Saturday, Jul. 14, 2007
Why Putin Pulled out of a Key Treaty
By Yuri Zarakhovich
_time.com_ ()
Far be it from anyone to cast a shadow over the famous Maine
lobster. But even this fabled treat failed to work as a sweetener on
Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the way to Kennebunkport, where
President George W. Bush’s family were receiving "friend Vladimir"
earlier his month, Putin had been particularly fretting about the
prospective deployment in Europe of the U.S.
Anti-Ballistic Missile system (ABM), a shield against missiles that
rogue countries, Iran in particular, may be able to launch in
future. In addition to ABM, which Putin considers a threat to Russia,
NATO failed to ratify the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) –
a key European arms control treaty that has been regulating the
deployment of troops and the monitoring of weapons systems on the
continent since 1990. Still, the Kennebunkport was full of good cheer,
great fishing and conciliatory hints that these newly risen
U.S.-Russian tensions would soon ease up.
Nevertheless, six pounds of choice Maine lobster and two weekends
later, Putin delivered on a long-promised threat. Early Saturday
morning, the Kremlin abruptly announced Putin’s decree to halt
Russia’s participation in the CFE treaty due to "extraordinary
circumstances … which affect the security ofthe Russian Federation
and require immediate measures."
Putin’s "extraordinary circumstances" are clear: first, he says
missile shield in Europe will see through entire Russia’s defenses all
the way to the Urals; Russia seeks to counter that, but the treaty
stands very much in theway.
Second, NATO countries have failed to ratify the treaty’s 1999 amended
version – a failure that Putin insists upsets the balance of forces in
Europe. For their part, NATO countries hold that the amended version
required that Moscow withdraw troops from Moldova and Georgia, which
it hasn’t completed, and refuse to ratify until Russia fully complies.
Within hours of the Kremlin’s announcement, the Russian Foreign
Ministry said that Russia will halt inspections and verifications of
its military sites by NATO countries and will no longer limit the
number of its conventional weapons. Russia, however, had already
halted such verification visits after a CFE treaty conference held in
Vienna last month turned a deaf ear to Russia’s complaints; military
delegations from Bulgaria and Hungary had been deniedentry to Russian
military units. Also last month, Russia turned down an invitation to
take part in joint exercises with the U.S., Romania and
Bulgaria. General Vladimir Shamanov, particularly notorious for
aggressive tactics in Chechnya and now advisor to the Russian Defense
Minister, said: "The Soviet Army took part in joint exercises with the
Nazi Germany. Which resulted in Germany’s perfidiously attacking the
USSR. What trust there can be now, if the US is deploying bases in
Romania and Bulgaria?"
There is wide speculation that Putin’s idea of "immediate measures"
will be to build up its forces in border areas now that it is free of
the CFE treaty.
Last month, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who
increasingly positions himself as Putin’s hawkish potential successor,
said that Russia would deploy its newly tested Iskander-M cruise
missiles in is westernmost Kaliningradsky region, wedged among Poland,
Lithuania and Belarus, unless the U.S. scrapes its defense shield
bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Ivanov’s threats only
infuriated Poland and made Lithuania consider asking the U.S. for
deploying its ABM on its soil as well. However, cruise and new MIRVED
ICBM missiles, promised to be re-targeted on Europe, are not the only
ace up Putin’s sleeve. Other measures, like troop build-ups along
southern borders in the Caucasus, new pressures on Ukraine to maintain
the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea beyond the 2017 withdrawal
deadline, and a refusal to leave Moldova are all in the offing among
other measures.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, a democratic opposition leader and a rare
independent member of the Duma, maintains that since the U.S. started
this controversy by walking out of the ABM Treaty in 2002, there is a
grain of truth in Putin’s assertion that Russia was forced to
respond. But Ryzhkov sees Putin’s saber-rattling as "primarily an
election year message to the country: ‘Your leader won’t budge, no
matter who formally becomes next President’." Polls show that this
line works, Ryzhkov says: the Russians really buy it.
But the rest of the world may not. The European Union and NATO have
already expressed their regrets about Putin’s action. "It is a step in
the wrong direction," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said in
Brussels.
In fact, as no provision for a unilateral moratorium was built into
the CFE treaty, Russia’s action amounts to non-compliance, strictly
speaking. It might indeed be designed for domestic consumption. Or it
might be just an act of blackmail in Putin’s new brinkmanship with the
U.S. But it also might be serious water testing on his part to see how
far he can stretch his empire-building muscle and get away with it.