[www.stratfor.com, kosovo crisis center] [It gets more interesting as it goes on]
"It's the Russians, Stupid"
0500 GMT, 990614
President Bill Clinton had a sign taped to his desk at the beginning
of his first term in office that read, "It's the Economy, Stupid." He
should have taped one on his desk at the beginning of the Kosovo
affair that said, "It's the Russians, Stupid." From the beginning to
the end of this crisis, it has been the Russians, not the Serbs, who
were the real issue facing NATO.
The Kosovo crisis began in December 1998 in Iraq. When the United
States decided to bomb Iraq for four days in December, in spite of
Russian opposition and without consulting them, the Russians became
furious. In their view, the United States completely ignored them and
had now reduced them to a third-world power - discounting completely
Russia's ability to respond. The senior military was particularly
disgruntled. It was this Russian mood, carefully read by Slobodan
Milosevic, which led him to conclude that it was the appropriate time
to challenge the West in Kosovo. It was clear to Milosevic that the
Russians would not permit themselves to be humiliated a second time.
He was right. When the war broke out, the Russians were not only
furious again, but provided open political support to Serbia.
There was, in late April and early May, an urgent feeling inside of
NATO that some sort of compromise was needed. The feeling was an
outgrowth of the fact that the air war alone would not achieve the
desired political goals, and that a ground war was not an option. At
about the same time, it became clear that only the Russians had enough
influence in Belgrade to bring them to a satisfactory compromise. The
Russians, however, were extremely reluctant to begin mediation. The
Russians made it clear that they would only engage in a mediation
effort if there were a prior negotiation between NATO and Russia in
which the basic outlines of a settlement were established. The
resulting agreement was the G-8 accords.
The two most important elements of the G-8 agreement were unwritten,
but they were at the heart of the agreement. The first was that Russia
was to be treated as a great power by NATO, and not as its messenger
boy. The second was that any settlement that was reached had to be
viewed as a compromise and not as a NATO victory. This was not only
for Milosevic's sake, but it was also for Yeltsin's. Following his
humiliation in Iraq, Yeltsin could not afford to be seen as simply
giving in to NATO. If that were to happen, powerful anti-Western,
anti-reform and anti-Yeltsin forces would be triggered. Yeltsin tried
very hard to convey to NATO that far more than Kosovo was at stake.
NATO didn't seem to listen.
Thus, the entire point of the G-8 agreements was that there would be a
compromise in which NATO achieved what it wanted while Yugoslavia
retained what it wanted. A foreign presence would enter Kosovo,
including NATO troops. Russian troops would also be present. These
Russian troops would be used to guarantee the behavior of NATO troops
in relation to Serbs, in regard to disarming the KLA, and in
guaranteeing Serbia's long-term rights in Kosovo. The presence of
Russian troops in Kosovo either under a joint UN command or as an
independent force was the essential element of the G-8. Many long
hours were spent in Bonn and elsewhere negotiating this agreement.
Over the course of a month, the Russians pressured Milosevic to accept
these agreements. Finally, in a meeting attended by the EU's Martti
Ahtisaari and Moscow's Viktor Chernomyrdin, Milosevic accepted the
compromise. Milosevic did not accept the agreements because of the
bombing campaign. It hurt, but never crippled him. Milosevic accepted
the agreements because the Russians wanted them and because they
guaranteed that they would be present as independent observers to make
certain that NATO did not overstep its bounds. This is the key: it was
the Russians, not the bombing campaign that delivered the Serbs.
NATO violated that understanding from the instant the announcement
came from Belgrade. NATO deliberately and very publicly attacked the
foundations of the accords by trumpeting them as a unilateral victory
for NATO's air campaign and the de-facto surrender of Serbia. Serbia,
which had thought it had agreed to a compromise under Russian
guarantees, found that NATO and the Western media were treating this
announcement as a surrender. Serb generals were absolutely shocked
when, in meeting with their NATO counterparts, they were given
non-negotiable demands by NATO. They not only refused to sign, but
they apparently contacted their Russian military counterparts
directly, reporting NATO's position. A Russian general arrived at the
negotiations and apparently presided over their collapse.
Throughout last week, NATO was in the bizarre position of claiming
victory over the Serbs while trying to convince them to let NATO move
into Kosovo. The irony of the situation of course escaped NATO. Serbia
had agreed to the G-8 agreements and it was sticking by them. NATO's
demand that Serbia accept non-negotiable terms was simply rejected,
precisely because Serbia had not been defeated. The key issue was the
Russian role. Everything else was trivial. Serbia had been promised an
independent Russian presence. The G-8 agreements had said that any
unified command would be answerable to the Security Council. That
wasn't happening. The Serbs weren't signing. NATO's attempt to dictate
terms by right of victory fell flat on its face. For a week, NATO
troops milled around, waiting for Serb permission to move in.
The Russians proposed a second compromise. If everyone would not be
under UN command, they would accept responsibility for their own zone.
