Johnson's Russia List
#6099
26 February 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
  1. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, A new terror-war front: the 
Caucasus. Russia and Georgia may attack Al Qaeda in a mountain hideaway.
  2. UPI: Georgia's security chief commits suicide.
  3. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
  4. AFP: US-funded Chechen language broadcasts into Russia in jeopardy.
  5. Moscow Times: Boris Kagarlitsky, Uncurbed Unaccountability. (re parties)
  6. Jamestown Foundation Monitor: KASYANOV REDISTRIBUTES CABINET'S 
RESPONSIBILITIES. 
  7. RFE/RL: Francesca Mereu, Bill Not Likely To Change Plight Of
Conscientious Objectors.
  8. Reuters: U.S. planting false stories common Cold War tactic.
  9. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: THE KGB IN 
AFGHANISTAN: DEFECTOR'S DOCUMENTS SHED NEW LIGHT ON SOVIET WAR.
  10. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: summary of new report,
Russian Basic Science After Ten Years of Transition.
  11. US Department of State: Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, NATO AND 
RUSSIA: REDEFINING RELATIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY.]

******

#1
Christian Science Monitor
26 February 2002
A new terror-war front: the Caucasus
Russia and Georgia may attack Al Qaeda in a mountain hideaway.
By Fred Weir | Special to The Christian Science Monitor 

MOSCOW - The next flash point in the global war on terrorism could be the
Pankisi Gorge, a lawless area in Georgia that abuts rebel Chechnya. In this
remote pass, US and Russian officials say Al Qaeda fighters from
Afghanistan - possibly even Osama bin Laden - have taken refuge. 
Early this month, the US chargé d'affaires in Georgia, Philip Remler, told
a local newspaper that dozens of Arab terrorists "connected with bin Laden"
are holed up among some 7,000 Chechen refugees in the gorge. In the past
week, there has been talk of a joint Georgian-Russian military action in
the gorge.  
 
For the Kremlin, Mr. Remler's comments are clear evidence that the United
States has finally accepted Russia's long-standing claim that the Chechen
rebellion, which spills over into neighboring Caucasus republics, is not
just a local independence movement, but has become a full-blown subsidiary
of the global Islamic terror network headed by Mr. bin Laden.

Though Afghanistan has been largely shut down by the US-led military
campaign, areas controlled by the Chechen rebels - like the Pankisi Gorge -
are still open for operations, the Russians say.

According to Russian security officials, there are between 600 and 1,500
hard-core foreign fighters still in Chechnya, funded and armed by Al Qaeda
and other groups through the same shadowy channels that prepared the Sept.
11 attacks on the United States. Before Russian forces invaded and occupied
Chechnya in 1999, there were 15 terror-training camps in Chechnya, using
the same instructors and textbooks that US forces have found in Al Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan, the Russian officials say.

"We are talking about an international network that shares the same sources
of funding, political support, weapons, training, and ideology, operating
in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and many other places," says Sergei Ignatchenko,
deputy chief spokesman of Russia's FSB security service, the domestic
successor of the Soviet KGB, which oversees Moscow's counterinsurgency
operation in Chechnya. "These are not nationalists or independence-seekers.
They are disciplined international terrorists, united by a single aim: to
seize power and bring in a new world order based on sharia [Islamic] law."

Critics say the Kremlin is exaggerating the extent of cooperation between
Chechen rebels and outside militant forces - and is also ignoring Moscow's
own role in destabilizing Chechnya in the mid-1990s.

Chechnya, a culturally Muslim republic of about 1 million in the oil-rich
North Caucasus, declared independence as the USSR was breaking up in 1991.
Russian troops invaded in 1994, and the subsequent 20-month war killed an
estimated 80,000 people and destroyed most of the republic's
infrastructure. Russian forces withdrew in 1996, after being defeated by
Chechen irregulars.

Just before the war's end, Russian special forces assassinated the father
of Chechen independence, Dzhokar Dudayev, with a special missile that homed
in on his satellite phone. "Dudayev was a secular nationalist, and the
Chechen independence movement had no Islamic dimension at all," says
Alexander Iskanderyan, director of the independent Center for Caucasian
Studies in Moscow. "The penetration of outside money and (Islamic) ideology
occurred later, and to some extent was an inevitable consequence of
Chechnya's deterioration. But the Chechen rebellion remains, at its heart,
a secessionist struggle. It therefore needs a political solution, not a
military one."

Some other Russian experts argue that, whatever the wrongs of the past, the
situation in Chechnya and adjoining regions has now become a threat to
global security that must be firmly dealt with. "We warned the West for
years that a new kind of terrorism was brewing in Central Asia and Chechnya
and preparing to strike out at the world," says Grigory Bondarevsky, a top
Russian expert and government adviser on Islamic movements. "They are
well-funded, highly disciplined, and under tight central control. Borders
mean nothing to them. It took the tragedy of Sept.11 to make the Americans
understand what we were talking about."

Mr. Ignatchenko declines to discuss the 200-year history of Russian-Chechen
warfare. But he insists that after Russian troops were forced to withdraw
in 1996, the little republic spiraled into lawlessness.

Chechen warlords, including the Arab-born al-Khattab, began to integrate
their private armies with the global Islamic terror network, according to
the FSB. In the summer of 1999 forces under al-Khattab and another leader,
Shamil Basayev, invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan. That
same year a wave of terror bombings killed 300 Russians, and in October
1999 Russia again invaded Chechnya. The FSB asserts that the 1999 bombings
were the work of the same people who plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 terror
attacks in the US - though this has not been proven.

Though Chechnya is now almost entirely occupied, the war continues to kill
about a dozen Russian soldiers weekly, and nearly a quarter of a million
Chechen civilians remain refugees in neighboring areas - including the
Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. The FSB says that there are 2,000 armed men in
the gorge, most of them probably Chechens.

While Western governments still criticize Moscow for alleged human rights
violations in the 28-month-old war with Chechnya, emphasis since Sept. 11
has been on cooperation with Russia in the global antiterror campaign.

Among items Ignatchenko is willing to share with journalists is a tape
recording of recently intercepted satellite phone conversations - in Arabic
- between al-Khattab and Chechen rebel operatives working in Saudi Arabia
and other Arab countries. A Russian-language transcript provided by the FSB
shows al-Khattab concerned with moving funds from unidentified sources into
Chechnya, acquiring better radio equipment for his forces, and evacuating
wounded fighters for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. The transcript also
reveals al-Khattab's fears about using his satellite phone - an
understandable concern, given Mr. Dudayev's fate.

The FSB also asserts that "hundreds" of battle-hardened Chechens served
with Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, as instructors in the
terror training camps and as fighters. "Chechens were in great demand
because they are some of the best experts in mine warfare," says Ignatchenko.

Though Washington has so far refused to identify by nationality the 254
Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners captured by US forces in Afghanistan and now
held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Ignatchenko says they include "several"
Chechens. Some, he says, have discarded their Russian passports and are
masquerading as Afghans.

