| Moscow and NATO have bonded over the past year,
yet their true military relationship still stutters when the two
Cold War foes try to do more than just talk, NATO-Russia experts
here say.
After the September 11 attacks in the United States, contacts
between the
two sides warmed up considerably -- and there have been quiet
talks about
ways of fighting chemical warfare, if not other weapons of mass
destruction.
And although Russia fought NATO's expansion to former Soviet
bloc states in
eastern Europe, it bore the brunt with a smile at the military
alliance's
summit in Prague last month inviting seven new members to join
in 2004.
Now, the priority is to create conditions for cooperation, said
Alexander
Alexeyev, one of Russia's envoys to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization.
"We want to build a culture of cooperation," said Alexeyev,
mentioning
joint work in sea search and rescue missions, which Moscow's US
ambassador
Alexander Vershbow said could be signed next month.
The 19 NATO members and Russia earlier this year created a NATO-Russia
Joint Council which gives Moscow an equal voice in decisions on
such issues
as terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms
control,
crisis management and military cooperation.
So far, however, the only concrete step in Russia-NATO cooperation
has been
a joint exercise simulating a chemical weapon threat last September.
Vershbow has justified this slow start, saying it was realistic.
"We should think big for the long term but move step by
step in the short
term," he said. "For the first phase, it is better to
have a concrete list
of modest goals to avoid being disappointed."
Objectives included ways to join up in an "anti-terror"
mission and
training of Russian and NATO forces, Vershbow said.
But the Russians had a counter-argument.
"Is cooperation in search and rescue at sea really a priority?"
asked the
deputy head of the Moscow-based Institute for Applied International
Research, Andrey Zagorsky.
"What is most worrying is the lack of any real military
cooperation"
between Russia and NATO, Zagorsky added.
Alexey Arbatov, deputy head of the State Duma lower house of
parliament's
defense committee, agreed, saying that the much-heralded improvement
in
Russia-NATO relations had so far mostly been, perhaps, just a
touch of hype.
"New relations with NATO are contained to high-level summits
and meetings,
while common programs are rare and lack interest," Arbatov
said.
NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson is to meet Russian President
Vladimir
Putin on Monday, and afterwards attend a conference on the role
of armed
forces in the fight against terrorism, together with Russian Defense
Minister Sergey Ivanov.
While German ambassador to NATO Gerhardt von Moltke said Saturday
that the
conference would benefit joint anti-terrorist cooperation, several
NATO
officials at the alliance's Brussels headquarters have dismissed
it as a
mere public relations exercise.
See also:
Russia
and NATO | 