DISADVANTAGE/RUSSIA

IMPACT: TRIGGERING THE POWER SCENARIO IN RUSSIA IS A DISASTER

IMPACT: RUSSIA HAS NO CHOICE ONCE IT GOES NATIONALIST -- IT WILL ADOPT THE POWER SCENARIO

EXTERMIST RUSSIANS REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT RUSSIA'S ECONOMY CANNOT SUPPORT A REVITALIZED MILITARY OPTION

Victor Irsraelyan, 1998 [For almost 50 years, Victor Israelyan was a Soviet ambassador, diplomat, arms control negotiator, and leading political scientist. The Washington Quarterly. Winter, 1998. SECTION: Vol. 2 1, No. 1; Pg. 47. HEADLINE: Russia at the Crossroads: Don't Tease a Wounded Bear \\ jan]VT99

In answering this challenge, Russian officials are left today with a meager set of options. If they choose the first scenario, power Russia, it will mean suicide -- economic and diplomatic isolation, world condemnation, perhaps even war. As its name implies, the second scenario would most probably lead to another cold war. The third scenario is very difficult and, unfortunately, humiliating for Russia. But Moscow has just two alternatives: Revive with the assistance of the technically developed and wealthy West, or oppose it. There is no other way, no nationalistic option that allows for rapid economic progress while rejecting relations with the West. Such is the dilemma of Russia today, a dilemma many of its extremist politicians refuse to confront.

IN THE POWER SCENARIO, RUSSIA WILL MOBILIZE AROUND AN OUTSIDE ENEMY, DENUNCIATING ALL ARMS CONTROL TREATIES, MASSIVELY REARMING ITS MILITARY, AND INCREASING ITS RELIANCE ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Victor Irsraelyan, 1998 [For almost 50 years, Victor Israelyan was a Soviet ambassador, diplomat, arms control negotiator, and leading political scientist. The Washington 0 Quarterly. Winter, 1998. SECTION: Vol. 21, No. 1; Pg. 47. HEADLINE: Russia at the Crossroads: Don't Tease a Wounded Bear \\ jan]VT99

The first and by far most dangerous possibility is what I call the power scenario. Supporters of this option would, in the name of a "united and undivided Russia," radically change domestic and foreign policies. Many would seek to revive a dictatorship and take urgent military steps to mobilize the people against the outside "enemy." Such steps would include Russia's denunciation of the commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons; suspension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) I and refusal to ratify both START 11 and the Chemical Weapons Convention-, denunciation of the Biological Weapons Convention; and reinstatement of a full-scale armed force, including the acquisition of additional intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads, as well as medium- and short-range missiles such as the SS-20. Some of these measures will demand substantial financing, whereas others, such as the denunciation and refusal to ratify arms control treaties, would, according to proponents, save money by alleviating the obligations of those agreements.

In this scenario, Russia's military planners would shift Western countries from the category of strategic partners to the category of countries representing a threat to national security. This will revive the strategy of nuclear deterrence -- and indeed, realizing its unfavorable odds against the expanded NATO, Russia will place new emphasis on the first-use of nuclear weapons, a trend that is underway already.

THE POWER SCENARIO WOULD INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE IN RUSSIA'S NEAR ABROAD.

The power scenario envisages a hard-line policy toward the CIS countries, and in such circumstances the problem of the Russian diaspora in those countries would be greatly magnified. Moscow would use all the means at its disposal, including economic sanctions and political ultimatums, to ensure the rights of ethnic Russians in CIS countries as well as to have an influence on other issues. Of those means, even the use of direct military force in places like the Baltics cannot be ruled out.

RUSSIA HAS LEADERS WHO ARE WILLING TO CARRY OUT THE POWER SCENARIO. THE COUNTRY WOULD REACT THE WAY WEIMAR GERMANY DID TO THE RISE OF HITLER

Some will object that this scenario is implausible because no potential dictator exists in Russia who could carry out this strategy. I am not so sure. Some Duma members -- such as Victor Antipov, Sergei Baburin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Albert Makashov, who are leading politicians in ultranationalistic parties and fractions in the parliament -- are ready to follow this path to save a "united Russia." Baburin's "Anti-NATO" deputy group boasts a membership of more than 240 Duma members. One cannot help but remember that when Weimar Germany was isolated, exhausted, and humiliated as a result of World War I and the Versailles Treaty, Adolf Hitler took it upon himself to "save" his country. It took the former corporal only a few years to plunge the world into a second world war that cost humanity more than 50 million lives.

THERE ARE SIGNS THAT THE POWER SCENARIO IS STARTING TO EMERGE IN RUSSIA

Victor Irsraelyan, 1998 [For almost 50 years, Victor Israelyan was a Soviet ambassador, diplomat, arms control negotiator, and leading political scientist. The Washington Quarterly. Winter, 1998. SECTION: Vol. 21, No. 1; Pg. 47. HEADLINE: Russia at the Crossroads: Don't Tease a Wounded Bear \\ jan]VT99

There are signs indicating that this scenario is emerging. The new military doctrine has actually reversed the pledge never to use nuclear weapons first. Earlier this year, Ivan Rybkin, secretary of Russia's Security Council, said, "Everyone must know that in case of a direct challenge our response will be fully fledged, and we are to choose the use of means." n 13 Later, in an interview, he said that parliamentary ratification of START 11 has become "almost impossible." n14 The Duma has again postponed the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and Russian military planners are claiming that the only feasible military response to NATO expansion is the redeployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons closer to Russia's borders.

ECONOMICS WILL NOT PREVENT THE POWER SCENARIO FROM OCCURRING, IT WILL JUST INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED

Victor Irsraelyan, 1998 [For almost 50 years, Victor Israelyan was a Soviet ambassador, diplomat, arms control negotiator, and leading political scientist. The Washington Quarterly. Winter, 1998. SECTION: Vol. 21, No. 1; Pg. 47. HEADLINE: Russia at the Crossroads: Don't Tease a Wounded Bear \\ jan]VT99

I do not believe that Russia has the economic strength to implement such a scenario successfully, but then again, Germany's economic situation in the 1920s was hardly that strong either. Thus, I am afraid that economics will not deter the power scenario's would-be authors from attempting it. Baburin, for example, warned that any political leader who would "dare to encroach upon Russia" would be decisively repulsed by the Russian Federation "by all measures on heaven and earth up to the use of nuclear weapons." n10 In autumn 1996 Oleg Grynevsky, Russian ambassador to Sweden and former Soviet arms control negotiator, while saying that NATO expansion increases the risk of nuclear war, reminded his Western listeners that Russia has enough missiles to destroy both the United States and Europe. I Former Russian minister of defense Igor Rodionov warned several times that Russia's vast nuclear arsenal could become uncontrollable. In this context, one should keep in mind that, despite dramatically reduced nuclear arsenals -- and tensions -- Russia and the United States remain poised to launch their missiles in minutes. I cannot but agree with Anatol Lieven, who wrote, "It may be, therefore, that with all the new Russian order's many problems and weaknesses, it will for a long time be able to stumble on, until we all fall down together."