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accept.

All this has happened under Yeltsin and at a moment of Russia's maximum weakness. To paraphrase Churchill with respect to Soviet actions in the immediate postwar period: "If they act like this in the green wood?, what will they do when the trees are fully grown?" It is reinforced moreover by the democratic aspect of some of Russia's institutions, which tempts competing leaders to that deep Russian nationalism tinged with mysticism.

The simultaneous thrust in all directions runs the risk of repeating the underlying tragedy of Russian history: no people has sacrificed more for its vision of security and its sense of mission; none has received fewer tangible benefits from it. The tsarist as well as the Communist empires collapsed in the end

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as a result of overextension. The latent sense of
insecurity is all the more inappropriate in the
present world, where Russia possesses 20,000 nuclear
weapons, making a land attack on it almost
inconceivable.

The momentum of current Russian policy bids fair
to bring Russian armies to the gates of Europe and the
Middle East. If Ukraine were to suffer the fate of
Belarus and return to Russian satellite status,
tremors would be felt all over Europe and a return to
rigid dividing lines would be nearly inevitable. A
Russian stranglehold on Central Asian oil would
provide a dangerous level [of ____] during foreseeable
energy crises of the next century. And beyond these
geopolitical challenges, Russia, in its attempt to
regain imagined ancient glories, may be tempted to

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challenge the United States' position in the Middle
East and to conduct adventurous policies in Asia that
would mortgage its long term relationship with the
West, especially with the United States.

The United States has been far too slow to
recognize these dangers. It is only in the last year
that Ukraine has received attention commensurate with
its political and strategic importance. Our concern?
is handicapped by the same obsession with domestic
economic reform that has characterized the
Administration's dealings with Russia. In Central
Asia, American policy ambivalently oscillates between
human rights pressures and a slow dawning of the
geopolitical importance of the region, without as yet
emerging with a coherent concept. In the Caucasus,
flagrant Soviet military or near-military intervention

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has been met with American silence, or worse, American
statements seemingly legitimizing ancient Russian
imperial drives.

Such a policy is not conducive to international
stability; it also undermines long-term Russian-
American relations. By treating Yeltsin - in defiance
of the facts of the daily conduct of Russian diplomacy
- as if he were some tender shoot incapable of
withstanding the gusts of realistic foreign policy, we
have encouraged Russian tendencies to use pushing
abroad to compensate for disappointment at home and to
emphasize Russian nationalism as the cohesive element
of society.

I would argue that if we want genuine reform in
Russia, its leaders must be brought to understand that
a return to historic drives of Russian policy will

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produce the same debacles as in the past. They must be
given to understand that the strategic domination of
its neighbors can be achieved only at the cost of
permanent tensions with the United States and the
West.

Such a policy requires the abandonment of the
current tendency to build the Atlantic relationship
form East to West, and a rededication to strengthening
the Atlantic Alliance. This has two components: the
Atlantic Alliance as it stands has no mission; the
frontiers that it guarantees are not threatened and
the threatened frontiers are not guaranteed. Thus NATO
expansion is imperative; in its absence, a grey area
will develop ‡tempting even further expansion of
Russia's strategic frontiers. (This is certainly the
view of literally all the leaders of Eastern Europe.)

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Even more importantly, the Atlantic Alliance must
deepen its political consultation and extend to
subjects heretofore excluded as being out of area -
such as Islamic fundamentalism, global energy
supplies, and other threats to world stability.

Finally, Russia must be made to understand that
American policy is prepared to give it an honored and
important role in helping create the new world order,
the birthpangs of which mark the crisis of our age.
What we should ______ is a recurrence of imperial
threats that Russia has never been able to sustain but
which have condemned its people to centuries of
misery. A Russia prepared to stay within its borders
can over time indeed become a strategic partner of the
United States. The challenge to America is whether it
can assemble a balance of incentives and penalties

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encouraging world order. And this challenge exists
whoever wins the Russian election, though it will be
more complex - though not impossible to create? -
after a Zyuganov victory. That will be the ultimate
reform to which we are able to contribute with our
Russia policy.