Financial Times - 02.20.2002

 

Financial Times

Putin: a pragmatic push for closer ties with the US

The Russian leader is pursuing a high-risk strategy to win western support at a time when Moscow's importance is diminishing in US strategic thinking, writes Andrew Jack 

By ANDREW JACK

During the cold war, the slightest change to an arms control agreement between the superpowers was the subject of elaborate and abstruse protocol. Last December, when the US announced its withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, President George W Bush gave little weight to Russian objections.

President Vladimir Putin was left to put the best gloss possible for Russia on a situation over which he had little control. In exchange, he hoped to gain at least a written accord with the US on mutual cuts in ageing and costly nuclear weapons stocks - possibly to coincide with a US-Russia presidential summit in Moscow in May.

But John Bolton, US undersecretary of state, yesterday cast doubt on the timing of such an agreement. After meeting counterparts in Moscow, Mr Bolton said "difficult issues" remained between the two sides, including verification and transparency, which were unlikely to be resolved by the May summit.

Washington's approach to the ABM Treaty illustrates the altered state of US-Russian relations. Even so, Mr Putin has embarked on a high-risk strategy to turn it to his advantage. At the expense of alienating much of his own domestic elite, he has taken two significant steps towards the west to bring him closer to his goal of modernising Russia.

Two weeks after September 11, he lent strong support to the US-led coalition against terrorism, by offering use of Russian-controlled air corridors, intelligence-sharing and dropping any objections to US use of Central Asian bases. A few weeks later, he went further, announcing closure of Soviet-era bases in Cuba and Vietnam.

Behind such initiatives were concerns about the very real threat facing Russia of unrest along its long borders in the Caucasus and Central Asia - and the incentive of warmer relations with the west. Another, more compelling, reason was the stark fact that, after more than a decade of neglect, the country's armed forces were overstretched.

A long line of incidents highlight the problems of corruption, indiscipline and decay in the country's armed forces. Earlier this month two paratroopers deserted from their regiment in the Russian town of Ulyanovsk, stealing weapons and killing 10 people before they were shot.

Theft and waste are widespread, according to Russian military sources. And recent instances of fires in missile bases, and removal of nuclear materials from naval camps, have served to emphasise the necessity for change. The armed forces, at the country's nerve centre under communism, have become marginalised.

Mr Putin's appointment of Sergei Ivanov, one of his most trusted confidants, as defence minister last summer was the clearest indication of the high priority he was giving to reform. Shortly after his nomination, Mr Ivanov himself summed up the urgency of his challenge, saying: "The state of the armed forces is difficult, if not critical."

But in Moscow's desire to maintain a significant Russian military presence, one of the biggest hurdles is the country's increasingly modest budget. Even after substantial funding rises under Mr Putin, total planned defence expenditure for 2002 stands at less than Rbs500bn (Dollars 16.2bn, Pounds 11.3bn, Euros 18.5bn), a fraction of the spending rise alone for the US announced last month by Mr Bush.

While the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US added a fresh sense of urgency to some Russian moves, Mr Ivanov said last week he had decided to close the costly Cuban and Vietnamese military bases long before the attacks.

"We need a civilian defence ministry, and a serious reform of military education," argues Andrei Kokoshin, a member of the parliamentary defence committee and a strong critic of the defence establishment's lack of transparency and inadequate management of the armed forces.

The Russian armed forces are both top and bottom-heavy, with large numbers of generals involved in bureaucracy; a demoralised conscript base, plagued by bullying, indiscipline and desertion; and too few non- commissioned officers, discouraged by low pay and morale. They have also been drained by combat in the past two years. Since Mr Putin authorised military occupation of the breakaway republic of Chechnya in late 1999, up to 90,000 troops have been based in the region and several thousand have been killed.

Russia has long claimed that radical Islamic groups play a significant role in funding and helping train rebels in Chechnya, and in Central Asia. Mr Putin himself threatened missile attacks on Afghanistan in 2000, and warned of an "arc of instability" from the Philippines to the Balkans.

As a result, officers such as Valery Manilov, the army's former chief spokesman, argue that Russia is far more attuned to the new post-cold war threats of terrorism than the west.

Yet, with the legacy of the Soviet Union's bloody war in Afghanistan in the 1980s still fresh, and military resources stretched, fresh Russian military engagement is both politically and technically impossible. The US-led coalition fulfilled Mr Putin's threats to bomb Afghanistan more effectively than Russia could have done.

The challenge for Russia now is that it is losing influence in its traditionally captive Central Asian zone in the process, as foreign troops and diplomats and aid workers establish themselves for what may turn out to be a very long "temporary engagement".

Mr Putin has to balance his limited alternatives against hopes that the west will provide him sufficient support to justify his pro-western position to a sceptical domestic elite. That justification could come in various forms, possibly in written arms reduction agreements, accelerated Russian admission to the World Trade Organisation and greater input or influence on the Nato alliance.

A crucial indicator of whether Mr Putin can expect to reap the rewards he so urgently needs could come in May, when the US has pledged to provide a written arms reduction agreement in time for a planned summit in Russia of the two leaders. If no agreement is offered, it would be further proof of Russia's diminishing presence in US strategic thinking. This is third in a series of five articles on the global impact of US military power. See www.ft.com/usmilitary