NATO ENLARGEMENT: EUROPEAN SECURITY, DISARMAMENT, THE RUSSIAN DUMA AND KOSOVO?

Glen Segell

Director, Institute of Security Policy

Abstract

The quest for European Security is a protracted interaction of international diplomacy, war and domestic politics where this article shows how Kosovo is an interplay of all these components. Kosovo is a case where NATO believes that it is strengthening its position of collective security by solidifying the recent Enlargement Process to attain Collective Security – both, diplomatically, organisationally and through the Military of CJTF. The price is over one million displaced persons (refugees) and the risk of endangering European security through the failure of the European disarmament process by consequential failure of the Russian Duma to even debate START II/III.

 Introduction

NATO military action in Kosovo is unique in singling out one specific humanitarian crisis in which to intervene, without apparent careful thinking into the consequences of its military actions – specifically the ramifications of refugees.

The former Yugoslavia, like almost all International Crises, generated humanitarian problems and some form of refugee consequences. NATO action in Kosovo has aggravated the refugee problem there to the extent that it can be said that there is no longer a refugee or ethnic problem in Kosovo – it is now in the neighbouring states of the European Union which have to deal with estimates of over one million displaced persons. Vague references to returning these persons to their homes before winter can hardly be believed!

The historical perspective comes from the Cold War which is now being practiced as Cold Diplomacy. NATO members faced a number of options in the 1990s to ensure European Security: Enlargement, i.e. Collective Security, or Disarmament, i.e. no threat capability. Both were argued with pros and cons while the devil’s advocate suggested a third option, that if the Cold War is over then why the need for NATO Enlargement or even the need for START II/III? Why not implement an immediate and unilateral abolition of weapons of mass destruction and give the EU a Common Defence and Security Posture that would include Russia, with a US umbrella and preferential trade agreements. Surely this would ensure a positive step towards European Security. Such moves however would be unprecedented positive Diplomacy but are not happening as we are in a condition of Cold Diplomacy. Kosovo is an example of the justification of NATO Enlargement on Humanitarian Grounds and the need to test Military Strategy in the form of the Combined and Joint Task Force (CJTF) to show the Russian Duma that disarmament is preferred as conventional NATO forces can succeed. The costs however are one million displaced persons – even if it has been shown that air power and maybe eventual CJTF can ensure a limited success against limited conventional weapons.

NATO Enlargement

Option I for European Security is NATO enlargement where the realities are that during the Cold War Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland did little to add to the strength of the Warsaw Pact but were seen as Soviet satellites and hence adversaries of the West. In today’s Cold Diplomacy the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland will add little to the material strength of NATO. Their population is just 8% of NATO’s, and their combined output measures less than 3% of NATO’s GNP. While they would give NATO a geopolitical buffer against Russia, they do so only by adding a military commitment that would be extremely dangerous to keep. The Russian Duma is therefore using NATO enlargement as a facade for other purposes.

This is clear to all for the Russian Duma knows that assuming that if NATO is for collective defence, who is NATO defending against with this expansion? If NATO is to be a new multilateral peacekeeping organisation, why has Russia not being asked to join as soon as possible? Moreover, the Duma having looked at the above facts can only assume that NATO expansion is still aimed at Russia for domestic US goals which could ultimately become US foreign goals. The US has answered this by saying that NATO is changing, but no agreement has been reached about its new strategic concept. The Russian Duma believe: ‘Let NATO change first, and then expand – rather than expanding first while asking Russia not to react.’[FBIS: TASS: 3 May 1998: Page 4: Col 1-2]

For small gain then, limited NATO enlargement poses great risks. Whatever westerners may say, that kind of enlargement is directed against at least a hypothetical latent danger from Russia. It has no compelling purpose otherwise. So why should the Russian Duma believe Secretary Albright’s characterisation of more limited enlargement, when she declared, ‘The purpose of NATO enlargement is to do for Europe’s east what NATO did 50 years ago for Europe’s west: to integrate new democracies, defeat old hatreds, provide confidence in economic recovery and deter conflict.’[New York Times: 3 January 1997: Headlines]

