-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date sent: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 14:53:40 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Progressive Response <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: U.S.-Russia, Nuclear Dangers, NATO ----------------------------------------------------------------- --------- ------ The Progressive Response 30 July 1999 Vol. 3, No. 27 Editors: Martha Honey and Erik Leaver ----------------------------------------------------------------- --------- ------ The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in PR. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Table of Contents *** U.S. RUSSIAN MILITARY RELATIONS *** By John Feffer *** LIVING (STILL) WITH NUCLEAR DANGERS *** By Lisa Ledwidge *** NATO EXPANDS EAST *** By William Hartung and Richard Kaufman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ (Editor's note: While U.S.-Russian relations have been deeply troubled over the last nine months, some small steps were taken this week as Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin and Vice President Gore announced the resumption of arms control talks in Moscow next month. Further steps at reaching common ground will be undertaken today as the U.S. and Russia join the discussions at the Balkan Stability Pact meetings in Sarajevo. Looming over any improvement in U.S.-Russian relations lies three major issues: the United States' National Missile Defense system, nuclear arms reductions, and the role of NATO in Kosovo and more importantly, in Eastern Europe. All three articles in this week's issue are excerpted from a forthcoming book produced by the In Focus Project titled, Global Focus: U.S. Foreign Policy at the Turn of the Millennium, edited by Martha Honey and Tom Barry. It will be released by St. Martin's Press in January 1999.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ *** U.S. RUSSIAN MILITARY RELATIONS *** By John Feffer If the U.S. government had wanted to destroy Russia from the inside out, it couldn't have devised a more effective policy than its so-called "strategic partnership." From aggressive foreign policy to misguided economic advice to undemocratic influence-peddling, the U.S. has ushered in a cold peace on the heels of the cold war. Containment remains the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward Russia. But it is a "soft" containment. It is Containment Lite. On the foreign policy front, for instance, Containment Lite has consisted of a three-tiered effort to isolate Russia: from its neighbors, from Europe, and from the international community more generally. The Clinton administration's policy of "geopolitical pluralism," designed to strengthen key neighbors such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, has driven wedges into the loose confederation of post-Soviet states. By pushing ahead recklessly with expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) both in membership and in its mission, the U.S. government is deepening the divide that separates Russia from Europe, effectively building a new Iron Curtain down the middle of Eurasia. Instead of consulting with Russia over key foreign policy issues such as Kosovo, the Iraq bombings, and allied policy toward former Yugoslavia, Washington has attempted to steer Moscow into a diplomatic backwater where it can exert little global influence. Part of this three-tiered foreign policy of "soft" containment has been to eliminate Russia's last claim to superpower status--its nuclear arsenal--without providing sufficient funds for mothballing the weapons and without pursuing commensurate reductions in U.S. stockpiles. By implementing a missile defense system, the U.S. has put several arms control treaties in jeopardy; by opposing key sales of Russian military technology, arguing that these sales would lead to arms proliferation while itself continuing to export weapons technology, the U.S. has applied a double standard. By announcing the largest increase in the military budget since the end of the cold war, the Clinton administration began 1999 with a clear signal that Russia's decline would have little effect on the Pentagon's appetite. Under its cold war containment policy, the United States relied on aggressive rhetoric and military might to confront a powerful Soviet Union. By contrast, today's Containment Lite takes advantage of Russia's economic and military weakness and, at first glance, has relied more on carrots than sticks. In reality, however, the U.S. has wielded these carrots much like cudgels. Washington's aid and investments, expert advice, and high-profile workshops are designed to reduce the military and diplomatic reach of its erstwhile superpower rival and to remake the Russian economy in the neoliberal image regardless of the social costs. Prodded by these carrots, Russia is moving along a path that has led to economic chaos and escalating resentment. Future Directions U.S.-Russian military relations continue to deteriorate. Russia has a long list of grievances on this score, for the U.S. did not consult the Russians regarding air strikes against Libya (1993), Serbs in Bosnia (1994), Iraq (1995, 1996, 1998), and suspected terrorist facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan (1997). Most recently, the U.S. and NATO ignored Russia's attempts to prevent the conflict from escalating in Kosovo. NATO's bombing campaign failed to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Albanians; it killed many Serbian and Albanian civilians; it hobbled the democratic opposition in Serbia. With several NATO countries desperate for a diplomatic solution, Russia re-entered the picture as a credible mediator, but still the United States was reluctant to take its proposals seriously. Consultation is not Russia's only concern. The expansion of NATO means a remilitarization along Russia's borders. The new NATO members will be substantially modernizing their militaries. Strife-torn Georgia and Moldova have access to free U.S. "hand-me-downs" that substantially increase the threat of conflict in the region. From Russia's