US-Russian cooperation since Sept. 11 could become strained, however, over
Moscow's claims of a Chechen-terrorist domino effect in Georgia.

Russian military chief of staff Anatoly Kvashnin, said last week that
"Russia and Georgia should destroy this terrorist center in the Pankisi
Gorge together." FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev went to Georgia last week for
talks.

But Georgia, a country whose independence is precarious beside its powerful
Russian neighbor, fears any Moscow-led military operation on its territory.
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has asked Washington to step up
American security assistance to his country. In his statements to the
Georgian newspaper, Remler indicated that the US may provide such aid and
help creation of an antiterrorism force within the Georgian Defense Ministry.

The idea of increased US influence in Georgia has already brought a flurry
of angry denunciations from Russian officials.

"Chechnya is at the heart of a very complex geopolitical knot," says Sergei
Arutyunov, a Caucasus specialist at the Institute of Ethnology in Moscow.
"The presence of outside terrorists is one of the complications, but it
does not justify foolish simplifications," he says. "There must be
negotiations and a political process in Chechnya before the terrorists can
be isolated and removed. And this cannot happen as long as the Kremlin
believes that more military operations are the only way."

Last week Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said of the Pankisi Gorge:
"On the one hand it is, of course, sovereign Georgia's business. On the
other, must we really sit and wait to see how tensions mount there and how
this region is turning into a mini-Chechyna or mini-Afghanistan?"

******

#2
Georgia's security chief commits suicide 

TBILISI, Georgia, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The security chief of the former Soviet 
republic of Georgia is dead from what authorities say was a self-inflicted 
gunshot wound, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported Monday.

Nugzar Sadzhaya's body was found in his Tbilisi office and forensic reports 
said he had shot himself in the right temple with a small-caliber pistol.

Georgia's Prosecutor General's office launched a criminal investigation, 
pressing charges of "defamation and drive to suicide." Prosecutors failed to 
name any suspects who might have driven Sadzhaya to such an abrupt end.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was rather vocal about the death of 
his longtime ally. Shevardnadze said Sadzhaya was the victim of the "campaign 
of moral terror" unleashed against him and Georgian society.

"He (Sadzhaya) worried a lot over accusations brought up against him," 
Shevardnadze said.

The president called Sadzhaya's suicide a "wrong step ... as the country 
needed him very much in the current situation."

A statement released by Shevardnadze's press service later in the day Monday 
added that the ultimate aim of the campaign that brought about Sadzhaya's 
death was "undermining Georgia's foundations of statehood."

On the basis of these facts, the Security Council requested Prosecutor 
General Nugzar Gabrichidze to operatively investigate the incident in order 
to find those who ordered and carried out "this dirty campaign that caused 
such a horrible tragedy," the statement said.

According to the Civil Georgia Web site, Shevardnadze will now cancel his 
March 1 visit to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he was expected to attend the 
summit of heads of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

On Saturday, Sadzhaya offered his resignation to Shevardnadze, but the 
president refused to accept it saying he could not "imagine dealing with the 
(security) problems without him," Civil Georgia reported Monday.

Sadzhaya, 60, owed his political longevity to Shevardnadze, who installed him 
at the helm of Georgia's Security Council in 1995 after winning the 
presidency. Sadzhaya also served as Shevardnadze's personal security adviser 
and held the military rank of lieutenant general.

In recent months, Sadzhaya found himself in the midst of a no-holds-barred 
campaign led by opposition leader and lawmaker Boris Kakubava, who targeted 
the official via Tbilisi media.

Numerous publications charged Sadzhaya with orchestrating some of Georgia's 
most controversial assassination attempts and killings, including failed 
attempts to kill Shevardnadze.

Among other accusations, Kakubava said Sadzhaya was the mastermind behind the 
killing of Shevardnadze's predecessor, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in 1993. The list 
of allegations against Sadzhaya also included an alleged link to the 1994 
murder of Georgy Chanturia, the leader of the right-wing National-Democratic 
party.

Besides this, Kakubava accused Sadzhaya of planning an assassination attempt 
on Aslan Abashidze, the leader of Georgia's autonomous province of Adzharia.

The most unsubstantiated charges linked Sadzhaya with two attempts to 
assassinate Shevardnadze, a close ally of the late security chief.

Kakubava maintained that Sadzhaya and Georgia's intelligence chief, Avtandil 
Ioseliani, were behind the attacks, despite the results of a criminal 
investigation that cleared both men.

Georgia's political analysts say Kakubava's attacks on Sadzhaya were part of 
a broader campaign to bring Shevardnadze into disrepute. Kakubava heads the 
National Party of Exiles, an organization representing the interests of some 
300,000 ethnic Georgians who were expelled from their homes during the 
1992-93 civil war in the separatist province of Abkhazia and forced to seek 
refuge in Georgia proper.

Kakubava criticized the Georgia's policies, which he said had failed to deal 
efficiently with Abkhaz separatism as the province won de facto independence 
with Russian peacekeepers maintaining the shaky cease-fire.

At the Feb. 15 Congress of Refugees from Abkhazia, Kakubava reiterated his 
charges against both Sadzhaya and Shevardnadze, and demanded the latter's 
resignation. 

******

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

HEADLINES,
Monday, February 25, 2002
- A Soyuz-U Missile Carrier was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome this
evening.  Defense Ministry specialists, including Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov attended the launch.
- In Ukraine, the Simferopol Regional Court has removed the regional
Parliament Chairman Leonid Grach from the ballot after it found that he
violated electoral laws:  In particular, he falsified his income, lied
about the size of his house and did not apply for a vacation for the
duration of the election.  By Ukrainian law the ruling is final and cannot
be appealed.  A crowd of Grach's supporters gathered in front of the
courthouse this morning.  Police forces were brought in to prevent
violence.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin and First Lady Ludmila Putina visited
Patriarch Alexii II to wish him a happy birthday and namesake day.
President Putin expressed his admiration for the Patriarch, thanked him
for everything that he does for Russia, and wished him "good health and
the best of everything."  
- Georgian National Security Minister Nugzar Sadjaya committed suicide
today.  Georgian President Edvard Shevarnadze explained that Sadjaya shot
himself because of the moral terror aimed against him by deconstructive
forces.  Last week, Georgian Intelligence Service head Avtandil Ioseliani
initiated a case against Sadjaya.  In addition, Parliament Deputy Boris
Kabubaba declared that he has documents proving that Sadjaya and Ioseliani
plotted the murders of former Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia and
political figure Georgii Djanturia and fabricated a case about a terrorist
act against the president.  Sadjaya had declared these accusations to be
moral terror and asked the Georgian General Prosecutor to let the
investigation proceed officially.
- Renowned Russian actor Vsevolod Sanaev would be 90 years old today.
- An attempt to smuggle illegal Chinese immigrants to Italy through Russia
was thwarted in the Maritime region.  Investigators say that such
operations cost $10-15,000 a person.
 - In the message he sent to the Russian Olympic athletes, President Putin
not only congratulated the winners, but also reevaluated "the most
scandalous Games in years."  He stated that the conditions were not
simple, and thanked everyone who did not give in to the negative
atmosphere but kept fighting. 

