Observers Don’t See Recent Russian Maneuvers as Provocative to West

Two Russian military operations that carried the whiff of confrontation with the West signal neither an immediate return to Cold War tensions nor an imminent crisis in ties with the United States, according to officials and political analysts in both Washington and Moscow.

Moscow’s recent maneuvers have their roots in more benign political ground, Russian domestic politics, these sources believe. Above all, they seem to reflect the need for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to showcase--however fleetingly--what remains of his nation’s dwindling military might to soothe anger over NATO’s 11-week bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.

Yeltsin’s arch-nationalist and Communist opponents had seized on the airstrikes to stoke existing anti-NATO sentiment and attack him for his failure to stand up to the West. That the maneuvers managed to tweak the West was merely a fringe benefit for Yeltsin, analysts said.

“I don’t see any of this as symptomatic of some deepening crisis in U.S.-Russia relations,” said Coit Blacker, a former White House policy advisor on Russian affairs in the Bush administration who is now at Stanford University’s Institute for International Studies. “It’s muscle-flexing that has most to do with the state of Russian domestic politics.”

Yeltsin Signals NATO Not to Be Alarmed

But Blacker and other analysts warn that political undercurrents were visible, including a deepening disappointment about Moscow’s failed partnership with the West in the post-Cold War order and a growing national identity crisis.

Last week’s high-profile war games, in which Russian aircraft skirted the coasts of NATO allies Iceland and Norway, were trumpeted by Moscow as the biggest exercises in 10 years. Although not considered overtly hostile, they created enough concern to prompt four U.S. F-15s to shadow two Russian bombers near Iceland.

In Moscow on Friday, Yeltsin met with top military officials to review the exercises, dubbed West 99, which simulated Russia’s response to an invasion by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In brief remarks, Yeltsin seemed to signal the United States that it need not be alarmed.

“The threat of large-scale military aggression against Russia is still in the realm of theory,” Yeltsin said. “However, the danger of regional conflicts does exist.”

The war games came only two weeks after 200 Russian troops made a dash from peacekeeping duties in Bosnia to seize Kosovo’s only major airport in Pristina. They arrived just hours before NATO-led peacekeepers were scheduled to establish their headquarters there.

There May Be Less Than Meets the Eye

Senior U.S. and Russian officials insist that both moves turned out to be far less than they first appeared.

Unable to obtain supplies or reinforcements, Russian soldiers in Pristina quickly found themselves begging water from British units. Within days, Moscow had negotiated an agreement with NATO to deploy more than 3,000 Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo, and Yeltsin was back-slapping with President Clinton at a summit meeting of Russia and leading industrial nations, calling for a renewal in U.S.-Russia relations.

More questions about Russia’s role in the peacekeeping force surfaced Friday night when a Pentagon official said NATO and U.S. officials rejected Moscow’s attempt to get overflight rights from Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to ferry more peacekeeping troops into Kosovo’s main airport.

Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO’s top commander, informed the Russians that Moscow would not be allowed to add to its troops already in Kosovo until it agrees to honor the original terms of its participation in the peacekeeping.

U.S. officials said Russia had agreed to scatter its troops but has been trying to renegotiate to get its military units contiguous, creating a de facto sector.

Although last week’s maneuvers concerned some senior people at the Pentagon, other U.S. officials and their Russian counterparts played down the controversy. A White House official described the incident as mainly a staff-and-command exercise that involved no large ground units and only four aircraft, none of which violated any nation’s air space or the boundaries established by the United States and Russia to prevent sneak attacks.

While initial reports said two TU-95 “Bear” bombers had ventured within striking range of the United States, that assertion now appears doubtful. U.S. military experts say the longest-range cruise missile that can be carried on a TU-95 has a range of 1,865 miles, and the distance between Iceland and Maine is approximately 2,000 miles.

“The Russians played this up as a big deal to boost morale and boost the military’s profile [at home] to make the pitch for more funding,” said a senior White House official, who declined to be identified. “They said it was the largest military exercise in 10 years, but we know they’ve had others of comparable size.”

Others, however, voiced concern about other messages that can be read between the lines.

NATO’s decision to expand its membership, the failure of the NATO-Russia council to give Moscow a meaningful voice in alliance affairs, and the air campaign against Yugoslavia all have fed mistrust and disappointment in Moscow. The Kosovo air war not only ended the view of NATO as a purely defensive pact, it exposed Russia’s inability to influence events.

“It’s disturbing because there will be a Russia after Boris Yeltsin,” said Dimitri Simes, director of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, an independent Washington-based think tank. “Russia can affect American interests in a very negative way.”

In recent months, there have been signs Russia is trying to define its position in the post-Cold War world, signing a 10-year military technology pact with India, selling aircraft and missile technology to China and talking about a strategic partnership with both. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sergei V. Stepashin approved an agreement to supply nuclear technology to Iran.

Yet Moscow remains tied financially to the West, which has the capital Russia needs. This is one reason why Yeltsin was so eager to improve relations with the biggest industrial countries at last month’s summit in Cologne, Germany.

State Duma Deputy Sergei N. Yushenkov, a liberal member of the Defense Committee, said the excursion near Iceland sends a clear signal that it is too early to write off Russia as a military superpower.

“For quite a while, Russia has not been able to afford such flights for economic reasons because they are very expensive,” Yushenkov said. “But now, after the events in Yugoslavia, such a demonstration becomes a necessity.”

Staff Writers Jim Mann and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.