----- Original Message ----- From: Miroslav Antic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: SNN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Siem News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Balkan News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; SerbianNewsNetwork <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: STOPNATO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 11:04 PM Subject: Is NATO about to Make a Bad Move in the Baltics? [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK Business Week November 13, 2000 [for personal use only] Is NATO about to Make a Bad Move in the Baltics? By Paul Starobin in Moscow, with Stan Crock in Washington and Alexander Mikhalchuk in Minsk EDITED BY ROSE BRADY For nearly a decade since the end of the cold war, the U.S. and its European allies have essentially written off Russia as a serious military threat. Even though the former superpower remains a nuclear player, it can't afford to maintain its once-formidable arsenal, and its conventional forces are in serious disarray. Even President Vladimir V. Putin has called for sharply scaling back to 800,000 troops from today's level of 1.2 million and reducing strategic nuclear weapons to 1,500 from the current 6,000 in exchange for similar cuts from the U.S. But now, the U.S. is in danger of provoking a far more truculent defense stance from Russia. One hot-button issue is the awaited decision by the U.S. on a missile defense system that Russia adamantly opposes. An equally important but less-discussed point of tension is the planned expansion by NATO to Russia's borders by 2002. Both Presidential contenders, Al Gore and George W. Bush, support moving the NATO umbrella eastward to include the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Such a move would go beyond last year's NATO admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, since it would mark the first time that a former Soviet republic would join the Western defense alliance. Conventional wisdom in Washington is that Russia probably can't and won't do anything to counter the NATO plans. After all, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev didn't intervene as the Berlin Wall fell. His successor, Boris N. Yeltsin, allowed former Soviet satellites to join NATO, although he protested. HAWK BAIT. Putin, however, is expressing increasingly vocal opposition to NATO expansion into the Baltics. In an Oct. 26 interview with French journalists, the Russian leader declared: ``The reasons that brought NATO to life [a half-century ago] are no longer there. Yet NATO exists. It not only exists but is expanding. Moreover, it is expanding in the direction of our own borders....Of course, this causes us concern.'' Even more important, the plans by NATO and the Baltics are strengthening the political hand of hawkish defense officials to Putin's right. Key members of the defense Establishment such as Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev are resisting efforts to pare Russia's strategic nuclear forces to free up resources for the conventional military. Instead, they want Russia to maintain a big nuclear stick to guard against a resurgent NATO. ``NATO expansion pushes Russia toward more reliance on [strategic] nuclear forces,'' says Russian defense analyst Sergei Karaganov. He argues that incorporating the Baltics into NATO needlessly antagonizes Russia and is a ``stupid'' move for the West. FORTRESS BELARUS? To be sure, no one expects Russia to go to war to prevent the Baltics from joining NATO. But there are nonetheless new signs of military activity on the ground. Even though NATO's decision is two years away, the Baltic states are already moving to integrate their militaries into the alliance--establishing a common air-defense system compatible with the alliance's and tailoring their weapons, ammo, and uniforms to meet NATO standards. In response, Moscow is stepping up an alliance with next-door Belarus, which also has a border with Lithuania. For the first time in six years, Russian bombers and nuclear-missile carriers recently landed in Belarus on a training mission. And Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko wants Putin to deploy a joint force of 300,000 troops near the border with Poland. If such developments continue, the stage will be set for a period of tension at NATO's frontier. It may not amount to a new cold war, but it could end up to be far from what the Baltics--and NATO--intended. Miroslav Antic http://www.antic.org/SNN/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb
