Robert, "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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