Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: The Cold War warmed Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 16:56:27 EST Message-ID: \SE A;IN TRANSITION \HD The Cold War warmed over? \BY Warren Strobel \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES ****AS MAJOR DISARMAMENT DEALS APPEAR CLOSE TO UNRAVELING, PRESIDENT CLINTON MIGHT HAVE TO PUT FOREIGN POLICY FIRST**** By the time he takes office Jan. 20, President-elect Bill Clinton could face any of a half-dozen crises in the former Soviet Union that would sap both time and resources he had hoped to use elsewhere. Experts monitoring developments in Russia and its neighbors speak more frequently these days of possible setbacks in the journey to free-market economies and demilitarization, setbacks that neither the U.S. public nor Mr. Clinton may be prepared for. The Arkansas governor's emphasis on revitalizing the U.S. economy could be threatened "if the Russian situation takes a really bad turn," said Penn Kemble, a senior associate at Freedom House who advised the Clinton campaign. "You wouldn't go back to full-scale Cold War alert, but you'd certainly want to be more cautious about how you wound down American military capability" and pursued arms reductions, Mr. Kemble said. This week, State Department officials began a bureau-by-bureau effort to prepare transition materials for the Clinton team, focusing on global problems that will need attention in the coming months. There are many, from the Middle East peace talks and China policy to turmoil in Yugoslavia, Somalia and Haiti. But for now, only the former Soviet Union poses a direct threat to U.S. national security. "It's that . . . not Cambodia," said Jack Mendelsohn, a former U.S. arms negotiator and deputy director of the private Arms Control Association. Mr. Mendelsohn and other private and government experts were alarmed by recent statements by officials in Ukraine that they will not give up Soviet-era nuclear weapons - 1,650 nuclear warheads on missiles and bombers - without new pledges of aid and security. That stance threatens to unravel an agreement consolidating all such weapons in Russia and makes it unlikely that Russian President Boris Yeltsin will implement sweeping nuclear reductions he and President Bush agreed to in June. While Mr. Clinton's aides had hoped the Bush administration would fix the problem before it leaves office, that seems less and less likely. "It's not going to work out unless we pay attention to it," Mr. Mendelsohn said. "That's on the agenda January 20 at 12:01." Just as urgently, Mr. Yeltsin and his reform program are threatened by Russia's Congress of People's Deputies, whose hard-line majority wants to strip the Russian president of any real power and put an end to fast reform. A showdown is set for Dec. 1, when the Congress is slated to convene against Mr. Yeltsin's wishes. And the Russian president is under growing pressure to use force to stop separatists in the Russian federation. U.S. analysts see the Chechen region in southern Russia as particularly explosive. Mr. Clinton - who has spoken with Mr. Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk since he won the Nov. 3 election - has strongly backed a $24 billion Western aid package to the former Soviet Union. But he has also said aid must be tied to real reform and disarmament - raising questions about what a Clinton administration will do if there is a setback in Moscow, Kiev or elsewhere. "We should link U.S. and Western nonhumanitarian aid to agreements by the republics to abide by all arms agreements negotiated by Soviet authorities, demonstrate responsibility with regard to nuclear weapons, demilitarize their economies, respect minority rights, and proceed with market and political reforms," Mr. Clinton said in a December 1991 foreign policy speech at Georgetown University. He is also likely to balance aid-giving with his oft-stated desire to put the U.S. economy ahead of all other concerns. "We do have to take care of our own people and their needs first," he said at Georgetown. "We need to remember the central lesson of the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union. We never defeated them on the battlefield. The Soviet Union collapsed from the inside out - from economic, political and spiritual failure." Whatever Mr. Clinton does, officials pointed out three factors that make his task more difficult. One is the widespread public perception that, now that the Cold War is over, Russia is no longer a potential danger. The second is that while the old U.S.-Soviet rivalry was carried out like moves on a chessboard, the international scene has suddenly become much less predictable. "Now you're playing on a much larger board and the pieces are doing all sorts of strange things," said a European Community diplomat. Lastly, it is far from clear that the West can influence the political struggle in Moscow or affect conflicts in Central Asia and the Caucasus - parts of southern Russia and the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. During the campaign, Mr. Clinton frequently criticized the administration for reacting too slowly to changes in Moscow and preferring the status quo to independence forces represented by Mr. Yeltsin and leaders in Ukraine. The decision to include among his campaign advisers Mr. Kemble and other neoconservatives, such as Richard Schifter, the State Department's top human rights official in the Reagan and Bush administrations, was viewed as important. The Clinton team seems, symbolically at least, to put more emphasis on promoting human rights and democracy than its predecessor. Less conservative advisers on East-West affairs include Michael Mandelbaum, a Johns Hopkins University professor who has been mentioned as a possible ambassador to Moscow; David Aaron, deputy national security adviser to President Carter; and Madeleine Albright, president of the Center for National Policy. ****BOX KITTENS WITH NUCLEAR TEETH The former Soviet Union continues to threaten U.S. security. * Russian President Boris Yeltsin's authority and reform plans are being threatened by hard-line lawmakers and leaders of state-owned enterprises. * Ukraine is suggesting it will not give up Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on its territory, as it promised, without new pledges of aid. * Sweeping nuclear reductions agreed to by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin in June are threatened by opposition in the Russian military and Ukraine. * Yeltsin is under growing pressure to intervene militarily to defend Russia's interests from the Baltic states to the Chechen region of southern Russia. 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