Well, some in the Russian Duma do! Perhaps even using the exact wording of Secretary Albright’s but with the addition of Russia being a partner to NATO enlargement as part of Warmer Diplomacy to the Legacy of Cold War Arms Control. Leaders of the Democratic Choice of Party in the Duma have formed a deputies group called ‘For the Atlantic Union.’ Duma deputy Vladimir Averchev pointed out in reformist writers’ weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta (# 3, 1/23):

We invite politicians in Europe and North America to build a strategic bridge between Russia and NATO symmetrical to the one built across the Atlantic over 50 years ago…One of the greatest disappointments of the last decade is that Europe has been unable to create a security basis of its own within the transatlantic community, as symbolised by its fiasco in the former Yugoslavia, where restoring peace took a lot of strenuous effort by US diplomacy. France is going back to NATO’s military organisation to try again to help Europe take good care of its own security. Having Russia as a full partner along with the United States and Canada is the shortest way to that goal.

Maxim Yusin further reported in reformist Izvestia (1/22) about the recent Primakov-Solana talks: ‘It looked as if Moscow was now interested in a dialogue no less than the guests from Brussels…Anyway, Russian leaders must realise that they need an early agreement more than the other side does.’

Some like Andrei Medin call for a Russian initiative just as that in reformist Vechernyaya Moskva (1/22): ‘Moscow still has time to reach an honourable agreement with Brussels. To do that, it must give up its imperial ambition and be ready for compromise.’

If so then bringing Russia into NATO would finally complete what Tsar Peter the Great and other westernises aimed to do from the 18th century onward: integrate Russia with the West, to their mutual benefit. It would bring security and enhanced stability at a lower cost than would bringing Russia into the EU, and more directly addresses concern over the rising power of the military within Russia. For that purpose, considerable benefits would accrue to current NATO members by extending an offer of membership to Russia. Such an offer would integrate a potentially threatening state into NATO, and increase the overall power base of the alliance. For the Duma the new NATO would provide security assurances on its western front, and deterrent power vis-à-vis its eastern front.

Current plans that exclude Russia would therefore make sense only in response to an active Russian danger. This is Cold Diplomacy for Russia at present is militarily weak and politically unthreatening. The fragmentation of the Soviet Union caps Russia’s potential power at a level far below that of the US alone. Limited enlargement of NATO does not increase the security of the western alliance and risks undoing much of the progress that has been made toward integrating Russia into the western political and economic system The Russian DUMA sees an extended NATO as a direct threat against them. Cold Diplomacy is in practise.

This has resulted from the Russian perception that the West has deceived them. For the past decade Russians were assured by the West that if Russia behaved itself, committed to domestic reforms and resisted any moves to re-establish its empire, Russia would be taken into account as an equal partner in the international sphere. But Russia’s views clearly have been disregarded on the issue of NATO expansion, and those who have advocated co-operation with the West feel betrayed.

This threat risks reviving old Russian fears of the West, strengthening Russian militarists and nationalists and inducing greater instability in Russian domestic politics and foreign policy. Subsequently NATO expansion is not good for Russian democrats; the only Russians who would benefit are nationalists and Communists. Over time, strengthening the hands of Russian militarists and nationalists will produce intransigence on arms control issues, an increase in the resources Russia devotes to rebuilding its military capabilities and a turn of its diplomatic orientation in a hostile direction.

This is already happening. NATO enlargement has helped to galvanise and energise the communist-nationalist opposition (which has tended to exclude Mitrofanov’s LDP) and depolarise its relationship with many in centrist parties, including Chernomyrdin’s NDR. The former trend is reflected not only by the ‘Anti-NATO’ deputies. More recently, Communist Party leader Zyuganov has demanded hearings in the Duma on national security and military reform during the autumn session, as a prelude to any vote on START II. The communists’ call for these hearings, at the time that the budget is to be negotiated, signals their intention to use NATO expansion in order to demand increased defence appropriations and play on long-standing tensions in Russia’s civil-military relations, revealing disturbing contradictions.

Right now, the Russian Duma can do little more than complain. These complaints may be well founded for the Duma rightly sees that NATO exists to provide for the security of its members. The wording and actions of the complaints however, exacerbate efforts at European Security. But if Russia’s voice is so weak then why bother at NATO enlargement against Russia or even consider arms control with it.

