In
The Trenches Of The New Cold War
By M K Bhadrakumar
28 April, 2007
Asia
Times Online
Curiously,
it had to be on the fateful day when Russia had begun brooding over
former president Boris Yeltsin's final, ambivalent legacy that US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates arrived on his first official visit to Moscow.
Hardly had Yeltsin, archetypal
symbol of post-Soviet Russia's "Westernism", departed than
Gates, one of spymaster John le Carre's "Smiley's people",
arrived on a mission to let the Kremlin
know that no matter Russian sensitivities, Washington was going ahead
with its deployment of missile-defense systems along Russia's borders.
Gates reminded the Russians how little had changed since the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Yet how different Russia
is in comparison with the Soviet Union that Gates spied on. Yeltsin
was being buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery, the final resting
place of Russia's heroes, beside the grave of Raisa Gorbacheva, the
wife of Yeltsin's bitterest political adversary Mikhail Gorbachev -
something inconceivable in the annals of Soviet history.
Gates' mission was clear-cut.
The Russians must realize that in the past two decades since Gorbachev
wound up the Warsaw Pact and Yeltsin unilaterally disbanded the Soviet
Union, Russia never was, never could have been, and just wouldn't be
accommodated in the common Western home - certainly not until the home
was thoroughly refurbished with American decor, for habitation by post-modern
Europeans.
The missile-defense controversy
has gone beyond a mere Russian-US spat. It is assuming three distinct
templates. First, profound issues of arms control have arisen, and along
with that the role of nuclear weapons in security policies gets pronounced.
Most certainly, the controversy relates to the United States' trans-Atlantic
leadership in the post-Cold War era. And, finally, quintessentially,
it is all about the United States' global dominance, of which the unfolding
Great Game in the Eurasian theaters forms the salience.
The ABC of missile
defense
The missile-defense controversy
assumed a habitation and a name on April 18, when the US State Department
released in Washington a "Fact Sheet" detailing the technical
parameters of the deployments that the US is contemplating in Poland
and the Czech Republic. It said that the US is planning to field 10
long-range ground-based missile interceptors in Poland and a mid-course
radar in the Czech Republic to counter the growing threat of missile
attacks from the Middle East.
The Fact Sheet revealed that
the approximate size of each interceptor missile site (in Poland) and
radar site (in the Czech Republic) will be 275 hectares and 30 hectares
respectively, and that US military and civilian personnel numbering
200 and 150 would be deployed in each of the interceptor sites and radar
sites.
It said the interceptor missiles will be stored in underground silos
in Poland and each base will have facilities for electronic equipment
for secure communication, missile assembly, storage, maintenance and
security. "They [missiles] carry no warheads of any type, relying
instead on their kinetic energy alone to collide with and destroy incoming
warheads. Silos constructed for deployment of defensive interceptors
are substantially smaller than those used for offensive purposes. Any
conversion would require extensive modifications, thus precluding the
possibility of converting the interceptor silos for use by offensive
missiles," it said.
The Fact Sheet explained
that intercepts occur at very high altitudes (above the atmosphere)
with the vast majority of the threat warhead and the interceptor reduced
to small pieces that burn on re-entry. "A few small pieces may
survive, but pose little threat to people and property. The odds of
damage or injury from an intercept are very small. European interceptors
would not be used for flight tests, and would only launch during an
actual attack on the United States or Europe," it said.
The US statement insisted
that the missile-defense system has been proved effective through repeated
testing and that 15 of the last 16 flight tests were successful.
The Fact Sheet attempted
to substantiate the main US arguments in the missile defense controversy,
which are: (a) the European missile shield is meant to counter possible
attacks from Iran or North Korea; (b) the US is puzzled by Russia's
anxiety, since the rockets to be deployed in Central Europe are no match
for Russia's arsenal; (c) Russia itself should be worried about the
missile threat from "rogue states"; (d) the US is prepared
to cooperate with Russia on missile defense; (e) the US is open to the
idea of merging the missile shield with the Russian system; (f) Washington
would like Moscow to take part in research and development, though it
is unlikely the Russians will consider such cooperation; and (g) the
US has endeavored to be "transparent" and is prepared to hold
consultations with Russia to explain its case for the deployments in
Central Europe.
