. 
     At the same time, we should not hurry with burying the 
arms control regime. We must continue to demand that agreements 
on new reductions of strategic offensive weapons should be 
formalised in an international-legal manner. However, the legal 
status of the START-1 treaty, which ensures this regime, has 
been endangered by a link with the ABM treaty. The USA should 
understand that this regime can be maintained only if legally 
formalised, which calls for signing a START-3 treaty (or an 
interim agreement, as was done in the case of the SALT-1 treaty 
in 1972). 
     Regrettably, this optimistic scenario will not be possible 
unless the USA demonstrates readiness to honour Russia's 
interests in practice. 
     The development of a truly mutually beneficial partnership 
of Russia and the USA will be a difficult task because the 
possibilities of the two states are vastly different now. The 
situation may change only when Russia overcomes its systems 
crisis and restores its economic, political and military might, 
thus turning into a centre of power on the world scene. This 
will create a potential base for more equitable partner 
relations between the USA and Russia. 
     
*******

#4
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
January 25, 2002
YANKEE, GO TO CHECHNYA!
Russia has been shown how to fight a war
Author: Vladimir Georgiyev
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
A HUMAN LIFE HAS ALWAYS BEEN OF SMALL VALUE IN RUSSIA; SO RUSSIA IS 
PREPARED TO DEFEND ITS SOVEREIGNTY AT THE COST OF ITS SOLDIERS AND 
OFFICERS DYING IN CHECHNYA. IT IS HIGH TIME THESE TACTICS WERE 
CHANGED. RUSSIA COULD LEARN SOMETHING FROM THE US OPERATION IN 
AFGHANISTAN.

     The end of last week and the start of this week were darkened by 
high casualties among Russia's soldiers in the North Caucasus. Seven 
servicemen of the 102nd Brigade of the Interior Forces were killed in 
a terrorist attack in Makhachkala. Around 14 soldiers were killed in 
Chechnya over January 14-21. This can be compared to the losses in the 
most active phase of the action in 1999-2000, and these casualties are 
incommensurable with the losses of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan over 
the past three months of the special operation against terrorist 
organizations and fighters of al Qaida. According to reports of the 
Pentagon, the casualties among U.S. soldiers were 11 people, and only 
two of them are supposed to be killed directly in skirmishes.
     Meanwhile, there are some signs by which efficiency of the US's 
activity in Afghanistan and efficiency of Russia's activity in 
Chechnya can be compared. Firstly, as a matter of fact, Russia and the 
US both are opposing to the same enemy - field detachments of radical 
Islamists, organized in the likeness of the regular forces. They had 
enough Soviet weaponry, not small arms alone, but also artillery and 
tanks; these detachments had their own Air Force and means of air 
defense, had a united control center and acted in Afghanistan and 
Chechnya at the landscapes, having mountainous and sub-mountainous 
features; therefore, any special operations against these groups were 
very inconvenient. These forces seem to be (as before, actually) 
enjoying themselves with financial injections. This factor explains 
for their vitality. The forces also consisted of active mercenaries 
from Saudi Arabia, Somali, Yemen and other states.
     Secondly, similar assessments of the enemy predetermined 
relatively similar methods of carrying out the action by Moscow and 
Washington in the primary phase. Active reconnaissance measures and 
air strikes preceded the initial phases of counter-terrorist 
operations in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Main strategic installations 
of the guerrillas, primarily their means of air defense and Air Force 
were destroyed first. Both states concentrated considerable groups of 
various forces and troops, primarily warplanes (bombers and fighting 
aviation), helicopters, landing troops and marine forces, and also 
special forces to carry out the military operations. They have been 
using local forces, hostile to terrorists, what have to a considerable 
extent made up for the success in the organization and performance of 
ground military operations. Troops of the Northern Alliance acted as 
local forces in Afghanistan, whereas in Chechnya these included field 
commanders and militia, opposed to Maskhadov, local police, religious 
activists, politicians, etc.
     Thirdly, results of the first active phase of counter-terrorist 
operations turned out to be identical for Moscow and Washington both - 
the main guerrilla bases were destroyed, whereas the main terrorist 
forces were either eliminated or dispersed.
     However, that is the juncture where similarities of the Chechen 
and Afghani operations end. The US reached its targets, set for the 
war against the Talibs within some more than three months, while 
Moscow has been pulling through the conflict over the past four years 
already; and this conflict seems to be endless. Russia and the US 
applied various tactics in the struggle against the guerrillas in the 
main phase of the battles. The Americans were bribing the main forces 
of the Talibs and had the Northern Alliance, supported by Iran, 
Tajikistan and Russia, as their main affiliate. At the same time, the 
US has never opened the phase of the ground action.
     Now, resting on the UN and the world community, the Americans 
arranged active humanitarian and financial assistance, oriented for 
the revival of Afghanistan's economy. The fact that monthly spending 
of the Pentagon on the warfare was $2 billion is impressive, rather 
than the amounts advanced countries of the world promised to 
appropriate to Kabul at the international conference in Tokyo. The 
figure of $2 billion makes almost a quarter of the entire Russia's 
military spending for 2002. It means that considerably less money than 
in Afghanistan is spent in Chechnya. This fact proves once again a 
conclusion of Russia's human rights activists that Moscow has been 
defending its sovereignty in Chechnya by extensive methods - at the 
expense of lives of Russia's servicemen. At the same time, the 
spending on dispatching new kinds of weaponry into this "hot spot" 
remains almost the same. Moscow's attitude toward the refugees is 
similar. If subsidies for restoration of ruined houses had been issued 
to each Chechen family, there would not have been any refugees in 
Ingushetia.
     According to the strange assessments of the federal command, 
peaceful life is supposedly established in Chechnya, and the number of 
active guerrillas has fallen to 300. Have these 300 guerrillas managed 
to kill 21 soldiers of the federal forces in a week? Around 7,000 
terrorists are in Afghanistan, various sources report; another 3,200 
Taliban are said to have been captured by the Americans with the 
assistance of the Northern Alliance. However, the casualties among the 
Americans are incommensurably smaller. Where is the logic? What is 
actually happening in Chechnya?
     Most likely, having introduced the power of the federal 
authorities in Chechnya, Russia has been "winning over" sympathies of 
the population by means of commandant's squads and units of special 
forces, stationed in each village, rather than economic assistance; 
and that is Russia's main error. It appears that any Russian soldier 
or officer runs a higher risk of being killed or wounded than a U.S. 
serviceman in Afghanistan. A human life has always been of small value 
in Russia.
(Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin)