******

#4
US-funded Chechen language broadcasts into Russia in jeopardy
AFP
February 26, 2002  
 
Concerns that US-funded Chechen-language broadcasts into Russia could upset
Moscow and hinder efforts for peace with the breakaway republic has put the
program, due to launch this week, in jeopardy, the State Department said.

A decision whether to begin broadcasts Thursday has not yet been made, said
spokesman Richard Boucher, adding they were a "matter that has been
discussed and continues to be discussed with the White House and with the
Congress."

Asked whether the broadcasts would begin as scheduled, he replied only:
"We'll have to see."

Washington is also wary the broadcasts could hinder efforts for a
negotiated peace settlement in the breakaway republic, senior officials
said, confirming the substance of a report in the Washington Post.

"Our view has been that this needs to be carefully considered," a senior
department official said on condition of anonymity.

"We need to look at it in the context of what can we do to stop the
violence, stop the difficulties and encourage the Russians to pursue a path
of negotiation."

Boucher said the areas in the North Caucasus to be served by the new
programming, to be broadcast by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty after
Congress requested it last year, are already served by Russian-language
broadcasts.

He said it was also important to "point out that our policy towards
Chechnya is clear, there's no military solution there. We have continued to
support a dialogue between both sides."

The Post said President George W. Bush's administration sought to block the
planned daily 15-minute news digest in Chechen out of concerns it could
offend Russia, which has reportedly threatened to pull Radio Liberty's
license to operate in Moscow because of them.

The report quoted a letter sent by Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage to the stations' overseer, the Broadcasting Board of Governors,
which said the broadcasts could create a perception in Moscow "that we have
shifted our support to one side" of the Chechen conflict.

Armitage was quoted by the daily as saying "as long as the Russians and
Chechens are talking, we need to keep our powder dry."

Boucher confirmed Armitage had written a letter to the governors but
declined comment on its contents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had tendered an offer of talks with
Chechen separatists but the two sides have met only once, in November.
Moscow has since stepped up its military operations in the republic. 

******

#5
Moscow Times
February 26, 2002
Uncurbed Unaccountability
By Boris Kagarlitsky   

The country's leaders are taking great pains to improve the political party 
system. Their approach is that of an animal breeder who focuses on improving 
the breed, or more precisely on making it larger. 

Current legislation effectively makes small parties illegal. The law also 
turns parties exclusively into campaign machines by holding out the threat of 
abolition for refusal to participate in elections. If a party boycotts two 
elections -- to protest the regular rigging of the results, for instance -- 
it faces automatic liquidation. 

Current law does not, however, allow parties to control their own deputies 
and organize their legislative agenda in the State Duma -- the main reason 
for seeking a Duma seat in the first place, one would think. 

Immediately following perestroika, when the phrase "independent deputy" was 
still a novelty, we constantly heard our deputies say: "I answer to no one 
but my constituents." In practice this meant that they answered to no one at 
all, because voters had no way of controlling how "their" deputy voted. 
 
While it is possible to monitor a deputy's position on the major issues, it 
is nearly impossible to figure out how he or she has voted in the hundreds of 
"secondary" and "technical" votes held every session. (And I can just imagine 
thousands of voters staying up nights studying the Duma minutes to glean 
information about their representative's actions.)

It was the legislative branch's total lack of accountability that led in the 
early 1990s to talk of party lists and proportional representation. We got 
both in 1993 -- although in combination with a constitution that deprived the 
Duma of any real power. 

The trouble, as it turns out, is that party deputies differ little from their 
independent colleagues. The Duma doesn't even have the institution of "party 
whips" -- when members of each faction are responsible for ensuring that 
their colleagues vote, and that they do so along party lines. At best we have 
Vladimir Zhirinovsky rushing around the Duma chamber with a stack of other 
deputies' electronic voting cards. The absence of parliamentary discipline 
creates fertile ground for corruption. Everyone knows that selling one's vote 
is a very profitable business, although not nearly so profitable now under 
Vladimir Putin as it was in the good old days when the Duma was continually 
approving new Cabinets and discussing the impeachment of President Boris 
Yeltsin.

Proportional representation and party lists, moreover, have no meaning if 
parties cannot or will not control their deputies. In Germany, from which 
Russia borrowed these concepts, a party can simply recall a deputy and 
replace him with someone else from the party list. This allows parties to 
maintain firm control over their parliamentary factions. 

At times, this has led to some curious extremes: Early in its history, the 
Green Party was so concerned about equality that it implemented a regular 
"rotation of cadres" in the Bundestag. No sooner had a deputy achieved some 
success in his new position than he was recalled and replaced with an 
incompetent novice. And as soon as the new deputy had learned the ropes, he 
too would come up for rotation.

Even with its obvious excesses, the German system is preferable to the 
practice of Russian parties, which treat the Duma as nothing more than a 
pasture where stout herds of free legislators can graze freely and fatten 
themselves up. 

Russian law and parliamentary regulations not only give parties and voters no 
effective mechanism for recalling deputies, they do not even provide for the 
punishment of deputies -- whether elected directly or via party lists -- who 
decide to change factions. 

We're not talking here about a politician's "freedom of choice." We're 
talking about defrauding the electorate and stealing votes. If my vote helps 
to elect a communist or a liberal, I have the right to assume that for the 
next four years he or she will behave -- and more importantly, vote -- as a 
communist or a liberal. 

Of course, no one in Russia has any grounds for calling himself or herself a 
citizen, because we have nothing in this country resembling a civil society.

We are consumers of politics. While it's still early to talk about civil 
rights in this country, our rights as consumers, at least, should be 
protected. 

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.

******

#6
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
February 25, 2002
KASYANOV REDISTRIBUTES CABINET'S RESPONSIBILITIES.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov yesterday signed a
document redistributing the cabinet's responsibilities and
powers. The Interfax news agency, quoting the government's
information department, reported that Kasyanov himself would now
oversee the activities of the Nuclear Power Ministry, the
Property Ministry, the Ministry for Industry, Science and
Technology, the State Customs Committee and the Russian Federal
Property Fund. He will also head the government's commission on
military-technical issues and "interact" with Russia's Central
Bank and Academy of Sciences. In addition to these functions,
Interfax reported that Kasyanov will now "coordinate" the work
of ministries and agencies subordinated directly to the
president, including the Interior, Emergency Situations, Defense
and Justice ministries and the Foreign Intelligence Service,
Federal Security Service, the Tax Police, the Border Guards
Service, the Federal Agency for Government Communications and
Information and the Kremlin property department.

