Alexander Pikayev - Press Conference with Moscow Carnegie Center Official

Moderator: Good day, dear colleagues and welcome to the Press Development Institute. Our guest today is Alexander Alexeyevich Pikayev, a member of the council of the Moscow Carnegie Center and supervisor of a program at that center. The topic of the press conference is the events of September 11, NATO and START/ABM.

Pikayev: Thank you, Natalya Alexandrovna. As always I would like to begin by thanking you and your Institute for the invitation to speak to journalists representing the Russian and not only Russian media. The topic is not original. Everybody talks about the events of September 11 these days. This has been one of the main talking points in international news for almost a month. And I think that the interpretation of these events and their aftermath for world politics and for the American foreign policy and for the Russian foreign policy will be discussed for a long time yet.

And indeed September 11 saw the bloodiest attack on the United States. I am not a historian, but from what the American papers have been writing, more people died in these terrorist attacks than during the attack on Pearl Harbor. And of course never have so many civilians died and for the Americans since Pearl Harbor -- and one has to remember that Pearl Harbor is on Hawaii which was not a state at the time -- so, this attack on the US mainland was the first in the last 150 years or so since the wars in the Wild West, or perhaps since the war of 1812 when the British seized some cities in the northeast of the United States and burned down the White House.

And of course this event will have a great impact on the American foreign policy, on the system of international alliances led by the US and on the role of Russia in America's foreign policy. I think that the main result of the events of September 11 in the United States was that it proved beyond any doubt that the system of alliances built during the Cold War has proved unable to prevent the new challenges to American security that arose after the end of the Cold War.

Yes, as a result of terrorist acts, NATO countries for the first time invoked Article 5 which envisages mutual help among the members of that organization. But if we are realistic, we will see that the result of the actuation of Article 5 will hardly be of much help to the United States in the struggle against international terrorism and especially with al-Qaeda whose leadership is hiding on the territory of Afghanistan.

After the events of September 11, the reality is that the United States, because of its geographical position and its military potential can only get help, among European states, from Great Britain which has a large quick-reaction force and forward-based assets in the Middle East, and Russia which during the past quarter century at least has been directly involved in numerous internal political and military conflicts on the territory of Afghanistan and still has considerable influence on the new independent states which were formerly members of the Soviet Union.

So, quite unexpectedly for itself, and in spite of the efforts made in recent days, has turned out to be ill-equipped to meet the new challenges, the real challenges to American and international security and the security of the whole civilized world that arose after the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of Soviet and Russian troops from Central and Eastern Europe.

Many have been asking the question: NATO is expanding and you, Russian experts and Russian representatives, have warned about the dire consequences, but NATO has now expanded by taking in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and nothing has happened and the relations between Russia and NATO, though they have worsened, nothing terrible has happened. I think the events of September 11 have shown that the expansion of NATO was at least a meaningless step which, far from preventing that horrible terrorist act, has to some extent created indirectly a favorable international situation for international terrorism which has is roots above all in Islamic fundamentalism to flourish.

After the explosions in August 1998 at the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salam, that's in Kenya and Tanzania in which several hundred people died, instead of combining efforts to combat this international evil the United States engaged in such exotic things as the humanitarian operation in Kosovo which was a great hindrance to normal dialogue and interaction with Russia in combating international terrorism.

Unlike the United States, Russia quite early on, after the explosions in Moscow, became aware of the danger coming from the South. Real steps were taken to restructure the Russian law-enforcement bodies, including the armed forces, with an eye to countering the real threats coming from the South. Emphasis was shifted to conventional forces and constant deployment forces which are capable of dealing with large-scale terrorist groups and organizations and this is partially what is happening in Chechnya.

And at the same time the emphasis was eased on nuclear weapons which traditionally was thought to be the main guarantee of national security in the event of a large-scale aggression which could come from the West or from China. But after 1999, I repeat, the emphasis was laid on countering the threats from the South. Unfortunately, the West, instead of providing real assistance to Russia in the struggle against terrorism, and Moscow stressed it in every way that Russia is a country which is on the forward line of struggle with this evil, that threatens not only Russia and the whole of the Western world; regrettably, this point of view was not accepted at that time by either the US or Europe and the left-wing European governments, moreover, unleashed a hysterical anti-Russian campaign over the alleged violations of human rights in Chechnya.

