Why Putin Pulled out of a Key NATO Treaty
Pastor Dale Morgan
Saturday, Jul. 14, 2007
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Why Putin Pulled out of a Key NATO Treaty*
By Yuri Zarakhovich
Time Magazine
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 of the 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 the way. 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 denied entry 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.