The announcement means that Kasyanov has personally taken over a
number of the responsibilities previously assigned to Ilya
Klebanov. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin, acting
on Kasyanov's recommendation, signed a decree stripping Klebanov
of his deputy prime minister rank. Until his demotion, Klebanov,
who carried out oversight of the military-industrial complex,
also had responsibility for overseeing the Nuclear Power,
Railways and Communication ministries. In redistributing the
cabinet's powers and responsibilities, Kasyanov put himself in
charge of overseeing the Nuclear Power Ministry while putting
Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko in charge of the
Railways, Communications Energy, Natural Resources and
Transportation ministries. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Kudrin,
who doubles as finance minister, will oversee the Finance
Ministry, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, the Tax
Ministry, the Antimonopoly Ministry, the State Statistics
Committee, the Federal Securities Market Commission and the
Federal Bankruptcy Service. The third deputy prime minister,
Aleksei Gordeyev, who doubles as agriculture minister, will
oversee that ministry, along with the State Fisheries Committee
and several other less significant agencies. The cabinet's
fourth deputy prime minister, Valentina Matvienko, will oversee
the Labor, Health, Education, Culture and Press ministries,
along with the State Committee on Sports and the Pension Fund
(Polit.ru, February 24; Moscow Times, February 19).

Some observers believe the diminution of Klebanov's bureaucratic
responsibilities earlier this month was just a first step and
that he will sooner or later be removed from the cabinet
altogether. Whatever the case, the new division of cabinet
responsibilities would seem to be another bit of
counter-evidence to long-standing rumors that Kasyanov's
position had been weakened from attacks by political rivals in
the "Chekist" camp, the Kremlin faction made up of KGB veterans
and/or natives of Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, including
Klebanov. That faction is said to be in an ongoing power
struggle with the "Family," the faction of Yeltsin-era holdovers
to which Kasyanov belongs. Almost immediately after Kasyanov was
confirmed as prime minister in May 2000, rumors began appearing
that he was on his way out. Among those named at various times
as possible candidates to replace Kasyanov as head of the
cabinet were Sergei Ivanov, who is now defense minister, former
Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko and Novgorod Governor Mikhail
Prusak (see the Monitor, August 1, 2001; February 28, 2001;
August 11, 2000).

Kasyanov came under attack from different quarters last week,
after comments he made during a meeting with top Finance
Ministry officials that the government should work on creating a
"liquid domestic debt market" by shifting away from borrowing in
Western capital markets toward domestic borrowing. The goal of
this, Kasyanov said, was to "transform the earlier ineffective
borrowing" into "effective" borrowing. Andrei Illarionov,
Putin's economic adviser, charged that Kasyanov's proposal was
"based on false assumptions, on false logic, and carrying it out
would have negative consequences for the economy." Some analysts
say that in order to attract buyers for Russia's domestic debt,
that government would have to establish high yields for bonds
that would crowd out investment in the real economy, as happened
prior to the August 1998 financial collapse.

Early last year, Illarionov publicly criticized Kasyanov for the
government's plan to reform the electricity sector and for
getting into a public row with the Paris Club of sovereign
creditors over debt payments by Russia that were coming due.
Illarionov declared at the time that debt repayment was "a sign
of a civilized state" and that failure to pay resembled "petty
hooliganism, like ripping away cords in telephone booths,
breaking windows or relieving oneself in a doorway." Illarionov
reportedly had to apologize to Kasyanov personally for those
remarks (Kommersant, Moscow Times, February 22: see the Monitor,
January 26, February 5, 23, 28, 2001).

********

#7
Russia: Bill Not Likely To Change Plight Of Conscientious Objectors
By Francesca Mereu

Although Russia's 1993 constitution does legally clear the way for an 
alternative to army service, a federal law on the alternatives has yet to be 
passed. In February, however, the Russian government took a step forward, 
approving a bill that will allow young men to complete national service 
outside the military. But many Russians criticized the bill, saying it will 
require draftees opting for alternative service to serve twice the time 
regular conscripts spend in the army.

Moscow, 25 February 2002 (RFE/RL) -- After years of debate, the Russian 
government on 14 February approved a bill on alternative service. If passed, 
the bill will finally deliver on the promise of the country's 1993 
constitution to grant conscientious objectors the right to choose a civilian 
alternative to compulsory military duty. 

Russia's military has long opposed the passage of an alternative service law, 
fearing it would rob the armed forces of soldiers and thus damage the state's 
defense capabilities. It was only recently that the government was finally 
able to find a compromise solution with the General Staff and draw up a draft 
that will allow conscientious objectors to complete national duty in 
hospitals, hospices, and other state bodies instead of the armed forces.

But many in Russia have criticized the bill as punitive, because the proposed 
term for alternative service is longer than the two-year term of conventional 
duty. Alternative draftees who agree to serve in civilian positions within 
the armed forces -- performing administrative and janitorial duties -- will 
have to serve three years. Those who chose civil institutions outside the 
military will be expected to serve four years.

The General Staff defends the four-year term, saying that a conscript is on 
duty 16 hours a day, while an alternative serviceman will work in accordance 
with the Labor Code -- that is, only eight hours a day. 

Valentina Melnikova is the head of the Union of Committees of Soldiers' 
Mothers, an umbrella group founded in 1989 comprising some 300 Russian groups 
dedicated to protecting soldiers' rights and holding the military accountable 
for its treatment of conscripts. Melnikova considers the longer terms for 
alternative service a way of punishing young men with anti-militaristic 
beliefs for their principles. 

"Two things [in the bill] worry me: the four-year term of duty [outside the 
military] and the possibility that [some young men] have to complete civil 
service within military camps. In my opinion these are the most dangerous 
points [of the bill]," Melnikova said. 

Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based independent defense analyst, said Russian 
generals see alternative service as little better than draft dodging and may 
try to prevent such service from existing anywhere but on paper. Felgenhauer 
noted that according to the bill, alternatives draftees will be also required 
to explain why they are refusing traditional military service. A drafting 
board will then be entitled to decide whether to permit the draftee to serve 
in alternative service or not.

"This variant on the law will essentially create a false showcase for 
alternative service. Of course, a few thousand people will be permitted to 
complete the service, so that Russia will be able to say that it has an 
alternative service," Felgenhauer said. "But the [bill] contains every 
possible trick to avoid what the General Staff fears most: that the 
alternative service will turn into a mass trend. [For example,] the principle 
that will be used to decide [who will be granted alternative service] is the 
'proof principle.' This means that a person has to provide proof [of why he 
thinks he cannot perform the military service]. After that, he can be denied 
the right to alternative service. So it doesn't change anything." 

Felgenhauer continued: "[With the new bill, the military] can still plan 
their conscriptions. If the alternative service was like it is in the Western 
countries, where a young man can simply say, 'I don't want military service, 
I want civil service,' the military would not be able to anticipate how many 
draftees would enroll."