Disarmament

So lets take a closer look at what exactly is happening and what are the alternatives as we perceive the Duma as perceiving them. I will do so by considering what exactly is START II/III and then place this in the context of the Duma’s dithering on ratification due to the NATO enlargement process.

The original START I agreement at the height of the Cold War was intended to cap strategic nuclear weapons at 6,000 countable warheads. START II moves down to 3,000. There has always been a tendency to associate START II with just a reduction in numbers, but what START II really was about was eliminating the heavy MIRV’d ICBMs on both sides. I should be more specific. Heavily MIRV’d ICBMs, because the SS-18 is the heavy MIRV to the arms control aficionados in the crowd. Eliminating the land-based MIRV’d missiles on both sides. The whole point of START II is to move towards much more survivable forces, to emphasise survivable forces. The key, obviously, was to emphasise the submarine and bomber forces, because in an alert situation the bombers can launch for survivability, but don’t have to move towards their targets. For the Russians it’s a mix of systems because they had already begun to invest heavily in the road mobile SS-25s. They do have a bomber component, although smaller than ours, and a submarine force. So that’s one thing, strategic stability. A second thing is we all know that the Russian military is under extreme financial pressure. So a significant reduction beyond that would be anticipated in the START III agreement.

The Russian Duma began its consideration of START II in mid-July 1995. President Yeltsin and officials in his government have expressed strong support for START II. The Defence Minister, Igor Rodionov, expressed his support for the treaty after meeting with US Secretary of Defence Perry in October 1996. In addition, the Ministry of Defence reportedly told the Duma committees that Russia could not afford to retain high levels of strategic offensive forces and START II would ensure that the United States reduced its forces along with Russia. So far so good but despite this recognition of the value of START II initial consideration of START II in the Duma has been delayed since its signing in 1993, five years ago.

Some of these delays have been technical, such as the Russian presidential election in June 1996. In sum, however, the two criticisms of START II that you hear most frequently from Duma members have nothing to do with START II: one is NATO expansion; and the other is the US theatre missile defence program, which is somehow projected in the minds of people who don’t know a great deal about it – to be the US building a national ABM system.

Statements about the delays have include Prime Minister Chernomyrdin in 1997:

For us, the question of the Start II is very important – very. It was signed in 1993, and today as you understand is ’97, no signature, no ratification. It has a political and military bearing and economic bearing, this treaty, quite naturally. And we would like the Duma to treat it with utmost seriousness, and it is doing so. The issue cannot be addressed now solely in the context of the issue of the Start II. Once again, this question will certainly be linked with other issues – all other issues – of course, including the European security, which is not quite consonant to interests of ours. And the difficulty is today of these issues when we discuss the European security, Start II is Russia-United States – very serious and important nuclear issue. The price is too high here. But some other issues are imputed into it which we would not like to be converged with the Start II issues. [FBIS: Moscow Radio: 15 July 1997: 06:00 GMT]

This may seem ambiguous but The Russian Duma is actually representing the populations views. A recent survey of young people (ages 16-28 in Moscow, Kalingrad, St Petersburg and Vladivostok), the most Western-oriented of Russians, found that 82 percent opposed NATO expansion. Therefore, over the mid- to long-term there is a political base upon which anti-Western forces can exploit NATO expansion at the polls. This could lead to either the coming to power of anti-western communist-nationalist forces or the hardening of a centrist Russian regime’s stance toward the West. The first possibility was writ large in Yeltsin’s 19 September 1997 statement in Orel, in which he stated that the US has too much influence in Europe.

If this where the case then we should be very akin to the hardening of other Russian political forces which was made clear in a report made to the Anti-NATO Commission offering a rather chilling vision of an alternative future should NATO expansion produce this worst case scenario. The report, delivered by Chairman of the Duma’s Committee of Geopolitics Aleksei Mitrofanov, a leading member of Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), calls for a Russian foreign policy that seeks a revolution in the international system based on a national and ethnic ethos, rather than on ‘class struggle,’ a system informed by ideology and a geostrategic doctrine of Russian national egoism. The collapse of the Cold War’s bipolar structure, in Mitrofanov’s view, has given birth to a new stage in history: one of partitioning of the world.