In this way, to some extent, they hampered Russia's activity to combat those groups which are fighting in Chechnya and at the same time have links with Osama bin Laden, the organization Al-Qaeda and other radical forces operating from the territory of states of the Middle and Near East. Now after the September 11 events it is perfectly clear that the warnings that were heard from Moscow were correct. Those warnings were quite justified and the West was forced to a great extent to adjust its position both on Chechnya and on the situation in Pakistan where during the 1990s the Americans, and it is an open secret, were behind Pakistan which used the money coming from Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Arab East, to establish and provide support to the Taliban movement so as, in part, to establish an alternative way for transporting energy carriers from the states of Central Asia, you would remember the Unocol project, behind which there allegedly stood the American company Unocol, concerning the construction of a pipeline from Turkmenia to the Pakistani port of Quadar via Afghanistan, via the territory controlled by the Taliban movement.

After the explosions in 1998 the project was, naturally, closed, but nevertheless the evil that is taking place in Afghanistan or launched from Afghan territory, which did not arise by itself, but rather had Pakistan behind it, and Saudi Arabia and a certain part of the foreign policy establishment of the United States. Thus the situation in the 1990s, I think, indicates that the main lesson to be drawn by Washington and by the West as a whole is that the continuation of the policy of the times of the Cold War, the policy of containing Russia, the policy of counteracting Russia has become obsolete. The policy does not meet the interests of Russia but also the interests of the Western countries themselves, including the United States.

It is because the activities of the Western diplomacy against Russia undermined cooperation with Moscow and this cooperation, as we see it now, is vital for a real fight against international terrorism. In this way, indirectly, this created a more favorable atmosphere for all those terrorist organizations to multiply, to get stronger, to establish a world-wide network of financial and other support and to launch these horrifying, unprecedented terrorist acts, unseen in history.

I believe that the principal lesson that the US ought to draw is not only to end working against Russia's interests, which is being done by the American diplomacy along the entire perimeter of the Russian borders up till now and to throw aside this anti-Russian heritage of the Cold War and to understand that cooperation with Russia is vital for the American interests of national security.

For Russia, the events of September 11 created an unprecedented situation and unprecedented opportunities which will also make it possible to throw aside the leftovers from the Cold War and those stemming from the differences of opinions of the recent decades, and a unique situation developed which may not be repeated again in the coming several years to enable Russia to make significant headway along the strategic directions, along a number of strategic directions in terms of a drastic improvement of relations with the West and moving down the road of integration into the developed Western institutions.

I think that we must also be aware that Russia's development is directly linked with access to Western investment, Western markets above all, and Western technologies. Over the last ten years Russia was unable to accomplish any of these objectives, above all, because of those political differences that existed in the relations with the West. Now there is the possibility to improve the relations to such an extent that it would be possible to open the Western markets and to gain access to the West's high technologies, including through cooperation within the framework of the aerospace industry with the West and through cooperation with the defense industry and nuclear industry.

This is of vital importance to enable Russia to continue to be a developed country and not to leave the Big Eight and get into the Group of 77 which brings together the developing countries.

There are certain positive examples already showing that the situation in this area has improved as a result of the visit of a ranking US administration official, Mr. Zoelick to Moscow. As a result of the visit an accelerated schedule was worked out for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. I don't think that Russia will enter the WTO already next year. I think it would be more realistic to aim at this by the year 2004, i.e. by the end of the first term of the Bush administration. Entry into the WTO would open for Russia the possibility to join the common European space in economics. This common European economic space includes in addition to the EU countries, also Switzerland, Norway which are not members of the EU, but they have unlimited access to the markets of the European Union countries. In addition, the people of those countries can travel without filling out a customs declaration. They have agreements on visaless travel.

So, I think that if everything goes well, Russia might stand a good chance to achieve about the same or similar status for itself somewhere by the end of the next decade.

I think that the Putin administration (and this was one of the biggest pleasant surprises) during the past two years took a firm course toward interaction with the Western, above all European institutions and toward integrating Russia in those institutions, meeting its economic and political interests.