*******

#5
Vremya Novostei
January 25, 2002
WE CAN'T AFFORD PARITY
The Russian military taught to think in terms of economics
Author: Yuri Golotyuk
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
REFORMS IN THE RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN ARMED FORCES HAVE ABSOLUTELY 
DIFFERENT OBJECTIVES. THE SUMS OF MONEY INVOLVED ARE LIKEWISE 
RADICALLY DIFFERENT. SOMETHING DEFINITELY ODD IS HAPPENING IN THE 
SPHERE IN WHICH RUSSIA HAS MATCHED THE UNITED STATES UNTIL NOW - 
STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS. 
Russia needs to take a realistic look at its defense spending plans

     It does not take a particularly perceptive person to predict that 
another colossal "investment" in the Pentagon will certainly make the 
Russian military jittery. In claiming that the military reforms 
implemented in the Russian and American armed forces at the same time 
"are financed in an entirely different manner", Russian generals are 
of course correct. For some reason, however, they tend to forget that 
the objectives of the reforms initiated by Moscow and Washington are 
entirely different too.
     Talking of restructuring in the US Armed Forces, Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld formulated four tasks the army should be 
capable of seeing to when the reforms are over: reliable defense of 
the territory of the United States, prevention of regional hostile 
actions against the American interests anywhere in the world, a 
decisive victory in one significant regional conflict, and the ability 
to participate in small-scale regional conflicts in other parts of the 
world.
     Russian defense minister has never outlined goals and objectives 
of the military reforms precisely. According to numerous assurances 
from the Russian government, the reforms are needed to bring the 
military structure in line with the tasks specified in the National 
Security Concept President Vladimir Putin endorsed in January 2000. 
Paradoxical as it may appear at first sight, it is a dramatic 
reduction of the Russian armed forces and poorer finances are 
precisely in line with provisions of the Concept. The Treats to 
National Security listed in its Chapter III are concentrated first and 
foremost in the sphere of domestic policy. They include the condition 
of national economy, reduction of investment activeness, brain-drain, 
economic disintegration, etc... Military threats as such are mentioned 
closer to the end of the fairly long list. The next chapter of the 
Concept (Maintenance of National Security of the Russian Federation) 
confirms all this. "Increase of the military potential of the state 
and its maintenance on the proper level" is the tenth (!) task only.
     All recent meetings of the Security Council where the military 
reforms were discussed became battlefields where generals complaining 
of military programs reductions were expertly cornered and disarmed by 
economic calculations of the Gref's team. The Kremlin remembers the 
sad example of the Soviet Union whose economy was utterly derailed by 
a few factors including unchecked appetites of the military-industrial 
complex.
     Actually, the Russian military will have to take into 
consideration the plans of their American colleagues in any case. It 
is tempting, of course, to try to build relations with the United 
States on the basis of the provisions of the Concept specifying "equal 
and mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and the leading 
states"; but real life shows that sheer strength is going to play as 
important a role in international relations in the new century as it 
played in the previous century. Something definitely odd is happening 
in the sphere in which Russia has matched the United States until now 
- strategic nuclear weapons - even though this is a sphere that does 
not demand huge financial investments or additional lawmaking efforts 
(everything is regulated by the 1999 law "On financing the state 
defense order for the Russian strategic nuclear forces"). In 
concentrating on restructuring the conventional forces, the Kremlin 
has blocked implementation of the law which may be amended only after 
2005.

*******

#6
Novye Izvestia
January 25, 2002
WE'VE BEEN STANDING STILL SINCE SEPTEMBER
But television news isn't going to tell us that
Russia is facing some serious problems ahead
Author: Otto Latsis
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY IS IN TROUBLE. UNLESS THE SITUATION IS 
ALLEVIATED SOON, THE MOST IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT OF THE PAST DECADE 
WILL BE IN JEOPARDY. THE MATTER CONCERNS RUSSIA'S ABILITY TO SERVICE 
FOREIGN DEBTS WITHOUT NEW LOANS, AS WELL AS RUSSIA'S PROSPECTS OF 
ECONOMIC GROWTH. 

