NATO: A FIST IN A KID GLOVE
(Vek No. 1. In full.) 20 Jan 97
Vladimir GERASIMOV

In the past few months Russia was breaking its spears against the chain armour of NATO, in which virtually all of Europe had been clothed. Or rather, it is a "flak jacket," as the OSCE meeting in Lisbon has reaffirmed. The American and European politicians are trying to "calm down" the noisy partner, Russia.

Some people, for example Zbigniew Brzezinsky, prefer to describe Russia in a more derogatory way, as a client. He warned that it would be worse for Russia if it turned down the START-2 Treaty and did not accept the expansion of NATO.

The American and European politicians are employing an array of instruments to persuade Russia to toe the line. Admission to the Council of Europe was one of the main conditions for the granting of a 10-billion-dollar IMF credit to Russia. Another condition was the ratification of the START-2 Treaty. Any violation of these conditions by the "client" gives the other side a questionable right to shower it with problems.

It can be safely assumed that the Council of Europe will apply harsh sanctions against Russia in the next few weeks and months, and international financial organisations will build up their pressure on it. The IMF demands that Gazprom be split into half a dozen small companies, supported by European banks, are being widely discussed in the Western mass media. Russia's resistance can complicate the servicing of its foreign debt.

In short, Russia can be given a flogging, above all for budgetary failures. Or the pretext can be trifling, such as the failure to provide a 1.5-million-rouble monthly allowance to each prisoner (labour pensions are three to four times smaller in this country), or cancel capital punishment (as if crime went down in Europe after capital punishment was prohibited there), or reform the system of prosecution and recognise the domination of international court over the Russian courts of all levels.

And here is one more pretext for imposing sanctions: the Russian authorities have not yet paid compensations to the ethnic groups which had been deported by the Soviet regime.

Russia has received equipment and assistance, worth 500 million dollars, for the dismantling of nuclear weapons, but the American Senators threaten to cut short financial assistance for the liquidation of nuclear weapons in Russia. The Americans clearly believe that if you put pressure, you should go all the way. And now they are pressing for Russia's agreement to create low-velocity tactical ABM systems and to negotiate high-velocity ones.

The Russian Defence Ministry and the Foreign Ministry believe that the USA is consistently moving towards burying the 1972 ABM Treaty. The US Senate does not link the creation of a strategic ABM system after the year 2003 with the START-2 Treaty. The reduction of the Russian nuclear warheads by that deadline would not influence the US weapons leap in any way. The USA also plans to deploy a low-velocity ABM system (an improved Patriot complex) in two years, say Russian experts.

It looks as if President Clinton will eventually bow to the Republican Congress and the anti-Russian lobby, which has grown stronger, and give the go-ahead to financing the "minor star wars" programme. The new US defence secretary is linked with Republicans, which means that it was not by chance that he was appointed to that post.

Meanwhile, the daily routine of NATO generals and admirals never varies. The alliance is going ahead with its scaled operation in Bosnia and fortifying bases in Hungary. Last year, NATO and US vessels made 35 visits to the Black Sea to spend over 500 whole days there; this year, Russia is going to be even closer scrutinised through the powerful naval binoculars.

London is the venue for a new NATO Naval staff - for the East Atlantic. It runs a fleet of 18 combat vessels.

The effort to rearm the new "conscripts" - Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Romania - is proceeding as planned.

NATO has reached an agreement with the Ukrainian Air Force: NATO flyers will from now on be identified as friends. So the "flak jacket" is adding in weight month in, month out.

John Laugh, a NATO envoy to Moscow said a couple months ago that once admitted to the European Union the formerly neutral states - Austria, Finland and Sweden - have become NATO's active partners, which he sees as important. Moreover, he views this circumstance as ample proof that NATO does not have to have an opponent to justify its existence.

But what about the "top secret" NATO reports that was leaked to the international trade on the eve of the Lisbon summit? The document is outspoken: along with Libya, Iran, Iraq and Syria, Russia is viewed as a source of potential danger for the allies.

The growth of the Russian threat is explained by the intricacies of its domestic political situation, the report explains.

Some NATO generals make no secret of the possibility of NATO's military interference into Russia's affairs in case of the situation's "degradation," to quote Belgium's van Heck.

Former US defense secretary William Perry has made Europeans wary by saying that Russia was the worst threat to Europe - in a bid to attract neutral countries to NATO.

The Lisbon summit did not help abate NATO's pressure. The anti-American manoeuvres of France, which wants to introduce the principle of rotation to the alliance leadership rather than to build a dependable barrier capable of slowing down the rate of NATO's expansion, notwithstanding, Russia's version of genuine security was ignored. Russia's proposal, meanwhile, was to abolish all blocs and preclude expansion to the East.

Therefore, Russia's defense minister Igor Rodionov has made a fully justified statement that strategic missiles may be trained on NATO's future member states.

This may be the end of the discussion actively promoted by NATO's advocates in the West: Russians are said to have a lopsided understanding of the term security. As if the US has another definition for it.

For the sake of what type of security are the Americans going back on their pledges under the ABM treaty? And NATO's promises that no nuclear weapons will be stationed in the new territories are mere words, aren't they?