perspective, NATO is not just expanding territorially but conceptually as well. Secretary of State Albright has called for NATO to "move beyond a narrow definition of mutual defense" and take action without Security Council mandates. She intends to enlarge NATO's sphere of potential action to include the Middle East and central Africa. By encroaching even more on UN functions, NATO, in its new role, would enable the U.S. to act without concern for Russia's veto in the Security Council. Particularly destabilizing from Moscow's viewpoint is NATO's interest in preparing the Baltic states for admission as well as efforts to absorb Ukraine into the alliance. Russia has drawn its version of a line in the sand--a "red line"--which it warns NATO not to cross or risk "destruction of the existing world order." Given Russia's consistent opposition as well as the sheer number of actual and potential crises on Russia's border, the U.S. must consider whether admission to NATO will render the petitioning states more secure or less secure. Meanwhile, the U.S. must actively engage Russia on the broadest range of security issues, including arms limitation through START III. Although the Clinton administration must challenge Russia's residual hegemonic impulses, it must also be careful to recognize Russia's interests in Central Asia, Ukraine, and the Caucasus. This is not an easy balancing act. On the issue of Caspian Sea oil, for instance, the U.S. should work with Russia rather than against it in developing a sustainable approach to oil extraction and delivery to foreign markets. Through its largely rhetorical support for Russians in the "near abroad" and by maintaining influence in the CIS, Russia has retained a weak "imperial" identity. As Russia specialist Anatol Lieven warns, if the U.S. tries to destroy this weak imperialism by completely isolating Russia, virulent nationalism of the fascist and anti-Semitic variety is likely to fill the vacuum. Russia, economically weak and militarily weakening, hasn't put up much of a fight against the U.S. policy. For the time being, Russia is treading very tentatively, careful not to antagonize its chief economic patron, the United States. But Russia will not always be so dependent on U.S. aid or on money from multilateral institutions largely controlled by the United States. Russia is rich in history, in resources, in resourcefulness. It is rich, too, in strains of intolerance and anti-Western sentiment that are only strengthened by adversity and isolation. The Clinton administration (as well as its more anti-Russian critics on the Right) should think twice about capitalizing on Russia's current dependency, for short-term gain may lead to negative consequences in the long-term. It is time, finally, for the U.S. to restore partnership to the "strategic partnership" and to consign containment, Lite or otherwise, to the cold war past. [Ed. Note: In addition to being included in the next edition of Global Focus, this essay in its entirety will be released as a special report in August 1999.] (John Feffer is the author of Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions (South End, 1992), Beyond Detente: Soviet Foreign Policy and U.S. Options (Hill and Wang, 1990), and several In Focus briefs (on NATO, U.S.-Russian Relations, Eastern European economic reform, and the situation in former Yugoslavia). He is also co-editor of Europe's New Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 1996).) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ *** LIVING (STILL) WITH NUCLEAR DANGERS *** By Lisa Ledwidge The nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the cold war led to the manufacture of well over 100,000 nuclear weapons, involved over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests, and released large quantities of radioactive and other hazardous materials into the earth's air, soil, and water. Currently, the U.S. possesses about 12,000 and Russia 22,000 nuclear weapons. The other declared nuclear weapons states--Britain, China, and France--now possess a combined total of approximately 1,300 nuclear weapons. Additional countries suspected or known to possess or to have deployed nuclear weapons include India, Israel, Pakistan, and possibly North Korea. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a rare window of opportunity emerged to reverse course and eliminate nuclear weapons. There has been modest progress toward this goal, including implementation of the U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and negotiation and signature of both the START II agreement and a global Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But the momentum on these and other nuclear risk reduction measures has ground to a halt--leaving the potential for nuclear catastrophes from accidents, proliferation, and terrorism. Presently, more than 5,000 U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons are set on "hair-trigger alert," meaning that each president has less than 15 minutes after detecting a possible attack to decide whether to order a counterstrike. This quick-decision posture increases the risk that a nuclear weapon could be launched in response to a false alarm or malfunction. The risk is exacerbated by Russia's aging command and control system (the communication links in its nuclear chain-of-command), Y2K and other potential communications problems, and political tensions between the U.S. and Russia over, for instance, NATO expansion and the bombings of Yugoslavia. To reduce the most imminent dangers posed by nuclear weapons, the U.S. government should take the following steps: 1) Institute unilateral measures to remove all nuclear missiles from hair-trigger alert. De-alerting could be done, for instance, by shutting off power to missiles, removing warheads from delivery systems, or other measures that build in more time for verification of communications data. And de-alerting has precedent. In 1991, President George Bush unilaterally de-alerted hundreds of U.S. nuclear missiles and bombers; a week later Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev followed suit. 2) Withdraw the 150 U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in various NATO countries near Russia. No other country has nuclear weapons stationed beyond its borders. Their withdrawal would help set the stage for resuming U.S.