the cold war, redux

Viewpoint: Russia's missile fears
Does Kremlin anger over US plans to site anti-missile facilities close to its borders reflect genuine Russian concerns?

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of foreign affairs journal Russia in Global Affairs, spoke to the BBC News website from Moscow.

"America keeps saying its anti-missile system will not target Russia and to suggest otherwise would be absurd because Russia can overcome it. Well, Russia could overcome it today but what about in 15 years' time, when it is not just two facilities but a global system?

Russia would have nothing to fear if it was just the anti-missile base in Poland and the radar site in the Czech Republic but if the idea of a global anti-missile system becomes a reality, the nuclear capability of Russia, China and other countries will be undermined.

So when the Americans say they are not targeting Russia, they are right, but when Russian generals say that the US is targeting Russia, they are also right. It is two sides of the same coin.

When [Russian President Vladimir] Putin criticises the US aggressively over its anti-missile system plans, I can imagine the faces of China's leaders, sitting quietly in Beijing and happily nodding approval because Putin is fighting for them against a system none of them want. Putin reflects the views of all those who are not US allies.

Beyond electioneering

Were the US planning to build its facilities in Turkey or Italy, I think the Russian reaction would have been slightly more restrained but still negative.

The only Russian electioneering [ahead of the parliamentary ballot in December and presidential vote in March 2008] going on here is in the tough style and manner the Kremlin is using.

Not that Putin really needs it - our society could not be more politically consolidated if it tried and everyone backs the president and whoever he puts forward to replace him. Nonetheless, the authorities are always happy to have an extra bit of insurance.

But I do not think the stance on the anti-missile system depends on elections. The rhetoric may change but Russia will continue to view it as a threat.

Let down by Bush

Countries can cooperate on strategic security only if they trust each other and where anti-missile systems and national security are concerned, the trust has to be very high indeed.

Just now, it would be absurd to talk about such trust between Russia and the US.

Theoretically, it was possible five or six years ago, when Russia and the US were united against terrorism, but the trust gradually disappeared and Russia believes that it has been cheated by the US.

In Putin's eyes, Russia has done a great deal for the West and America. Putin removed the military base from Vietnam, he shut down the radar station in Cuba, he did not stand in the way of the US opening bases in Central Asia.

The US believes that Russia had no choice and that it was in Russian interests anyway but Russia believes that all it got for its efforts was the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the dispute with Georgia, Nato expansion and now these anti-missile sites.

Putin's sharp words today come down to his deep sense of disappointment in the US. He feels misused.

Stumping the EU

I can understand how people see this dispute in terms of New Russian arrogance and resurgent Russian imperialism but that is a very facile interpretation.

If we are talking about projecting power here, just look at Poland, for example, which has become the lead EU state in all things regarding Russia and determines how relations with us are conducted.

All the politicians I have spoken to privately in the EU - and I do meet a lot of them - have told me they do not support the anti-missile system. They all say it is a perfectly useless thing that nobody needs.

And many of the people I have talked to in private have told me they believe the anti-missile system is a US tactic to prevent the EU from becoming an independent player in foreign policy.

In my view, the anti-missile system plan spells the end of any attempt to have a common security policy in Europe because East European countries, for very understandable reasons, do not trust Western Europe to look after their security. They believe that America will defend them.

So you can blame everything on Russia, and sadly Russia does much to encourage that position, but the situation really is much more complex.

Capitalist revolutionaries

All former empires, especially the big ones like France and Britain, have gone through the same difficult process.

For Russia it is even harder because it never regarded Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan as colonies but as natural parts of our country.

The USSR's imperialism was based on ideology and confrontation with another side. A Cold War is not possible now because it would mean dividing the world in two.

We might be wrestling with the US or EU but there would be enormous countries on the sidelines, enjoying the spectacle. I mean China, Iran and India, to some extent.

It would be a lose-lose, not win-win, situation because the winners would be China and the others.

Of course, Russia wants to be a great power again but not a superpower.

It wants to be a member of the club which sets the rules and wants to review the rules which were drawn up when it was weak.

Russia's world view today is mainly through the prism of economic interests. It perceives the outside world as an enormous market where every country competes for a share.

It is a young and terribly aggressive, ruthless, unceremonious kind of capitalism but it is guided by profit."
Interview taken by Patrick Jackson, BBC News.