Prima facie, the US stance
sounds eminently reasonable and conciliatory. But the Russians point
out that ever since December 13, 2001, when President George W Bush
announced that the US was unilaterally pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty, Washington has followed a consistent pattern of
deploying along Russian borders radars capable of spotting missile launches
and sending targeting data to interceptors. (The first such radar, code-named
Have Stare, was stationed in Norway.)
Russia says these deployments
by far predated Bush's "axis of evil" thesis or the threat
perceptions of "rogue states" such as Iran. Russian experts
explain that neither Iran nor North Korea could possibly have the scientific
or technical capability within the next 20-30 years to develop intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the US. Thus Moscow concludes
that the real purpose of the US deployment is to cover the European
part of Russia as far as the Urals.
Russia reacts
First Deputy Prime Minister
Sergei Ivanov told The Financial Times in an interview last week, "Since
there aren't, and won't be, any ICBMs [with North Korea and Iran], then
against whom, against whom, is this system directed? Only against us."
And on Thursday, Russia announced
that it is considering withdrawing from the Soviet-era Conventional
Forces in Europe treaty, under which NATO and the Warsaw Pact agreed
to reduce their conventional armed forces at the end of the Cold War.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had failed to implement
the treaty, President Vladimir Putin said, and unless it did so, Russia
would dump it unilaterally. Putin described the US defense plan as a
"direct threat".
Moscow doubts the sincerity
of US pledges to be cooperative with Russia. Ivanov said, "I see
no reasons for that," referring to the logic of Russian-US cooperation
in missile defense. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov derisively said at
a press conference on Tuesday in Luxembourg, "We are against any
proposal that turns Europe into a playground for someone. We do not
want to play these games."
Clearly, the Russians are
also not taken in by the US plea that the proposed deployments in Central
Europe are modest. As prominent Russian commentator Viktor Litovkin
(editor of the Russian publication Independent Military Review) put
it, "It would be naive to think that Washington will limit its
appetites to Poland and the Czech Republic, or to the modest potential
that it is now talking about."
He continued, "Nobody
can guarantee that there will not 20, then 100, or even more of them
[interceptor missiles] or that they will not be replaced with their
upgraded versions that are being developed in the US." Besides,
Russian experts have assessed that the US may expand this system in
future to include sea-based elements and space-based monitoring equipment.
In the words of the chief
of the Russian Air Force Staff, General Boris Cheltsov, the proposed
US deployments have "the potential to destroy Russian strategic
nuclear forces at the most vulnerable stage: the initial, ascending
leg of the trajectory".
The "asymmetrical"
countermeasures being debated by Russian experts in recent weeks include
shortening the boost phase of Russian missiles by converting liquid-fueled
missiles to solid-propellant ones; enhancing the maneuvering capacity
of the missiles both in the vertical and horizontal planes; using depressed
trajectories that practically never rise above the dense layers of the
atmosphere; and so on.
Gates, who met with Putin
on Tuesday, invited Moscow to cooperate on a host of issues related
to the missile-defense system. In his public comments, Gates gave a
positive spin to his discussions at the Kremlin. He said he was ending
his visit on a "very positive tone ... We made some real headway
in clearing up some misunderstanding about the technical characteristics
of the system that are of concern to the Russians."
But Russia's top brass reacted
swiftly to Gates' upbeat tone, maintaining that the proposed US deployments
in Central Europe are aimed at Russia and that there is hardly any scope
for cooperation. The chief of the Russian General Staff, General Yury
Baluyevsky, said: "The real goal [of the US deployment] is to protect
[the US] from Russian and Chinese nuclear-missile potential and to create
exclusive conditions for the invulnerability of the United States."
He warned that Moscow will
monitor the US deployments closely, and "if we see that these installations
pose a threat to Russia's national security, they will be targeted by
our forces. What measures we are going to use - strategic, nuclear or
other - is a technical issue."
All the same, the Russian
reaction has been restrained. The Kremlin seems to have a pragmatic
diplomatic strategy in mind. As Putin has said, the Russian reaction
may be "asymmetrical" but highly effective. Evidently, Putin
is averse to getting on to a collision course with Washington. His priorities
at the moment are that he remain focused on the development of Russia's
economy and on the acute social problems affecting Russia's progress.
