June 04, 2007
Putin's Russia: The Other Frontier
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be laughing his way to the G-8 summit this week, as U.S. and European leaders scramble to make sense of his newest tough talk on security in the region.
Invoking the bad old days of the Cold War, Putin told reporters that Russia would retaliate against a planned U.S. missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic by aiming its own defenses against targets in Europe. "If the U.S. nuclear potential extends across the European territory and threatens Russia, we will be obliged to take countermeasures,'' Putin said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin's Web site (currently available only in Russian). "Of course, we'll have to select new targets in Europe.''
Putin scoffed at Washington's stated rationale for the new defense shield, seconding Iran's and North Korea's claims that they simply aren't capable of lobbing missiles that would reach Europe.
"We are being told the anti-missile defense system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn't it seem funny to you?" he said.
This skirmish is just the latest in a series of rows between Russia and the West over the kind of government Moscow has become since the former KGB man succeeded Boris Yeltsin, the country's first democratically elected, post-communist president, in late 1999. Washington has so far favored a cajoling approach to its one-time enemy -- a nod to Russia's status as a fellow P-5 Security Council member and its substantial influence in parts of the world where the United States has little of its own.
But recent visits from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have had no effect on Russia's opposition to the shield plan. If anything, as Putin's latest remarks indicate, Moscow seems to be digging in its heels even further.
This has left Washington and its allies with few options. A NATO spokesman called Putin's remarks "unhelpful and unwelcome" -- two of the West's favorite go-to buzzwords when dealing with powerful and dangerous players, such as Iran and North Korea. European nations that back the shield have expressed alarm at Putin's threat, and France's newly elected president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said he would have a "frank" one-on-one with Putin during the G-8.
Putin may see himself as the defender of a cornered state, fighting off attacks from the United States and others on his human rights record, the ongoing violence in Chechnya, increasingly dangerous conditions for the press and the poisoning death of a Kremlin critic in Britain. Seen in that light, his threat to ratchet up Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal to counter the U.S. shield is likely not an empty one.
Sarkozy said he also plans to press Putin on the death of journalist Anna Politkovskaya last year -- another sore point of criticism against the Kremlin. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to squeeze Putin on Britain's extradition request for Andrei Lugovoy, a suspect in the radiation poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
And President Bush, whose once warm relationship with Putin has soured in recent years, is expected to address Russia's human rights record when they meet on the sidelines of the G-8 meeting. Bush will also try to assuage Putin's concerns about the missile shield when he hosts the Russian leader at Kennebunkport early next month.
It's unclear if there's a carrot big enough to persuade Putin to back down on the shield plan, however. He noted in his talk with reporters that the shield would represent the first real American nuclear presence on the European continent -- a fact that is not just unsettling to him.
And Putin's increasingly isolated posturing may also say something about the people he represents. Violence and corruption are still rampant in Russia, which has had a decade and a half to recover from the fall of communism. In an analysis, the Economist suggests that Russia's paranoia about the West is rooted in the still-unresolved Chechnyan conflict.
Posted at 2:35 PM
Posted to:
Chechnya, Russia, Vladimir Putin
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