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov recently told Russian television the state is 
obligated to determine whether the statements made by conscientious objectors 
are authentic or not, and pointed to instances where he said objectors were 
found to be falsely presenting their case. Ivanov also said that military 
recruitment offices will not be the ones responsible for deciding who is 
granted alternative service. Instead, a conscription commission -- made up of 
civilians and with a single military representative -- will be handed that 
task. 

Draft dodging became endemic in Russia following the start of the second 
Chechen campaign in the fall of 1999. Defense Ministry statistics say the 
spring 2001 draft resulted in the enrollment of just 12 percent of the 
country's eligible young men. Melnikova of the Union of Committees of 
Soldiers' Mothers said that young people don't want to serve in the army 
because they are afraid of being sent to Chechnya and because of the army's 
notoriously abusive treatment of conscripts, which often involves hazing and 
forced manual labor.

"Young people do not want to go where they are going to be humiliated. They 
don't want to go where they could be sent to fight [in Chechnya] against 
their own countrymen," Melnikova said. "This is the reason why we believe 
young men have the right not to serve this criminal military service."

Andrei Rodionov is a 24-year-old conscientious objector and a member of 
Russia's Anti-Militarist League, which advises young men on how to avoid the 
draft. In 1998, a Russian court ruled in favor of his right to alternative 
service -- which, in the absence of a civil alternative, he said he has not 
yet been able to fulfill.

Rodionov said that if the Duma approves the government proposal, young men 
will simply continue to dodge the draft or pay bribes to avoid military 
service.

"I don't like what [the army] does. In particular, I think that the Chechen 
war is a terrible crime being committed by both our country and our army," 
Rodionov said. "I don't like the way our army is organized. It cannot be 
called an effective army. It is composed of slaves who don't want to serve in 
it. Moreover, they are unable to do anything since they are not trained [by 
the military]. And after all, they just want to eat. I have my own interests 
and I don't understand why I have to give two years of my own life to the 
state, or to the generals who would like to use me as free labor to build 
their dachas."

Melnikova said she believes a reasonable civil service law could help to find 
a solution to the problem of draft dodging. She said young men who do not 
wish to serve in the military still represent valuable manpower to badly 
understaffed hospitals, orphanages, and other civil institutions. 

No date has been set for the bill to be presented to the State Duma, but 
Russian media speculate that the bill will meet with little resistance from 
the Kremlin-friendly parliament.

*******

#8
U.S. planting false stories common Cold War tactic
By Tabassum Zakaria
  
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Recognizing that sometimes the pen is mightier 
than the sword, the CIA has a colorful history of planting false information 
in media outlets overseas, with results ranging from irritating the Soviet 
Union to paving the way for a coup in Latin America. 

Disinformation measures were a common tool in most CIA covert operations, and 
the Soviet Union elevated the practice to an art form during the Cold War, 
intelligence experts say. 

"You would try and recruit a journalist and he would become an agent of 
influence," a former U.S. intelligence officer said. 

The foreign journalist was either paid or acted out of hatred for a regime 
that harmed his family, "and he would plant stories which were favorable to 
your side," he said. 

"The Russians did it, the Brits do it, the French do it -- it's regular 
intelligence procedure to try and influence a country's policies through the 
press," he said. 

While the battlefield for the war of false words was traditionally the CIA's 
domain, a public debate over the issue of government-planted lies erupted 
this month after reports surfaced about the Pentagon's new Office of 
Strategic Influence. 

Some of the reports said the office would be used to plant lies in foreign 
news outlets to influence public opinion abroad to further U.S. goals in its 
war on terrorism. 

The flap forced top defense officials to publicly state they would never 
knowingly lie to the media, and left the U.S. intelligence community 
privately shaking its head at the folly of the military for trying to tread 
on its turf. 

One former intelligence official derided the Pentagon's name for its 
propaganda office, saying at the CIA such an operation would be called 
something like "Division F" or "the 407 Committee," which might be a room in 
a building to disguise its purpose. 

The CIA's disinformation campaigns were a constant source of irritation for 
the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA would annually 
plant false notices carrying the Soviet military seal in newspapers in Muslim 
countries announcing invasion day celebrations at Soviet embassies, another 
former U.S. intelligence officer recalled. 

'DROVE THEM CRAZY' 

Those notices, "just drove them crazy," and made it appear that the Soviets 
were crowing over the invasion, he said. 

The New York Times in 2000 revealed a classified history of CIA's covert 1953 
operation in Iran to oust the prime minister and bolster Shah Mohammad Reza 
Pahlavi. It included planting articles and editorial cartoons in newspapers. 

The CIA used disinformation tactics in Latin America, using radio broadcasts 
under the name Voice of Liberation to help topple the government of Jacobo 
Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. 

It used similar tactics in Chile to discredit Socialist President Salvador 
Allende who died in a 1973 coup when forces loyal to Augusto Pinochet 
overthrew his government. 

The Soviet Union was no slouch when it came to planting lies about the United 
States in the media, experts said. 

The Soviets disseminated lies that the CIA conducted secret experiments on 
HIV that caused the AIDS epidemic in Africa and that the U.S. spy agency was 
connected to the West African body-parts market, a former U.S. intelligence 
official said. 

When the United States became concerned that Indonesia's President Sukarno 
had pro-communist tendencies, a CIA team produced a pornographic film 
featuring an actor resembling Sukarno with the intent of embarrassing him, 
said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the 
Federation of American Scientists. It was unclear whether the film was ever 
released. 

ONE-ON-ONE 

Sometimes the disinformation campaigns were one-on-one. A former intelligence 
officer recalls a set up in which a CIA officer acted like a broadcaster 
holding up a fabricated newspaper that declared in a banner headline a 
high-level official in a hostile country was dead. The subterfuge prompted a 
reluctant prisoner to break down and talk. 

In the mid-1970s, CIA activities came under intense congressional scrutiny 
that developed into a greater oversight role for Congress on U.S. covert 
activities. 

The CIA adopted a policy during that period of not recruiting reporters 
working for American news organizations to help conduct intelligence 
activities. The CIA also agreed to take care that the lies it promoted 
overseas were not picked up by U.S. media. 

"If the CIA put something in an Urdu newspaper the chances of it coming back 
to the United States is zero and you could do it," Robert Baer, a former CIA 
officer, said. "But you certainly wouldn't want to put some horrendous leak 
in Le Monde because it would get picked up in the U.S. papers," he said. 

"It is becoming much more difficult to do well today because everybody reads 
everything and if there is something of any significance that appears even in 
the most obscure foreign outlet it is going to echo in the global media 
sooner or later," Aftergood said. 