     The Russian economy is like a railway carriage pushed into motion 
and left to roll along all by itself. With no engine, the carriage is 
running out of momentum, moving more and more slowly.
     Russian exports did not grow by any noticeable margin in 2001, 
and imports showed a 20% rise. In the wake of the default of 1998, 
exports were at double the amount of imports, and a considerable 
positive trade balance still exists. Instead of growing, however, it 
has been falling fast. Unless the situation is alleviated soon, the 
most important achievement of the past decade will be in jeopardy. The 
matter concerns Russia's ability to service foreign debts without new 
loans. Last but not least, the growth of gold and hard currency 
reserves has stopped after two years of rapid accumulation. The gold 
and hard currency reserves has even gone down somewhat.
     According to American methods, depression becomes a hard fact of 
life after absolute reduction of the GDP over two quarters of the year 
in a row. Situation in Russia is not that bad yet. The momentum of 
growth over the last three years and the accumulated reserves are such 
that barring something entirely unexpected, there will be no collapse 
this year, no matter what. The previous favorable trends are over, 
however; it is time we began worrying about the future. It is clear in 
any case the period of easy money which permitted resolution of all 
conflict situations without much trouble is over.
     Here is one such situation. According to the latest statistics 
(for October 2001), the average salary of teachers throughout Russia 
amounted to 1,862 rubles a month, or just over $60. The sum amounts to 
53% of the average wage of Russian workers in general, and is only 338 
rubles above the average subsistence minimum for the third quarter of 
2001. It follows that average teachers can only feed themselves, and 
no one else. This is almost the worst indicator in a decade.
     The government's attention to teachers and other state-sector 
employees is therefore understandable and justified. The president 
once promised to double salaries of state-sector employees in 2002. It 
would not have solved the problem in its entirety, of course, but 
would have made it easier to tackle in any case. Had it happened, that 
is. Unfortunately, certain details became known after the president 
made the promise.
     Funding for a significant increase in the wages of state-sector 
employees is specified in the federal budget only for the categories 
of employees funded by the federal government. Teachers, health 
workers, and similar professionals are paid from regional budgets, and 
the recent tax amendments are going to take more money from the 
regional budgets than they will give. In other words, Moscow told the 
regions to raise salaries of state-sector employees and decided that 
enough was enough. This is what its taking care of state-sector 
employees was restricted to. There are many regions where specialists 
have already made all necessary calculations and reached the unsavory 
conclusion: they will be lucky to manage a 20% rise in salaries at 
best, and doubling is out of the question. Besides, inflation in 2001 
was 18% instead of the expected and promised 12-14%. It certainly 
seems that something similar is going to happen in 2002. Compare the 
promises with reality.
     This is not a new problem at all, but this government in the last 
two or three years had the best chance in the last 30 years of making 
significant progress in the matter. The chance was lost - or used 
ineffectively. Things are going to deteriorate, demanding more and 
more effort to improve them. In order to live up to high public 
expectations, the government will have to overcome many more 
difficulties, political difficulties among them.
     There is, however, another solution. We may recall the Vremya TV 
news program of the Brezhnev era: when the citizenry didn't really 
know how things stood.

*******

#7
Moscow Times
January 25, 2002
Chronicling a Political Era
By Jonas Bernstein       

Russia-watchers remain roughly divided between those who see the cup half
full and those who see it half empty, and Michael McFaul, a senior
associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a leading
representative of the former school of thought. But the optimism in his new
book, "Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to
Putin," is cautious. Russia's "battle for liberal democracy," he concludes,
may be "a long one." 

McFaul casts a critical eye on the reform process that began in the
mid-1980s. The book seeks to explain why the Soviet Union and then Russia
experienced two "design failures" in the transition from communism -- the
first leading to the abortive August 1991 putsch, the second to the October
1993 shelling of the Soviet-era parliament -- before embarking on a "more
successful" attempt to build new political institutions. While ultimately
giving Boris Yeltsin passing marks, McFaul catalogues many of the first
president's sins. These include his incorporation of the Soviet "power
ministries" without "attempting any serious internal reform or instituting
civilian control over these bodies" and the way his economic reforms
spawned oligarchic capitalism, impeding the development of civil society,
small businesses, an effective party system and a fully independent media. 

The book's problem, however, is that many of its conclusions do not follow
from its own evidence. For example, it describes how, following the
"October events," the Yeltsin team apparently falsified the December 1993
referendum in order to ensure the passage of a new constitution
establishing an essentially powerless parliament. The Constitutional Court,
when it was eventually allowed to reopen, was also toothless. The Central
Electoral Commission, meanwhile, exercised "authoritarian control" over who
could run in the December 1993 parliamentary election and "blatantly abused
this power on behalf of parties loyal to Yeltsin." Yet McFaul says it was
an "overstatement" to call Yeltsin's post-October 1993 regime a
dictatorship -- although he himself refers to it as a "transitional
dictatorship." 

But if the author seems uncertain about how to characterize the regime, he
nevertheless justifies it, arguing that while "negotiated rules would have
been better than imposed rules," two violent confrontations in as many
years meant that "some rules, however deficient, were better than no rules
at all." Similar arguments could have been -- and, in fact, were -- made to
justify Taliban rule in Afghanistan. McFaul notes, however, that Yeltsin
created "incentives" to garner his opponents' acquiescence to his new
rules. But this, by itself, also means little: most nondemocratic regimes
try to co-opt at least some of their opponents. 

Likewise, the author says that after October 1993, the opposition, above
all the Communist leadership, made a "deliberate decision to acquiesce to
the new rules," having concluded it was "better off participating in the
new system than continuing the struggle against Yeltsin and his allies by
confrontation." The "new rules," McFaul argues, left open the possibility
that someone other than Yeltsin could win the presidency. Had Gennady
Zyuganov not had such a chance, the author reasons, the Communist leader
would not have run against Yeltsin in 1996. 