In the final year of his presidency, Putin is conscious of his political
legacy.
Russian politics are increasingly
revolving around the change of leadership at the Kremlin next March.
Meanwhile, the US presidential campaign has begun. As Moscow would see
it, traditionally, a "hardline" policy toward Russia wins
more support for the US Republican Party.
Objectively speaking, Russian-US
relations have no reason to deteriorate the way they were during the
Cold War. The two countries are not hostile toward each other. On the
contrary, they need to cooperate on a variety of issues of common concern,
such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation, including the Iran and
North Korea nuclear issues. Their economic ties are also increasing.
All the same, significant
rifts exist in Russian-US relations and the missile-defense controversy
has "plunged relations with Russia to their lowest since the end
of the Cold War", to quote British newspaper The Guardian. Behind
the facade of the conciliatory noises during Gates' visit to Moscow,
unnamed US officials accompanying the defense secretary are quoted as
saying, "We're going to continue to make this effort with Russia,
but we're also very clear, whether Russia cooperates with us or not
is really up to Russia." The feeling in Moscow is that the US has
reneged on an agreement after the collapse of the Soviet Union to abandon
Cold War politics.
US rallies European
support
Moscow feels disheartened
to note that US diplomacy has largely succeeded in getting NATO on board.
After a special meeting in Brussels on April 19 at NATO headquarters
with high-level representatives from Washington, which was followed
by a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, it was announced that NATO
has a united missile-defense approach; that the territory of all member
countries must be protected from missile threats; that the threat of
missile attacks is real; and that the US deployments in Central Europe
"would not affect the strategic balance with Russia".
Of course, beneath the veneer
of unity, it appears there are differences. German Deputy Foreign Minister
Gernot Erler told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper on Wednesday that at
least six NATO allies, including Germany, had raised doubts about the
project at the NATO meeting on April 19.
But the discussion among
NATO allies is no longer between the "new" and the "old"
Europeans, as Russian commentators would have us believe. The German
daily Handelsblatt pointed out that the issue now is whether the planned
US system can protect all of Europe or not. It added, "So far it
can't ... But if the US can offer a working missile shield for a viable
price that would also include southern Europe, the resistance in most
European countries will fall away."
Indeed, there is a considerable
body of skeptics who feel, like Philip Coyle, a weapons testing and
evaluation specialist who served in the administration of US president
Bill Clinton, the US missile-defense system is "like trying to
hit a hole in one in golf ... [when] the hole is going 15,000 miles
an hour [24,000 km/h] ... as if the hole and the green were both going
15,000 mph, the green covered with black circles, and you do not know
what to aim for". Yet, Coyle admits, "If Russia were installing
missile-defense systems in Canada or Cuba, we [Washington] would react
much the same way. We are surrounding them and getting closer to their
territorial boundaries."
On the other hand, Washington
is counting on the shift to the right in the locus of European politics.
It is much to Moscow's disadvantage that Nicolas Sarkozy is on course
to succeed
Jacques Chirac as French president. That leaves Romano Prodi in Rome
as the lone ranger from Moscow's side. Moscow would have assessed that
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is already playing for time. She refuses
to be pinned down on the missile-defense controversy. In essence, Merkel
believes in the benefits of closer trans-Atlantic cooperation.
Der Spiegel reported last
week in an exclusive report that Merkel, Bush and European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso have agreed to set up a wide-ranging economic
partnership between the European Union and the United States that "would
have the aim of dismantling the non-tariff barriers to trade".
The German daily revealed that a confidential draft has already been
drawn up for a treaty establishing a "new trans-Atlantic economic
partnership" that will be signed at the EU-US summit in Washington
next week.
The rationale behind the
initiative, which originated from Washington, is that Western governments
must act quickly to combat the rise of China ("dark superpower")
and Asia. To quote Der Spiegel, "The role NATO played in an age
of military threat could be played by a trans-Atlantic free-trade zone
in today's age of economic confrontation. The two economic zones - EU
and the US (perhaps with the addition of Canada) - could stem the dwindling
of Western market power by joining forces. Together the Europeans and
the Americans are still a force to be reckoned with. Representing about
13% of the world's population and 60% of today's global economic power,
they stand ready to act as producers and consumers not only of goods,
but also of values." Interestingly, Merkel used her keynote speech
at the World Economic Forum in January to push for closer trans-Atlantic
economic links.