-Russian cooperation on a broad range of issues and would help allay Russian concerns about NATO's expanding role in Europe. 3) End nuclear weapons R&D, which has the potential to contribute to the development of new nuclear weapons. Halt laboratory testing and computer simulations of nuclear weapons explosions, stop the production of plutonium pits, and scrap plans for the production of tritium for weapons. 4) Halt activities that could increase the volume and circulation of weapons-usable nuclear materials. For instance: work with other countries to end reprocessing and reactor-based plutonium programs; put all weapons-usable nuclear materials into non-weapons-usable forms, placing them in secure, accountable, and verifiable storage under international control; and phase out nuclear power. Though these are essential steps, the only real solution to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons is their total and permanent elimination. The U.S., as the world's sole superpower, must take the lead. The political will required for the U.S. to initiate the elimination of nuclear weapons is not likely to emerge from Washington but rather from individuals, groups, and communities pressuring for abolition. (Lisa Ledwidge is the editor of Science for Democratic Action and outreach coordinator with the Institute for Energy and Environment.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ *** NATO EXPANDS EAST *** By William Hartung and Richard Kaufman While western advisers and financial managers were working to reshape the economies of Central and Eastern Europe along capitalist lines, Clinton administration officials, military experts and weapons salesmen set their sights on realigning the region under the umbrella of an expanded and redefined NATO alliance. Bolstered by support from strongly anticommunist ethnic communities living in the U.S. and by top political and military leaders in the region, and backed by generous government subsidies and media campaigns, NATO expansion moved from the drawing board in 1992 to reality in March 1999, just two weeks before the Alliance itself launched its first ever armed conflict. NATO expansion first became an issue in the 1992 election campaign when both presidential candidates Bush and Clinton wooed Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and other European ethnic communities in the U.S. by announcing support for a revitalized and expanded NATO alliance. Over the years, these staunchly anti-Communist ethnic communities, some with "citizen committees" such as the American Friends of the Czech Republic, financed by the arms industry, became an important domestic voice lobbying for a revitalized and expanded NATO. By 1996 NATO expansion had become a centerpiece of Clinton's second term foreign policy agenda. In early 1998 the Senate voted by a wide margin to approve NATO's decision to make Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic the first former Warsaw Pact states admitted to the Alliance. Nine other former communist countries are seeking NATO membership, including in Central and Eastern Europe, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Official and popular support for NATO expansion within the region suggested "their almost reflexive fear of Russia, and a desire to be enveloped in a Western security blanket," the New York Times reported in 1997. In Poland, for instance, political leaders pushed the idea of joining NATO "as a panacea to all kinds of problems, a golden bridge to the West." NATO membership was also widely viewed as a stepping stone to membership in the European Union. However, the EU, preoccupied in the late 1990s with a myriad of difficult issues causing divides among its western European members, was unwilling to consider admitting the economically weaker, largely agricultural former communist countries. Among Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, support for joining NATO was not uniform. It ran highest--between 79 and 88 percent--in Poland, a country historically on the fault line between Russia and Germany, where the military has long been held in high esteem and where pro-American sentiment is strong because many Poles have relatives in the U.S. In contrast, both the Czech Republic and Hungary feel secure following the demise of the Warsaw Pact, perceive no real external threat, and hold their own armed forces in low esteem. Popular support in the Czech Republic, where there has been strong concern about NATO's economic and social costs, ranged from 28 to 42 percent, depending on how the question was phrased. In Hungary as well, support was subdued--under 50 percent--with people concerned about the costs of updating their armed forces and resistant to the possibility of foreign troops being stationed on their soil. The Clinton administration and arms manufacturers worked to counter this somewhat lackluster support for NATO through media campaigns and financial enticements. In 1994 several major U.S. military manufacturers set up offices in the region to promote their products, and in 1996, defense giant Lockheed Martin organized a series of "defense planning seminars" for officials in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, a soft-sell, relationship-building approach intended to demonstrate the benefits of buying American. In 1997 in the months leading up to public referendums, the Czech, Hungarian, and Polish governments, as well as U.S. arms manufacturers, launched aggressive media campaigns to win public support. On Hungarian television, a popular sitcom suddenly had a new character, a military commander who spouted the virtues of NATO, while school libraries gave away slick pro-NATO CD-ROM games supplied by McDonnell Douglas. While lulled by propaganda, lured by the illusion of imminent EU membership, and lavished with new subsidized military hardware, the people