*******

#9
NEWS RELEASE
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars					
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Sharon Coleman Jones
E-mail: jonesshc@wwic.si.edu
Phone: 202-691-4013
February 25, 2002

THE KGB IN AFGHANISTAN: 
DEFECTOR'S DOCUMENTS SHED NEW LIGHT ON SOVIET WAR

Washington, D.C. -Previously secret KGB materials on the
Soviet war in Afghanistan reveal the determined efforts of a
great power trying desperately to keep on top of events in a
client state-and failing miserably to do so. The materials
were released today by Cold War International History
Project (CWIHP) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars, the leading clearinghouse and research project
on the former Communist world archives.

The materials, provided to CWIHP by defected KGB archivist
Vasiliy Mitrokhin, present the first behind-the scene
account at the three communist coups in Afghanistan in April
1978 and in September and December 1979. They also provide
the first-ever inside account of the 1979 kidnapping and
murder of the last US ambassador in Kabul, Adolph Dubs;
chilling reports on the violent guerrilla deception
campaigns, assassinations, sabotage and bribery carried out
by the KGB in Afghanistan between 1978 and 1983; as well as
new information on clandestine US-Soviet political contacts
on Afghanistan in the 1980 presidential election campaign.
The document also reveals KGB and Afghan intelligence
cooperation with Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of later
Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto; as well as links
with Murtaza Bhutto, a leftist terrorist involved in
organizing and supervising the hijacking of a Pakistani
civilian airliner in 1981.

The 178-page paper proves that the KGB was deeply involved
in Afghanistan even before the Communist take-over in 1978
and the Soviet invasion in 1979. The number of active agents
in the country ran into the hundreds and served a role not
only in Afghanistan but also in neighboring countries such
as Pakistan and Iran. The government of Prince Muhammad Daud
(1973-1978) worked closely with the Soviets, and several of
Daud's ministers had contacts with the KGB. Mitrokhin also
shows that the Soviet Union was not involved with the Afghan
Communists' overthrow of Daud's government in April 1978,
although the KGB had received advance warning of the plot
against Daud. The KGB spent enormous sums to rapidly build
up indigenous Afghan communist intelligence services, of
which the main one, the KHAD, became feared and hated for
its use of torture and assassination. KGB-trained agents,
the records make clear, substantially penetrated CIA-backed
mujaheddin groups, their training camps, and their
headquarters.

More importantly, the KGB files present, according
to Christian Ostermann, the director of the Cold War
International History Project,  "the inside story of the
growing split between Afghan Communist Party leaders Babrak
Karmal, Mohammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin-and the rather
frantic Soviet efforts to keep it under control"-advising
the Afghans, for example, after Taraki's guards had machine
gunned Amin's, that 'in the present circumstances it was
particularly important to be restrained and controlled.' 
The Mitrokhin materials reflect the rivalry among the main
Soviet agencies operating in Afghanistan-the embassy, the
military, the KGB, and the party advisers, often at
cross-purposes. Examples include the KGB surveillance of the
messenger whom General Zaplatin, the Soviet chief political
adviser to the Afghan army, sent to Moscow in December 1979
in a desperate attempt at preventing a Soviet invasion; and
the failed attempt at removing Amin from power in September
1979, in which Soviet ambassador Puzanov became a hapless
diplomatic victim of a KGB-hatched plot. Among the many new
details on KGB operations in Afghanistan and other countries
are the accounts of the September 1979 Operation "Raduga,"
the KGB's high-risk scheme to usher three Afghan cabinet
ministers out of the country, and "Operation Agat," the
storming of the presidential palace and the killing of Amin
in December 1979, at the onset of the Soviet invasion. 

What is most striking about Mitrokhin's materials is the
pervasive sense it gives of the distrust that the KGB
fomented and spread among Afghan and Soviets alike. While it
is clear that Moscow's interest in the critical year 1979
lay in finding ways for the two main Communist Party
factions to cooperate against their increasingly efficient
Islamist enemies, the KGB's operations achieved exactly the
opposite. By concocting rumors and slander, the KGB
contributed significantly to the destruction of the Afghan
Communist Party and to the dysfunctionality of Soviet
policies. It is therefore fitting that it was the local KGB
bosses who-sensing their chief Yuri Andropov's willingness
to use force to remove Amin from power-dredged up old,
faction- driven accusations of Amin being an American agent
that in the last resort convinced many in Moscow, who should
have known better, that it was necessary to invade.  

The KGB ran scores of secret "false flag" military
operations inside Afghanistan during the 1980s. In these,
Soviet-trained Afghan guerrilla units posed as
CIA-supported, anti-Soviet mujaheddin rebels to create
confusion and flush out genuine rebels for counterattacking.
By January 1983, there were, according to Mitrokhin, 86
armed, KGB-trained "false bands," as they were called,
operating throughout Afghanistan. These disclosures also
throw new light on the chronic mujaheddin infighting during
the 1980s. A perhaps significant number of the clashes among
mujaheddin groups during the 1980s, which set the stage for
the catastrophic civil war in the 1990s, apparently were
carried out deliberately by paid KGB agents.

A KGB operative but increasingly disaffected following the
bloody suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 and the
dissident movement, Vasiliy Mitrokhin decided to compile his
own account of the KGB's foreign operations when he was put
in charge in 1972 of the transfer of the foreign operations
archives from the KGB's headquarters at Lubyanka in Moscow
to Yasenevo southwest of the capital. Working in complete
secrecy for over ten years, Mitrokhin first took notes in
longhand while working in the archives and later, once
safely in his dacha, sorted and transcribed them. They are
now being made available at no charge by the CWIHP at
http://cwihp.si.edu. For further information, contact the
CWIHP at (202) 691-4110.

*******

#10
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
www.ceip.org
new report
Russian Basic Science After Ten Years of Transition
and Foreign Support
By Irina Dezhina and Loren Graham

Full Text (PDF format)
http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/wp24.asp?from=pubdate

SUMMARY

The Soviet scientific establishment, while not without defects, stood as one 
of the more solid achievements of the Soviet Union. It was one of the world's 
largest and possessed world-class strengths in a number of fields, notably 
theoretical physics and mathematics. But like virtually all state 
institutions inherited by the newly cast Russian Federation, the scientific 
establishment's capacity to provide for basic training and research suffered 
mightily from the economic collapse of the 1990s. Many leading scientists 
left the country for top positions in the United States, Europe, and 
elsewhere, while thousands of others simply left science altogether. All of 
this led many to fear the possible death of Russian science.

This new working paper presents a ten-year perspective (since the fall of the 
Soviet Union) on changes in the organization and financing of Russian 
fundamental science and on international support for that science in the same 
period. Authors Irina Dezhina and Loren Graham assess the impact of 
international support during these years and suggest ways of continuing and 
improving that support.

About the Authors
Irina Dezhina is a senior researcher at the Institute for the Economy in 
Transition in Moscow, Russia.
Loren Graham is professor of the history of science at the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A limited number of print copies are also available. 

