STRATFOR.COM's Weekly Global Intelligence Update - 24 April 2000 __________________________________________ By The Internet's Most Intelligent Source of International News & Analysis http://www.stratfor.com/ __________________________________________ Have you visited our web site recently? We've made some new changes that make using the site more efficient, allowing greater access to thousands of reports. Visit http://www.stratfor.com today. __________________________________________ OTHER FEATURES ON STRATFOR.COM Impending Russia-Japan Deal To Help Float Moscow Budget http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/commentary/0004212018.htm Falun Gong Persists Despite Absent Leader http://www.stratfor.com/asia/commentary/0004222156.htm Russia Benefits from Iraqi Sanctions http://www.stratfor.com/meaf/commentary/0004222320.htm __________________________________________ STRATFOR.COM Weekly Global Intelligence Update 24 April 2000 The Opening Moves in Putin's Game of Chess Summary Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin, launched his foreign policy last week. At first blush it appears conciliatory toward the West in general and the United States in particular. But the new president is in fact pursuing a more complex, dual-track foreign policy. As his government moves nuclear arms control measures forward, it also signals the development of next generation nuclear weapons and helps set the diplomatic stage for deploying large Russian forces near Poland. Putin is playing a complex game of chess: making conciliatory gestures while setting the stage for confrontation if conciliation should fail. Analysis Last week, Vladimir Putin launched Russia's post-election foreign policy. Now president in his own right, Putin set in motion a series of policies, signals and gestures that were simultaneously blatant, subtle, contradictory and, above all, centralized. Amidst the complex, mixed signals sent out last week, one fact was clear: the new president is moving to have his government speak with one coordinated voice on foreign policy, with that voice controlled by Putin himself. Inconsistencies in former president Boris Yeltsin's foreign policy could best be ascribed to lack of coordination and a multiplicity of forces competing to shape policy. Putin's policy is, we think, coherent, if deliberately subtle and ambiguous. Dominating the news out of Moscow last week was the Duma's vote on two arms control treaties. By wide margins, the Duma approved the START II arms reduction agreement as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Together, these events were generally seen as a comforting sign that Putin intended to follow a conciliatory policy toward the West in general and the United States in particular. Putin certainly intended that it be seen this way. From his point of view, nothing would be better than to have the United States reciprocate a more accommodating line from Russia. The need for reciprocation is the kicker that Putin buried within arms control ratification. The United States wants to deploy an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system. An expanded ABM system is banned under a U.S.-Soviet treaty signed in 1972. The American justification for the new system is that it is not directed against the Russian arsenal, which is too large to stop. Rather, it is directed against "rogue" states, like North Korea or Libya, which might acquire a few missiles with nuclear warheads and launch them against the United States. In no position financially or technically to deploy an equivalent system, Russia has consistently opposed an American national missile defense. Moreover, the Russian leadership fears that deployment would tilt an already lopsided balance of power even further in the American direction. Such a system would likely close off the possibility of limited nuclear exchanges; the United States, if it chose, could strike a few targets in Russia and leave Moscow with the choice of doing nothing or initiating total nuclear war. But the most important reason for Russian opposition is rooted in symbolism. Moscow needs Washington to acknowledge some degree of equality. The only area in which any sort of equality exists is in the arena of nuclear weapons. In this sphere the two nations can continue to negotiate as equals. But if that equality slips away, if the United States simply ignores its treaties with the Soviet successor state, then Russia will have lost all equality across the board. Putin can't afford to let that happen. He has therefore made it consistently clear that he will not renegotiate the ABM treaty. More important, he has made it clear that if the United States deploys its system in violation of that treaty, all arms control agreements will be in jeopardy. The United Nations will begin debate over the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty next week, and a high-level Russian delegation will be in the United States for that discussion. This series of ratifications on longstanding arms control measures now puts Russia in a perfect position to confront the United States - both on the ABM treaty and on the test ban treaty, which the U.S. Senate rejected last October. Thus, the ratifications are simultaneously conciliatory moves and traps for the United States. If the United States proceeds with a missile defense in the face of the Duma vote, Putin will have created precisely the record he wants: he reaches out to the United States and is rebuffed. Putin's shrewd ratification of the two arms control treaties coincides with the formalization of a new Russian defense policy. Already widely discussed in Russia, the new policy was made official last Friday, the same day Russia ratified the test ban treaty. While the president's security council has not yet released the document to the public, Putin on various occasions has made clear the premise and the consequence of the policy. The premise lies in NATO's willingness last year to take military action without prior approval by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia wields a veto. For Russia, this creates a dangerous new situation in which NATO's unpredictable behavior cannot be controlled by international organizations. Therefore the consequence - and this is the critical point - that Russia is prepared for the first use of nuclear weapons in defending fundamental national