BOSNIA : Why NATO’s Bombs Make Yelstin See Red

The sharp Russian denunciations of NATO’s bombing raids against the Bosnian Serbs have taken many by surprise. After all, the Cold War is over, and Russia even voted for the U.N. resolution permitting the use of force in the Balkans. It thus seems puzzling that the Russians should be so angry.

In a rare press conference last week, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin answered most questions calmly, but he suddenly became quite animated, even emotional, when asked about the NATO air campaign. Yeltsin, apparently forgetting his bloody little war against the Chechen rebels, denounced the bombing as uncivilized, owing to the threat posed to civilian lives. He predicted that this was all a foretaste of what would come should the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expand to include former Soviet satellite states; the “flames of war” would spread throughout Europe, he warned.

In the succeeding days, Russian denunciations of Western actions have taken on an increasingly hysterical tone. The Kremlin asserted that NATO air strikes had a genocidal intent: “The very survival of the current generation of Bosnian Serbs . . . is called into question,” the Russian government declared.

Russian discontent with Western, and especially U.S., diplomacy should not surprise us. It has been building for several years.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was a brief period of euphoria over the supposed dawning of a new age in relations with a reconstituted Russia. Yeltsin provided plentiful grounds for such optimism. His new Russian government peacefully accepted Western arms-control proposals. Russian soldiers were quietly and peacefully withdrew from Central Europe. Force was not used against seceding republics, even when local ethnic Russians seemed at risk. In international forums, Moscow eagerly anticipated joining such capitalist bastions as the International Monetary Fund, and in one unguarded comment--quickly rescinded--Yeltsin even stated that he could see no reason why the newly independent states of Eastern Europe should not join NATO.

Unfortunately, the Russian honeymoon with things Western was bound to be short-lived. Russia’s poor economic condition, its divergent national and strategic interests, deep-running national traditions of xenophobia and, above all, its volatile politics ensure that Russian foreign policy would become less pliant to Western wishes.

Yeltsin’s turn toward a more assertive nationalist diplomacy is often assumed to have followed his showdown, in October, 1993, with his hard-line opponents in the Russian Parliament. While this did indeed hasten Yeltsin’s move in this direction, signs had emerged as early as mid-1992 that Moscow would not endlessly yield in international disputes.

In the summer of that year, the long-dormant question of the Kurile Islands suddenly heated up. Josef Stalin had seized the islands following his two-week campaign against Japan late in the summer of 1945. Tokyo has never accepted their loss, and it hoped to exploit Russia’s weakened state to recover them. For a time, Yeltsin cautiously hinted that he might be willing to strike a deal: In exchange for development assistance and Japanese capital investment, especially in resource-rich Siberia, Moscow might renounce its claim to the islands.

The public reaction to hints of the approaching deal showed, however, that Russians’ willingness to continue to surrender land--and principles--had its distinct limits. Coming as it did in the wake of Russia’s headlong retreat from Central Europe and the former non-Russian Soviet republics, the prospective loss of the Kuriles seemed to be the last straw. Anti-Oriental sentiment runs deep in Russia, which likes to think of itself as European, despite being mostly Asiatic geographically. Even worse, however, was the notion that a Russian government would trade territory for money.

The public opposition seems to have surprised Yeltsin, who quickly denied that he had ever been contemplating selling Russia’s patrimony for Japanese gold. The chastened president learned quickly; Russia’s foreign policy became more assertive, step-by-step.

Following his armed showdown with the Parliament in 1993, Yeltsin became much tougher internationally. It is widely speculated that the price for the successful storming of the Russian White House may well have been a presidential promise to slow funding cuts for the armed services, and a more assertive military policy against rebellious internal ethnic minorities and troublesome former Soviet republics. Moscow also resumed arms sales abroad, citing America’s own poor record in this area.

After defeating his parliamentary rivals by force, Yeltsin received another stunning blow when the ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky’s inaptly named Liberal Democrats received one-fifth of the vote in new elections. Although Zhirinovsky’s clownish antics have thankfully cost him most of his support, the vocal and increasingly assertive nationalist constituency remains important. With his own percentage of public support in the low single digits, Yeltsin cannot lightly afford to be outflanked on the right by people claiming that he has sold out Russian national interests.

This background of escalating nationalism may help to explain Russia’s new tone on Bosnia; but it remains an open question whether the Russian people truly care about the plight of their “brother” Orthodox Slavs. To be sure, one sees graffiti on the Moscow metro supporting the Serbs, and some Russians have volunteered money and even service for the Bosnian Serb forces; it is also likely that the recent grenade attack on the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was related to the Balkan imbroglio. Most Russians have too many economic problems of their own, however, to be outraged over Balkan politics.

This indifference may well vanish as the Russian government convincingly charges the Clinton Administration with hypocrisy and double standards. Why, Moscow asks, does the Western press loudly denounce Serbian ethnic cleansing only to remain largely silent about the substantial U.S. military support and training that enabled the Croatian army recently to expel tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs from the Krajina, where they have lived for centuries? Moscow also points out that as NATO bombs rain down on Bosnian Serbs, a Croat-Bosnian Muslim alliance is busy seizing land beyond the view of television cameras.

Resentment of Western wealth and power has deep roots in Russian history, and this may well be exploited by nationalist politicians should NATO planes continue to bomb Serb targets without producing a clear, equitable peace settlement. The Clinton Administration has, so far, failed to articulate a convincing case for continuing the bombardment now that the warring parties have agreed to peace talks and the Bosnia Serbs have promised to withdraw their heavy artillery around Sarajevo. The Russians accuse Washington of choosing sides in the conflict and pummeling their client Serbia. Clinton has sent a special envoy to Russia to explain Washington’s policy and to assure Moscow that its interests are not being ignored. Should he fail, the dynamics of Russian politics will ensure that the most serious casualty of Clinton’s confusing and shifting Bosnian policies will be good Russian-U.S. relations.*