#6529
#14
Krasnaya Zvezda
No. 195
EUROPE'S IMMINENT REDIVISION (A military-political
review)
By Alexei LYASHCHENKO
A big international seminar "Regional Security and NATO expansion - Consequences for the Baltic States, Scandinavia and the Western Border Zone of Russia" was held in city of Pskov on October 17 to 18. Taking part in it were Federation Council members and representatives of the president's administration, the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, delegates from NATO and a number of countries, and leading experts of Russian and foreign research centers and public, political and non-government organizations. The main conclusions made after that forum are as follows: first, the NAT0 expansion by admitting the Baltic States to it and final advance of the alliance to the western and north-western borders of Russia will inevitably have certain consequences; and second, no one can predict how disastrous they will be for the European security system.
Military Threats Will Grow
Moscow regards NATO primarily as a military alliance differing from any other military organization in the world. NATO has nuclear and other mass destruction weapons and means of its delivery. It also has over 23,000 tanks (not counting other armored vehicles), over 10,000 combat aircraft and about 650 warships (including aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered and conventional submarines). Perhaps any other state that is not a NATO member and cares for its own security views the alliance from similar positions. All the more so since, according to the NATO doctrine, practically the whole world is a sphere of its activity and "vital interests," while the opinion of the United Nations and international law, as practice shows, are no longer regarded as significant factors of containment, which concerns NATO as well.
Special concern of Russia in connection with the upcoming entry of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia into NATO, in military and military-political terms, is caused by three main factors, as Russian representatives stressed at the conference.
First, it is a possibility to deploy at Russia's borders nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and establish military bases there. NATO and the Baltic States often say that they "have no such plans." Possibly NATO has no such plans today, but they may appear in future. Neither the NATO command, nor the U.S. Administration, nor the Baltic States can guarantee to Russia that this will not happen. And to believe what is said in big politics, especially in regard to the Baltic States, as practice has shown (take, for instance, the position of the Russian-speaking non-citizens in Latvia and Estonia, whose recent leaders promised to grant citizenship to all Russians living on their territory) can do only harm.
Second, the development of the existing infrastructure. It is clear to servicemen, whose mission is to defend a country and who in the event of hostilities take upon themselves the first blow, that the development of and maintaining in permanent readiness the military infrastructure - airfields, ports, warehouses for all kinds of property and so on - is even more dangerous sometimes than a direct build-up of armed strength.
Because a NATO country, say, the U.S., can easily bring the required number of combat planes or airlift marines to a prepared base, thereby securing its military presence within a brief span of time. In any case, preparations for this in the Baltic States are in full swing.
Many of the former Soviet military facilities have been restored there and amendments have been made in legislation allowing foreign military installations and foreign servicemen to be permanently present in these countries. The Baltic States even include provisions allowing them to use weapons, also for fire to kill.
Moscow sees what is being done to that end in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and has repeatedly proposed that NATO should draw up and sign a document limiting the possibility of such actions. The official NATO command has not accepted that proposal to this day.
And, finally, the third problem, which is a source of Russia's justified concern. A large number of important military-political treaties and agreements do not extend their action to the Baltic countries. One of such documents is the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which limits the quantity and quality of arms. In the opinion of experts, this allows deploying any number of weapons, especially heavy ones, on the territory of the Baltic republics. The leaders of the three countries were informed about Russia's concern, but there has been no response.
No signals have come so far from the military and foreign policy agencies, the more so from the Baltic states' leaders, on at least their readiness to join this document.
It is for the Russian leadership to decide what actions Russia is to take to counter these and other potential threats, Russia's representatives at the conference stressed, but it is clear that such actions will be serious enough and please neither the Baltic States nor NATO.
From Crisis to Crisis
It is an open secret that NATO today is in crisis. With the breakup of the USSR and the Warsaw Treaty organisation the main potential enemy of the alliance vanished as well. Today international terrorism has been named as its main enemy, but it is not clear how the military might of NATO can be used in responding to a real challenge to mankind. Meanwhile, the U.S., which is the boss in NATO, is far ahead of its allies put together in military and technological terms, which often allows Washington to dictate its own terms to them and take decisions not so much in the interests of NATO than in its own interests.
Nonetheless, the Baltic states are stubbornly forcing the open door of NATO. All these years these countries have been concentrated on motivating their admission to the alliance. Hundreds of public opinion polls have been conducted in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the matter became a subject of thousands of discussions in the media, and numerous reasons have been named - from economic ones, such as, for instance, a growth of investments ("life in a provincial town begins when a cavalry regiment marches in") to political reasons - Russia, being not a NATO member cannot influence its decisions (that is, complete and final independence from Russia. Socio-political reasons were also brought up - an elite club of democratic states (though it is not clear how democracy can be developed through a military-political alliance). Of course, practically nothing was said about differences within the NATO, not only in regard to the policy of the alliance as a whole, but also differences among the member states themselves. Suffice it to recall that Greece and Turkey officially have no peace treaty between themselves and in fact are in a state of war. Serious bilateral difficulties on everyday, cultural and historical levels exist between Germany and Poland, there are problems associated with separatism and, consequently, terrorism (struggle against which is so much spoken of in regard to other countries) that confront nearly all NATO states - Canada, France, Italy, Spain and Turkey.
One can definitely say that the main consequence for the Baltic countries' entry into NATO will be a complete loss of independence, which they value so much (NATO commitments almost never suggest a freedom of choice and freedom of action). And security that they will acquire, including security against "aggression from the East," which many Baltic politicians and officials like to talk about, is ephemeral. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia should perhaps take into account a prospect of still more complicated bilateral relations with Russia.
