Putin's 'Creeping Coup'

The New York Times ^ | February 9, 2004 | By WILLIAM SAFIRE

[gipper81]

Putin's 'Creeping Coup'

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: February 9, 2004

UNICH — This city is no longer the venue of appeasement.

At an annual security conference here on the eve of NATO's seven-state expansion, Moscow's neo-imperialist defense minister threatened to back out of an agreement limiting the size of his armed forces on Russia's European front.

Sergei Ivanov's bluff was immediately called by U.S. Senator John McCain. The Arizonan had accused Putin's regime of a "creeping coup" against democracy within Russia, as well as a campaign to intimidate and reassert control over states — from the Baltics to Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine — that our victory in the cold war had liberated from Soviet rule.

This Russia-NATO confrontation has been brewing for a year. While France and Germany split with the rest of Europe and the U.S. over the war in Iraq, Putin took advantage of the world's distraction to crack down on internal dissent and to undermine the independence of his neighbors.

The first public inkling of U.S. concern with Putin's irredentism came in Secretary Colin Powell's trip last month to attend the inauguration of Georgia's new elected leader, signaling strong support for that nation's independence. This was accompanied by a Powell article in Izvestia uncommonly critical of Moscow's repression of the media.

Western reaction to Russia's new aggressiveness was further expressed last week in Riga, Latvia. The Baltics' surge toward independence in 1989 was the first sign of the impending crack-up of the Soviet Union. The West's coming inclusion of those three states in NATO redresses a horrific Hitler-Stalin wrong, but is galling to Moscow, which has been fostering resentment among Russian ethnics implanted there since Stalin's time.

In Latvia's capital, the Baltic states gathered with Scandinavian nations to focus European human-rights attention on internal democratic opposition to outright tyrants like Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus and the former K.G.B. crowd that runs Moldova. Though Ukraine gave up its nukes and has 1,700 troops in Iraq, it has an autocratic ruler in Leonid Kuchma, reportedly rigging its fall elections. McCain led a Congressional delegation to this Riga meeting on his way to Munich and heard the anguished story of a dissident Belarus leader whose husband is one of the "disappeared."

At the 40th Wehrkunde Conference in Munich, Ivanov unloaded on the West. The pressure point he chose was the Conventional Forces in Europe (C.F.E.) treaty, negotiated a decade ago, initialed but never signed. In 1996, as NATO prepared to admit Eastern Europe, it set up a formal relationship with Russia, assuring it that no nukes and no "substantial combat forces" would be placed close to its border. Three years later, Russia made the "Istanbul commitments" to pull its troops out of Georgia and Moldova, which it still has not done.

"We assumed those commitments in a definite military and political environment," Ivanov warned, "with the admission of the invitees to NATO, this environment will drastically change." Of the C.F.E. treaty, he asked: "Might it be another `relic of the cold war,' as the ABM treaty has been labeled some time ago" before it was "shelved to the dustbin"? He made Putin's threat plainer: "The adapted C.F.E. treaty may well end up as the ABM treaty was fated to."

Looking hard at McCain, Ivanov said, "One of the major priorities of the Russian foreign policy is our relationship with our closest neighbors . . . relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States are in no way a hallmark of Russian-brand `neo-imperialism,' as some try to depict it, but an imperative for security. . . ."

McCain is no Neville Chamberlain. "Under President Putin," he responded, "Russia has refused to comply with the terms of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. Russian troops occupy parts of Georgia and Moldova . . . Russian agents are working to bring Ukraine further into Moscow's orbit. Russian support sustains Europe's last dictatorship in Belarus. And Moscow has . . . enforced its stranglehold on energy supplies into Latvia in order to squeeze the democratic government in Riga."

Speaking with the freedom of a senator, McCain said "undemocratic behavior and threats to the sovereignty and liberty of her neighbors will not profit Russia . . . but will exclude her from the company of Western democracies."

As its role becomes global, NATO must not lose its original purpose: to contain the Russian bear.