Putin gives stark missile warning

Russian President Vladimir Putin says US plans for a missile shield could precipitate a situation similar to the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s.

Mr Putin was speaking after a summit with EU leaders in Portugal aimed at deepening ties despite disagreements over human rights and foreign policy.

Russia has long opposed US plans to build missile bases in European states once in the Soviet sphere of influence.

The Cuba crisis saw the Soviet Union and US go to the brink of nuclear war.

The 1962 stand-off was triggered when US spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba, within striking distance of the American mainland.

Moscow's decision to deploy these weapons in Cuba was at the time seen as a response to the build-up of powerful US missiles in Europe.

Tensions were only defused when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the bases in return for guarantees that Washington would not attack communist Cuba.

'Similar situation'

US President George W Bush has said there is a "real and urgent" need for a missile shield in Europe as a defence against possible attack by Iran and countries in the Middle East.

His defence secretary suggested this week that the development of the bases in countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland could be slowed while Russian concerns were addressed.

President Putin said the threat to Russia's borders was akin to that faced by the US during the Cuban crisis.

"I would remind you how relations were developing in an analogous situation in the middle of the 1960s," he said.

"Analogous actions by the Soviet Union when it deployed rockets in Cuba provoked the Cuban missile crisis," he said.

"For us, technologically, the situation is very similar."

He added that current tensions had not reached the pitch attained during the Cuban crisis.

"It's not the same and we're not enemies. I can call President Bush my friend. But we've put forward solutions and we haven't yet received any answer."

Simmering tensions

EU leaders at the Portugal summit were hoping to speed progress towards a long-term agreement with Russia, that would extend to sensitive areas such as energy supplies.

Vladimir Putin meets EU leaders in Portugal
The EU has been hoping to smooth strained relations with Russia

The EU depends on Russia for a third of its energy needs and has seen gas supplies disrupted for two successive winters.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso confirmed a deal had been reached on sharing information on energy supplies to pre-empt sudden shortages.

"We have agreed today on a specific early warning mechanism to deal with problems in supply before they become a possible crisis," he said.

An agreement was also reached in Portugal on working together to curb the trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs and on raising the quota for Russian steel exports to the EU.

Disagreements with Russia over human rights and foreign policy overshadowed the start of the summit, with Russia's envoy to the EU warning that Moscow didn't "want to listen to any lectures".

In separate appeals, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have urged EU leaders to speak firmly and with one voice about what the groups call the Kremlin's worsening human rights record.

The Kremlin also opposes the stance pursued by several EU members on Kosovo and Iran.

Russia opposes independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo and has also criticised recent moves to impose sanctions on Iran.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7064428.stm

you just don't care about cold war pt. deux, do you?
well, i don't care if you don't care!
because this is all huge!

HUUUUGE!

I think you misundstand me.
I can't wait for the new cold war.

The Russians DEFINE me.

And it's this: In reality, the Bay of Pigs debacle actually escalated into a full-scale nuclear war, and as a result, all of humanity was somehow plunged into a space-time rift, in which we all now seem to live. In order to set things aright, there needs to be a nuclear conflagration in this alternative reality, so that our nightmarish existence in this netherworld is extinguished and "real" reality can catch up with itself.

You weren't even alive seven years ago.

Russia suspends arms treaty
BBC News

Russia's parliament has voted to suspend Moscow's support for a key treaty limiting the deployment of armed forces along its border with Europe.

Parliament's lower house, the Duma, unanimously agreed to temporarily abandon the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE).

The bill still faces approval in the upper house in December before President Vladimir Putin can sign it.

The CFE is one of many issues recently putting Moscow at odds with the West.

The Duma approved the bill in the 418-0 vote.

In the motion, MPs said the CFE treaty "no longer responds to the security interests of the Russian Federation" in light of Nato expansion and other factors in Europe.

The vote amounted to legislative confirmation of a decree signed by President Putin in July.

The CFE was one of the most significant arms control agreements of the Cold War years.

It set strict limits on the number of conventional weapons - battle tanks, combat aircraft, heavy artillery - that the members of the Warsaw Pact and Nato could deploy in European territory stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Urals.

In the wake of the collapse of communism, the treaty was revised in 1999, in part to address Russian concerns.

Russia ratified the 1999 revised version, but Nato has not done so.

Nato states are first demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia and Moldova, but Moscow says the issues are not linked.

