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UNITED NATIONS — The global Chessboard is now set for a new game commencing after the Inauguration of George W. Bush as the 43rd President of the United States. The pieces are old and true but the moves can be unexpected, daring or foolish. It appears that Russia's President Vladimir Putin will now play a game of probing the globe's strategic perimeters.
Subjective information has perhaps been deliberately leaked that the Russians have stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, the Baltic enclave on the shoulder of Poland and Lithuania. Warsaw's democratic government is deeply worried over what's likely a provocation — a less than subtle reminder that NATO expansion eastwards had, and still has, a price.
Putin likely placed the nuclear arms in the "Baltic nuclear free zone," as an icy reminder that the Kaliningrad (ex-German Konigsberg/East Prussia) region remains Russian and also militarily capable. The Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are equally nervous after the report which appeared in the Washington Times. The Baltics may now press for a fast track to NATO and EU admission.
Given her geography Poland has always been a vulnerable prize between powers; but now Warsaw is a NATO member, her security guaranteed by the US and Western Europe. I'm not hinting for a moment that placing tactical nukes near Poland's doorstep has any function beyond, should we say, a friendly reminder. This is a probe to try Poland and to see how the new NATO member reacts. "This is just a test", as they say.
Moscow likewise let Berlin know less than diplomatically that repayments on the Russian debt, were being reconsidered. On the eve of a visit by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder to Moscow, a Russian Finance Ministry official stated that his counrtry could suspend repayments on the Soviet-era debt. This move was politically motivated — later media leaks that Moscow may default are a grim reminder of bank overexposure. As the adage goes, a small debtor is at the pity of the banks, whereas the banks are at the mercy of a big debtor.
Russia fits the bill with $20 billion of the $48 billion Soviet-era debt outstanding to German bankers. Later when Gerhard Schroeder was in Moscow meeting with Putin, the matter was smoothed over — yet Schroeder remains keenly aware of this vulnerability. This was a "probe" of the financial structure.
Significantly the strategic relationship between Russia and Iran, something allowed to proceed apace by a myopic Clinton political vision — through a reneging of a 1995 deal signed off to by Al Gore to stop arms and technology transfers — emerges. While Iraq has transfixed the Administration, and is certainly worthy of watching, Iran in the longer run is the real prize as Putin knows very well.
Arms sales to Islamic Iran, while a wild card for the Russians to play, nonetheless stir the political bouillabaisse in the oil rich Persian Gulf. The recent visit by Moscow's Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, to Tehran to ink a weapons package of up to $7 billion for the Islamic Republic, bodes ill for American interests.
The turgid waters of the Taiwan Straits are ripe for trouble too. While the PRC and Taiwan have wisely calmed their political rhetoric, Beijing has made it abundantly clear that it does not renounce the use of force to reunify Taiwan with the communist Mainland. With new weapons inventory from the Russians, the threat becomes more credible. The Chinese communists, awash in spending money from the huge American trade deficits, clearly emerge as the medium term strategic threat to the U.S. and East Asia.
Other areas to watch — the divided Greek/Turkish island of Cyprus — a strategic Mediterranean flashpoint defused only by a longstandidng UN peacekeeping commitment, as well as former satraps of the Soviet Union such as Georgia.
The frightfully stupid strategic policies of the Clinton Administion will come home to roost. Putin's probing of the perimeters may actually be little more than an opening gambit of a new geopolitical chess game and first challenge for George W. Bush. While Moscow plays its weak hand well, the challenge for American policymakers remains to not to allow Russian rhetoric and intent to become reality.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
