President George Bush's August 16 announcement at the Congress of War Veterans in Cincinnati about US plans to re-deploy its German military bases to its own shores and to other global regions did not cause any serious concern among Russia's military leaders. "We know of the US plans to change the configuration of its forces," Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told the press. "I see nothing alarming in these plans".
However, only recently, the intention to deploy some of these bases in Poland - for example at the Minsk Maziwiecki airbase or in Biala Podlaska, 30km from the Belarussian border - were seen by Moscow as "a threat to Russia's security". This is what both Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov and Colonel-General Alexander Rukshin, head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, said in February this year.
What has changed in Moscow's position?
First of all, Moscow really learnt about the White House plans to reform the configuration of its military bases in Europe long ago. It also knew that this reform was in no way an attempt "punish Germany" for failing, just like France or Russia, to support the US plans for the Iraqi war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Military experts clearly see that the break-up of the USSR, NATO's eastward enlargement and Russia's transformation from "a threat to Western democracy" into, if not a loyal partner of the US and NATO, then at least not an adversary, made huge spending on the maintenance of the US military infrastructure in Europe pointless. Now that the threat of a world war is a thing of the past, such army groups as the one the Pentagon kept in Germany (about 300-350,000 people, including 100,000 troops and their families and children) became a burden. They did not meet the requirements of modern warfare or military science.
Secondly, operations in such spheres as combating international terrorism, the proliferation of mass destruction weapons, missile and nuclear technologies, require flexible, mobile and hi-tech military structures, not huge armies, that can form and establish combat co-operation within a matter of days and weeks. They also should be able to engage in combat immediately, using the army infrastructure prepared in advance, in any theatre of war. The US is already preparing such infrastructure in the new deployment areas of its military bases. Judging by the available information, these are Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Turkey, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. One could extend this list, adding Georgia and Azerbaijan in the future.
In principle, such a configuration, according to "the instability arc", poses a certain threat to Russia, not today's Russia, but some hypothetical tomorrow's Russia, because the situation may take any turn. However, there is probably no need to mention this point, the more so that we cannot influence changes. Statements about "US hegemony" and its "reluctance and inability to consider other states' interests" would only aggravate the situation, without yielding positive results. This is why the best option is to keep calm and decide what must be done to enhance our own security. Evidently, Sergei Ivanov's words are explained by these considerations.
It is beyond doubt that the Russian military commanders draw certain conclusions from the changing military-strategic situation in Europe and the regions neighbouring on Russia. The other day, Colonel-General Yuri Solovyov, a special forces commander (of the Moscow and the Moscow industrial-economic region's air defences) told a press-conference that, in connection with NATO's enlargement, he had asked Chief of the General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, "to strengthen individual areas of the capital air defences" and received unreserved support on these proposals.
The general did not specify which precise areas he is going tostrengthen, but it is clear to military experts that these are sooner western than eastern directions. Moscow's decision to expand its presence in Kyrgyzstan, at the Kant air base, and in Tajikistan by turning the 201st mechanised-infantry division into a Russian military base in the latter was prompted by this logic. Evidently, opposition to Tbilisi's intention to solve the Abkhazian and South Ossetian problem by force also fits into the logic of enhancing Russia's security. If US military bases appear in Georgia, engulfed in the flames of a civil war that has broken out through the fault of Tbilisi, instead of Russian ones (which is quite probable, whatever Tbilisi's current leaders may say to the contrary), the Russian Defence Ministry (just like the Pentagon) will hardly be able to keep calm.
It is beyond doubt, however, that these visible steps to enhance Russia's security are by no means the only measures that the Kremlin is taking, along with the army reform, to react appropriately to the fast-changing geopolitical situation and the re-deployment of US military bases in Europe and other regions of the world. It cannot be ruled out that over the six to ten years allotted for this re-deployment, new targets may appear in the sights of Russia's strategic missiles. Who can guarantee or openly say that these will not be the new US bases in Poland, Lithuania or Romania? Militaries across the world follow quite specific logic. They must consider not only the statements and intentions of individual politicians and heads of state, but also the capabilities of these countries and their armed forces.
