ANALYSIS: Cuba Base Closure Signals Putin Is Courting West
October 17, 2001 01:01 PM ET
By Jon Boyle
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's surprise departure from a Cold War Cuban base used for spying on the United States signals President Putin's readiness to ignore military hawks and forge closer ties with Washington, analysts said on Wednesday.
Putin told his military chiefs Russia would close the Lourdes base on the Caribbean island after almost four decades as Moscow's "listening post" on America, whose Florida coast is just 90 miles away. He also announced Russia would withdraw from the gigantic Cam Ranh Bay base in Vietnam, another key Soviet-era ally, curbing the navy's aspirations to play a strategic role in Asia.
"It is the first real step toward a real partnership with the U.S.," said independent military expert Alexander Golts. "If you wanted a symbol of the Cold War, it was Lourdes.
"I think it is a clear signal to the U.S. that Russia is changing its position, that we are true allies. It is a very important signal which continues this shift of Mr. Putin toward a clear partnership with the West."
The Russian leader has offered stalwart support to the "war on terrorism" declared by President Bush in the wake of the hijack attacks on the United States last month.
Putin has also backed U.S.-led air strikes against Afghanistan, accused of sheltering the alleged mastermind of those attacks -- Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden.
RUSSIAN GESTURES
Putin has sent a number of clear signals to the West that he wants to end Russia's traditional policy of studied truculence toward the United States.
In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Putin told Washington he had ordered Russia's air defenses not to go on alert -- the standard Soviet procedure in reaction to important international events.
As well as offering U.S. aircraft Russian air space for humanitarian flights to help those displaced by air strikes on Afghanistan, Putin cleared the way for former Soviet republics in Central Asia to offer their air bases to U.S. forces.
In Brussels Putin softened his stance on NATO expansion eastwards, saying Russian hostility could be reviewed if NATO became geared more to political than purely military issues.
Such a reaction would have been unimaginable even earlier this year, when Russia was still patching up ties with NATO that were damaged during the alliance's air campaign against Moscow's ally Yugoslavia during the 1999 Kosovo crisis.
BATTLES BREWING
On coming to power on New Year's Eve, 1999, Putin said the economy was key to restoring Russia's tarnished status as a great power. Powerful, efficient armed forces were possible only if the economy modernized and shook off Soviet sloth.
But his apparent abandonment of Russia's traditional "Eurasianism" -- its love-hate relationship with the West -- has powerful opponents who may yet try to thwart the president.
"I think the majority of the higher echelons of power do not support the president" in his overtures to the West, said Vadim Solovyov, managing editor of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta Military Review.
"They would like a tougher line to achieve more concessions from the American side on resolving problems of strategic national defense," a reference to U.S. missile defense plans hitherto opposed by Moscow.
Interestingly, Putin sweetened the pill by announcing more cash for the military, the need to radically improve training and salaries, and to ensure military reforms enabled Russia to confront emerging threats to its security.
Whether Putin can take with him his hawkish Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a close ally and fellow native of St. Petersburg, remains to be seen.
"Any further development in the partnership with the West...moves us slowly to the underlying contradictions between Mr. Putin and those he thought were his closest allies," said Golts. |