Perhaps we should also be aware of such fluctuations in opinion within the Duma as reflecting fluctuations in public opinion. In February 1997, for example, deputies from the opposition ‘Power to the People’ faction (Narodovlastie) in the Russian Federal Assembly’s State Duma organised an ‘Anti-NATO’ association of some 240 deputies. By July it had grown to 260, reflecting growing alarm among centrist deputies as well. This Duma majority could reject ratification of the START II nuclear weapons reduction treaty, chemical weapons agreements, the Open Skies agreement and other important arms control, non-proliferation and confidence-building measures. The leading organisers of the anti-NATO movement, for the most part, are members of the communist-nationalist opposition, particularly the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and Narodovlastie.

NATO is acutely aware of this and how it affects civil-military relations: NATO enlargement, on the background of battles over the military budget and reform, can only complicate already strained civil-military relations. No less than foreign policymakers, military and contingency planners everywhere plan for as many possibilities as far into the future as possible. Foreign policy is and should be built not on the intentions of foreign powers, but on their capabilities. Indeed, intentions, stated or real, cannot be read very far into the future. This is why militaries tend to approach contingency planning on the basis of capabilities. Looking at the implications of NATO expansion from the perspective of a Russian military planner – even imagining oneself to be not a hard-liner, but a moderate military professional – one would have to conclude that the capabilities of NATO vis-à-vis Russia will grow, thus its capability as a potential threat. The correlation of forces will change drastically to the detriment of Russia’s already compromised security.

The Duma pays attention to the military opinion one of which has been Colonel-General Vladimir Yakovlev, Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces. He noted one effect on Russia’s security of NATO’s post-expansion capabilities:

Now that NATO is moving eastward it will have the ability to use most of its tactical aircraft to deliver strikes at our facilities. Moreover, they will be able to spend more time in our deployment areas, which will increase their combat load. There is no direct threat of this now, but the Strategic Missile Force is doing research designed to increase the viability of launching sites and command stations. This is done as part of the work to ensure high combat readiness and effectiveness. [Krasnaia Zvezda: 22 July 1997, P.2 ]

This dynamic was also reflected recently when a supporter of the Yeltsin-Chernomyrdin administration, General Lev Rokhlin, denounced President Yeltsin for intentionally destroying the military. Rokhlin, a leading member of the NDR and reportedly well-respected in the military, was expelled from Chernomyrdin’s party, but maintained chairmanship of the Duma’s Defence Committee. He then organised a new military opposition movement that includes the most sinister of former and active-duty military and KGB officers in the country. In an appeal to President Yeltsin, whom Rokhlin now hopes his movement can impeach, Rokhlin tied NATO expansion to a demand for increased expenditures on Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent.

It is no accident that in Helsinki the USA’s president agreed to…America’s observation of the 1972 ABM Treaty until the year 2000’ asserted Rokhlin. ‘It will be at about this time that our strategic nuclear forces will be practically destroyed. This shows that NATO expansion can and may already be impinging on the fight between military and civilian leaders over military reform. [Krasnaia Zvezda: 22 July 1997, P.4 ]

In addition to mobilising and depolarising various hard-liner and centrist political groups, NATO enlargement is already damaging important Russia economic interests that could come to the support of a more broad-based anti-NATO movement. Among them is the powerful defence industry lobby, which has been a special target of Rokhlin’s activities. The availability of American arms impinges on the attractiveness of Russian arms among imminent and prospective NATO members.

NATO enlargement dominates security and arms control debates: Following the May 14 preliminary agreement on the NATO-Russia Founding Act, Moscow think tank spokesmen found positive things to say about the benefits for Russia, along with many qualifications. When Yeltsin and Primakov briefed the text to the parliamentary (including committee chairpersons and party or faction leaders) on May 21, they won a measure of endorsement, especially from Duma chairman Gennady Seleznyov (communist) and Federation Council chairman Yegor Stroyev (OHR), and from Duma Defence Committee chairman Rokhlin.

Although the evolution of the Russia-NATO relationship could produce further friction, the conclusion of the Founding Act may lower the confrontational mood in Moscow, potentially lowering obstacles to action on other arms control and security issues. However, there should be no illusions: Zhirinovsky’s vitriolic opposition to NATO enlargement is on the record, as are Zyuganov’s negative views. Duma leaders do not appear to be willing to put the Founding Act to an official vote.

