*http://www.corriere.it/english/editoriali/Venturini/040607.shtml
**A Race Against Time Putin, Bush, and Europa* The interview with *Vladimir Putin* published yesterday by the Corriere della Sera prompts a crucial question for our security.Who is the real head of the Kremlin? Is it the leader who claims to have buried his hostility to the US and in a month's time will visit Mr Bush on his family estate in Maine? Or is it the Putin who says he is set to train his nuclear warheads on Europe and could well tear up the treaty that bans missiles in Europe? The problem is that both these Putins embody interests which Russia sees as vital, and which are unlikely to change after the presidential handover scheduled for 2008. Russia does not simply not want a new edition of the cold war: the country cannot afford it.Forestalling a remilitarization of the economy, the increasingly critical interdependence of markets, and the expected demand for massive foreign investment to modernize the country's energy infrastructure are all issues that are incompatible with a split with the West.In a postideological world that is very different from the old one of power blocs, it is no surprise that the current czar should keep open channels of communication and collaboration with the United States, not to mention his excellent customers in Europe. But there is a limit to pragmatism. The Russia of atavistic fears cannot allow strategic balances to be altered to its detriment. It does not want to see its status as a nuclear power vanish and, driven as it is by nationalism, neither will it tolerate a fait accompli.The announcement that components of the nuclear shield, which America wants to set up to neutralize future Iranian missiles, are to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic is for Mr Putin an unacceptable insult that calls for an energetic response.It is beside the point that the defenses are being mounted against what could be considered a common enemy.The effectiveness and credibility of Russia's arsenal would be jeopardized, and that suffices.But what the Russian president does not say is that his gruff warnings conceal stakes that are even higher than those that have emerged so far. It was Mr Bush who first advanced the prospect of a rearmament race by unilaterally abandoning the ABM treaty that outlawed defensive systems, points out Mr Putin, not without justification.But the real chicken now on its way home to roost is that America's decision prevented the application of the Start-II treaty on the parallel reduction of offensive arsenals. The Start-I treaty in force today runs out in 2009 and Washington does not seem to be interested in negotiating a new agreement. It is true that the Moscow 2002 agreement limits each side to 1,700-2,000 nuclear warheads, but Russia is not reassured by this.The former USSR's nuclear arsenal will be obsolete by 2015 and the new generation of missiles, such as the recently tested RS-24, will not offset this. Before long, the gap between the declining Russian offensive potential and America's continually updated technology will be too big to bridge. In other words, what Moscow fears is the end of the not so much military as political dogma of parity between Russia and the United States. In this context, planning a defensive anti-ballistic missile system not far from Russia's borders, above all without adequate consultation, can only appear to Mr Putin as provocation at the very moment when the Kremlin needs to be seeking a new, more radical, balanced disarmament pact.At the face-to-face summit next month, and probably at next Wednesday's G8 meeting in Germany, Mr Putin will be trying to persuade the American leader to lift what he perceives as the armed siege of Russia.It is unlikely that Mr Putin will be successful, even though only the British of America's main European allies have expressed approval of the manner and time-scale of Washington's initiative. But perhaps it's not so much an arms race as a race against time.Mr Bush wants the shield to lighten the weighty legacy of his presidency whereas Mr Putin is engaged in damage limitation as Russia waits for a Democratic president who will certainly press Mr Putin's successor on human rights, but may be willing to sign new disarmament pacts and make a joint study of anti-ballistic missile defense.In the middle, as ever, is Europe. Franco Venturini [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