[gipper81]

Is Putin bad-or-good

Politician accuses Putin of 'liquidation'

[glady]

The latest noise from Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
This is not just noise. We should take this as a signal. Russia wants her national security concerns to be taken into consideration. What’s wrong with it? NATO is spreading eastward closer and closer to the Russian soil. She sees this as hostile environment; she naturally wants safety and is keen on preserving her conventional forces in Europe. Again what’s so much frightening in it? Let her have’ em. Mighty America with faithful European allies may well afford this. The present state of things in Russia is far from being cheerful. Current Russia is no match to America both military and economically. But Russian Bear driven to despair may make a lovely mess of things. And there are plenty causes for such despair. When America withdrew unilaterally from the 1972 ABM treaty in 2001 (after the Twin Tower disaster !) it was in no way inspiring for Russia. The spirit of cooperation and trust was endangered greatly then and many times more later on. We should patch up things instead of aggravating the situation.
Neo Imperialist Russia? Rubbish! Too exhausted to be.

[coolbe]

What is senator McCain after far as Russia is concerned? I guess he is just showing off using this hard rhetoric relating Russia. Wanting to be a political celebrity or what? Russian bear… Hmm… It’s really serious. We’d better not make him angry or desperate. It’s the lesson of history not missed on some smart pols (not Mr McCain ‘course). We’d better cooperate with Russia facing the same common challenge now and that is terrorism. The recent blast in the Moscow metro and the continuing terror attacks against American targets worldwide push us together.
Generally speaking we are very much alike with the Russians. My vision is cooperation with Russia. Otherwise we could encourage the alliance of the two giants Russia and China, which could be really scary.

[gipper81]

I agree that this not noise from Ivanov - that was supposed to be clever wording. Ivanov noise is really Ivanov pain. Russia is making choices. Russia is making un-democratic choices. Russia is in the G8. Russia thinks it will continue to receive a blank check for domestic behavior that runs counter to freedom. Russia is wrong.

Russia calls everything it doesn't like - national security concerns. NATO may be spreading eastward, but so is FREEDOM. Russia sees everything as a hostile environment it doesn't like. Is this behavior from a bear or a mouse?

Poland and the Baltics are interested in growth, progress and freedom. So are we. It is simply too damn bad that Russia has an different agenda. Russian has never been honest with itself and others. Russia simply will not and cannot change.

[gipper81]

Yes, we are alike but that doesn't mean we are making similar strategic decisions. Russia wants to play in the past. For us, it is the future.

[glady]

>Russia simply will not change and cannot change>

You sound somewhat illogical. Everything in our world is undergoing changes so is Russia. It can’t be otherwise. It’s a basic law of life. You are so aggressive in your denial of Russia. Actually YOU seem not wanting to change a bit. Why so? Russia has ALREADY changed greatly due to American involvement as well and now she is STILL in the process (making choices). And America continues to be an active part to it. Actually the image of future Russia depends greatly on America. To put it plainly America claims to be plying the role of a Messiah regarding Russia plus Poland, plus Baltic states, plus Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Georgia, India….. Thus she makes itself fully responbsible for them all! Isn’t it the burden too much even for the mighty America? Wouldn’t it be wiser to share this burden and responsibility with the UN and some regional powers? She seems not very inclined to. That’s why I guess there is a hidden American agenda here perhaps detrimental to the interests of other countries concerned.

[popvip]

NATO may be spreading eastward, but so is FREEDOM. Poland and the Baltics are interested in growth, progress and freedom.
NATO=FREEDOM? It made me the greatest belly laughs indeed. It’s just now they are really enjoying freedom after the end of Russian dominance and before entering NATO and all European structures. It will be long way of adjusting to new requirements with some vague and doubtful gains at the end.
Have you heard anything about Uzbekistan? It’s a former Soviet republic enjoying this ‘freedom’ after Americans came into the country in 2001. The local are pretty fed up with that freedom. It’s freedom to be a prostitute, to be unemployed, to give bribes to corrupted officials. Some of my friends living there say they don’t exclude the worst scenario of the civil war in their country. They are ready to flee this ‘paradise’ for some safer place (freedom to flee if you’ve got enough of money).

[Lazamataz]

You ask why I call Putin a totalitarian.

Read this article, and you will know why I so assert.

Pity, too: I actually considered moving to Russia as America becomes less free and more of a third-world jobless country.

[Lazamataz]

Oh shoot. This article didn't get into the topic I thought it would get into at all. I'm sorry guys. I'll see something that gets to the heart of the issue that I am thinking of.

[rrrod]

one small point in this discussion...recall the germans, french and russians forging a military alliance AGAINST the usa??? wonder how they are doing?

[RussianConservative]

Poland run by same communist party (this time elected) as of 1950+.