An important point to remember that in Russia, legislative action on a treaty takes the form of a law. As such Yeltsin’s approval of NATO’s expansion is seen by Russia’s communists and nationalists, who between them control the Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Parliament, as a national humiliation. Another reason for delaying ratification of the Start II treaty which calls for substantial bilateral reduction of nuclear missiles is to ‘punish Yeltsin and the United States.’

It is therefore no surprise that Ultranationalist Zhirinovsky (LDP) and communist leader Zyuganov had disparaged Yeltsin’s Helsinki performance right after the summit, accusing him of selling out Russia’s interests on the NATO issue. Communist opposition to START II had softened in early 1996 (evidenced by the moderate Spiritual Heritage report produced in July 1996 by Alexei Podberiozkin), but hardened again last winter, ostensibly rejoining hard-line nationalist positions. Moderates in the Duma reacted negatively to the Helsinki demarcation agreement but are muting their criticism of the START II/III package, acknowledging that the START II time line extension and the START III framework agreement did address key Russian financial and practical objections to START II.

This is part and parcel of a unique process of democratisation in Russia that should not be shunned but should be welcomed even if it is delaying the implementation of a Cold Diplomacy process that has outlasted the Cold War. It is as important to view this debate in the Duma as it is to view and respect the comments of the Duma experts. These experts will eventually determine the value of any ratification in its implementation.

The Duma Defence Committee wants START III clarified first: Gen. (retd) Levi Rokhlin (OHR), Chairman of the Duma Defence Committee, argues publicly and privately that while he generally supports the joint Helsinki outcome as a big step forward, further work on START III, preferably a ‘documented’ clarification of its elements, is a prerequisite for favourable Duma action on START II. Not surprisingly, Helsinki has given added impetus to long-standing interest inside the Duma and in foreign policy think tank circles in leap-frogging to START III (usually leaving unstated whether this would undo the START II ban on MIRVed ICBMs).

This has been echoed by Anton Surikov, who works for Viktor Ilyukhin (Communist), chair of the Duma Security Committee, and reportedly advises Duma chairman Seleznyov (Communist Party) on foreign policy, declared that the treaty would only be ratified if the left supports it, that the trend is in the opposite direction, and without something extraordinary happening, START II will not be ratified by the Duma. He gave the following reasons: (1) the United States enjoys a 3:1 ‘reversible’ potential in uploadable missiles and reoriented bombers under START II; while START II bans MIRVed ICBMs, if Russia sticks with START I and keeps its MIRVed ICBMs, this US advantage in reversible potential drops to 1.5:1; (2) NATO expansion makes its tactical nuclear weapons a ‘strategic’ threat to Russia; and (3) US ABM and TMD deployment plans become more threatening with deeper reductions than with START I levels. The Helsinki demarcation criteria would allow US TMD deployed near Russian SSBN operating areas to intercept Russian SLBMs, and US TMD also incites China to develop more nuclear strike capability, affecting Russia. In conclusion, he argued Russia should confine START II to the archives, and negotiate START III, which would be better, but if conditions with NATO make matters worse, then Russia should get a new president and stay within START I – boosting its defence budget and R& D enough to maintain those levels.

The positive note comes from people such as Petr Romashkin who agree that the Duma was likely to ultimately ratify START II, though perhaps rejecting the Demarcation Agreement. What really matters in such a ratification will be the general impression of US-Russian relations rather than strictly on the merits of the treaty. It is most likely therefore that Ratification will likely be contingent on the inclusion of a list of conditions under which the Russian president could, in the eyes of the Duma, justifiably withdrawal from the treaty. This list of conditions will almost certainly including a provision regarding NATO expansion.

On the argument and assumption that NATO enlargement is more important for contemporary European Security than the legacy of the Cold War the Duma could also say that Start-II and Start-III are not really important anymore. This is confirmed given Russia’s economic constraints and its shared interest with the West in reducing military costs. Start-II is important for at least three reasons: 1) it implies a corresponding US reduction (rather than a unilateral Russian reduction for economic reasons); 2) it will influence decisions about Russian weapons programs: without Start-II, there would be a growing pressure in favour of turning back to MIRVed ICBMs because they are so cost-effective; 3) it opens the way to Start-III, which would allow Russia to allocate more of its defence spending to military reform, rather than the construction of either numerous and expensive single-warhead missiles or new MIRVed ICBMs.