*******

#11
US Department of State
22 February 2002 
Text: NATO-Russia Council Fundamental, Historic Change, Vershbow Says 
(Feb. 22: U.S. ambassador to Russia at St. Petersburg State U.) (2900)

"The United States and Russia are closer today -- politically,
economically and militarily -- than at any time in our history,"
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow told a conference on NATO at St.
Petersburg State University February 22.

Russia's relations with NATO will soon be equally close, said
Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation, and he called
the NATO-Russia Council at 20 "a new forum in which NATO's 19 members
and Russia work together as a group of 20 equal partners on issues
where our shared interests make it sensible to do so."

The NATO-Russia Council at 20 "will be a fundamental and historic
change in NATO's dealings with Russia," he said, "a move toward a more
substantial partnership and genuine collaboration that might be called
an 'alliance with the Alliance.'"

Vershbow went on to discuss the similar security challenges faced by
NATO and Russia in the 21st century: transnational threats such as
global terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
regional instability, militant nationalism, and "failed states."

"All the Allies recognize that NATO's efforts to deal effectively with
21st century threats will be far more successful if they are
accompanied by closer cooperation with Russia," he said.

For the new NATO at 20 forum to work, he cautioned, "changes in
attitude will be required on both sides, and not just changes in
procedures.

"In particular, Russia will need to develop a new 'culture of
cooperation' -- the spirit of flexibility, understanding, and
compromise that is essential to an organization that works on the
basis of consensus among nations with differing security perspectives
and priorities."

NATO, too, will need to change, he said, "to be more open and more
flexible in taking Russia's views into account. What is crucial is
that we get beyond the zero-sum relationship of the past and develop
what we Americans like to call a win-win relationship."

Regarding NATO enlargement, Vershbow acknowledged that the prospect in
particular of the three Baltic states perhaps joining NATO "may be
difficult for Russia, [but] the new reality is that the Baltic states
and Russia must now see each other as partners in building stable
democracies, increasing regional trade, attracting investment, and
cleaning up the environment."

The U.S. ambassador to Russia also cautioned that the NATO at 20 forum
is a "work in progress" that will evolve "step-by-step."

"Not all of our differences will disappear overnight," Vershbow said.
"We may not agree in full on next steps in the anti-terrorist
campaign. And we may still have concerns about issues that seem to
depart from the largely positive trends in Russia's march toward
democracy, such as Russia's military tactics in Chechnya or pressures
on the independent news media."

But he concluded by expressing confidence that disagreements will be
resolved "in the spirit of partnership and our common interest in
pursuing peace, freedom and prosperity for the entire North Atlantic
area."

Following is the text of Vershbow's remarks as prepared for delivery:

(begin text)

NATO AND RUSSIA: REDEFINING RELATIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, U.S. Ambassador to the Russian
Federation

St. Petersburg State University
February 22, 2002

[As prepared for delivery]

Thank you Prof. Khudoley for the introduction and for the invitation
to take part in today's NATO Conference. This is exactly the right
time to be discussing Russia's relations with NATO as developments in
the coming months are of potentially far-reaching significance. We all
have a stake in the outcome.

I note that there are representatives here today from the Baltic
States, Denmark, Germany and other European countries. This should
guarantee a frank, and lively, exchange of views.

Two years ago I addressed this forum as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
Today I have been asked to speak about the American perspective on
NATO-Russia relations as the U.S. Ambassador to the Russian
Federation. First, I would like to say a few words about the state of
U.S.-Russia relations.

The United States and Russia are closer today -- politically,
economically and militarily -- than at any time in our history. That
is not an empty assertion. Rather, this observation is based on my own
perspective going back some 30 years as a former student of Russian
and Soviet affairs and based on several tours of duty as a diplomat --
in Moscow and on the Soviet Desk at the State Department -- during the
last decade of the Cold War.

As you know, Presidents Bush and Putin have met four times and have
established a close personal relationship. Most of you have probably
also heard that President Putin was the first foreign leader to speak
with President Bush after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington to express his sympathy and solidarity with the
United States. Even more importantly, he backed that up with an
unprecedented offer of political, military and intelligence support.

This has led many to conclude that September 11 was a turning point in
the nature of relations between the West and Russia, but that is only
partially true. I believe that even before September 11, President
Putin had made a strategic choice. He had concluded that Russia's
future economic growth and political influence could be best assured
through closer relations with Europe and the United States, rather
than through the competitive, confrontational approach of the Soviet
past. For his part, President Bush was already determined to move
beyond the constraints of Cold War thinking and forge a new
relationship with Russia based on genuine partnership and on Russia's
integration into the family of democratic nations. Following two
productive Summit meetings in Ljubljana and Genoa in June and July,
high-level talks on strategic, economic and political relations got
underway, well before September 11.

What September 11 provided was an opportunity to move U.S.-Russian
relations into high gear. President Putin recognized the historical
moment and seized it. His wholehearted support of the anti-terrorist
coalition and Russian cooperation were crucial to the success of the
campaign in Afghanistan. At the same time, it is important to remember
that the basis of U.S.-Russian relations is much broader than the war
on terrorism. At their November Summit meeting in Washington and
Crawford, President Putin and President Bush pledged to put the Cold
War behind us once and for all and embark on a new relationship for a
new era that provides lasting security and well-being for both
countries. They stressed that the U.S.-Russian partnership was now
guided not just by the need to fight against a common enemy, but by a
shared interest in protecting and extending the values of democracy,
freedom and the rule of law.

Russia's relations with NATO should also reflect our shared security
interests. As we begin the 21st century, it is clear that the members
of NATO and Russia face similar challenges to their security. These
include transnational threats such as global terrorism and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as continued
dangers flowing from regional instability, militant nationalism, and
"failed states." NATO itself must continue to adapt to meet these
threats -- both by redefining its mission and equipping itself with
the capabilities needed to fulfill that mission. But all the Allies
recognize that NATO's efforts to deal effectively with 21st century
threats will be far more successful if they are accompanied by closer
cooperation with Russia.

NATO and Russia have had some success in their first efforts at
cooperation over the past decade, especially through our joint
peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans. But I think that both sides would
agree that our cooperation has not fully lived up to the promise
embodied in the NATO-Russia Founding Act signed in 1997. Our common
task is to get the relationship right this time: to devise new
mechanisms for cooperation, coordinated action and joint decisions
that can integrate Russia more closely in NATO's work, while
respecting NATO's and Russia's prerogatives to act alone if necessary.

The idea discussed between Presidents Bush and Putin last November,
and endorsed by NATO and Russian Foreign Ministers a month later, is
quite simple: to create a new forum in which NATO's 19 members and
Russia work together as a group of 20 equal partners on issues where
our shared interests make it sensible to do so. Areas for joint action
"at 20" might include counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, or
responding to future regional conflicts. They might also include
concrete projects that build a climate of cooperation and transparency
between NATO and Russia -- politically and militarily.