Clearly, Washington has reason
to be confident that the residual opposition in Europe to US missile-defense
deployments, too, may prove to be nebulous. Meanwhile, Russia's relations
with the EU as such have entered a difficult phase. In a recent speech,
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, a highly respected voice of moderation
in Europe, bemoaned that mistrust and a lack of respect in relations
between the EU and Russia are at their worst since the Cold War. "Unless
we comprehend our different perceptions of the landscape left behind
by the last century, we risk getting the EU-Russia relationship badly
wrong," he said.
The EU's blueprint of its
new Central Asia strategy, to be adopted at the EU summit in June, will
likely be viewed in Moscow as an unwelcome encroachment, especially
given its thrust on developing energy cooperation with the region by
bypassing Russian transportation routes.
In immediate terms, a virtual
EU-Russia standoff is building up over Kazakhstan's participation in
a US$6 billion gas-pipeline project that is an extension of the South
Caucasus pipeline, linking Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and which
is expected to run from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and
Hungary. The 3,400-kilometer pipeline across the Caspian bypassing Russia,
which is to be built from early next year so as to go on stream in 2011,
will have a capacity of 30 billion cubic meters and promises to be a
rival to Russian Gazprom's Blue Stream-2 (scheduled to be commissioned
in 2012).
Moscow is well aware that
Washington is the driving spirit behind the EU's energy policy toward
Central Asia. Washington calculates that Moscow will be inexorably drawn
into a standoff with the EU over the latter's increasingly proactive
policies in Eurasia.
Without doubt, there are
contradictory tendencies in trans-Atlantic relations. Of course, there
is a degree of queasiness in Europe about US power and influence on
the continent in the post-Cold War era. Much of Europe doesn't think
that the US missile-defense system works, let alone that an apocalyptic
Iranian threat exists. Even in Poland and the Czech Republic there is
widespread public opposition to the US deployments. The major European
capitals resent that Washington is negotiating bilaterally with Warsaw
and Prague, as if a coherent European security and defense policy independent
of NATO is never achievable for Europe.
The European sensibility
watches with dismay that not only has the EU dream of a big, peaceful
post-modern federation receded but the specter of new Cold War-like
divisions has begun haunting Europe. Many in Europe would agree with
Gorbachev when he said last week that the missile-defense controversy
"is all about influence and domination".
To be sure, trans-Atlantic
relations are undergoing a major transformation. Despite all the talk
of kindred values and similar social systems, the US is no longer supportive
of the European project of integration. True, the Americans were at
one time the promoters of the European project. But now they have developed
distaste for the idea of European integration. And the Europeans remain
uneasy about US "unilateralism".
On the other hand, Europe
also faces an identity crisis. The Berlin Declaration, which was adopted
last month on the 50th anniversary of the European Economic Community,
completely overlooked the objective of the pan-European project. Translated
into EU-Russia relations, all this means is that neither side seems
to know what it wants from the other side. As things stand, it is highly
unlikely that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1999 between
the EU and Russia, which expires at the end of this year, will be extended
or replaced by a new treaty.
Arms race in the
making?
After Gates' mission to Moscow,
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Sergei Kislyak warned that the controversy
has the potential to create obstacles to the development of bilateral
relations for a long time. "It will be a strategic irritant for
years to come," he said. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov went
a step further: "The Russian position on this issue remains unchanged.
The strategic missile defense system is a serious destabilizing factor
that could have significant impact on regional and global security"
(emphasis added).
Serdyukov's reference to
"global security" gives an altogether different dimension
to the missile-defense controversy. Russian experts feel that the deployment
of the missile-defense system is the first step in a carefully thought-out
US strategy toward overcoming the mutual strategic deterrence that formed
the basis of Russian-US strategic stability in the Cold War era.
They estimate that Washington's
unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty formed part of a series
of unilateral actions in simultaneously building up the United States'
offensive forces (not only nuclear but also non-nuclear precision attack
systems) and active defense assets, including missile-defense systems.
In short, they apprehend that the US is aiming at replacing the "balance
of terror" with total military superiority.