In this way the European Union, judging by everything, and the organizations connected with it, will be the main priority of the Russian policy over this decade and, if everything goes well, Russia may move a long way forward toward a rapprochement with those countries.

Now about NATO. NATO, as it was clear in recent years, has no monopoly on European security. And this organization does not have this monopoly first and foremost because Russia is a major European country and it is not a NATO member on a number of issues. It takes quite a critical position on some of the issues, vis-a-vis the NATO. In addition, in recent years the uniform foreign and defense policy of the European Union has been gathering momentum.

It doesn't sound very well in Russian, but in English it is European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). As early as 2003 ESDP may have a quick-reaction force of 60,000 and it means that it will be able to carry out peacekeeping operations by itself and not only in the Balkans but all over the world. And of course, after the creation of the European quick-reaction corps, quick-deployment corps, the monopoly of NATO in the conduct of peacekeeping operations will be severely undermined. And in general, if we look at the dynamics of these operations in the Balkans, we see, for example, that in Bosnia the United States played undoubtedly the leading role. But in Kosovo the United States voluntarily assumed a second role, and in Macedonia we see an all-European operation in which the Americans perform mainly logistical support functions.

So, we see quite clearly that the United States is phasing out its participation in European operations, it is withdrawing from Europe. And obviously if this trend continues, the Europeans and primarily the European Union will have to independently conduct such operations with minimum participation of the United States and with minimum support on the part of NATO. That again will create a new security situation in Europe in which the role of NATO will continue to diminish.

So, I should say that at present NATO is more interested in Russia, perhaps, than Russia is interested in NATO because NATO can only find a place for itself if it transforms itself in a way to be able to respond to the real challenges existing at present apart from peacekeeping operations, and that means above all a response to the actions of international terrorist organizations.

And secondly, it is impossible to effectively meet these challenges without Russian participation.

So, the fact that Lord Robertson, speaking in Brussels yesterday, proposed to set up a permanent body to deal exclusively with improving the relations between Russia and NATO, I think that these appeals find favor with NATO and NATO will of course exert efforts to promote a rapprochement with Russia. Well, we are probably more concerned not with the question of Russia's membership of NATO but the question of NATO expansion. I would put it in a different way: the problem is not the expansion of NATO per se, the problem is the reform of NATO and of where the process of NATO expansion stops in the process of reform.

If NATO continues to expand in the old way, as it did in the late 1990, especially if one or several Baltic states are included, then the chances are great that the improvements of the relations with Russia achieved in the past months and probably even days, will be reversed and it will have a negative impact on the further existence of the organization.

The President vigorously opposed the old way of expansion speaking in Brussels yesterday. We all understand that Russia cannot by a definition join NATO as it is today and the President provided what I think is a fairly powerful argument: If somebody, for example Lithuania, joins NATO, will it help the Americans to fight international terrorism?

To pursue that argument further, I think the reverse is more likely: it will substantially undermine the prospects of Russian-American cooperation in combating that evil and thereby the terrorists will again be able to capitalize on Russian-American contradictions. And that again would recreate the situation that existed during the past few years and that was so favorable for the activities of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda.

So, the old expansion of NATO, expansion in the old forms and without a reform of NATO which was to stop at the Russian border -- I think such expansion would contradict the national security interests of the US if these interests are correctly understood.

And I think that in the aftermath of the events on September 11, there should emerge a general awareness of this fact and the process of NATO expansion should be more closely linked to its reform and the development of an all-round dialogue with the Russian Federation regarding the possible interaction between Russia and NATO in combating international terrorism and its consequences.

I personally interpret President Putin's speech to the German Bundestag to mean that the President has said that the West has no grounds for not starting a dialogue with Moscow regarding interaction between Russia and NATO. In this way, I think, the President indirectly called on the NATO states to start a dialogue regarding the possible terms of Russia's accession to that organization if it transforms itself further.

