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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eddy Blinker who wrote (36328)	12/31/1999 7:34:00 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

How the West Killed Yeltsin Stratfor President Boris Yeltsin's resignation from office can be viewed as the logical result of a nearly year-long decline in stature and power, ending in a bid for a swift and safe exit from the Kremlin's intrigue and scandals. But ultimately, Yeltsin's demise is in large measure due to the actions of the West. Wittingly or not, the West played a large role in destroying its last true friend in Moscow. Yeltsin had banked everything on his relationship with the West in general -- and the United States in particular. In a sense, he owed his office to the United States, whose intelligence services had warned him of the impending coup attempt of 1992, allowing him to save himself and Russian democracy. Yeltsin banked on Western investment pouring in to integrate Russia with the West and initiate an unprecedented era of prosperity. Toward this end, Yeltsin was prepared to subordinate Russian geopolitical and strategic interest to the West, so long as Western money continued to flow. But by late 1998, the flow of money dried up. The financial crisis of August, 1998 made the drought of investment permanent. Yeltsin, nevertheless, was hopeful of restarting the pump and worked assiduously to placate the West. But his efforts were rebuffed. The U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in December 1998 - despite Moscow's vigorous opposition -- was the first sharp slap in the face. At home, Yeltsin was seen as acquiescing to foreign policy humiliations, without getting the cash that might justify it. What finally destroyed Yeltsin, though, was Kosovo. It was not only the decision to bomb Kosovo in opposition to Russian wishes that undermined Yeltsin. The treatment of Russian diplomacy was the most humiliating and deadly part of the equation. The Russians had been called in to negotiate between NATO and the Serbs. They did and forged the G-8 agreeement. Part of that agreement stipulated that the occupation of Kosovo would take place with heavy Russian participation and joint control. But instead of being treated as vital partners, the Russians were treated as marginal irritants. The West rejected a significant role for Russia in post-war Kosovo. Yeltsin was exposed. At American urging, he had dumped the anti-American prime minister Yevgeny Primakov in the middle of the war. Yeltsin's reward was the complete humiliation of Russia in the implementation of the accords. With that, President Clinton effectively destroyed Boris Yeltsin. The selection of Vladimir Putin as the new prime minister in August was not Yeltsin's choice. Putin was forced on the president by the military and intelligence sectors who wanted one of their own in control. Putin immediately began to reclaim some of Russia's strategic standing. Since serious financial support was not coming from the West, he had little to lose. What he had to gain was halting the disintegration of the Russian Federation and beginning the resurrection of a psychology of Russia as a great power, if a poor one. Putin's policy has been manifested most clearly in Chechnya, where the prime minister drew the line on disintegration. Putin's brutal campaign against the rebels has been enormously popular among Russians. Indeed, it has been one of the few issues around which Russians could rally in recent years. But the issue that rallied Russia was not simply Chechnya; rather, it was the idea that Russia was reclaiming its place as a great power, prepared to challenge the West -- and the United States. Putin rose on his foreign policy even as Yeltsin fell to his lowest ebb, seen as a weakling and a discredited tool of the West. Putin has now sown the wind of Russian revanchism. It is not clear that he will be able to personally ride the whirlwind. But this much is clear. The fall of Yeltsin represents the end of the period of automatic Russian subordination to Western strategic initiatives. It will usher in an era of greater confrontation with the West. Yeltsin was Washington's last real friend in Moscow. With Kosovo, President Clinton killed him politically. It was the last humiliating straw in the West's relationship with Russia.