-Caveat Lector- http://www.sunday-times.co.uk:80/news/pages/tim/99/10/14/timfgnrus02003.html?999 October 14 1999 Russia dusts off nuclear plan FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW Chechen President defiant to Russian threat RUSSIA is considering a new military doctrine that for the first time would enable it to launch nuclear strikes anywhere in the world. Experts fear the document, which has a "first use" clause on strategic nuclear weapons, could deepen the chill in Nato-Russian relations and bring back a Soviet-style reliance on the nuclear deterrent. The draft doctrine, submitted this week for ratification by the Duma, contains a thinly veiled attack on Nato and the dominating global reach it showed in the crisis in Kosovo, in which Russia was effectively ignored until 200 of its troops forced their way into Pristina airport. "International security can only be guaranteed in the framework of a multipolar world," the doctrine states in an implicit rejection of the "unipolar" model under American leadership that Moscow accuses of marginalising Russian influence and interests. One Moscow defence analyst said of the doctrine: "Now there is nothing to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons against any country in any war." Under President Brezhnev, the Soviet Union allowed a measure of detente by agreeing to a "no first use" clause. That was abandoned in 1993, but even then the newly independent Russia reserved the right to initiate the use of nuclear weapons only against other nuclear powers or allies of such rival powers. This week a Moscow think-tank criticised Russia's military command for spending lavishly on strategic nuclear weapons as its conventional forces go unpaid or, at best, under-equipped. Large sums of money are reportedly being siphoned from other defence programmes to fund a new strategic missile system using state-of-the-art Topol M missiles. In addition, Russia this week finalised a deal to buy back from Ukraine 11 long-range aircraft with nuclear capability, an order including eight Tupolev 160 Blackjack bombers and three Tupolev 95 Bears. Such deals are being done at a time when even Russia's frontline troops in Chechnya need better radios and are backed by helicopters incapable of flying at night, the report by the Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies said. Heavy spending on strategic weapons marks a dramatic shift in priorities since 1997, when General Lev Rokhlin, a veteran of the first Chechen war, warned President Yeltsin that Russia's nuclear forces were old, unreliable and "destined for extinction". Returning Russia's nuclear capability to something approaching former Soviet might is considered a personal crusade for Igor Sergeyev, the current Defence Minister and a former chief of Strategic Rocket Forces. It is also a cost-effective way of demanding respect on the world stage, and has had backing in the Kremlin since the war in Bosnia in the early 1990s and Nato's air war over Kosovo. If ratified by parliament, the doctrine would be Mr Yeltsin's last big pronouncement on global security and in theory could be torn up by his successor. But its tone, blamed partly on Nato's expansion into Eastern Europe, has alarmed defence analysts. One Western diplomat noted that earlier post-Soviet draft doctrines frequently mentioned co-operation and joint peacekeeping possibilities with Nato and its member countries. The latest document conspicuously avoids any explicit mention of Nato. Yevgeni Volk of the Heritage Foundation has called the document a return to "the Soviet pattern, the Soviet scheme whereby the West was regarded as an alien entity which always jeopardised Russian national interests". Wherever Russia chooses to deploy its funds, they are in short supply. The country's total defence budget for next year is unlikely to exceed $6 billion (£3.5 billion) even after extra money is found for the Chechen war. The Russian figure represents roughly one-fiftieth of the Pentagon's $270 billion budget for this year. Chechen President defiant to Russian threat Breakaway republic of Chechnya's President said again yesterday that thousands of young Russian soldiers would die in the latest Chechen war "and their mothers will come looking for them". President Maskhadov's defiant response to a Russian threat to take over the whole of Chechnya was delivered as much of the country came under renewed shelling from long-range Russian artillery (Giles Whittell writes from Moscow). Despite the bombardment, Chechen sources claimed that their fighters had retaken the town of Chervlennaya, previously an advanced Russian position less than 20 miles north of Grozny. Troops from both sides are now firmly entrenched along the strategic Terek River, but a Russian advance on Grozny seems inevitable. -- ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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