Here, as elsewhere, the author takes politics in Russia -- which Boris
Nemtsov recently described as "a Byzantine country" that lives for
"under-the-carpet" battles -- too literally. In fact, as Alexander
Solzhenitsyn shrewdly observed, Zyuganov seemed terrified he might win and
have to run the country. The Communists' ritual denunciations of Yeltsin's
"anti-people" regime were never much more than a way to appease their aging
electorate and thereby put off the day they would have to give up the
Moscow apartments, dachas, cars and offices afforded Duma deputies,
courtesy of the Kremlin property department. McFaul also takes mostly at
face value the "fascist" shtick once performed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who
former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov once aptly described as the guy the
Kremlin trotted out when it wanted to scare up some IMF money. (In December
of last year, the "ultra-nationalist" leader said Russia should join NATO.) 

And while McFaul claims "no major group" in Russia today believes it would
be better off "by deviating from electoral and constitutional rules," he
seems unaware that some of these groups may say they adhere to them but not
really mean it, much the way the Soviet Communist Party used to say it
ruled on behalf of the workers. Zyuganov's "opposition" has certainly
evinced no inclination to break the rules. But the 1996 and 2000
presidential elections, like the 1999 parliamentary contest, showed that
elements of the ruling elite were ready, willing and able to disseminate
compromising materials, manipulate state media and election commissions,
engage in massive illegal campaign spending and falsify voting results. And
if there is truth to the allegation -- first made by some media and more
recently by Boris Berezovsky -- that Russia's special services organized
the September 1999 apartment-building bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in
order to provoke another Chechen war and thereby ensure Vladimir Putin's
accession, this would seriously undermine McFaul's thesis that Russian
politics has become more peaceful since October 1993. 

But perhaps the conclusive reality check for "Russia's Unfinished
Revolution" is who's mentioned and who's left out. The book, for example,
includes several pages concerning Viktor Sheinis, the liberal former State
Duma deputy who penned a draft electoral law in 1993, but never mentions
Pavel Borodin, the Yeltsin crony who headed the Kremlin property
department. Borodin's perks served to control parliamentary deputies,
Supreme Court judges and prosecutors, among other officials, rendering
Russia's already paper-thin constitutional separation of powers essentially
irrelevant. Sheinis is undoubtedly an honorable man. But in Yeltsin's
Russia, who of the two was more important?

"Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin,"
by Michael McFaul. Published by Cornell University Press. 383 pages. $35.

Jonas Bernstein is a senior analyst with the Jamestown Foundation, a
Washington-based think tank.

******

#8
The Economist (UK)
January 26-February 1, 2002
Russian reform 
Pay up, please
Will rich Russians' consciences make them pay more for housing?

A MIDDLE-CLASS Russian should find state charity embarrassing. That 
is the thinking behind a new advertising campaign in Moscow, urging 
those who can afford it to pay the full cost of their 
housing. "Respect oneself and one's city 100%," runs the slogan. 

The payments are for rent and a bundle of services, like heating, 
water, sewage and building maintenance, all of which Russians enjoyed 
almost gratis in Soviet times. Most of these are breaking down: at 
least half the pipes for heating are rotten and need urgent 
replacement. More than half the country's housing stock is past the 
end of its planned life. Elsewhere in Russia, there has already been 
a striking improvement in making people pay. Under a reform strongly 
backed by President Vladimir Putin, households now cough up 60% of 
running costs. By next year, local authorities must gather the whole 
amount, some $40 a month for a typical household. 

But poor people can get direct subsidies, which kick in if housing 
costs are more than a set proportion of household income, ranging 
from 13% in Moscow to up to 20% elsewhere. Unusually for Russia's 
creaky public sector, this scheme, introduced in 1994, works better 
than much of Russia's public sector but is still inflexible and 
patchy. For instance, if you have a hitch with your resident's permit 
or other documents, you might get nothing.

But the authorities in the most prosperous part of the country, 
Moscow, have been dragging their feet over the price rises. They can 
afford to: the city budget gets no federal subsidies. Thanks to a 
hefty subsidy (18 billion roubles, or $600m, last year) from the 
city, Muscovites pay only 45% of the cost of their housing. From next 
month, though, they will have the option of paying the whole amount. 

The campaign is aimed at households with an income of more than 8,500 
roubles a month, which make up nearly a third of the city's 
population. Whether anyone will actually pay up is another matter. 
The service is both slovenly and wasteful. The awarding of housing-
maintenance contracts in the city has been scandalously corrupt. 
Those who pay taxes (an increasing number, since the introduction of 
a flat-rate 13% income tax last year) may feel they do their bit 
already. The scheme was hurriedly thought up. It is not clear what 
sanctions, if any, will apply in practice to those who plead poverty 
falsely. The official responsible, Elena Medvedeva, says that if even 
a few per cent pay up, the campaign will be a success. 

******

#9
Moscow Tribune
January 25, 2002
RUSSIA'S DETERRENCE CAPACITY QUESTIONED
Will Moscow Loose Parity?
By Stanislav Menshikov

When George W. Bush announced in November his decision to drastically cut US
strategic warheads, and Vladimir Putin promised to do the same the general
feeling was that strategic arms reduction could perhaps move ahead without
formal treaties. Of course, arrangements were necessary to control and
verify but some of those procedures were already provided by SALT-1.
Preparing a document for signature at the next summit in Russia in May
seemed to be largely a technical matter. Perhaps difficult in details, but
still technical.

