[EXCERPT] WEST BEHAVES AS THE WINNER BUT IS STILL READY FOR A COMPROMISE
Sergei ROGOV, Director of the US and Canada Studies Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences
(Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 26. In full.)

The decisive stage of asserting the post-Cold War structure of Europe begins. The West is not going to revise its decision to accept East European countries, the USSR's former Warsaw Pact allies, to the North Atlantic alliance.

This calls in question the supposition that there have been neither winners nor losers in the Cold War. The aftermaths of any war are determined not by beautiful declarations but a restructuring of the world on the basis of a real line-up of forces.

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Moscow has three options of action now that NATO's eastward expansion becomes inevitable.

First, Russia can stop anti-NATO rhetorics, admit its defeat and reconcile itself to the West's complete domination in Europe and Moscow's extremely low status in the European system of the 21st century.

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Second. Our reply to the inevitable admission of new members to the North Atlantic alliance can be based on the "spear-against-spear" principle. The refusal to ratify the START-2 Treaty, the rupture of the OSCE Treaty and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on our western borders would mean the resumption of military-political confrontation with the West in a situation when the line-up of forces is extremely disadvantageous for us. Under those circumstances, we would have to maximally mobilise our economy, curtail market reforms and change over to tough authoritarian methods of management.

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Third, by making a clever diplomatic manoeuvre, which would ensure at least a minimum of Russia's national security interests in Europe and prevent its isolation, we could find the alternative to a humiliating defeat or revival of confrontation.

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This package of agreements could include the Russo-American START-3 Treaty, whose main parameters can be coordinated in the near future. This treaty could reduce the strategic ceilings of Russia and the USA to 1,500-2,000 warheads within the next ten years, slashing Russia's expenses on reducing missiles whose warranty service has not expired and at the same time building hundreds of new strategic systems to reach the quota of 3,500 warheads stipulated in the START-2 Treaty. The START-3 Treaty would enable the sides to harmonise the reduction of the US and the Russian nuclear forces and at the same time ensure qualitatively new parameters of strategic stability.