-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Kremlin Reacts to Bush Policies, Shelves Military Cuts NewsMax.com Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001 The chill winds of the Cold War are beginning to blow once more. The Kremlin has abandoned its plans to drastically pare back and modernize Russia’s armed forces, and experts say the action is partly due to the new Bush administration's determination to go ahead with development of a national missile defense (NMD) system. A reduction of Russia’s armed forces ordered in November by President Vladimir Putin was aimed at slashing the 1.2-million-strong military by 360,000 over the next five years. That plan, which emphasized Russia’s conventional forces and degraded its nuclear missile forces and was due to begin next month, has now been put on hold until at least March. Moreover, there are signs that the NMD controversy has strengthened the hands of those in favor of beefing up Russia’s nuclear missile strike force. "The main reason for the delay is the first steps of the new U.S. leadership," the respected military analyst Viktor Litovkin told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. While it’s too early to tell if Presidents Bush and Putin will be able to deal with each other amicably after the new administration settles in, the atmosphere between Moscow and Washington has drastically chilled. In recent weeks there have been signs that the new administration polices toward Moscow will be decidedly less cordial on such issues as national security, economics and arms control than they were under the Clinton-Gore administration, which turned a blind eye to Russia’s growing belligerence under Putin. Washington, for example, has charged that, in violation of long-standing agreements, the Kremlin has secretly deployed battlefield nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, its main naval base, which is located in an enclave that borders on Poland, a NATO member. As NewsMax.com reported last week, Putin denied the deployment, calling it "total rubbish," but U.S. intelligence sources insist the deployment has taken place. Washington has also expressed displeasure with Russia’s determination to boost arms sales to Iran. On the other side, last week Moscow said the United States was violating the Start-I nuclear arms reduction agreement with its plans to go ahead with the NMD system Adding fuel to a rapidly heating fire, Bush said last weekend that his administration would slash U.S. financial assistance to cash-strapped Russia. In response, Alexander Zhukhov, the chairman of the Russian parliament's budget committee, snapped, "Russia does not need large loans from foreign countries at the moment." Commenting on the situation between Washington and Moscow, Yuri Gladkevich, a military observer at Moscow's independent Military News Agency, told the Guardian, "There are signs of a worsening in relations, and it looks as though things will get a lot worse yet." Aggravating the problem is Moscow’s belief that some of the people Bush has picked for his Cabinet are leftover hawks from the Cold War era, specifically Vice President-elect Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleeza Rice. "These are people who see themselves as the victors of the Cold War," Alexander Golts, military commentator for the news magazine Itogi, told the Guardian. "The Kremlin and the generals are flattered by that, because it reminds them of the days of the U.S.S.R. when they were a great power. But the new American administration is making a very strong and negative impact on our military." In reaction to what the Kremlin views as the new administration’s anti-Russian views, Moscow sent three warships on patrol in the Pacific on Monday, its most ambitious naval display since the Soviet Union collapsed a decade ago. The Bush administration’s determination to push NMD has caused Putin to rethink his decision to downplay Russia’s strategic missile force in favor of beefing up the Kremlin’s conventional forces, a move vigorously opposed by defense minister Igor Sergeyev, an avid supporter of the nuclear strike force and equally vigorously supported by the chief of the general staff, Anatoly Kvashnin. "Sergeyev wants to maintain the strategic missile forces as a political-military instrument, as the main lever for pressure on the U.S. and NATO," Gladkevich said. "The new U.S. administration means Putin won't weaken the strategic missile forces to the degree that Kvashnin wants." The Guardian reported that the Kremlin over the past year has repeatedly stated that it wants major arms cuts, including reducing its stockpile of nuclear warheads to 1,500. But Alexei Arbatov, an influential moderate on the parliamentary defense committee, now argues that Russia needs 4,500 nuclear warheads to maintain parity with the U.S. "The Kremlin sees NMD as a threat to Russia's national security, which will ignite a new arms race it can't afford," Gladkevich told the Guardian. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
