Wall Street Journal_How Far Will Russia Take Dispute With the West? (July 18)

18.07.2007

Military Deployment,
Response to U.K. Move
Could Clarify Outlook

MOSCOW -- As Russia promises a response to Britain's expulsion of diplomats and threatens to abrogate a key arms-control treaty, a central question for the U.S. and Europe is how far Moscow will take its deepening chill with the West.

The answer may emerge soon in Kremlin statements about its plans for military deployments and for relations with Britain, the latest focus of Kremlin ire. Russia's Foreign Ministry said it would make a "targeted and appropriate" response to Britain's expulsion of four Russian diplomats Monday, itself a retaliation for Moscow's refusal to extradite a suspect in the poisoning in London of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.

Most diplomats and analysts believe the Kremlin's increasingly anti-Western rhetoric and policies are mainly for domestic consumption ahead of presidential elections next year. But the stakes could be high. President Vladimir Putin threatened last week that unless the West addresses Russian security concerns, he would freeze Russia's commitment to the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. The 1989 agreement limits heavy military deployments in Europe and ensures each side knows what movements the other is making.

Another key arms treaty, eliminating intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe, could fall next. In February, Mr. Putin said the treaty no longer serves Russia's interests. If Russia withdraws, that would free Moscow to extend the range of its new, fast, radar-evading Iskander cruise missiles and, as it has occasionally threatened, base them in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland and Lithuania.

Russia also has the ability to block any plans sanctioned by the United Nations to give independence to Kosovo. And it can block international efforts to limit Iran's nuclear program. Both are foreign-policy goals that the U.S. and Europe consider critical for their security.

In the case of the diplomatic tiff with the United Kingdom, "this can go far if both sides decide to get into a competition over who can spit farther," said Sergei Karaganov, a dean at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. "It can rapidly get out of control."

Analysts say it probably won't get that bad. While Russia has promised to be firm with Britain, for example, it doesn't want to jeopardize its own citizens' ability to travel between Russia and the U.K., where many of the Russian elite have property and business interests. British companies, including BP PLC, also have major investments in Russia that could be damaged in any escalating political conflict.

Similarly, military analysts say it makes little strategic sense for Russia to rekindle an arms race, and the main concern is that ending treaty obligations to allow verification of missile stocks and military deployments could make the future much less predictable.

"This is a political issue. The Kremlin is really very bruised and upset at what it sees as the NATO alliance trying to impose its will on Russia," said Rose Gottemoeller, director of the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Center. But she noted Moscow has left the door open for a deal on the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, leaving 150 days before a suspension takes effect.

Ms. Gottemoeller said that, like Western countries, Russia is spending its defense money on trying to create a leaner, more mobile force. To dismantle Europe's arms-control treaties and pile up weapons on the borders of the EU, which poses "zero threat" to Russia, would make no sense, she said.

Similarly, pulling out of the intermediate-range nuclear-forces treaty, which ensures no nuclear missiles based in Europe are pointed at Russia, would be self-defeating. And while the Iskander missile inspires nervous respect within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, deployment in Kaliningrad seems unlikely.

"It makes a handy threat to articulate, but I just don't think it's where the Russians are right now," Ms. Gottemoeller said.

A greater risk, some say, is that the Kremlin could stir up Russian antiforeign sentiments that could burn out of control. Fanned by Kremlin-controlled media, most Russians are increasingly convinced the West is exploiting Russian weaknesses and looking to spoil an economic revival that has pulled millions out of the penury of the 1990s.

Anti-Western sentiment has also taken hold in Russia's rising wealthier classes, who the West had hoped would be closer culturally and politically.

Diplomats and analysts say the Kremlin's anxiety about next year's presidential elections is one reason for the heightened anti-Western rhetoric. Mr. Putin has promised to step down when his term ends. While his named successor will presumably win easily in a tightly controlled poll, the Kremlin is anxious to avoid a fight among the elites over who that successor will be.

"Putin is fanning the image of an external enemy to give him an even stronger hand in controlling the political process over the next seven to eight months," said Mark Kramer, professor of Cold War studies at Harvard University.

But Mr. Kramer said some of the anti-Western campaigns in Russia have quickly gotten out of hand in the past. After the U.S. bombing of Serbia, the government permitted protesters to pelt the U.S. embassy with paint -- until someone fired a grenade at the building.

After the Kremlin harshly criticized Estonia's removal of a Soviet-era war memorial from its capital earlier this year, Kremlin-backed youth groups besieged Estonia's embassy in Moscow and harassed its ambassador.

Britain -- whose ambassador complained earlier this year that he has been harassed and stalked by Kremlin-backed youths in Moscow -- has been singled out for special ire because it has offered safe harbor to some of the Kremlin's most vociferous critics, including oligarch Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev. Russian state-run TV has suggested both have worked for the British intelligence service along with their fellow exile, Mr. Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium-210 in London in November.

Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday called Britain's expulsion of four of its diplomats this week "a well-staged action to politicize" the death of Mr. Litvinenko, who Russian state television suggests was killed by Mr. Berezovsky in a plot to mar Russia's reputation.

Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com and Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com

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