Asia-Pacific
Russia
Cold War Echoes
When Russian President Boris Yeltsin retorted to Bill Clinton's criticism of the Russian military campaign in Chechnya by warning sternly that Clinton forgot for a second that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons, the press reaction in Moscow was mixed. Yuri Golotyuk of Moscow's liberal Izvestia compared Yeltsin's sharp rhetoric to the bluster of Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War and Golotyuk seemed to approve.
"Yeltsin made it plain that it is dangerous to drive Russia into a corner," he writes. [Russia] could be prodded into actions by a painful sense of national humiliation. The Western world regards such actions as irrational. But at times it fails to realize that Russia may have a completely different opinion. In the twilight of his presidency, Yeltsin has realized from his own experience that the West, alas, understands only strength.
But Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies, was critical of Yeltsin in Moscow's liberal Nezavisimaya Gazeta. While stressing that Russia cannot give up its sovereignty in its policy toward Chechnya, Rogov assailed Yeltsin's tone. "Nuclear weapons are a means of deterring aggression, not an instrument of diplomatic bluffing, writes Rogov. Don't we have any other arguments besides a threat to waste everybody?"
What made Yeltsin's remark all the more significant was that it came during a visit to Beijing. Dmitry Gornostayev and Pyotr Chernyakov write in Nezavisimaya Gazeta that Moscow and Beijing, in effect, form a united front on all major international problems and even support each other regarding Chechnya and Taiwan.
"There is no formal alliance between Moscow and Beijing," they add, "but many of the features of a political alliance exist."