The Kremlin has also voiced concern over US plans to station part of a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

THE CFE TREATY
Cornerstone of European security
Limits amount of key military equipment in designated area
Negotiated by Nato and ex-Warsaw Pact member states
Signed in 1990
Came into force in 1992
Revised 1999 version never ratified by Nato

In the second surprise announcement in as many weeks, the Russian President Vladimir Putin has said it is "entirely realistic" that he will become prime minister after stepping down as president early next year.

Mr Putin is barred by the constitution from standing in presidential elections due to be held in March, having already served two consecutive terms as president.

The announcement came during a congress of the dominant political party United Russia, which is controlled by the Kremlin.

In his speech during the opening day of the congress, Mr Putin said there were two conditions which had to be met for him to shift from the presidency to becoming prime minister.

"First, United Russia must win the state Duma (parliament) elections on 2 December," he said.

"And second, a decent capable and modern person with whom I can work as a team should be elected as president."

The announcement was greeted with applause by party leaders and ordinary members who are all loyal to Mr Putin.

They know it is almost certain that these conditions will be met.

Constitutional change?

United Russia is expected to gain a large majority in the elections particularly after Mr Putin also announced on Friday that he would head the party's list of candidates for the parliamentary vote.

And analysts agree that whomever Mr Putin backs to succeed him as president is almost certain to be elected in March.

Mr Putin, who has concentrated much power in his hands since first becoming president more than seven years ago, has long made it clear he wants to remain at the centre of political life in Russia after officially leaving the Kremlin.

But until now he had kept quiet about how he intended to achieve this.

Becoming prime minister was one of many possible scenarios put forward by Kremlinologists in the absence of solid information.

This scenario includes changing the constitution to transfer the executive powers currently enjoyed by the president to the new prime minister.

It also assumes that whoever succeeds Mr Putin as president will be a loyal ally without a power-base of his or her own who would not represent any threat to Mr Putin in his new role.

The person who fits that description well is the man president Putin nominated as prime minister in another surprise move two weeks ago - Viktor Zubkov.

Mr Zubkov was plucked from obscurity from his previous job as head of a financial investigation agency.

But shortly after becoming prime minister, Mr Zubkov refused to rule out running for president in next year's election.

Opposition politicians have criticised President Putin's latest announcement that he will stand for parliament and may become prime minister as anti-democratic and unconstitutional.

"What Putin did today is a real step to creating in Russia, a one-party system," Grigory Yavlinksy, leader of the Yabloko party, told the BBC.

"It's a very dangerous step."

But with the Kremlin controlling much of the media and continuing to suppress opposition groups, it seems unlikely that many ordinary Russians will object to Mr Putin's apparent game-plan.

The president continues to ride a wave of popularity which he seems determined to exploit so he can remain in power for many more years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7023181.stm

Foreign observers have said that Russia's parliamentary election, won by President Vladimir Putin's party, was "not fair".

The statement was made by a joint observer team of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe.

With nearly 98% of ballots counted, Mr Putin's United Russia had 64.1% of Sunday's vote.

Mr Putin said the poll was "legitimate" and a vote of public trust in him.

The election showed that Russians would not allow their nation to develop along a "destructive path" as had happened in several former Soviet countries, Mr Putin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Opposition claims of fraud have been rejected by Russia's electoral commission.

'Not a level playing field'

The election "was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections," the observers from the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly told a news conference in Moscow.

The statement said the polls "took place in an atmosphere which seriously limited political competition" and that "there was not a level political playing field".

"Frequent abuse of administrative resources, media coverage strongly in favour of the ruling party and an election code whose cumulative effect hindered political pluralism" had tainted the polls, the observers said.

The OSCE had abandoned its plans to send a large team of monitors, accusing Moscow of imposing curbs and delaying visas. Russia denied the claims.

Only a much smaller group of members of the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly had attended the election, leaving some 330 foreign monitors covering nearly 100,000 polling stations.

Several European countries and the US have urged the Russian authorities to investigate reports of fraud.

Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer expressed concern over the conduct of the elections.

'Parallel count'

The opposition Communists and two other parties - A Fair Russia and the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party - were also poised to win seats in the 450-member lower chamber of the parliament, the State Duma.

The country's liberal opposition parties looked certain to fail to clear the 7% threshold needed to enter parliament. In total, 11 parties were competing for places in the State Duma.