And the response given by Lord Robertson yesterday -- namely the proposal to create a permanent body to deal with Russia-NATO relations -- marks not just the start of a dialogue on possible cooperation between Russia and NATO which may in the future, if Russia decides so and if NATO states decide so lead to the accession of Russia to that organization. Moreover, this dialogue has been formalized, a permanent institution for such dialogue has been created. And I think it is a historic breakthrough.

It is important that these achievements should not be undermined by a hasty decision to admit one or several Baltic states as early as 2004. Yes, indeed, there is nothing wrong about their being in NATO, but only after NATO is reformed and only after the question of interaction between Russia and that organization has been settled. Simply because without Russia it is impossible to counter the threats emanating from Asia, especially from the Middle East and South Asia.

And finally, the issues of START and ABM. The situation, too, is pretty confused. On the one hand there is an unusual degree of unity in America in the wake of the events of September 11. Opposition in Congress tries to back the Bush administration on every issue and the Democrats this year will not seek cuts on the funding of anti-missile programs and limiting tests as part of NMD program which the administration, so we are told, is going to carry out every quarter. The next test will take place in mid-November and thereafter they will take place on a quarterly basis.

In addition we see that the United Nations and its General Assembly have been greatly hindered if not paralyzed in their activities. A high-level debate there has been postponed because the American authorities cannot guarantee the safety of top world leaders who were expected to attend. And the chances of the success of the Russian plan, namely, to make a third attempt in as many years to get the General Assembly pass a resolution in support of the ABM Treaty -- and last year and the year before such a resolution had broad international support -- its chances of success this year are slim because the allies, American allies, of course, prefer to vote with the United States and I don't think Russia would be interested in undermining the chances of elevating cooperation with the United States to a new level as a result of debates around a resolution in support of the ABM Treaty that would not be binding and frankly would not amount too much.

Such resolutions have been passed twice and they do yield an adequate picture of the broad international support for this treaty and there is no particular need to pass the resolution for a third time, especially in the current situation.

So, the attempts to create a broad coalition in America and in the world against unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the ABM Treaty have less chance of success this year. If the administration makes such a decision -- and there are voiced in America advocating the withdrawal from the Treaty in November immediately after the Russian-American summit at Crowfort -- America can do it without much damage to itself within the next few months.

However, other and far more serious constraints on the policy of the US administration in this area have emerged. The struggle against international terrorism is the top priority of the United States. NMD is of limited relevance to it. The Americans will have to carry out military actions in the next few months. We don't know what they will be, but there will definitely be some military actions. This will be the administration's top priority.

And considering the list of American priorities, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty will be relegated to the bottom of the list and this religious or theological motive of getting out of the Treaty as quickly as possible is not so important at present.

And the second thing. If you intend to prosecute a war, especially in such areas as Afghanistan that are far-removed from the United States, of course you are interested in putting together the broadest possible international coalition and Russia, as we see, plays a far greater role than most American allies within NATO. Russia and China, which is also in this region, their support or at least a tacit agreement on the part of China are also essential for creating such a coalition, for preserving broad international support for possible American military actions.

In this context, to create artificial problems over the ABM Treaty which, according to competent American experts, does not limit American anti-missile test programs this year and next year would be unreasonable.

I think therefore there is a good chance that Washington will not unilaterally withdraw from the Treaty in November or December this year and I think that it is probable that the Russian-American dialogue on the problem may last several more months into 2002. And if all this is accompanied by a dramatic thaw of the political climate between the two states -- and this is what we have witnessed since the time of the Bush-Putin meeting in Ljubljana -- then against this favorable political background it will be easier to resolve the whole set of ABM/START problems. And frankly speaking, in the wake of September 11, these issues are not as important for Russia or the United States as they were only two or three months ago.

Q: I would like to ask you about the relations between Russia and the CIS. Is Russia losing its influence in the republics of the CIS -- Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan -- or is Putin deliberately yielding some ground? What will eventually happen in Uzbekistan? Will US military bases be set up there? And what is the position of Tajikistan? And does it have any position or is it just a Russian borderland?

Pikayev: Well, I wouldn't say that Russia is losing its influence on the Central Asian states. Moreover, I think that Russia has used the influence that it has in order to induce the Central Asian states, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to take a more friendly stand on the possible use of bases by American forces in the course of the operation to seize Osama bin Laden.

