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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (12104)	6/15/1999 8:17:00 PM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 17770

1554 GMT, 990615 - Military Granted Larger Formal Role in Russian Foreign Policy Russian President Boris Yeltsin has reportedly approved agreements reached at the meeting of the Russian Security Council, which state that the Foreign Ministry will coordinate all of Russia's future Kosovo activities with other government offices. According to Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, "Synchronization of the performance of the Foreign Ministry, the military, and the government is the rigid algorithm whose performance started today." First, this is a very public, clear, and appalling admission on the part of Stepashin and Yeltsin that a massive rift opened inside the Kremlin over Russian foreign policy. Despite the personal assurances of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that Russian troops would not enter Kosovo without first coordinating with NATO, Russian troops did just that, sweeping in ahead of NATO forces and seizing Slatina airbase near Pristina. Just who ordered the Russian troops into Kosovo is a matter of some confusion. Certainly Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin was out of the loop, as, it appears, was Ivanov. The official Russian story is that Yeltsin approved the decision to send troops, but left it up to the Russian General Staff to decide the time. An equally plausible option was that the Russian military, sick and tired of the Russian moderates' handling of the Kosovo crisis as well as broader foreign policy, presented the deployment as a fait accompli to Yeltsin. Yeltsin, always the political weathervane, saw which way the wind was blowing and embraced the Army's move, promoting the maneuver's commander to Colonel General. Whatever transpired, the Russian deployment pulled the rug out from under the Foreign Ministry, which scrambled as quickly as NATO to figure out what had happened. It then demanded a meeting of Russia's Security Council to guarantee that something like this does not happen again. So now, it has been resolved that the Foreign Ministry will coordinate all of Russia's future Kosovo activities with other government offices. A victory for the Foreign Ministry and Russia's moderates? Not likely. The Foreign Ministry did not have its demands met in the Security Council meeting – the Defense Ministry did. One of the basic principles of civilian governments is the supremacy of the government over the military. The civilian foreign policy apparatus makes decisions and the military is deployed as needed to carry out those decisions. The military may think the civilian leadership is saturated with idiots, but it obeys orders. Now, in Russia, the Foreign Ministry must coordinate all future Kosovo activities with the Defense Ministry. Far from reining in the Russian military, this agreement gives the military a significant formal say in Russian foreign policy. What should have been considered a massive overstep of the political process and the chain of command – with the Russian commander in Kosovo court martialed, not promoted – instead has resulted in the elevation of the military in the Russian political process.

To: D. Long who wrote (12104)	6/15/1999 9:29:00 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

I grew up in rural PA, much more rural than Doylestown mind you: I figured, or you would likely not talk like this. Although I am sure that it is possible to change, it seems that our early experience in this regard has a very profound effect. I spent most of my early life in a contiguous suburb of the District or in the District itself, and my family was heavily oriented towards the city (I grew up picnicking in the Mall area, usually towards the Tidal Basin, across which one sees the Jefferson Memorial). I lived in downtown Annapolis for a long time, with the illusion of a sort of lesser Georgetown. Over a decade ago, we moved 10 minutes outside of town, because it cost so much less to get a house in the 'burbs, and the comparative ruralness of it caused me to freak out a little, although eventually I got used to it...You start from a different sense of what is normal and appropriate, and therefore I should probably congratulate you for not moving to Alaska<VBG>....I, by the way, don't like "laid- back and unrushed" all that much. The first time I ate in the supposed best hotel in Santa Fe, I could hardly believe the lackadaisical attitude towards service, and although I am usually tolerant in such situations, I was very incensed and just barely held back from complaining....