Besides, Russian experts
estimate that the Bush administration has created a selective arms-control
situation. Writing in the Russian military journal Nezavisimoye Voyennoye
Obozreniye, the influential director of the USA and Canada Institute
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Sergei Rogov, made out
last month in a lengthy article that the Bush administration has been
selectively abrogating arms-control treaties that it considers as interfering
with the United States' "military organizational development".
"But if agreements limit
Moscow to a greater extent than Washington, then they continue to be
in force, ie, strategic stability based on 'mutual nuclear deterrence'
is being impaired gradually, step by step," Rogov wrote. That is
to say, the Bush administration has been "building up US military
superiority and weakening Russia's nuclear deterrence potential".
However, Rogov pointed out,
"The deployment of space-based weapons cannot begin earlier than
the second half of the next decade. On the whole, the echeloned, multi-tiered
strategic missile defense system, including relatively effective ground-based,
sea-based, air-based and space-based intercept assets, will take on
real outlines in the 2020s, but the process of its formation most likely
will drag on right up until the middle of this century. We will repeat
that all this will require a solution to a large number of very difficult
technical problems as well as a manifold increase in funding."
Rogov noted that Moscow already
has its own missile-defense system with 100 interceptor missiles, and
its S-300 and S-400 air-defense assets also have specific capabilities
for intercepting missiles. In other words, Moscow can draw comfort that
the situation of "mutual assured destruction" will prevail
for at least the next 10-15 years in Russian-US relations. Rogov argues
that in the interim, instead of knee-jerk reactions or resorting to
"a ruinous arms race", Russia must coolly ensure through mutually
reinforcing politico-diplomatic and military-technical steps that the
overall strategic balance with the US based on "mutual nuclear
deterrence" is preserved.
From this perspective, Rogov
proposed several measures in the nature of Russia accelerating its program
for outfitting its Strategic Nuclear Forces with weapons systems capable
of penetrating the US missile-defense system. He suggested that the
road-mobile Topol-M ICBM must be fitted with MIRVs (maneuverable re-entry
vehicles). Again, Russia must concentrate on precision air-launched
cruise missiles (ALCMs) capable of destroying missile-defense facilities.
Russia's present fleet of Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers and Tu-22M3
medium bombers are potentially capable of carrying about 1,500 ALCMs.
Rogov argued that measures such as these will be cost-effective insofar
as mass production of ICBMs and ALCMs will cost less than US$1 billion
per year - a tiny fraction of the US expenditure in developing the missile-defense
system.
Rogov also called for an
"auditing" of the arms-control agreements that Russia inherited
from the Soviet era so that a cool assessment is made as to how Russia's
interests will be served by the preservation of these agreements in
their present form. He wrote, "Who needs such selective arms control?
We will support 'mutual nuclear deterrence', playing a game without
rules like the Americans, as at the height of the Cold War before 1972."
Talking to the Russian media
on Thursday after Gates' talks in Moscow, Rogov said Russia and the
US "are still hostages of mutual nuclear intimidation ... We are
on the brink of a new 'cold war' if one looks closely at our present-day
relations." He warned that unless the negative tendencies in Russian-US
relations are arrested soon, "I do not rule out that at the 2008
presidential elections in the US, both Republicans and Democrats may
bring forward a thesis on the need for a Russia-containment policy."
The new cold war
Moscow has repeatedly warned
in the recent period that enough is enough and that it is not prepared
to be pushed around anymore. There is deep resentment over NATO's continued
expansion in contravention of promises held out to Moscow that this
wouldn't happen. But ignoring Russian sensitivities on this score, Bush
signed a new law on April 10 (the NATO Freedom Consolidation Act of
2007) urging admission of Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine
into the alliance and authorizing new funding for military training
and equipment for them.
Washington is also aggressively
pursuing a policy of rollback of Russian influence in the former Soviet
republics. On the same day that the new law on NATO expansion was signed,
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the media that Washington
has "tried to make very clear to Russia ... that the days when
these [Commonwealth of Independent States] states were part of the Soviet
Union are gone, they're not coming back." Already by the end of
2007, Georgia is poised to start its NATO-membership program. Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili has said, "We expect to receive the
status of an official NATO candidate in the next few months."