After a round of talks in Washington (to be continued next week in Moscow)
the emerging difficulties are seen more as a matter of principle than
technique or formulation. The Russian side wants reduced warheads to be
destroyed, but the US plans to stockpile them for possible re-use in
unforeseen contingencies. Because Putin wants agreement with Bush to crown
his efforts in integrating Russia into the West, Moscow may eventually agree
with the American arguments. The widespread belief (not necessarily true) is
that Russia simply has not got the money to keep its warheads alive anyhow.
So it looks like Russia is heading for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

The theory prominent in Moscow today is that in the next ten years or so it
will not need strategic parity with the US in order to maintain a credible
deterrence capacity. Even if it scraps its old-age intercontinental
ballistic missiles but increases a smaller number of new Topol-M rockets
re-equipped with multiple warheads it could easily maintain the potential to
overcome any limited national missile defence shield (NMD) that the US could
realistically build in that time.

The 1,500 warheads that Russia is planning to retain by 2012 would be quite
adequate to retaliate against a possible US attack even if America had by
that time, say, 4,000 warheads or more. The US nuclear shield could destroy,
say, 100 Russian warheads, at the most. The remaining 1,400 payloads
delivered to the US territory would be more than enough to devastate the
most powerful country in the world. Vladimir Putin has been saying that the
US decision to scrap the ABM treaty and build an NMD does not present a
threat to Russia's national security. Also, with a drastically reduced
nuclear arsenal Moscow would save resources badly needed to expand the
economy and modernise its conventional armed forces.

So goes the theory. But some Russian and US experts are questioning its
validity and particularly its arithmetic. Their reasoning goes as follows.
Russia will never be able to use most of its warheads for the simple reason
that it will not be the first to attack. Having no NMD of its own, such an
attack on its part would be tantamount to national suicide. Its deterrence
capacity is equal not to the total number of its warheads and delivery
vehicles, but rather to the much smaller number that would survive and be
operational after an initial attack from a foreign power. Expert opinion
places this survival capacity at only 10-20 percent of its pre-conflict
level. So the question is whether the US NMD in 2012 is able to destroy 150
to 300 incoming Russian warheads.

Probably this is not feasible given the technology now being tested. But if
ABM interceptors were nuclear-tipped, as is likely given possible US plans
to resume nuclear tests, then the capacity of the American NMD would
increase enormously and the task of successfully repelling a Russian nuclear
response becomes very realistic. Incidentally, the US minimum requirement
for successful retaliation of its own is said to be 2,000 warheads.
Probably, Russia's minimum is not much smaller than that.

That is why Russian negotiators insist on destroying, rather than
stockpiling reduced US warheads. With nuclear parity maintained, the
survival of the Russian deterrence capacity would no longer be an issue.
Also, General Yuri Baluevsky, Moscow's principal military negotiator, is
perfectly right in asking for limits to be placed on the US NMD. For
instance, the use of nuclear-tipped interceptors on national defence systems
should be restricted. US insistence on full freedom in this matter is an
additional matter of concern for obvious reasons.

US negotiators argue that in view of the new relationship between the two
countries concepts like "deterrence" and "nuclear parity" are no longer
valid. But true partnership and mutual trust in military matters does not
emerge immediately, like a rabbit from a conjurer's hat. And if Russia is
seen as a genuine partner, the US does not really need thousands of warheads
in reserve. To deal with the "rogue states" a few dozen would suffice, at
the most.

There is also a strong political reason why Moscow should not agree to
unilateral reduction in warheads. While nuclear parity is retained, Russia
remains a major global power that can talk on equal terms with other great
powers. Foregoing nuclear parity would reduce it to second-rate status.
Civilised exchange with the US might become difficult if not impossible. If
Washington largely tends to take Moscow for granted today, what would happen
in the non-parity world of tomorrow?

*******

#10
Proliferation of Fake Putin Websites 
Izvestiya 
January 19, 2002
[translation for personal use only]
Report by Nataliya Alekseyeva: "Putin and Putin" 

It is not known exactly how many Putins there are in Russia, but we do know
that on the Internet all names with the "putin" letter combination have
been snapped up long ago and people hold on tight to them.   The owners of
some of these addresses are hoping that someone will buy the trendy name
from them, while the rest, strange as it may seem, are actually making
their own Putin, Vladimir Vladimiroviches.   Some times it turns out that
some gullible users begin their letters with the words "Dear Mr President".

Even more virtual Putins have sprung up with the creation of new domain
names (.name, .info).   One of the fake presidents automatically inundates
the user with a Russian website collection of compromising material on
everybody and every thing.   From another site which is claimed to be "the
head of state's unofficial website" you begin to get the impression that
the chatroom is somewhere else nearby.   Any attempt to move from the main
page to the tags (like news or speeches) ends with the intimidating legend
"You are unauthorized to view this page".

The most plausible of these websites can compete with the president's real
website as far as constant updates of news, daily reviews of domestic and
foreign mass media texts on Putin, their own examinations of experts, and
photo-archives of snaps of the head of state in anything from a kimono to
soccer kit are concerned.   The nicest item is the president-locator.   A
red dot pulsates against a gray map of the world to show exactly where the
website's main namesake is.   You can even send free mail there at
marsha@putin.ru.

Putin has admirers in Germany too (which is no surprise on the whole) in
the base site .de.   A girl called Bea has called her site 'putin' and has
collected what she considers key subjects there - a biography of the
Russian president, his speech in the Bundestag and photo-montages she has
created herself, transforming "canonical" photographs of Putin into her own
handiwork.   Alongside this there are the best personal representations.

