Russia nuclear policy takes Cold War turn

 Calgary Herald (Alberta, Canada)

January 15, 2000, Saturday, FINAL

Russia nuclear policy takes Cold War turn

BYLINE: The Telegraph

SECTION: News; A9

LENGTH: 480 words

DATELINE: LONDON

Russia published a national security rule Friday, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, in the first important decree signed by acting president Vladimir Putin.

Analysts saw the document as a pre-election ploy by Putin, who took over on Dec 31 and will be campaigning for the presidency in March on restoring Russia's weight in the world. But it still sends an uncomfortable signal to the West.

Although the document is hardly new -- versions of it have been circulating for months -- it has now been formally approved by Putin, something Boris Yeltsin never decided to do.

By making this, rather than a statement on economic reform, his first major policy pronouncement, Putin seems to be invoking the ghost of the Cold War, when Russia was a superpower.

The message was subtly reinforced Friday as Putin's defence minister, Igor Sergeyev, met a top Iranian security official and vowed to maintain close military and scientific relationships. Russia is also helping Iran build a nuclear reactor.

America fears this will help Iran acquire a nuclear bomb.

The security document envisages using Russian's vast nuclear arsenal to ''repel armed aggression'', rather than, as the previous one had it, ''in the case of a threat to the very existence'' of Russia as a sovereign state.

It says Moscow's main security task is to deter attacks, nuclear or conventional, on Russia and its allies.

The document says: ''The Russian Federation considers it possible to use military force to guarantee its national security according to the following principles:

''The use of all forces and equipment at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, if it has to repel armed aggression if all other means ... have been exhausted.''

The other principle stated under the new concept was the use of force to quell internal unrest. But this is already under way in Chechnya.

The document says Russia remains important, but ''a number of states'' are trying to marginalize it.

''The level and scale of threats in the military sphere is growing,'' the document says. Though it does not identify these, the implication is clear that it refers to the West, along with Chechnya's rebels.

Elsewhere, the document is markedly more hawkish toward the West, noting that there are today two ''tendencies'' in the world: one, favoured by Russia, for a multi-polar world in which Russia, India, China and the West should all play their part, and another in which America aims to dominate a uni-polar world through military and economic might.

The previous doctrine, formulated in 1997, sees the West as Russia's strategic partner. But since then Russia's economy has collapsed and the West has become much more cautious about bailing it out; Nato has taken in three former Warsaw Pact countries; and it has fought Yugoslavia in the teeth of Russian opposition.