[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2176-S2196]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, if the Senator will yield for a request, 
I ask unanimous consent that Mark Tauber, a State Department Pearson 
Fellow on my staff, be accorded floor privileges for the duration of 
the consideration of the Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 
on Accession of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, Treaty 
Document 105-36.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Madam President, I would like to first thank my friend 
from Virginia. We have reached across the aisle to collaborate on two 
amendments which we will offer at the appropriate time. Today we are 
engaged in just some preliminary observations.
  I will begin with the current event of one of the more interesting 
aspects of life in Moscow at this moment, which is that it is in so 
many ways much more open than the United States. Their archives are 
open, and their national security plans are open. I do not doubt there 
are closed elements as well. But on December 17, the Russian Federation 
issued Presidential edict, No. 1300, entitled ``The Russian National 
Security Blueprint.''
  This is the kind of document that we would not have gotten from 
Moscow in the past. We can think of the famous NSC-68, which was 
drafted early in 1950 and was so powerfully influential in our affairs 
for many years. NSC-68 remained secret for 30 years. By contrast, the 
Presidential edict, No. 1300, was published in Moscow's official 
gazette on December 26, 9 days after it was issued. It is a disturbing 
document; yet, in many ways it is an admirable one in the clarity with 
which it sets forth the exceptional difficulties facing the Russian 
Federation at this point. It speaks in its first paragraph that:

       The Russian Federation National Security Blueprint is a 
     political document reflecting the aggregate of officially 
     accepted views regarding the goals and state strategy in the 
     sphere of assuring the security of the individual and the 
     state from external and internal threats of a political, 
     economic, social, military, manmade, ecological, 
     informational, or other nature in the light of existing 
     resources and potential.

  It speaks of internal threats in the context of the convulsions that 
have occurred in that country within the past decade. The forces which 
played such a fundamental role in breaking up the Soviet Union and the 
Warsaw Pact. It is a sober assessment of the threats to Russian 
security.
  Madam President, in this debate it should be recorded that the 
national security document, the guiding principles of the Russian 
Federation, states right up front:

       The prospect of NATO expansion to the east is unacceptable 
     to Russia since it represents a threat to its national 
     security.

  That was drafted, or agreed to, on December 17 and published December 
26. It is a formidable document and an extraordinarily candid one. It 
speaks to the ethnic problems, it speaks to the economic decline, it 
speaks to poverty, it speaks to unemployment, and it speaks to the 
nature of the Russian defense forces.
  They acknowledge that large portions of their borders are undefended. 
They acknowledge that their traditional conventional weapons systems 
are deteriorated, if not in fact disfunctional. And they say--and this 
is the most difficult part--that they do have nuclear weapons and, if 
necessary, they will use them.
  This is not the type of posture that we had hoped for, after the long 
arms control efforts from President Eisenhower's time to START II. I 
was one of the Senate observers to the START II talks and the present 
Russian Ambassador to the United States, who wrote a very important 
article recently in the Washington Post, was one of the negotiators 
then. With START, for the first time we agreed to build our nuclear 
forces down. Previous agreements had really legitimated the respective 
nations' plans to increase their nuclear forces. We reached that 
historic moment, and have been able to build on that important 
achievement. Since then, other historic treaties have also been 
achieved, allowing eminent Senators, such as the Senator from Delaware, 
to bring to this floor the Chemical Weapons Agreement, a very powerful, 
far-sighted document.
  But now the Russian government says, under the circumstances, we have 
nothing left but nuclear weapons. We are in serious difficulty. The 
prospect of NATO expansion to the east is unacceptable. The term is 
``unacceptable.'' It is not a calculating document.
  May I make this point twofold? I would like to go back just a bit. 
There is not one of us in this body who has not paid some heed to the 
affairs of the Soviet Union over time and the world of communism over 
time. Yet rather early on it began to occur to some of us that all was 
not well in that arrangement and that it was not going to remain 
permanent as was often presumed.
  Just a short while ago, Arkady Shevchenko documented--and his 
obituary appeared in the principal national papers. Arkady Shevchenko 
was the second ranking official at the United

[[Page S2191]]

