Thursday, October 8, 1998
DEFENSE DOSSIER: Kosovo Backlash Brewing
By Pavel Felgenhauer, ..Special to The Moscow Times
Today relations between Russia and NATO and between Russia and the West in general have reached an important junction. In the
coming weeks, the future profile of the East-West relationship will be imprinted, maybe for a generation to come.
Many in the West are already saying that an anti-Western, anti-U.S. backlash is on the rise as Russians blame advice from the
International Monetary Fund for the collapse of their economy. This contention, up to now, has not been fully accurate. Russians are
stunned by the collapse of their Western-orientated quasi-market economy. They are in confusion, most do not understand why
prices have quadrupled in several weeks, the ruble has plummeted, businesses are closing down and well-paid job opportunities are
disappearing. Yet today most Russians tend to say: "It is the Russian bankers and financiers, together with the government of
President Boris Yeltsin that they control, who deliberately created the financial crisis to make more money."
Not many Russians support a continuation of market economic reform. But this economic revisionism has not yet transformed into
massive anti-Western paranoia. Under an increasingly unpopular Yeltsin, today's Russia has not yet turned into something like Iran
in the late 70s, where a populist anti-Western religious movement had formed that eventually overthrew the corrupt pro-Western
regime of the shah.
But things in Russia could definitely change for the worse very soon. Russians seem to be remarkably calm, not rioting in despair
like Indonesians. But behind the calm, suppressed hysteria is gathering strength.
This suppressed mass hysteria has for some time been seeking an outlet, a common public denominator in order to break loose.
Yeltsin and his government seemed to be an obvious focal point of public discontent, but Yeltsin has skillfully maneuvered the
Kremlin out of the line of fire to some extent by installing the new government of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and sharing
some of his power with communist and nationalist opposition forces.
While Yeltsin limps away to lick his wounds, another public foe has emerged f the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as it prepares
to launch an attack against Serbia. Last week the State Duma unanimously adopted a nonbinding resolution recommending that
Russia sever all relations with NATO if it goes on the offensive in the Balkans.
Even the seemingly pro-Western liberal Yabloko fraction did not vote against the resolution. This unanimity is a grim foreshadow of
what will happen if war breaks out over Kosovo. The reaction of Russia, of its ruling elite, will be hysterical and from a Western point
of view f unreasonable. Russia will be engulfed by a genuine wave of mass anti-Western, anti-NATO hatred. All of Russia's mass
media, from right to left, will report the same story of blatant NATO aggression, without any credible legal international mandate,
against a sovereign country in Europe in support of a terrorist separatist movement.
Of course, mass hysteria does not last long. But the long-term repercussions of a possible NATO attack against Serbia will be even
worse. When the UN was created at the end of World War II, a new commandment was written: "Do not invade." No longer did any
sovereign nation have a legal right to invade another sovereign nation, no matter how noble the cause may appear.
All invasions in human history had this or that noble justification. More than 50 million died in 1939-1945 to prove that there is no
such thing as an unprovoked virtuous armed intervention. Today, major Western countries with the U.S. in the lead are doing their
best to undermine this principal. In Washington most men and women of power seem to believe that if Congress approves, the U.S.
has the right to invade any foreign country.
Serbia does not have any modern air defenses worth speaking of. This increases the possibility that the West will be finally tempted
to attack and that NATO aggression will be militarily successful. In the future, major Western countries may increasingly begin to
behave as they did in the 19th century, constantly invading rogue nations to punish and impose their will. The end result of such a
remodeled Western interventionalism will most likely be the same as before f one more world war when the West runs into a "rogue"
state that has acquired weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems to strike back.
Pavel Felgenhauer is defense and national security affairs editor of Segodnya. moscowtimes.ru |