interests. Russia is also signaling that it is pressing forward with a new generation of nuclear and conventionally-tipped munitions. The Russian media has reported that the air force began testing a new missile, designated X-55. The X-55 was originally designed to be launched from Russian bombers and to be armed with a nuclear warhead. In new tests, however, the X-55 will be used as a precision guided munitions using conventional warheads. The point, however, is not lost. Russia is carefully letting everyone know that it continues its weapons development program and is capable of fielding new generations of nuclear and non-nuclear munitions. The approval of arms control treaties coincides, therefore, with the implementation of a new nuclear policy that explicitly permits a Russian first strike. This duality was repeated elsewhere. For example, Russia made very public overtures toward Chechnya last week, while other reports said that the Russians were sending in more troops. Putin, meanwhile, said last week that Russia has fundamental interests in the Caspian region and that Western interests seemed ready to pounce on the area. Putin's views seemed coordinated with the Communist speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznyov. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited several Central Asian countries last week and Seleznyov blasted the visit, saying, "As soon as links weaken, they (the Americans) show up. Their principle is to divide and rule. And that's how it will be in the 21st century." In Moscow, as well, interior ministers of the Shanghai Five - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - met on Friday. ITAR-TASS reported that the meeting focused on suppressing terrorists and separatists. Both Russia and China have an interest in suppressing militant Islamic movements in the region and the Friday meetings were intended to set the stage for a summit of the Shanghai Five in May. Thus, at the same time that Moscow made a gesture toward Chechnya, it is gearing up to assert itself in Central Asia. Similarly ambivalent behavior could be seen to the west, in Russia's relationship with Belarus. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced last week that an agreement had been struck to create a joint military organization between Belarus and Russia. Lukashenka said he expected the agreement to be signed by early June and that it would rate a joint force of about 300,000 troops. The agreement would place Russian troops directly on the Polish border in large numbers. The Russians did not deny that the agreement had been reached, though they tried to downplay the size of the force or its strategic significance. The Western media has chosen to focus on Moscow's conciliatory gestures and is missing the wild crosscurrents in Russian foreign policy. Those crosscurrents are far from random. To the contrary, they make a great deal of sense. Putin would certainly like to achieve some sort of solid reconciliation with the United States. He understands two things. First, he understands that he will get nothing from the United States unless he positions himself to bargain. Yeltsin could not deal effectively with the United States because he neither controlled his negotiating apparatus nor created levers for effective negotiation. Yeltsin's successor does not plan to repeat that error. Second, Putin understands that no reconciliation may be possible with the United States; American interests and Russian ones might simply be too far apart. The United States does not want to have its military operations limited by the U.N. Security Council. Russia does not want to be frozen out of decisions. The United States has major financial stakes in the Caspian region and wants a degree of political influence to guarantee those interests. Russia does not want to see U.S. client states created within what it regards as its sphere of influence. Russia does not want an American national missile defense deployed. Therefore, if Putin's first priority is to create a firm relationship with the United States, his second goal - if his first fails - is to position Russia effectively in the event of a collapse of relations. Putin does not want to recreate the situation from 1946-49 in which the United States was able to portray the Soviet Union as the prime culprit for the Cold War and use that perception of Soviet aggression and duplicity to create a hostile alliance. If U.S.-Russian relations collapse, Putin wants to create a clear record of American responsibility. Putin is trying to reach three audiences. First, domestically, he will be in a position to further undercut liberal, pro-American elements. Second, and more important, he will position himself for the inevitable attempt to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States, by showing that Washington, in pursuing its narrow strategic interest, jeopardizes Europe's interest in good relations with Russia. Finally, Putin is addressing an American audience, which to the extent that it is cognizant of foreign policy at all, does not want to see a return to the Cold War. >From the Russian point of view, the same policy must be pursued whether the goal is reconciliation with the Americans or preparation for a breach. The best hope of reconciliation - on terms acceptable to the Russians - is to convince the United States that Russia is capable of threatening American interests. Therefore, it is necessary to make conciliatory gestures while simultaneously undertaking diplomatic initiatives that lay the groundwork for challenging the Americans. This may persuade the United States to be conciliatory. Should that fail, it positions the Russians to pursue their national interest. The ultimate audience is in Europe and, to a lesser extent, Japan. Leaders there do not want to see a return to even a mini-Cold War. The Germans in particular, with their heavy financial exposure in Russia, do not want to see this happen. More than anyone, Putin understands the Germans. He is now carefully laying out, very publicly, both his willingness to work with the United States, and the consequences should that fail. Putin wants to have a neutral Europe or, at the very least, a neutral Germany. The new president's conciliatory moves are quite real. They are also crafting the structure of the world, if conciliation fails. 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