The preliminary versions of Putin's virtual space have remained in
unchanged form - www.putin2000.ru (where talk of his election team and
election results is still online) and www.vvp.ru (now a stubbornly
un-updated issue of strana.ru).

P.S.   The name of the president's only official website remains the same:
www.kremlin.ru.

*******

#11
Obshchaya Gazeta
No. 4
2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
RUSSIA AND THE WEST AFTER SEPTEMBER 11
By Grigory YAVLINSKY, leader of the Yabloko party 

     Our party immediately and completely supported President 
Vladimir Putin's position expressed in his September 11 
televised address - solidarity with the United States in the 
struggle against international terrorism, rapprochement with 
the West and establishment of partner relations, or better an 
alliance, with it.
     First, this was the only possible moral reaction to the 
tragedy of New York and Washington, and it was to our country's 
credit that the president showed it immediately - unlike a 
large part of our political elite which, not hiding their 
Schadenfreude, began to make hypocritical statements that they 
"feel sorry for Americans, but not for America." Second, the 
decision to support a global antiterrorist coalition was 
exceptionally pragmatic from the viewpoint of Russia's national 
security interests. A year before the September events the 
leadership of Russia's Security Council discussed in public a 
possibility of bombing terrorists' camps and Taliban positions 
in Afghanistan. Given the present state of Russia's unreformed 
Army, such a move would have caused developments very dangerous 
to us. Yet, the threat to Russia's security persisted, and the 
Defence Ministry planned to deploy a 50,000-strong force in the 
south.
     The military and other support provided by Russia to the 
U.S.A. and its allies played a key role in routing the al-Qaeda 
structure and the Taliban regime which supported it. The major 
task of Russia's security was thus fulfilled, too. The 
diplomatic resources created by the Russian president's 
initiative helped use the U.S. military and economic potential 
in our interest.
     Apart from the pragmatic aspect, the choice made by the 
Russian leader last September can be of a strategic nature and 
of high value. It was a choice in favour of a long-term 
alliance with Western, European civilisation, an organic part 
of which Russia is. It is beyond all question to us that the 
great Russian culture is a component part of European culture 
and European civilisation, which, in turn, cannot be conceived 
of without it.
     We will support and uphold this long-term strategic policy 
because we are convinced that Russia, which has the longest 
borders with the world's most unstable regions, will be able to 
solve its security problems only in alliance with the West, 
just as Western countries need an alliance with the leading 
Eurasian state.
     But we support this choice also because this policy, if it 
is consistent and long-term, will inevitably have a positive 
influence on the situation in Russia. In a historical 
perspective, such a policy will be incompatible with the system 
of oligarchic capitalism, which dooms an overwhelming majority 
of the population to poverty, with the building of controlled 
democracy, and with limitations on the freedom of speech and 
human rights.
     At the same time, there arise serious questions which 
require clear answers already today.
     How sincere is the readiness of the West, above all, its 
indisputable leader the U.S.A., for a strategic alliance with 
Russia, an alliance that would serve mutual interests of its 
participants?
     Does the global struggle against terrorism pose a threat 
to democratic institutions in countries waging this struggle? 
Are their governments ready to limit the freedoms and rights of 
their citizens for the sake of success in this struggle?
     Finally, no alliances will make us shut our eyes to our 
national catastrophe - the war in Chechnya, the more so to 
discount it and regard it only as part of the "struggle against 
international terrorism."
     As regards Europe, major European leaders (Blair, 
Schroeder, Chirac) and the public opinion in European countries 
are interested in a strategic alliance with Russia.
     The situation in Russian-U.S. relations is more difficult.
Russia's support of U.S. struggle against terrorism was highly 
valued by U.S. society, and President George Bush expressed his 
gratitude to his Russian counterpart during his visit to the 
U.S.A.
     At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that inside 
the U.S. Republican Administration there is a very influential 
group of people holding very ideologised, dogmatic foreign 
policy views. It would be wrong to describe this group as 
anti-Russian.
Its philosophy is not of a purely anti-Russian nature, it is of 
a global nature, so to say. It poses a problem even for 
U.S.-European relations. The essence of this philosophy is the 
United States' striving to free itself from any limitations 
imposed by international agreements, including agreements with 
allies, in the field of arms control and other security areas.
This is no longer criticism of the obsolete 1972 ABM Treaty, 
but rejection in principle of any possible treaties in the 
field of international security. It is really difficult to 
build anything reliable on such a basis for a long period.
     In this connection, of much significance is the destiny of 
the present Russian-U.S. negotiations on reductions in 
strategic armaments. To me, they seem to be a mirror image of 
the ABM talks. Russia's position at those negotiations 
throughout the years was inflexible, dogmatic and ill-grounded. 
Missing every now and then the chance to achieve compromises 
and solutions advantageous to Russia, our representatives 
repeated in chorus their incantation: "The 1972 ABM Treaty is 
the cornerstone of strategic stability." As inflexible, 
dogmatic and ill-grounded is the position of U.S. officials who 
are now repeating a new, American incantation: "We are friends, 
do friends need any treaties?"
     Russian diplomats now have an intellectually strong 
position on this issue, and they have all grounds to convince 
the U.S.
leadership and a majority of the U.S. Establishment that this 
position is fair and sensible, even from the viewpoint of U.S.
national security interests.
     Now about the threat to democratic institutions.
Unfortunately, our society has a weaker immunity, than the 
West, to authoritarian administrative diseases.
     A series of recent developments - spy trials, the ousting 
of independent mass media, and profanation of justice - were 
sort of orgy of conservative power structures who either want a 
revenge for their defeat in the formulation of Russia's foreign 
policy, or are hurrying to take their chance under the cover of 
the struggle against terrorism.
     We will most resolutely combat these alarming tendencies.
Russia cannot become a stable, prosperous country without the 
development of a rule-of-law state and the emergence of a 
developed civic society.
     It cannot become such a country also without a political 
solution to the Chechen problem. Indeed, the factor of 
international terrorism is present in the Chechen conflict. But 
it would be deliberate and irresponsible self-deception to 
consider this conflict only in the context of the present 
struggle against international terrorism. It has been going on 
for several hundred years.
     Today, after the bombings and mop-ups, we again propose 
negotiations, because there is no other solution. We are 
confident that, sooner or later, a special conference at summit 
level, involving all interested parties, will be convened in 
Moscow to find a solution to the Chechen problem.
     The new foreign-policy choice by the Russian president has 
a chance to succeed only if it meets with serious support by 
the emerging civic society. It is not compliments and applause 
that is needed but daily struggle for the establishment in our 
life of values that this choice presupposes: a socially 
oriented market economy, political freedoms, human rights and 
respect for the personality's dignity, especially as the forces 
that categorically reject these values have influence and might 
in all echelons of power.
     
