Her lidt læsning....
Kammeratlig hilsen
Per Rasmussen
Danmark
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: Charles F. Moreira [SMTP:cfm@pc.jaring.my]
Sendt: 14. juni 1999 19:24
Til: Undisclosed.Recipients@relay12.jaring.my
Emne: [Cuba SI] Fw: Weekly Analysis June 14, 1999
Comrades,
Here is an interesting Stratfor Inc analysis which points the finger at
Russia for making Serbia capitulate to the Nato/G8 demands.
It also speaks about internal contradictions within Russia, especially
between its leaders and hard-line generals and considers the move of
Russian troops into Pristina as being a decision influenced by the
hard-line general angered at how Russia has been treated with such contempt
by NATO.
As I have said before, I suspect that Starfor Inc. has close links to the
US government (based upon their web site) but its analyses tend to give a
straightforward assessment which reveals the actual thinking, at least of
some sections of the US bourgeosie, so read it critically.
Fraternally
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: alert@stratfor.com <alert@stratfor.com>
To: redalert@stratfor.com <redalert@stratfor.com>
Date: Monday, June 14, 1999 12:00 PM
Subject: Weekly Analysis June 14, 1999
>______________________________________
>
>Visit the New Asia Intelligence Center
>http://www.stratfor.com/asia/
>______________________________________
>
>
>STRATFOR's
>Global Intelligence Update
>Weekly Analysis June 14, 1999
>
>
>"It's the Russians, Stupid"
>
>Summary:
>
>NATO continued its policy of trying to turn a compromise into a
>victory. In order to do that, it has been necessary to treat
>Russia as if its role was peripheral. It was a policy bound to
>anger Russia. It was not a bad policy, if NATO were ready and able
>to slay the bear. But goading a wounded bear when you are not in a
>position to kill him is a dangerous game. On Saturday morning, the
>bear struck back. NATO still hasn't gotten him back in his cage.
>
>Analysis:
>
>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 economy
>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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>
>
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