And one more thing. Northern Europe, which during the past decade has been a generally recognized model of potentially remarkable and mutually beneficial relations between neighbor countries, upon Baltic states joining NATO may become another seat of tensions and, all the more so, a region of growing military threats. Observers already have noted a considerable increase of NATO military activities in Northern Europe, something that did not happen even in the cold war years.
It was pointed out repeatedly at the conference that a neutral status of the Baltic countries, which together with Finland and Sweden would form a kind of a buffer military- political zone, would be an optimal solution. Russia and NATO would give these countries military and political guarantees and assume a number of additional obligations limiting military activity. In such a case the world would receive perhaps the most secure, and therefore the most economically prosperous, region.
At the same time Russia would regard the OSCE, which includes practically all European countries, including the Baltic ones, as an organization responsible for maintaining security. Moscow proposed this to the Baltic countries long ago and discussed it with the NATO leadership, but the answer was negative.
If Not Enemies, then What?
At the Rome NATO summit in May Russia and NATO declared for the whole world to hear that they were no longer enemies. It marked the start of a new stage in the "special" relationship between Russia and NATO in the "twenty" format. So far, it has been developing more or less successfully, in the opinion of experts. An agreement on reciprocal actions in salvage on the seas is being prepared for signing in this format, and Russia and NATO cooperate and exchange information in the joint struggle against terrorism. But an alarming fact is that a considerable part of Moscow's initiatives directed at promoting cooperation (for instance in a limited ABM system, which has already been nicknamed EuroABM, designed for protection even against a potential threat of a missile strike at Europe, no matter where it may come from), often "find understanding" in Brussels but are not effected in principle.
The problems discussed by Russia and NATO in the "twenty" format are still a separate question. It is known that part of the problems, such as military strategic planning, deployment of nuclear weapons, building of military bases, and increasing the strength of the military groups that are already stationed on the territory, for instance, of the new NATO member states, are not to be discussed in the "twenty" format. Evidently they will not be considered together with Russia at all. At any rate, NATO spokesmen replying to such questions still say: it is the internal affair of the alliance. However, it is safe to say that not only admission of Russia to strategic military planning which shows what threats and challenges the NATO armed forces are being prepared for, but also such joint planning, would greatly diminish Moscow's apprehensions in regard to NATO plans and actions. Which concerns the Baltic States as well.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of European states and also the U.S., as it was noted at the conference, still see in Russia, knowingly or unconsciously, as a continuation of the USSR primarily with all its minuses like "Moscow's imperial ambitions." And they don't want to take into account the changes that have occurred in Russia, not even the declaration that Russia no longer regards any country as its enemy and is prepared to develop equal and mutually beneficial relations with all.
Understandably, the development of the European security system, in which a considerable role is to be played precisely by cooperation between Russia and NATO, their adaptation to each other, will last for years. But parallel with this, in the opinion of Moscow, Russian defense industrial facilities could be used in the military-technical programs to ensure European security, which are carried out today by both the NATO countries and the European Union, and separately by the U.S. But the NATO command does not wish to promote cooperation with the Russian military-industrial complex, but, without this component Russia can hardly call this cooperation practical and mutually beneficial, and it, just as mutual trust, will largely remain only on paper.
Also the fact that countries having territorial claims to Russia are going to join NATO is a source of Russia's definite concern. Claims to the Kaliningrad Region have repeatedly been heard at various levels in Lithuania; Latvia claims to possess the Pytalovsky district of the Pskov Region, and Estonia claims to own the town of Izborsk, the Pskov-Pechora Monastery, and also he town of Ivangorod in the Leningrad Region, the picture of which is even printed on one of Estonian banknotes. Nonetheless, the North Atlantic alliance, contrary to its own rules not to admit new members that have unresolved problems, including territorial ones, is ready to make an exception for the Baltic States. This only shows the true price of NATO statements and compels Moscow not only adequately to respond to the actions that have already been made but also to preclude new ones.
In general, Russia sees absolutely no benefits for itself in NATO expansion by way of adding the Baltic republics. "An increase of the general level of security" and "new preconditions for further cooperation," about which NATO speaks in earnest - this was again repeated at the conference - contain nothing concrete. On the contrary, for Russia, and especially for its border Pskov Region, the entry of Latvia and Estonia into the alliance and simultaneously into the European Union may only cause more problems. What is meant here is not only a military strategic balance, but also difficulties that will inevitably emerge as an aftermath of such processes - toughening border and customs control, a rising cost of imports and, finally, limitation of many rights and liberties, as in the case with Kaliningrad, and simply political pressure.
Symbolic Repetition
Only a year ago conducting such a seminar would, perhaps, be impossible. Relations between Russia and NATO after the bombing of former Yugoslavia were clearly not improving, and cooperation between Moscow and Brussels was called in question. It looks like the barbaric terrorist acts in the U.S. on September 11 last year turned Russia and the West towards each other. A significant point to note here is that both Russia and NATO discovered more common than different elements between them. It is not less significant that even a month before the NATO summit in Prague, at which the Baltic countries are expected to receive an official invitation to negotiate membership, the consequences of their entry into NATO as a decided matter and Russia's possible response actions are being discussed. And last but not least, the very place chosen for the seminar on NATO expansion to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, that is, to a former Soviet territory, which is a most sensitive issue for Russia today, is very symbolic. The Pskov land had long been Russia's border area, long before the Baltic territories were added to the Russian Empire; and Pskov was the first Russian fortress and a military base in the north-western strategic direction. History repeats itself. Will it not lead to more instances of symbolic repetition.
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