I don't think that the Americans are ready to set up permanent military bases there because that region is far away from the United States. They have no serious or vital interests there. The action in Uzbekistan -- I think it would be a mixture of an air operation, of missile and bombing strikes and a quick special operation. That is, commandos will be sent to perform a mission and will be back at their base within hours or days. The bases may be on the territory of Afghanistan's neighbors and perhaps, who knows, on the territory of Afghanistan that are controlled by anti-Taliban forces.

So, I repeat, we are not talking about a permanent and large-scale presence of American forces in Central Asia as some of our military bosses have predicted. Most probably the Americans will fly in, perhaps they are already there, and I think they will fly away not later than next year and perhaps even this year. And the Central Asian states will be left alone with their problems, and the problems are extremely grave. The year before last Djuma Namangani came to within 12 or 14 kilometers of Tashkent and Islamic fundamentalism is extremely strong and influential in Turkmenistan. Their influence is growing and it would be sheer madness in these conditions for these states to agree to a permanent American presence.

But these states should understand that the Americans will fly away, but Russia and China will still be there. Uzbekistan is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and I think that it would be a great mistake for Tashkent to ignore the interests of Russia and of China in that region. And I don't think that Russia and China are interested in seeing the Americans stay in Central Asia for a prolonged period of time. And the Americans do not, in general, have such a need, as I see it. It is not that Russia is leaving the Central Asia, though, of course, there is a current debate in Russia that we have to withdraw from Tajikistan, that we have no business to be there, that we again risk getting involved in a new edition of the Afghan war... Nevertheless, for the moment, as I see it, there is no decision on withdrawing from the region and moreover, we see it on television that new recruits are being sent there into Tajikistan to join the 201st division.

Q: In this case, why doesn't Rumsfeld fly to Tajikistan? Why did he confine himself only to Uzbekistan? Is there some contradiction in this? And in general, Ivanov, for instance, did not even hypothetically envisage the presence of US military in Central Asia. He spoke about that, on the other hand, Uzbekistan let in the Americans, didn't it?

Pikayev: As to Ivanov, it seems to me that he was not interpreted correctly. I think that he expostulated with a number of other ranking military who fears that the American would establish bases in Central Asia. Ivanov precisely wanted to say that this was absolutely impossible that the NATO would wish to establish bases there, meaning that NATO has no such interest. And he would not have opposed that. He said that this is simply not a matter for practical politics, i.e. why fight with windmills and make some utterances in a void, which, incidentally, had quite a serious negative political effect. This is to say, for the perception of Russian policy in the Western, above all American, mass consciousness, because the Americans would first watch CNN and there runs a line under the images about the collapse of the International Trade Center, or that the Russian minister or chief of the Russian General Staff opposed Russia's support or pledged Russia's support in the operation against terrorists in Afghanistan. This is to say that the material was presented there in a way that a man who does not read Russian newspapers and does not watch Russian television, even does not watch such advanced channels as the BBC, would react appropriately.

Moderator: In the light of this, how can our relations with Iran affect the situation?

Pikayev: We see that, on the one hand, Iran is still in the list of states supporting terrorism. There is a very influential pro-Israeli lobby in the United States which is of course not pleased that Iran does not recognize Israel's right to existence and this is a serious restricting factor for the development of the US-Iranian relations. Nevertheless, the September 11 events and the plan to launch a military operation in Afghanistan require that the Americans and the West as a whole improve their relations with Iran, because Iran, by virtue of a historical paradox, is an ally in the struggle against Osama bin Laden and the Talibs and is a very important element in this coalition, because Iran, as is known, for a long time and together with Russia supports the Northern Alliance, including, as some say, with arms. These arms are supplied through Tajikistan, for otherwise it would be difficult to supply them. And surely, this is happening not without Russia's consent.

