Taming the bear

Was that ever a real scenario? Did Russia and the United States really come close to war just three years ago?

I'll come back to that in a second. My point is, at the end, the Russians said, "OK, there's only one way to end this thing and that is we're going to have to join the Europeans and the United States in getting Milosevic to say uncle." And they did. My own belief is that the war ended in no small measure because of what [Russian special envoy] Viktor Chernomyrdin did with Martti Ahtisaari [the president of Finland and a European Union envoy], with me working around in the background.

There you had a case of Russia operating cooperatively with the West and indeed with NATO. You had essentially Milosevic throwing in the towel because he not only had NATO against him, he also had the European Union in the person of Ahtisaari and Russia in the person of Chernomyrdin. Then the Russians agreed to participate in a NATO-led peacekeeping operation in the Balkans. That too led to a hairy moment; you may recall the scene where the Russians kind of accidentally invaded Kosovo and we almost ended up in a confrontation. But we got through that and diffused it.

So my point here: In 1997, the United States and Russia worked out a deal that basically laid the basis for what is now happening in bringing in new NATO members and improving upon the NATO-Russia cooperative mechanism. Both of those arrangements survived the crisis of Kosovo and I think in the long run will prove to be stronger as a result.

How close did we come [to war] in 1999? I don't think we came anywhere near the brink of nuclear war. I do think we came quite close to an armed clash of some kind, either in the air or on the ground in connection with the Russians' preemptive seizure of Krajina airport in their attempt, or at least their contemplation of reinforcing those troops there. Had that confrontation taken place, it could have led to bloodshed; it would not have led to general war. But the bloodshed would have been bad enough because it would have ruined the chances of repairing the damage later, or at least it would have taken many years to do so.

What direct effects did Russia have on our involvement, our decisions to intervene in Kosovo?

I was probably the person in the administration who both ex officio and by inclination was most sensitive to Russian concerns. And I can tell you what effect Russia's vehement opposition to the bombing of Kosovo had on me and that is -- I understood it and I thought it was too bad, I thought it was wrong and I thought it had to be managed.

What did you understand? It might help to explain the Russians' typical relationship with NATO.

The Russians had multiple reasons for being aghast at the spectacle of NATO bombing Serbs. First of all, they were afraid of NATO. NATO had come into existence as an alliance directed against them as they saw it. They didn't like it that it was staying in business with the Cold War over, their own alliance, the Warsaw Pact, having been passed onto the ash heap of history. They didn't like that it was taking in new members and especially members that used to be allies of the Soviet Union -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

They even more didn't like the fact that we were insisting on keeping open the possibility of taking in new members that used to be part of the USSR itself, which of course is going to happen later this year. I suspect all three Baltic states -- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- are going to come into NATO. So they had multiple reasons for not liking the continued existence of NATO or the enlargement of NATO.

On top of that they have a feeling of historical, cultural and political affinity to the Serbs. Here, you not only had NATO staying in business, you had NATO going to war against people that many Russians regarded as cousins or clients of themselves. Then, there was a final factor, which had to do with Chechnya. They'd already had one outbreak of war in Chechnya in 1994 and they would have another in the future.

What was Chechnya? It was a Muslim majority enclave inside Russia proper that was seeking to break free of Russia, directly analogous to Kosovo, a Muslim majority enclave inside of Yugoslavia that was seeking to break free from Yugoslavia. And here comes NATO bombing Belgrade on behalf of the Kosovars. That's the way the Russians saw it and they said, "Oh my God, we're next. We can easily close our eyes and imagine NATO bombing Moscow on behalf of the Chechens." You put all that together and you have one unhappy bunch of Russians.

Given that this was just three years ago, the Russians are still very fearful of and angry at NATO. How can we expect them to react to these negotiations? Do they have the will to make this work?

It won't be a sudden change of heart. It will take time and it will take the passing of a generation. But the Russians now have a president who's more confident and more realistic. Putin doesn't like losing causes. He's not going to throw his body in front of a Mack truck or a tank and get rolled over. In the final analysis, Yeltsin didn't particularly relish that experience either and he picked himself up off the middle of the road and climbed aboard the Mack truck, saying "partnership, partnership." Putin learned a lesson from Yeltsin's experience and decided not to go through the charade or the temper tantrum, but to acquiesce and advance so that it didn't look as much like he was making a major concession.

Putin himself is resigned to NATO enlargement. He hopes that through the new NATO-Russian council, Russia will be able to participate more in the decision-making process of NATO and make it harder for NATO to do things that Russia doesn't want in the future. But bringing his people and his political and military elite along with him is going to take some time.

Next Page: Chechnya: "A corrupt, criminalized, violent non-country"

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