Vladimir Lukin, chairman of the Russian Duma’s Committee on International Affairs said ‘We need to be respected. Our security problems are not less than the security problems of France, Britain or Poland. The selective entrance into NATO – that is the problem.’ He also noted that NATO and START II are old European Security Issues. According to him there are new risks: Albania, Yugoslavia, drugs, organised crime which needs discussion together.

It was therefore t is clear that the Duma perceives that The United States neglected the Russian strategic concerns. How then can Russian reduce her most powerful strategic weapons when relations are put into question? It is not a problem strategically, but psychologically it is a big problem. a positive vote in the Duma is possible, but implementation of any START agreement it is a long way ahead…

The Russian Duma like NATO members know that over-enlarging NATO will eventually destroy NATO; while it also it makes it less credible. Both know that it will be very offensive to Russia. It will strengthen the nationalist forces in Russia. Looking at such comments it is therefore not surprising that Russians have not accepted the expansion of NATO as a fait accompli as NATO will have to weigh up the odds!

NATO could begin a negotiation process with Russia on the conditions of Russia’s possible entry into NATO, thereby taking Russian interests seriously into account and including her in the planning of Europe’s future security infrastructure – without prematurely committing either side to Russia’s inclusion in NATO. This would allow Russia to judge NATO’s intentions and its sincerity in proclaiming an open door policy. Such a negotiation process is not very different START II/III which considers Russia a strong military power necessitating the allocation of intense diplomatic resources. So by September 1998 it seemed that Cold Diplomacy was very similar to the Cold War. There was a Zero-Sum Game of NATO Enlargement, Numerical Debate of Nuclear Weapons and USA-USSR Negotiations. The only difference is the role of the Russian Duma! The discovery of mass graves and possible Genocide in Kosovo in September 1998 took this Game of Cold Diplomacy into the Real World of European Security.

The Onset of Kosovo

It all started when the United States and its allies geared up for military strikes on 11 October 1998 against Serbian targets relating to the ‘mass graves incidents’ discovered in Kosovo in September 1998. Such incidents are not new but came at a time when NATO was trying to unify after its recent expansion to include Poland, the Czech State and Hungary while also attempting to find a means to test the Strategy of Combined and Joint Task Forces (CJTF). Kosovo appeared to be a relatively easy and low risk military and political means of trying out both the expansion organisation and CJTF. NATO had no other interest in Kosovo – the humanitarian crises was a casus belli that could have been ignored as it has been for years in Kosovo and other regions of the former Yugoslavia.

From the onset however, the possible ramifications of refugees and the use of ground forces, was not considered. No plans were made to airlift troops in or to cater for a mass refugee problem. It was to be an air campaign similar to the one conducted a few months previously against Iraq! The main military activity would be conducted by the USA. Other NATO members would supply token military forces and would support the action through political consensus in NATO organisational meetings in the comfort of Brussels Board Rooms.

The Kosovan action was therefore aimed at one and only one goal of European Security – keeping the new and old European members of NATO unified and in keeping the USA in the organisation. No-one even thought of listening to Russia or even to consider other aspects of European Security such as the process of disarmament.

Had any-one listened they would have heard Pavel Felgenhauer, defence and security editor for the newspaper Segodnya stating about NATO action that ‘Communists and nationalists will cry out that Mother Russia is next in line for attack and many Russians, stunned by the collapse of their Western-oriented quasi-market economy, will believe them.’ [FBIS: Segodnya, 11 October 1998, Page 3, Col 4-5]. They would have also heard the lessons learned about ethnic problems and refugees from Russia’s failed military action in Chechnya.

This was not rhetoric for reports show that both Russian military and political leaders were threatening to sever ties with NATO, send peacekeeping troops to the Yugoslav Federation to prevent a NATO attack, unilaterally end an arms embargo against the Yugoslav Federation, and further stall nuclear arms reduction agreements with the United States.

The initiative for such activities came from the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, which has on a number of occasions threatened to break off ties with NATO. Ultranationalist groups like the Union of Officers are signing up volunteers to fight for Serbia. This is all disturbing, but nothing the West has not heard before – and so it was ignored by NATO planners.

