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In Moscow the Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev handed the Secretary General of NATO George Robertson Russia's
proposals on the non-strategic European anti-missile defence system (ABM).
It should be created in three stages and on "separate missile directions" rather than over the whole of Europe.
The goal of the action is clear: to intercept the US initiative rather than thrust onto Europe its own ABM model.
There are far more doubts about the time chosen for this task.
Moscow has virtually lost the battle for the main military allies of the USA - Great Britain and Germany. London
has already supported the American ABM, and Berlin has increasingly indicated its preference for this system.
But this is not the most offensive element. The clearly belated steps of our authorities on the international scene
is a consequence of its chronic deafness to reverberations within the country. The ABM problem has been almost
the key problem in geopolitics for almost three years already. Exactly three years ago, in January 1998, during his
meeting with Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State for the USA, Yabloko's leader Grigory Yavlinsky set forth
his proposal for a non-strategic European anti-missile defence system, which Obschaya Gazeta described at that
time. A little later on, Yavlinsky discussed the same issue with Boris Yeltsin who fell ill and was at that moment in
the Central Clinical Hospital (Ed. hospital for top officials) and in September 1999 with Prime Minister Putin. Finally,
in January 2001 the Yabloko leader again raised the issue of the European ABM: expressing his proposals in the
form of an "open letter" of President Putin to President Bush Jr. Yavlinsky wrote, in particular, as follows, "in view
of the geopolitical position of Russia, the key issue for us is further development and modernisation of our
military-industrial complex. We are going to take an active part in the technical side of the creation of the
REC-ABM (Russian-European ABM), as well as any other regional ABM system..."
And what was the result? After becoming acquainted with the letter, George Bush Jr. transfers Yavlinsky's
initiative to Russian-American soil, and sends a letter to Putin on February 20, proposing the involvement of the
enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex in the creation of ABM components. In the morning the
Kremlin, obviously frightened by such a radical wording of the issue - which is extremely favourable in terms of
propaganda - urgently sets forth counter-initiatives to Europe, again, in accordance with Yavlinsky's logic. The
difference is that Bush had been thinking over the answer for three weeks, and the Kremlin for three years. The
very three years during which this protracted rivalry over ABM could have resulted in an entirely different
outcome for Russia.
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