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Date Posted: 19:57:13 09/30/01 Sun
Author: ��
Subject: � ��
In reply to: �� 's message, "Putin Steers Russia West - �� , �� ." on 06:38:41 09/29/01 Sat

<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.duel.ru/board.jhtml?action=show&m=0&mode=0&mes=20422">http://www.duel.ru/board.jhtml?action=show&m=0&mode=0&mes=20422</a>

Putin Steers Russia West
Becoming a crucial ally and partner.

By Ariel Cohen, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and author of
Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis.
September 27, 2001 11:20 a.m.

fter two weeks of deliberations in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir
Putin seems to be positioning Russia as the main U.S. ally and partner in
the crucial Central Asia front in the war against terrorism, despite
institutional resistance and anti-American sentiments among the Russian
policy elite.

Moscow insiders say that Putin had to overrule those in the general staff
and security services who urged a more cautious course. Many in Russia's
security establishment have a visceral distrust of the United States, a
vestige of the Soviet era and post-Soviet frustration.

Several retired generals who are currently working for the Ministry of
Defense as consultants told a conference on international security sponsored
by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a conservative German think tank, that
Russia should not bail out the United States from its current predicament
with the Muslim world "when Washington is pushing NATO enlargement and plans
to abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty."

"The planned system, it radar stations, its command-and-control system, and
the large number of its planned interceptors is aimed against Russia," said
Maj-Gen (Ret.) Alexander Klapovsky, Russia's envoy to the Standing Advisory
Commission on Missile Defense.

Colonel-General (Ret.) Fyodor Ladygin, the former head of the Russian
Military Intelligence (GRU) was even more blunt: "NATO has committed
aggression in Kosovo and will be only less than two hundred miles from St.
Petersburg [if Estonia joins]."

These men still wield a lot of clout in the corridors of Russian power,
where their one-time proteges occupy leading positions.

And they often have lucrative consulting arrangements with arms
manufacturers eager to sell to Iran and Iraq. When asked, they often blame
the U.S. for "creating" bin Laden, or come up with quirky conspiracy
theories that U.S. spy agencies arranged for the terrorist attacks. Then,
they change the subject to discuss some technical violations of the
arms-control treaties by the U.S. Air Force, generating the feeling that
they have no real grasp on the reality of the events of September 11.

In fact, having spent most of their lives developing Russia's formidable
nuclear arsenal, their knowledge of Central Asia, or Islam, or terrorism, is
primarily based on the James Bond movies.

Even many ordinary middle-class Russians share anti-American sentiments.

But more important for Putin than the cultural idiosyncrasies is the threat
assessment provided by the Russian spies. The military intelligence came up
with alarming scenarios, which, if come true, would be catastrophic.
"Taliban may crush the Northern Alliance, which is leaderless after the
September 10th murder of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the military leader of the
anti-Taliban Northern Alliance," says a former GRU colonel who now is a
senior researcher with one of Moscow's strategic-studies institutes.

"If a Taliban offensive against the Northern Alliance is successful, and if
the 201 Russian Division is routed, Russia will have to send soldiers into
the vast deserts of Central Asia.

"By putting its troops in Pakistan, the U.S. will be pushing the Taliban
north. U.S. presence may cause an Islamist rebellion in Pakistan, while the
pro-Taliban Pushtuns may overthrow President Musharaf of Pakistan and gain
up to 75 nuclear weapons with intermediate range ballistic missiles capable
of striking at New Delhi and Tashkent."

"The U.S. may be forced to use tactical nukes to take out Islamic atomic
weapons which may fall into Bin Laden's hands, while Russia may use weapons
of last resort to stop Taliban in Central Asia," colonel warns.

Another faction supporting a go-slow approach includes pro-Arab and,
especially, pro-Iraqi circles here. The Duma members like Vladimir
Zhirinovsky and Alexei Mitrofanov of the extremist anti-Western "Liberal
Democratic" party, often travel to Baghdad and are broadly rumored in the
Russian media to be on Saddam Hussein's take. They called on the Duma floor
to confront the U.S.