of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, were given little concrete explanation of the potential costs or obligations of NATO membership. Majorities in both Hungary and the Czech Republic, however, correctly discerned that increased government spending on the military would come at the expense of education and health. In all three countries, support was low for allowing routine NATO exercises on their soil or sending troops to defend NATO allies. These concerns were set aside when, just 12 days after the formal induction of Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year history that the Alliance had gone to war. In the weeks that followed, all three offered various degrees of modest military and civilian support for the war. Polish leaders repeatedly stressed Warsaw's support for NATO's war. Hungary, the only NATO country directly bordering Yugoslavia, agreed to allow NATO planes to use the Taszar airfield and the country's airspace for bombing and supply missions. The Czech Republic also approved fly-overs of NATO military aircraft engaged in the Kosovo war and donated a field hospital, unarmed transport planes, and relief supplies to assist refugees in Albania. In addition, the Czech Republic accepted several thousand refugees from Kosovo. Following the June ceasefire, the three countries announced plans to send token forces of less than 1000 soldiers each, to be part of the NATO peacekeeping operation. However, all three governments indicated certain unease with the NATO military operation. After the bombing began, there were demonstrations by the communist and other left-leaning parties, Slav ethnic organizations, and human rights activists in each country. The Hungarian government's decision to allow combat missions to be launched from its territory came despite weak public support and continued resistance from the Socialists, the largest opposition party. The Czech government was most lukewarm about the NATO operation, declaring its opposition to sending in ground troops and, in May 1999, it even joined with Greece to set forth a peace proposal. After the war ended, Hungary, estimating it had lost millions of dollars in trade because of the conflict, called on the international community to guarantee compensation in the form of contracts for rebuilding Kosovo. Worried particularly about the fate of the 350,000 Hungarians living in the northern Serb province of Vojvodina, the Budapest government stressed the importance of reaching a comprehensive settlement for the entire Balkans, rather than one narrowly confined to Kosovo. NATO's war against Yugoslavia heightened unease about further expansion of the Alliance, its long term role and mission, and the precedent for international law and practice of military intervention without a threat of foreign aggression and without United Nations approval. The war has also heightened tensions with Russia, increasing, rather than decreasing, fears among East and Central Europeans, as Moscow's initial reactions were to denounce the bombing and threaten to train its nuclear weapons on any NATO state supporting the war. When the NATO bombing was halted, Russia unilaterally moved a small military unit into the airport at Pristina, the Kosovo capital, creating a temporary impasse with NATO. Almost simultaneously, the Russian armed forces began its largest military maneuvers in recent years. Although the military denied these exercises were linked to Kosovo, the Moscow Times reported that they were "a sign that Russia remains deeply suspicious of NATO." In addition, the NATO war resulted in new demands within Russia for increased military spending. The Kosovo war also raised the possibility that the European NATO members will increase their military spending. A number of these countries expressed unease about the military gap within NATO, their inability to match U.S. military capabilities, and their continued dependence upon the U.S. There have been renewed discussions about the establishment of a European military force under EU auspices, as well as proposals from Germany and some other countries for increased military spending. As NATO Secretary General Javier Solana stated in a June 1999 interview, reshaping defense forces requires political will and harmonizing Europe's military industries, "but most of all it's a matter of money." Defense budgets will have to rise, he said, although "it's hard to say how much is enough." Parallel with these pressures for increased military spending in Russia and Western Europe, a number of Central and Eastern European countries, including the trio already admitted to NATO, had by mid-1999 begun scaling back or substantially delaying their ambitious plans to buy big ticket Western equipment like fighter planes. The Clinton administration had also decided to go a bit slower on new rounds of expansion, in large part due to concerns raised in Congress over the costs of expansion. And at least one subsidy program, the DELG, was targeted for elimination both by Pentagon bureaucrats and by key members of Congress. Despite the Clinton administration's efforts to claim Kosovo as a military success, sobering economic and political realities were casting doubts on the wisdom of NATO's new, more expansionist role. (William Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the World Policy Institute of the New School for Social Research. Richard Kaufman is Director of the Bethesda Research Institute and an associate of Economists Allied for Armed Reduction.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ The Progressive Response aims to provide timely analysis and opinion about U.S. foreign policy issues. The content does not necessarily reflect the institutional positions of either the Interhemispheric Resource Center or the Institute for Policy Studies. We're working to make the Progressive Response informative and useful, so let us know how we're doing, via email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please put "Progressive Response" in the subject line. Please feel free to cross-post The Progressive Response elsewhere. 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