That is why, following the September 11 events, we can already expect Iran's improved relations with the West. For the first time in many years, beginning from the late 1970s, Iran was visited by British Foreign Minister who, as the Americans themselves admitted, acted as an intermediary between Iran and the United States. So, in the Afghan operation there is a unique feature that Russia, Iran and the United States are on the same side of the fence in the struggle against a common enemy and, doubtless, this may have the most direct implications, namely, improved US-Iranian relations, especially after the reformist President Khattami got an immense majority of votes in the presidential election. And for Russia, although it might cause some problems in the military-technical cooperation, it is also profitable in strategic terms -- the better get the US-Iranian relations, the more difficult it is for the Americans to object against Russia's selling atomic reactors for peaceful purposes or conventional arms there.

Q: The Japanese economic newspaper. Could we know what the Talibs are now armed with, what is their numerical strength and what are their real forces?

Pikayev: The most diverse assessments of the Talibs forces are cited. Some say that they have 30,000 armed people, others say that the number can be brought to 300,000. So, the assessments fluctuate within the range of ten times.

The Talibs are in part equipped with old Soviet weapons they captured from the Northern Alliance after they occupied a large part of the country. They also have US arms -- including the Stinger missiles which the Americans supplied to the mojaheds in 1980s allegedly with Osama bin Laden acting as a go-between. They say that this was how Osama bin Laden earned his original capital which he is now uses against the United States.

The war over, the United States wished to buy the Stingers back but, naturally, nobody obliged. They say that some of them somehow made their way to Chechnya. But the Talibs kept some of these Stingers and this enables them to oppose the American special operations. They can shoot down, say, US helicopters and low-flying aircraft. The Talibs have their aircraft, more aircraft than the Northern Alliance has and practically there are no airfields left. That is why the only large airfield is Bagram, which is not actually controlled by the Northern Alliance because the Talibs are in the vicinity on the perimeter and so the planes cannot land or take off there. That is why the Talibs have a big superiority in aviation and in personnel. And it is difficult for the Northern Alliance to conduct hostilities on the plain. In the mountains the numerical superiority is not very important, but as soon as the Northern Alliance forces get into the plain, as we have seen this near Mazari-Sharif, the Talibs' superiority in aviation and personnel plays a very important role.

Q: You spoke about reforming NATO so that we could join it. It is not quite clear what NATO ought to reform, for according to its charter, there is no ban on Russia joining it? Or, let us assume that the NATO and the OSCE will have to merge, if Russia becomes a member (inaudible)... So, what might be the substance of NATO's reform?

Pikayev: The problem is that NATO is an organization established to rebuff an external aggression; it is an organization of a number of states, an inter-state organization, established to repel a large-scale military aggression. In other words, NATO has an integrated military structure created for carrying out large-scale combat operations, from such big peacekeeping ones as SFOR and KFOR to a big war in Europe.

This part of NATO, designed to fight a large-scale war in Europe, is obsolete because against whom is it going to fight this war? Only against Russia because there are no other countries in Europe the existence of which could justify the presence of such a huge military machine.

Besides, if you look at NATO's operation and war plans, and military forces do not exist in a vacuum, because NATO is not called upon to protect European bisons in Belovezhskaya Pushcha from poachers, right? There are armed forces that must conduct some combat actions, and these operational war plans are still directed against Russia. I think that our military could give you very many interesting examples and interesting elements of these operational plans that exist in NATO.

Besides, politically NATO rejected until recently the possibility of Russia's admission to this organization. And now they say that Russia may be admitted some time in the future but not today or tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow. If this organization that was created against Russia and whose armed forces are still largely poised to fight a war against Russia, as long as this situation remains, the question of Russia's admission, even if it files an application for accession, will not be considered seriously.

Moreover, if Russia filed an application for accession to NATO, say, tomorrow, I assure you most CIS countries, from Georgia to Ukraine, would do the same. And in this situation where Russia knocks on NATO's door, NATO would use this against Russia because it would help NATO's propaganda campaign for admitting the Baltic states and inviting them to join already next year, at least some of them, so that they could become members in 2004.

Q: (Off mike.)

Pikayev: No decision has been made so far.

Q: Whether or not we file an application for admission, we will not lose anything.

Moderator: Ask your questions, please. There won't be polemics here. Do you have any questions?

Voice: Everything has been well said.

Moderator: Everything clear? Thank you very much, Alexander Alexeyevich for coming here.

Pikayev: Thank you.