Mitrofanov made a laughing stock of himself when he suggested that Russia
uses its nuclear shield to protect Muslim countries which may come under the
U.S. attack.

Finally, there are extremist Russian Muslims, such as Heydar Jemal, the
chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia. He advocates "civilizational
separation of Russia's Muslims" and introduction of Shari'a (Islamic law).
Jemal is quoted as saying that secular laws of Russia are "from the devil."

Minister of Defense Sergey Ivanov has articluated the go-slow approach when
in a speech at the CIS Defense Ministerial in Yerevan he ruled out
introduction of American troops to the territory of the members of the
Mutual Security Treaty of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a
regional bloc led by Russia.

However, in less than two weeks, the hesitant defense minister was overruled
by Putin, who placed Ivanov in charge to implement Russia's war efforts.

Russia "delivered" the support of Central Asian leaders, who are taking
clues from Moscow. Based on conversations with Kremlin foreign-policy
consultants here, he did it for three reasons.

First, Putin saw an unprecedented opportunity to have a breakthrough on
Chechnya and to win the propaganda war in the West.

Putin believes that Europe and the U.S. will change the tone on Chechnya and
will not hound Russia for human-rights violations there.

As a masterful public-relations move, he announced a 72-hour window for the
Chechen fighters to start negotiations with Putin's special envoy in the
South, Gen. (Ret.) Victor Kazantsev, on "putting down the arms and
integration in peaceful life" - not exactly an unconditional surrender that
the Russian generals wanted - but a kind of move the West will be
comfortable with.

Secondly, the Kremlin believes that radical Islamists forces, and especially
Taliban and the Bin Laden organization, constitute a clear and present
danger to Russia's neighbors in Central Asia and Russia itself.

The Kremlin viewed with apprehension the growing threat to the secular
regime of Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov by the Islamic Front of
Uzbekistan (IMU) led by Juma Namangani, a wanted terrorist who, according to
the Russian news agency RIAN-Novosti, was appointed deputy to Bin Laden,
thus indicated a possibility of a major attack against Russia's allies.

And in another move aimed at winning public opinion, Putin initiated an
international Islamic conference against terrorism, to be run by Russian
moderate Muslim leadership such as the Chief Mufti of Russia Gainutdin.

Finally, after deciding that the U.S and its allies is going to win the war,
Putin may be angling for a strategic breakthrough in Russia's relationship
with the West.

On Tuesday, he went to Germany, met with Chancellor Schroeder, who promised
him to a "soft touch" on Chechnya, and possibly much more. Putin delivered
an impressive speech - in German - before the Bundestag. According to
Russia's TV6 channel, owned by Putin's opponent Boris Berezovsky, the
Russian president gained a lot of kudos from the audience.

Now Putin may ask for something more substantial, like debt forgiveness and
rescheduling of the mammoth $100 billion Soviet-era debt.

According to Vyacheslav Nikonov, a leading Moscow political commentator (and
the grandson of Stalin's prime minister Vyacheslav Molotov), Russia should
use the unprecedented flux in international relations to speed up
integration with the West and put the Cold War confrontational rhetoric
firmly in the past.

Nikonov and some younger analysts dismiss the old generals, such as those
quoted above, as unreconstructed Cold Warriors. He says that Russia should
ask for more quid-pro-quo for its impressive cooperation against Afghanistan
and bin Laden: cancellation or postponement of NATO enlargement to the
Baltics and concessions on the ABM Treaty. And it may even work as an
opening negotiating position.

During the opening stages of this conflict, Putin has managed to translate
his high popular approval ratings to some impressive crisis management and
exhibited leadership Boris Yeltsin never showed in foreign affairs.

In the end, Putin's strategy may be defeated if global economic trends are
working against him. But if the oil prices, the main source of his country's
revenue, hold above $20 a barrel, if Russia evades a recession, and does not
shed its soldiers' blood in Afghanistan, Putin may emerge as the strategic
thinker who used the opportunity to bring his country closer to the West.

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