*******

#12
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
January 25, 2002

FSB CHIEF ACCUSES BEREZOVSKY OF FINANCING CHECHEN REBELS.
The ongoing battle between the Russian authorities and Boris
Berezovsky ratcheted up sharply late yesterday. Nikolai
Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB),
announced that his agency has documentary evidence that the
erstwhile Kremlin insider, who went into self-imposed exile in
2000 after denouncing President Vladimir Putin, had financed
Chechen rebel fighters. "Indeed, we have such information, it is
in large part documented," Patrushev told NTV television. "It
concerns, above all, the financing of illegal armed formations
and their leaders. I think that we will appropriately validate
[the information], send it to our foreign partners and wait for
the proper reaction from them about Boris Berezovsky." NTV said
that, based on these charges, the FSB could put out an
international warrant for Berezovsky's arrest. In the late
1990s, Berezovsky--who once served as deputy secretary of the
Kremlin's Security Council and later as executive secretary of
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)--was involved in
the release of hostages from Chechnya. Some media at the time
accused him of financing various Chechen rebel leaders and their
fighters.

Patrushev's remarks came at the end of a week during which TV-6,
the television network in which Berezovsky holds a 75-percent
stake, was taken off the air by the Press Ministry on the orders
of the Higher Arbitration Court. Last month, as the controversy
surrounding TV-6 heated up, Berezovsky charged that Russia's
special services were behind the August 1999 invasion of
Dagestan by militants in Chechnya and that the bombing of
apartment buildings in Moscow was a "thought-out provocation by
the Russian secret services." The secret services, he alleged,
were also involved in the apartment building bombings in Moscow
and Volgodonsk a month later, which killed more than 300 people.
Berezovsky said that he could not say that Putin--who in the
autumn of 1999 was Russia's prime minister and who had
previously headed the FSB--had ordered these operations. But, he
said, he could say that the Russian security services had
carried out the apartment bombings to "consolidate society
around Putin's candidacy" prior to the presidential elections by
creating the pretext for a new Chechen military campaign, which
"ensured Putin's victory." The FSB called Berezovsky's
allegations "complete madness." Berezovsky repeated them earlier
this month, adding that the Russian special services had also
planned to bomb an apartment building in Ryazan in September
1999. He said that he would release documents proving the
Russian special services' participation in the bombings by the
end of February (see the Monitor, December 17, 2001; January 17,
14).  Last night, responding to Patrushev's remarks, Berezovsky
said that the FSB director's demarche was "absolutely logical."
"I have gathered a great deal of material about the FSB's
involvement in the explosions and plan to present it to the
international community," the tycoon told NTV television in an
interview from London. He also said that TV-6 had been preparing
to broadcast a film on these incidents, but that the FSB had
gotten wind of it. This, he claimed, was the reason TV-6 was
taken off the air. Today, the Gazeta.ru website called
Patrushev's demarche "a response to Berezovsky for violating
certain rules of the game, according to which the former CIS
executive secretary would not reveal secrets of Russia's special
services that he might be privy to, and the FSB would remain
quiet about Berezovsky's business operations in Chechnya"
(Gazeta.ru, January 25; NTV.ru, January 24).

Last autumn, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office issued a
warrant for Berezovsky's arrest in connection with the Aeroflot
case, involving charges that two Swiss companies reportedly set
up by Berezovsky, Andava and Forus illegally received hundreds
of millions of dollars in hard currency revenues from Russia's
state airline. Berezovsky was charged on three counts: (1)
facilitating the embezzlement of Aeroflot funds by "arranging
work in that company for several of his acquaintances," (2)
failure to repatriate hard currency made abroad and (3)
moneylaundering (see the Monitor, October 23, 2001). Yet, while
a top Interior Ministry official said last month that the
Russian authorities knew exactly where Berezovsky was, the
Prosecutor General's Office has not requested any foreign
government to detain the tycoon in preparation for his
extradition to Russia (NTV.ru, December 11, 2001). This
contrasts with the case of fellow Russian media tycoon Vladimir
Gusinsky, who was arrested in Spain in late 2000 at the request
of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, which sought to have
him extradited to Russia to face fraud charges. In April 2001,
Spain's National Court rejected the Russian extradition request
(NTV.ru, December 11, 2001; see the Monitor, April 19, 2001).