Again, Washington's line
on the status of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo has hardened.
Senior US officials have threatened that no matter Russian opposition,
and regardless of whether the United Nations Security Council agrees
or not, Washington proposes to go ahead and recognize Kosovo's independence.
There is also a distinctly familiar pattern in the sustained political
turmoil in Kyrgyzstan bankrolled from Washington. The instability in
Kyrgyzstan has added significance for Russia insofar as Bishkek is expected
to host the next summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Moscow maintains an air of
passivity but is deeply concerned. In a thinly veiled reference to the
US backing for the so-called "color revolutions", the secretary
general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, General Nikolai
Bordyuzha, said in a speech in Almaty on April 19, "Today, it is
not only Afghanistan that the entire post-Soviet space is concerned
about. There is a problem of the export of revolutions - the problem
of attempts to intentionally bring about their elements. And we can
see it. Today, there are recognizable people, exporters of revolution,
the so-called contemporary revolutionaries - new Che Guevaras - in the
post-Soviet space."
The change of leadership
in Turkmenistan has opened a window of opportunity for the US to make
overtures to Ashgabat. Significantly, the new Turkmen leader, Gurbanguly
Berdymukhammedov, chose Saudi Arabia for his first visit abroad. The
EU has already offered to the new Turkmen leadership 1.7 million euros
($2.3 million) for undertaking a feasibility study on a trans-Caspian
gas-pipeline project that would obviate the need for Turkmen gas to
be exported via Russia.
The US is using the EU to
curry favor with Uzbekistan and somehow let bygones be bygones. The
EU is showing signs of getting down from its high horse and unilaterally
dismantling its sanctions regime that it imposed on Uzbekistan after
the Andizhan incidents in May 2005. Again, the US is relentlessly working
at loosening Russia's grip in the South Caucasus - Georgia, Azerbaijan
and Armenia.
But the ferocity with which
the US has reacted to the revival of Russian influence in Ukraine has
no precedent. The Ukraine developments show that Washington is determined
at any cost to surround Russia with a ring of countries that are hostile
to it. Washington has assessed that if only by subverting the constitutional
processes and by discrediting the fledgling political institutions (which
are actually a legacy of the "Orange Revolution"), the US
can bring about "regime change" in Kiev, so be it.
The present turmoil began
soon after Yulia Timoshenko, the darling of the "Orange Revolution",
visited Washington two months ago and was received by senior US officials,
including Rice. The stakes are indeed high in Ukraine. Unless Kiev is
brought back under a subservient pro-American setup, how can Ukraine
possibly become a NATO member or how can the US missile-defense systems
be deployed on Ukrainian soil, given the widespread opposition to the
idea among the people of that country?
Professor Stephen Cohen,
the venerable doyen of Sovietologists, recently surveyed the topsoil
of the newly dug trenches in Russian-US rivalry. He said: "Relations
between Russia and the United Sates are very bad at present. I think
we're already seeing a cold war. At least, that is America's policy
on Russia. Your country [Russia] is being fairly passive. Understandably,
the Kremlin doesn't want to escalate tension again. But it isn't clear
that the Kremlin is capable of preventing that. Much will depend on
how NATO's relations with Ukraine and Georgia develop. This is the new
front of the new Cold War."
It is in the fitness of things
that the working group set up on Thursday as a joint initiative by Putin
and Bush, against the backdrop of these growing tensions, to focus on
relations between the two great powers, will be headed as co-chairmen
by two formidable veterans of the Cold War era - Henry Kissinger and
Yevgeny Primakov.
Yet the People's Daily might
well have had a point when it commented last week with an acerbic tone
of detachment and disdain, "The core of the US-Russian oral spat
is a conflict of interests. Naturally, both countries want maximum benefits.
That explains why the US supports anti-government forces within Russia,
promotes 'democracy' - a one-sided wish - in foreign lands, continues
to support eastern expansion of NATO, and asks for missile-defense deployment
in Eastern Europe, while Russia exercises a measured US policy. It can
be predicted that, facing US attacks, Russian-US ties featuring both
contention and cooperation will not change in the short term."
M K Bhadrakumar served
as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29
years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and
to Turkey (1998-2001).
Copyright 2007 Asia Times
Online Ltd
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