ON THE FACE of it, we should all be relieved at the latest accord between Moscow and Washington on nuclear arms. Unfortunately the deal may pose as many threats as it removes.
The Russians have been obliged to swallow a bitter pill, because they have had to accept that George Bush will press on with the Son of Star Wars anti-missile defense shield. In return for this, the Americans will scrap a pile of perfectly good nuclear missiles, to match the destruction of obscelescent Russian missiles which Moscow can no longer afford to maintain. Russia will also be permitted to put back multiple warheads on missiles, which they had reduced to single warheads, under the provision of the START II treaty.
What the Russians really wanted of course was participation in the US shield, arguing that if both nuclear superpowers were equally protected, the deterrent effect would be absolute. Despite encouraging words, the Bush administration has, however, no intention of giving away its ace in the hole. Thus President Putin has suffered a diplomatic defeat. He has fallen back on telling the angry Russian military that it will be 13 years, at the earliest before the US shield is ready, by which time Russia may well have developed some defensive answers of its own.
This may be true. However starved of cash and still smarting from the humiliating loss of the Kursk, the Russian top brass are in no mood for optimism. And herein lies the danger in the US-Russian weapons deal. Putin needs to secure his position in Russia. His economic policies remain a mishmash of laissez-faire and proscriptive intervention, often on behalf of political cronies. His efforts to recentralize the reins of government and reinforce the role of his old colleagues in the former KGB, now the FSB, seem to be bearing fruit, but more slowly than he perhaps expected.
Though to the outside world, Putin’s administration may seem a success, his position at home is in reality weakened by what is seen as a nuclear sellout.
The traditional route for any politician assailed by one crisis is to create another as a diversion. Given his previous record with the Chechens, it can therefore be reckoned that Putin may well look to rebellious Muslim minorities as a source of this diversion. The war in Chechnya simmers on with Russian repression tolerated, if not condoned by the US and Europe. But neighboring Dagestan is now showing signs of similar unrest as evidenced by the recent brutal bombing which slayed over 100.
Putin would be in a bind if he were not so much on side in the American campaign against international terrorism. Now however, by supporting Bush’s aggressive campaign, Putin can present himself as a fellow campaigner. Just as the Israelis have claimed to be fighting Palestinian “terror”, Putin will almost certainly say that he is fighting Chechen or Dagestani or Ingushetian terrorists. The truth however will be rather that the Russians will be extending their internal repression of Muslim minorities.
Chechnya should have taught us that even when Russian brutality is exposed to world opinion, unless world leaders do more than express pious indignation, absolutely nothing will be done.
Putin’s generals want more operations. The latest Chechen war has fallen into the historic pattern, a conflict which the Russians can never win but will insist on fighting, despite the terrible cost to their own troops, let alone to the civilian population they oppress. But new operations in Dagestan and elsewhere offer promising fresh horizons, campaigns that might just be winnable.
Thus the long-term consequence of Putiin’s cave-in to Bush over the missile shield, may well be further misery and disaffection for Russia’s Muslim minorities.
