The Fox Is in the Hen House. system

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 26, 2001 | by Jamie Dettmer, | Timothy W. Maier, | Shelia R. Cherry

The diplomatic dance is on and, for veterans of the arms-control battles of the 1980s, it comes with a sense of deja vu and grim memories.

Two decades ago, Moscow blended threats and entreaties to try to split NATO on the issue of the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles; now the Russian effort is focused on encouraging the Europeans to oppose President Bush's proposal for a national missile defense (NMD) system.

Since Bush's election, the Kremlin has stepped up its criticism of the new president's plan for a ballistic-missile shield that would protect the U.S. and its allies from nuclear attack, arguing that it will trigger a new arms race and tear apart the fabric of international arms control.

While offering "active dialogue" with Washington about NMD and proposing an "alternative" that would preserve the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972, the Kremlin has been searching for support from European governments in an apparent bid to foment division within NATO, say Western diplomats. Moscow now seems to be concentrating on Germany as the most susceptible to anti-NMD arguments.

While the U.S. media reported Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's call on Feb. 1 for talks with the Bush administration, there was scant coverage of a German call the day before for the preservation of long-standing nuclear-arms agreements.

That call came on a trip to Moscow by German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping. Following talks with his Russian counterpart, Igor Sergeyev, Scharping echoed the thrust of Russian criticism of NMD and he warned Washington against letting NMD endanger the ABM treaty. He added that negotiations in this area are not the sole province of Washington, saying that Germany and Europe had helped to build the existing international security system.

Scharping's remarks highlight how problematic NMD could prove to be for the Western alliance -- and how the Bush administration will have its work cut out for it to keep the European members of NATO on its side.