Opinion
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News Analysis
An unequal equation
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Mr. Vladimir Putin has little choice but to accept the American terms for friendship, writes Vladimir Radyuhin.
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With friends like this...
RUSSIA HAS embarked on a second bonhomie with the United States since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The first attempt ran aground when Moscow found that instead of rewarding it with equitable partnership for its rejection of communism and withdrawal from Eastern Europe, Washington was treating it like a defeated foe.
The September 11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil gave the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, an opportunity to recarve the world geopolitical map, setting aside differences with the U.S. in the name of a joint struggle against international terrorism. Russia has provided the U.S. with crucial military, intelligence and logistical support in its anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan, sidelining even NATO as Washington's key European ally in the campaign.
Russia's gains from the new partnership with the U.S. look even more impressive. The American intervention in Afghanistan has helped remove the Taliban threat to Russia's ``soft underbelly'' - Central Asia. The U.S. has recognised Russia's war in Chechnya as a legitimate crackdown on terrorism, is about to waive Soviet-era trade restrictions, backed Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation and agreed to slash strategic arms. Washington has also given the green light to NATO to build closer ties with Russia.
However, there is no illusion in Moscow about Washington's strategic goal - to use the war on terrorism for asserting its permanent global dominance. By rejecting Moscow's proposal to negotiate a compromise on its proposed national missile defence and thereby save the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, Washington showed it was not prepared to treat Russia like an equal partner.
Yet, Mr. Putin has little choice but to accept the American terms for friendship. A painful review of Russia's options showed it has no resources to counter-balance America's push for world supremacy. Moreover, it badly needs Western investment and markets to rebuild its economy ruined by ten years of Mr. Boris Yeltsin's chaotic rule. After two years in power, Mr. Putin is still fighting an uphill battle to assert his control over a corrupt bureaucracy, defiant regions and voracious oligarchs, while the economic rebound is not nearly as dynamic as Russia needs to narrow the growing technological gap with the West.
According to official estimates, the energy sector alone needs a $150-billion investment over the next ten years to peg the economic growth at 5 per cent a year, which would just be enough to raise Russia to the level of the erstwhile Soviet Union by 2010. The situation in other industries is as desperate, with about 80 per cent of the equipment and machinery in need of urgent replacement.
Economic revival has a crucial strategic dimension for Mr. Putin. Unless he can reverse fast the economic degradation and depopulation of Siberia and the Far East, Russia will face a credible threat of their peaceful takeover by China. As of January 2001 there were some 250,000 Chinese citizens registered in Russia, while some estimates put the total number of Chinese migrants at between one and three million. The Far East has a population of under 10 million and it keeps declining, whereas the three Chinese provinces just across the border have 150 million people.
``The main security issue today, and perhaps the key to Russia's survival in the first half of the 21st century, is whether Russia can hold on to its territory in Siberia and the Far East,'' says Mr. Andrei Piontkovsky, one of the more perceptive Russian analysts.
While no Russian official will publicly admit it, China is perceived as a far greater threat than the U.S. with all its missiles and anti-missiles. Many analysts believe China's rise to global superpower status will put Russia and the U.S. on one side of the barricade, to prevent ``democracy being defeated by demography''.
Mr. Putin's declaration of long-term partnership with the U.S. and the West after September 11 does not mean the winding up of Russia's strategic alliance with China sealed in a landmark friendship treaty signed last year. A weakened Russia, hedged between two global poles - China and the West - is manoeuvring for position that would enable it to live through hard times.
However, Mr. Putin's dramatic shift towards the U.S. and the West has proved too radical for large sections of the Russian elite to swallow. The military, in particular, is unhappy with what it sees as excessive giveaways to Americans, such as Mr. Putin's promise to shut down Russia's naval and air base at Cam Rahn in Vietnam and the electronic spy station in Cuba - the only strategic military outposts Russia has retained from the Cold War era.
Washington's decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty will only deepen the Russian military's resentment of the Kremlin's new policy. Mr. Putin's recent firing of top naval commanders over the sinking of the Kursk submarine should serve as a warning to the top brass that the President, who is also Commander-in-Chief, will ruthlessly suppress any rebellion in their ranks. But unless Mr. Putin can show to the nation some real benefits of his friendship with America, he will face growing pressure to once again review Russia's foreign policy priorities.
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