The Communists have said they will mount a legal challenge to the result, and will decide shortly whether to boycott the new parliament.

"We do not trust these figures announced by the central elections commission and we will conduct a parallel count," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said after the vote.

In Russia's troubled region of Chechnya, run by pro-Kremlin President Ramzan Kadyrov, electoral officials have said a partial count showed United Russia won more than 99% of the votes on a 99% turnout.

The prominent opposition activist and former chess world champion Garry Kasparov described the election as "the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern Russia".

The independent Russian monitoring group, Golos, had earlier reported various violations during the voting, which it said amounted to "an organised campaign".

It had claimed that in a number of cases state employees and students were pressured to vote, and those voting for United Russia were entered into a prize lottery in the city of St Petersburg.

The chairman of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, told Russian TV he knew of "no serious violations in the course of polling day".

United Russia's leader Boris Gryzlov acknowledged there had been violations but dismissed them as insignificant.

Observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russia-dominated grouping of former Soviet states, said the election was "free and transparent", according to Russia's Ria Novosti news agency.

Options for Putin

On Monday, some 10,000 members of the pro-Putin Nashi (Ours) youth group are holding a rally in Moscow to celebrate United Russia's victory.

Nashi leaders have said the group should be on its guard against possible provocation from opposition parties and any attempts to instigate an Orange-style revolution, like in neighbouring Ukraine.

Mr Putin is constitutionally obliged to stand down after his second term as president ends in March next year.

The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says his party's win will enable him to continue wielding great influence in politics - even if he is no longer in high office.

Mr Putin announced this year he may seek the office of prime minister after his presidential term ends.

If predictions are correct and the Liberal Democratic Party enters parliament, its candidate Andrei Lugovoi - who is wanted in the UK for the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko - will be guaranteed a seat.

A parliamentary seat would grant him immunity from prosecution and extradition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin should become prime minister after stepping down next year, his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev says.

Mr Putin named Mr Medvedev on Monday as his favourite for the presidency. Mr Putin's own popularity is likely to ensure he is elected, analysts say.

Mr Putin steps down in March but is expected to retain political influence.

Mr Medvedev was Mr Putin's chief of staff and is currently a first deputy PM and chairman of gas giant Gazprom.

"I appeal to [President Putin] with a request to give his agreement in principle to head the Russian government after the election of the new president," Mr Medvedev said on Russian television on Tuesday.

"It's one thing to elect a president - it's no less important to maintain the efficiency of the team," he said.

Uncharted territory

Mr Putin is constitutionally obliged to quit after his second presidential term ends next year.

It is not clear how the president will respond to Mr Medvedev's offer. Mr Putin's spokesman says only that he will continue to work as president until the day his term runs out.

In post-Soviet Russia, the president has always been more powerful than the prime minister.

If Mr Putin were to become prime minister, that could change, according to the BBC's Moscow correspondent, James Rodgers.

But, he says, this has never been tried before and it raises the risk of a conflict unless there is a clear understanding of how powers will be divided between the two posts.

Hot favourite

Mr Medvedev said on Tuesday that he wanted the benefits of economic growth to reach all sections of Russian society.

"Now we need to convert all the successes achieved in the past eight years into real programmes," he said.

If elected president, he said, he would pay the greatest attention to social issues.

Mr Medvedev was addressing leaders of the four pro-Kremlin parties backing him, including United Russia, the party which won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections earlier this month.

The 42-year-old former lawyer managed Mr Putin's election campaign in 2000.

As first deputy prime minister he has overseen national programmes in the areas of health, housing and education.

Russia has made huge economic gains as a result of soaring international oil prices.

The government has been facing demands to channel energy revenues into pensions, benefits and parts of the country's infrastructure that have been decaying since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Pressure for continuity

Mr Putin has made it clear he will retain a significant national leadership role after he leaves office at the end of his second term.

He has said he expects Mr Medvedev to provide continuity.

"We have the chance to form a stable government after the elections in March 2008. And not just a stable government, but one that will carry out the course that has brought results for all of the past eight years," Mr Putin said on Monday.

United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov highlighted Mr Medvedev's role in managing national projects aimed at raising Russian living standards.

"Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev] oversees national projects," he said.

"He oversees the demographic programme and we believe that it is precisely the issues to do with raising standards of living that are the most important issues for the forthcoming four-year period."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7137993.stm