*******

#13
The Russia Journal
January 25-31, 2002
Afghan lessons for Russian generals
By ALEXANDER GOLTS 

Anyone who follows what top Russian military officials say in the press and
on television has noticed that they suddenly seem to have lost all desire
to comment on the military operations in Afghanistan.

It was a different story when the Americans began their operations. Back
then the top brass was only too eager to predict with a spiteful glee that
the U.S. troops were doomed to fail in a country that had defeated the
armies of the Soviet Union and the British Empire.

Afghanistan seemed to have been specifically invented to teach the insolent
Yankees a lesson. The United States placed its confidence in its
technological superiority, but the Russian generals jumped to point out
that American air power would be useless in Afghanistan where there was
nothing to bomb and where the fanatic Taliban fighters would hide out in
the mountains.

What kind of non-contact war could there be in these conditions? What kind
of "distance-conflict management" could be made to work? The consensus
among the Russian military was that sooner or later the United States would
be forced to begin a large-scale ground operation, and that’s when the U.S.
troops would find themselves mired in difficulties.

These doomsayers in the Russian military were motivated not just by a
dislike of a potential adversary that has become almost second nature after
40 years of confrontation. An American failure in Afghanistan would have
served to help justify the Russian generals in Chechnya. It would have
proven that there are some wars in which heavy losses, a disintegrating
army and a weakened command system are the price to pay for achieving some
higher political aim.

But though they faced a difficult situation, the Americans showed that
speedy victory and minimal losses are possible even in an awkward war. Of
course, new information-gathering technology played an important part in
this victory. The Pentagon launched an unprecedented system of information
support for the operations. Intelligence satellites, AWACS planes and also
pilot-less Globalhawk and Predator aircraft did more than just transmit
vast quantities of intelligence data.

The latest U.S. achievement in military-technological thinking, British
experts say, is that, instead of sending intelligence data back to the
command center, intelligence-gathering planes and satellites sent it
directly to attack aircraft already in the air. According to the Pentagon,
from the moment a moving target such as a column of trucks and armored
vehicles was discovered to the moment it was destroyed, no more than 10
minutes passed. This ability to strike fast seems to have played a major
part in swiftly crushing the Taliban defenses.

While strategic bombers dropped cluster and vacuum bombs on the front
lines, tactical fighters launched from aircraft carriers used "smart" bombs
and missiles to destroy virtually any vehicle moving in the rear. After
several weeks of this kind of bombing the Taliban showed signs of what
American psychological-warfare specialists say is a real schizophrenia-like
state. The Taliban fighters had the impression the U.S. aircraft were
coming after each of them personally, and they ran away.

But the Americans also had to have forces on the ground to consolidate
their successes. Here, the Pentagon used what military analysts call
"surrogate forces" – in this case, the Northern Alliance and Pashtun
detachments active in the south. Both groups were helped by American
special forces – the "green berets" and the Delta anti-terrorist squad.

In the north, they used ultra-modern technology to direct bombs towards
Taliban positions using a laser. This was dangerous work, but quite
straightforward from an operational point of view. As for the American
special forces in the south, their mission can be compared in its level of
difficulty to that of the legendary Lawrence of Arabia almost 100 years
ago, when he persuaded the Arab tribes to rise against Britain’s enemies.

This was a completely new kind of ground operation. No one tried to deploy
tank regiments on Afghan soil, no one stormed Kabul with the help of heavy
artillery, no one covered the country with a network of command posts and
checkpoints. The U.S. army’s entire ground forces amounted to a few hundred
"universal soldiers" able to carry out in-depth intelligence missions,
guide aircraft to enemy targets, reach agreements with the leaders of
rebellious tribes and then coordinate the action of surrogate forces.

Another vital factor in the operation’s success was that the U.S.
leadership set difficult but clear goals for its military. The U.S. armed
forces were to destroy the al-Qaida terrorist organization’s infrastructure
and that of the Taliban regime that supported it, and capture or liquidate
the terrorist leaders, including Osama bin Laden. 

Unlike the so-called "humanitarian interventions," the goal of rebuilding
the state system in Afghanistan and creating a new government were seen as
an accessory and not a must-have. From the very beginning Washington made
it clear that American forces would not participate in any peacekeeping
operations in Afghanistan.

It should be no surprise then that Russian generals don’t want to analyze
the U.S. operation in Afghanistan. The bulk of Russia’s arms spending these
days goes to attempts to modernize old tanks and planes. No one has made a
priority of linking these different arms into a single information-attack
system. Instead, the military is going along with what the
military-industrial complex wants and is trying to recreate its Cold
War-era arsenal.

The Russian generals are still trying to build the armed forces using the
Soviet model. Gritting their teeth, they’ve agreed to President Vladimir
Putin’s demands that the country move over to a professional army, but they
still insist that in the event of a future war, they have to have the
possibility of calling millions of people to arms. 

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, a few hundred top military professionals carried
out operations on the ground. The U.S. marines were used only to guard
bases and block off areas where operations against al-Qaida were taking place.

Finally, from the very start, the U.S. authorities made it clear their aim
wasn’t to control Afghan territory or establish any kind of order there,
"constitutional" or otherwise. Their aim was only to eliminate those who
hurt the United States.

The U.S. operations in Afghanistan show that, even if Russian military
reform is successful, Russia will still end up with armed forces capable of
winning a past but not a future war.  
 
*******