Nations during the time when I had the honor to be our Permanent 
Representative to the United Nations. Shevchenko was a protege of 
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko. He was on anyone's short 
list to succeed Gromyko. He held one essentially attractive position 
after another. There he was, the Under Secretary General responsible 
for the Security Council, about as important a position as you will get 
in any diplomatic service and particularly in that of the Soviet Union.
  Whilst I was at that post in New York, Shevchenko defected to the 
United States. It was a very closely held matter. He simply passed a 
note in a book in the General Assembly library, that he was thinking of 
defecting. He was a man at the top of his form. In the manner of the 
espionage craft, we established that he had defected and then left him 
in place for some two and one half years, where he remained in his 
position as Under Secretary General whilst providing us information.
  In Moscow they began to sense something was the matter and they began 
to think a defector was in place. It even got to the point where the 
Soviet Ambassador here in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, another person 
of great stature in the Soviet system, came under suspicion as the 
source of the security leaks. Finally, they worked it out. That is not 
too hard. You give three messages to three different people and you see 
which one the United States gets. Shevchenko had to defect. He later 
moved to Washington, where I got to know him. I had known him somewhat 
at the United Nations, but I got to know him better here.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the obituary for Arkady 
N. Shevchenko be printed in the Record, which is a way of saying 
goodbye to someone who chose democracy.
  There being no objection, the obituary was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the New York Times, March 11, 1998]

         Arkady N. Shevchenko, 67, A Key Soviet Defector, Dies

                            (By David Stout)

       Washington, March 10--Arkady N. Shevchenko, who stunned the 
     world two decades ago when he became the highest-ranking 
     Soviet diplomat to defect to the United States, died on Feb. 
     28 in obscurity in his suburban home in Bethesda, Md. He was 
     67.
       Mr. Shevchenko's death was announced in a brief statement 
     by his church, St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox 
     Cathedral in Washington. By the time the world began to learn 
     of his death today, he had been buried for three days.
       Mr. Shevchenko's body was discovered in his home by a 
     daughter, who had gone to check on her father when she could 
     not reach him by telephone, the Montgomery County police 
     said, adding that there was no sign of foul play.
       The manner of his death could not have been in more stark 
     contrast to the fanfare that greeted his defection to the 
     United States in April 1978. His decision to stay in the 
     United States and spurn his own country caused a major 
     diplomatic dust-up: the Administration of President Carter 
     was at that time engaged in sensitive disarmament talks with 
     the Soviet Union and, as one American official put it at the 
     time, ``This is the last thing we need right now.''
       Mr. Shevchenko was Under Secretary General of the United 
     Nations at that time, and apparently on course to have a 
     brilliant career in the Government of the Soviet Union. He 
     was a protege of the stone-faced Soviet Foreign Minister, 
     Andrei A. Gromyko, and some diplomatic observers thought he 
     had a shot at one day succeeding his mentor.
       As events would reveal, he was also a figure of 
     contradictions, a man who wore different faces for different 
     occasions and different people.
       One West European diplomat at the United Nations called him 
     ``a faceless functionary'' whose habit of poking harmless fun 
     at Soviet officialdom did not detract from the fact that he 
     was a hard-line, doctrinaire Communist with a built-in 
     suspicion of all things Western.
       Only a handful of people at the Central Intelligence Agency 
     knew that Mr. Shevchenko had been providing information to 
     the American Government for some two and a half years before 
     his defection.
       One C.I.A. official who did know was F. Mark Wyatt, who 
     held various high posts in the C.I.A. before his retirement. 
     His specialty was shepherding Soviet agents who wanted to 
     help the United States.
       ``Arkady was a friend of mine,'' Mr. Wyatt said tonight. 
     ``I am grieved.''
       Mr. Wyatt and other C.I.A. officials agree that, while Mr. 
     Shevchenko did not provide sensational details of secret 
     weapons or war plans, he furnished valuable insights into the 
     thinking of people at the highest level of the Soviet 
     Government, many of whom he knew personally.
       There really were people in the Kremlin who thought that 
     the United States was controlled by a cabal of Wall Street 
     capitalists in league with oafish Pentagon types with stars 
     on their shoulders, he told his debriefers--first at a secret 
     C.I.A. ``safe house'' on East 64th Street in Manhattan and, 
     after his defection became public, in more relaxed settings 
     in New York City and Washington.
       Mr. Wyatt said he came to respect Mr. Shevchenko greatly, 
     convinced that his decision to turn his back on his country 
     was not based on greed but simply on his conviction, as an 
     educated Soviet citizen, that the United States was a better 
     place to live with a better system of government.
       On the eve of his defection, Mr. Shevchenko told his aides 
     he had to go back to the Soviet Union to visit his gravely 
     ill mother-in-law. Instead, he had told a few Americans of 
     his decision to abandon his country and his career. As Under 
     Secretary General, he was second only to Kurt Waldheim at the 
     United Nations.
       ``God, we got a big fish!'' Mr. Wyatt recalls one C.I.A. 
     colleague exclaiming at the time. Indeed, Mr. Shevchenko was 
     considered the C.I.A.'s top trophy of the 1970's. An irony in 
     the case was that one C.I.A. agent who debriefed him was 
     Aldrich Ames, who would later betray the United States by 
     selling secrets to the Soviets.
       His first wife, Leongina, eventually committed suicide 
     after returning to the Soviet Union. He later married an 
     American, but she soon died of cancer, Mr. Wyatt said. Mr. 
     Shevchenko is survived by his third wife, Natasha, a son and 
     daughter and a stepdaughter.
       In his first life, Arkady Nikolayevich Shevchenko, a native 
     of Ukraine, studied at the Moscow State Institute of 
     International Relations, earning a doctorate in 1954, two 
     years before joining the Foreign Ministry.
       His second life was more erratic. In 1978, a Washington 
     call girl charged publicly that she had been paid by the 
     C.I.A. to provide sex for him. The publicity was shattering 
     to him, Mr. Wyatt recalled tonight.
       But his book ``Breaking With Moscow'' (Knopf, 1985) brought 
     him fame and prosperity, and earned money on the lecture 
     circuit and as a consultant to research organizations.
       Mr. Shevchenko complained at first that some of his C.I.A. 
     handlers were insensitive to the trauma of defection. But he 
     made peace with his new country and became an American 
     citizen. ``I was at the ceremony,'' Mr. Wyatt said. ``He was 
     very happy.''