NATO rejected this stating Russia could come into Kosovo under NATO
command or not at all. This not only violated the principles that had
governed the G-8 negotiations, by removing the protection of Serb
interests against NATO, but it also put the Russians into an
impossible position in Belgrade and in Moscow. The negotiators
appeared to be either fools or dupes of the West. Chernomyrdin and
Ivanov worked hard to save the agreements, and perhaps even their own
careers. NATO, for reasons that escape us, gave no ground. They hung
the negotiators out to dry by giving them no room for maneuver. Under
NATO terms, Kosovo would become exactly what Serbia had rejected at
Rambouillet: a NATO protectorate. And now it was Russia, Serbia's
ally, that delivered them to NATO.
By the end of the week, something snapped in Moscow. It is not clear
whether it was Yeltsin who himself ordered that Russian troops move
into Pristina or whether the Russian General Staff itself gave the
order. What is clear is that Yeltsin promoted the Russian general who,
along with his troops, rolled into Pristina. It is also clear that
although Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov had claimed that the whole
affair was an accident and promised that the troops would be withdrawn
immediately, no troops have been removed. Talbott then flew back to
Moscow. Clinton got to speak with Yeltsin after a 24-hour delay, but
the conversation went nowhere. Meanwhile, Albright is declaring that
the Russians must come under NATO command and that's final.
The situation has become more complex. NATO has prevailed on Hungary
and Ukraine to forbid Russian aircraft from crossing their airspace
with troops bound for Kosovo. Now Hungary is part of NATO. Ukraine is
not. NATO is now driving home the fact that Russia is surrounded,
isolated and helpless. It is also putting Ukraine into the position of
directly thwarting fundamental Russian strategic needs. Since NATO is
in no position to defend Ukraine and since there is substantial, if
not overwhelming, pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine, NATO is driving an
important point home to the Russians: the current geopolitical reality
is unacceptable from the Russian point of view. By Sunday, Russian
pressure had caused Ukraine to change its policy. But the lesson was
not lost on Russia's military.
Here is the problem as Stratfor sees it. NATO and the United States
have been dealing with men like Viktor Chernomyrdin. These men have
had their primary focus, for the past decade, on trying to create a
capitalist Russia. They have not only failed, but their failure is now
manifest throughout Russia. Their credibility there is nil. In
negotiating with the West, they operate from two imperatives. First,
they are seeking whatever economic concessions they can secure in the
hope of sparking an economic miracle. Second, like Gorbachev before
them, they have more credibility with the people with whom they are
negotiating than the people they are negotiating for. That tends to
make them malleable.
NATO has been confusing the malleability of a declining cadre of
Russian leaders with the genuine condition inside of Russia. Clearly,
Albright, Berger, Talbott, and Clinton decided that they could roll
Ivanov and Chernomyrdrin into whatever agreement they wanted. In that
they were right. Where they were terribly wrong was about the men they
were not negotiating with, but whose power and credibility was growing
daily. These faceless hard-liners in the military finally snapped at
the humiliation NATO inflicted on their public leaders. Yeltsin, ever
shrewd, ever a survivor, tacked with the wind.
Russia, for the first time since the Cold War, has accepted a
low-level military confrontation with NATO. NATO's attempts to
minimize it notwithstanding, this is a defining moment in post-Cold
War history. NATO attempted to dictate terms to Russia and Russia made
a military response. NATO then used its diplomatic leverage to isolate
Kosovo from follow-on forces. It has forced Russia to face the fact
that in the event of a crisis, Ukraine will be neither neutral nor
pro-Russian. It will be pro-NATO. That means that, paperwork aside,
NATO has already expanded into Ukraine. To the Russians who triggered
this crisis in Pristina, that is an unacceptable circumstance. They
will take steps to rectify that problem. NATO does not have the
military or diplomatic ability to protect Ukraine. Russia, however,
has an interest in what happens within what is clearly its sphere of
influence. We do not know what is happening politically in Moscow, but
the straws in the wind point to a much more assertive Russian foreign
policy.
There is an interesting fantasy current in the West, which is that
Russia's economic problems prevent military actions. That is as silly
an observation as believing that the U.S. will beat Vietnam because it
is richer, or that Athenians will beat the poorer Spartans. Wealth
does not directly correlate with military power, particularly when
dealing with Russia, as both Napoleon and Hitler discovered. Moreover,
all economic figures on Russia are meaningless. So much of the Russian
economy is "off the books" that no one knows how it is doing. The
trick is to get the informal economy back on the books. That, we
should all remember, is something that the Russians are masters at. It
should also be remembered that the fact that Russia's military is in a
state of disrepair simply means that there is repair work to be done.
Not only is that true, but the process of repairing the Russian
military is itself an economic tonic, solving short and long term
problems. Military adventures are a psychological, economic and
political boon for ailing economies.
Machiavelli teaches the importance of never wounding your adversaries.
It is much better to kill them. Wounding them and then ridiculing and
tormenting them is the worst possible strategy. Russia is certainly
wounded. It is far from dead. NATO's strategy in Kosovo has been to
goad a wounded bear. That is not smart unless you are preparing to
slay him. Since no one in NATO wants to go bear hunting, treating
Russia with the breathtaking contempt that NATO has shown it in the
past few weeks is not wise. It seems to us that Clinton and Blair are
so intent on the very minor matter of Kosovo that they have actually
been oblivious to the effect their behavior is having in Moscow.
They just can't get it into their heads that it's not about Kosovo. It
is not about humanitarianism or making ourselves the kind of people we
want to be. It's about the Russians, stupid! And about China and about
the global balance of power.
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