We hope that the proposed new mechanism will be operational by the
spring -- before the May meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in
Reykjavik and before President Bush's visit to Moscow and St.
Petersburg. It will be a qualitative step beyond today's 19-plus-one
format, in which NATO formulates its position before engaging with its
Russian partners. The concept now will be to formulate positions on
specific issues and projects through early engagement of the 20
nations meeting together.

This NATO-Russia Council "at 20" will be a fundamental and historic
change in NATO's dealings with Russia -- a move toward a more
substantial partnership and genuine collaboration that might be called
an "alliance with the Alliance." Through concrete joint projects,
joint discussions, and eventually even joint decisions, NATO and
Russia will be able to take responsibility together for dealing with
some of the new challenges to security that threaten peace and
stability in Europe.

For it to work, changes in attitude will be required on both sides,
and not just changes in procedures. In particular, Russia will need to
develop a new "culture of cooperation" -- the spirit of flexibility,
understanding, and compromise that is essential to an organization
that works on the basis of consensus among nations with differing
security perspectives and priorities. This is the way NATO works, and
it is the way that NATO-Russia relations also will need to work.
Unfortunately, this culture of cooperation has not always been a
hallmark of Russia's approach to NATO up till now.

Put simply, Russia still needs to overcome a legacy of mistrust and
competition in its dealings with NATO. For its part, NATO needs to be
more open and more flexible in taking Russia's views into account.
What is crucial is that we get beyond the zero-sum relationship of the
past and develop what we Americans like to call a win-win
relationship.

Let me say a few words on the substantive areas where NATO and Russia
could work more closely together. The current war against
international terrorism provides an obvious area for increased
NATO-Russia cooperation. NATO and Russia must work together with other
nations to counter terrorists who respect no national boundaries or
alliances, and to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
that could give terrorists -- or states that support them -- an even
greater capacity to attack our societies.

As you may know, at the end of January senior representatives of the
NATO Allies and Russia reiterated their determination to intensify
cooperation against terrorism following a meeting of the NATO-Russia
Permanent Joint Council. A broad range of initiatives, in fact, was
begun last fall, including the regular exchange of information and
in-depth consultations on issues related to terrorist threats,
civil-emergency planning, and the role of the military in combating
terrorism. In the future, we hope that NATO and Russia can work on a
common intelligence assessment of terrorist threats, and develop
programs that enable NATO and Russian military forces to operate
together in counter-terrorist operations.

Missile defense is another potentially fruitful area for NATO-Russia
cooperation. All of our nations must face the fact that efforts to
prevent the proliferation of technology for ballistic missiles and
weapons of mass destruction have not been fully successful.
NATO-Russia cooperation on missile defense would be a way to deprive
rogue states of the ability to attack or blackmail us with long-range
missiles equipped with WMD capable of attacking our cities or our
deployed forces. This could include joint early warning, joint
exercises and even joint industrial development of missile defense
systems.

Counter-terrorism and missile defense are just two examples of ways
NATO and Russia can cooperate in support of our common interests. I
hope today's discussion will identify additional possibilities. If our
joint efforts are successful, NATO-Russia cooperation can become one
of the central pillars of the global security system of the 21st
century.

A stronger NATO-Russia partnership would complement NATO's other
efforts over the past decade to extend security and stability across
the entire Euro-Atlantic area through cooperation and integration in
the political and military spheres. The establishment of the North
Atlantic Cooperation Council, the Partnership for Peace and the
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council were important initiatives to this
end, as was NATO's admission of new democracies willing to assume the
full responsibilities of membership. We hope that a new spirit of
cooperation "at 20" will help complete the historic process of
Russia's full integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.

A word on the next steps in NATO enlargement. NATO will make important
decisions at November's Prague Summit to invite additional countries
from Central and Eastern Europe to become full members of the
Alliance. It is worth repeating in this context that over its 53-year
history, NATO has added new members and will continue to do so in the
future. Greece, Turkey, and West Germany joined in the 1950s; Spain in
1982; and Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999. I can say
from my own experience that the addition of each new member has
contributed to an increase of stability across the European continent.

NATO enlargement is an open process that does not represent a military
challenge or threat to Russia. Military integration of the three
former Warsaw Pact states in 1999 has not led to the creation of any
new NATO bases on their territory or the movement of nuclear weapons
closer to Russia's borders. And I believe that the wider working
partnership between Russia and NATO has led to a greater understanding
of NATO's role and responsibilities and to less anxiety about
enlargement.

President Bush has stated unequivocally that NATO membership should be
open to all of Europe's democracies that seek it and are ready to
shoulder the responsibilities that belonging to NATO entails. Three
years ago the Allies launched the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP),
which provides a framework by which nations can prepare themselves to
become members. Aspiring members are working hard to meet political
and economic standards as well as military objectives as part of the
Membership Action Plan. NATO expects potential members not only to
make a credible commitment to the Alliance on a military level, but
also to uphold the democratic values on which the Alliance was created
-- including cooperative relations with their neighbors and respect
for the rights of minorities.

The three Baltic states have been working hard to meet the standards
of the MAP and are all very serious candidates for invitations at
Prague. Although this prospect may be difficult for Russia, the new
reality is that the Baltic states and Russia must now see each other
as partners in building stable democracies, increasing regional trade,
attracting investment, and cleaning up the environment. St. Petersburg
-- and Northwest Russia as a whole -- is still the country's "window
on the West" and should continue to be the positive, mutually
beneficial portal that it was 300 years ago, in partnership with its
Baltic neighbors and other countries of Northwest Europe.

Let me conclude by saying that the NATO Alliance has never deviated
from its fundamental purposes: to live in peace with all peoples and
governments; to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and
civilization of our people; and to promote the stability and well
being of the North Atlantic area.

There is no reason why that philosophy cannot be one that guides
relations between the West and Russia in the 21st Century. That is
also why my country is committed to improving relations not only
between the United States and Russia, but also between NATO and
Russia. It is why we are eager to create a forum through which the
NATO Allies and Russia can begin to demonstrate that they are
like-minded in their principles and like-willed in their desire to
contribute to security and stability.

But it is important to remember that this is a work in progress, which
will evolve step-by-step. Not all of our differences will disappear
overnight. We may not agree in full on next steps in the
anti-terrorist campaign. And we may still have concerns about issues
that seem to depart from the largely positive trends in Russia's march
toward democracy, such as Russia's military tactics in Chechnya or
pressures on the independent news media.

These are difficult issues for any democracy today: how to preserve
our most cherished freedoms as we combat a ruthless terrorism that
respects no human rights. But I am confident that Russia and NATO will
continue to be engaged in an honest and candid dialogue on these
issues and will resolve any disagreements in the spirit of partnership
and our common interest in pursuing peace, freedom and prosperity for
the entire North Atlantic area.

*******

Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: 
http://www.cdi.org/russia
Archive for Johnson's Russia List:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson
With support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and 
the MacArthur Foundation
A project of the Center for Defense Information (CDI)
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Washington DC 20036