The sabre-rattling in October 1998 was accompanied by a round of telephone calls to Western leaders by President Boris N. Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov plus some urgent shuttle diplomacy by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Russia says it objects to the violent methods Milosevic has used to crack down on separatist Kosovo, but says the conflict should be settled through talks and has vowed to use its power of veto to halt any UN Security Council resolution on the use of force against Serbia.

Ivanov met with Milosevic in Belgrade, then flew to London to present his counterparts from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy – which, together with Russia, make up the Contact Group on Yugoslavia – with a proposal from the Yugoslav leader to unconditionally allow European officials into Kosovo to monitor Serb troop withdrawals. Had this been heard and adhered to then there would not have been the refugee problem that exists today.

The danger of the military approach by NATO, Russian officials and analysts say, is the precedent it sets for future conflict-solving in Europe. ‘Carried out with or without a United Nations mandate, proposed NATO air strikes against Serbia would inevitably create a controversial precedent for the post-Cold War world,’ Vladimir Lukin, head of the foreign relations committee in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, said, ‘If a regional organisation like NATO¼without a decision by the UN…decides to launch a military strike against country that is solving its ethnic problems in a way we don’t like…that means for Russia that next time, the same thing can happen when someone does not like the way we are conducing affairs.’ [The Times, 5 November 1998, Page 7, Col.2]

Russia’s parliament also declared that any NATO military action over Kosovo taken without UN approval would be considered an ‘illegal act of aggression.’ In a unanimous resolution, the State Duma said it would review all agreements between NATO and Russia if the Western alliance were to opt for force against Yugoslavia. Such a decision ‘may cause irreparable harm to the international security system fixed in the UN Charter,’ the resolution said. [BBC: World-Service Reporting: 2 March 1999:14:00 GMT News]

Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov warned that, ‘if a single bomb or rocket is dropped in Serbia, the Yugoslav army will retaliate¼and this can trigger a full-scale war.’ If the United States initiates military action, US officials ‘may say goodbye to ratification of the START II treaty,’ said Gennady Seleznyov, the Communist leader of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, ‘We were moving toward ratifying it. If NATO inflicts this blow against Kosovo, it will all be thrown back. It will all be forgotten.’ [BBC: World-Service Reporting: 2 March 1999:14:00 GMT News]

It was not immediately clear whether Seleznyov had co-ordinated his comments with Yeltsin or with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, both of whom favour ratification of START II but oppose military action against Yugoslavia.

An explanation offered for such terse statements is the nature of Russian domestic politics. Russia already has a province, Chechnya, that won de facto independence after Moscow’s 20-month campaign failed to crush a separatist rebellion. Ethnic tensions are strong in Chechnya’s neighbour, Dagestan, and separatist moods run high in the Volga region of Tatarstan. US specialists say Russia is less worried about the precedent NATO intervention would set for Chechnya or Tatarstan than it is by the idea that the West can do whatever it chooses in Moscow’s backyard. ‘The main reason the Russians oppose [NATO strikes] is psychological,’ said Kurt Bassuener, director of the Balkan Action Council in Washington, ‘They don’t want to be seen as being an adjunct to the West. It’s a cost-free way for Russia to differentiate itself.’ [‘Balkan Action Council Washington’, Balkan Watch, 3 November 1998]

Conclusion

Months into the military action against Kosovo some of these warnings have come true: Russia is still stalling with the Disarmament Process – Europe is no further advanced in attaining security than it was prior to military action in Kosovo. Furthermore, Europe is now facing a Refugee crises – the largest since the end of World War II. The lesson of the Cold War is obvious for the lessons of today’s Cold Diplomacy – Do not ignore the obvious! For NATO this means that it is now involved in a protracted military air campaign against a country which does not even have an Embassy in Washington DC. It means that the Disarmament process of Start II/III and further have been set back indefinitely and that the economic and social structures of the European Union are facing an arduous task of dealing with a mass refugee crises. Has the goals of NATO action succeeded – NATO enlargement unification and CJTF? The answer is NO. The new NATO members have not contributed any air forces and so far the only forces used have been air power, hence the CJTF has yet to be tested. Even if NATO enlargement proves to be successful in CJTF and in its enlargement and even if the Russian Duma does eventually approve nuclear disarmament the costs remain – over one million displaced persons! – Is this the cost of European Security?