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Madam President, if I could say to my friend from 
Delaware, that is when I became convinced the Soviet Union would not 
last through the 20th century. When a person of Arkady N. Shevchenko 
stature defects, it means the system is not working. And it did not 
work. But when it came apart, there is a proposition in which Owen 
Harries, in a very fine article in The National Interest, cites British 
historian Martin Wight who observed that ``Great Power status is lost, 
as it is won, by violence. A Great Power does not die in its bed.''
  Of all the extraordinary events of the 20th century, nothing is more 
important, more striking than the fact that the Soviet Union and that 
whole world empire died in bed. There was virtually no bloodshed. The 
only bloodshed that really took place occurred within the remaining 
Russian Federation, with its many different languages and regions, when 
you began to get things like Chechnya and the appearance of a Russian 
army that clearly was not capable of fairly elementary military 
operations.
  I say that is a beleaguered and troubled society. And one that could 
have resisted, in the first instance, the Polish defection. They could 
have resisted others. They had an army; they had an air force; they had 
nuclear strategic and tactical weapons. They did not, Owen Harries 
argued--a man, I must say, of impeccable conservative credentials--that 
there was an implicit understanding that we would not take advantage of 
what the Soviet Union was allowing to happen to their empire. They gave 
up everything they had hoped for from 1917. They collapsed. And they 
recognized their failure.
  Again, we had been picking up things like that in the mid-1970s. 
Murray Feshbach, a distinguished demographer here at the Bureau of the 
Census, noted that life expectancy for Soviet males was declining. It 
wasn't working. It was all a lie.
  If I could relate one more event as a bit of an anecdote but not 
without some interest. Our distinguished Ambassador at the time has 
related it as well. In 1987, I was in Moscow on a mission of possible 
importance. It had to do with the infiltration of our new Embassy with 
listening devices and things like that. We were treated with great 
courtesy. We were presented a wreath at the tomb of the unknown 
soldier. We visited Lenin's tomb. We were shown

[[Page S2192]]

Lenin's apartment. I was struck; behind Lenin's desk there were four 
bookshelves, two shelves of English books and two of French. Now, I 
expect they were put there for the delectation of George Bernard Shaw 
and Lady Astor in the 1930s, but still there they were. And I 
recognized that I had met three of those authors. I can not say I was 
intimate with them, but I had met them.
  Two days later we called on Boris Yeltsin, who was then a candidate 
member of the politburo. This was August, and he had the duty to stay 
in town in August while the rest were off in the Crimean. To be 
friendly, I said, well, we were in Lenin's apartment looking over his 
books and I knew three of those people. Isn't that interesting? And it 
was very clear, as the U.N. Ambassador said, that Yeltsin had never 
heard of any of these authors and could care less; he hadn't read a 
book since he had left technical school. There was not a person left in 
the politburo who believed any of that.
  I say to my friend from Delaware, Yeltsin said to me, ``I know who 
you are. I know where you are from. And what I want to know is how am I 
supposed to run Moscow with 1929 rent controls?'' This was the level of 
ideological discourse.
  It was a sick society, wounded. It collapsed, died. And what is left 
is fragile, and they have just formally proclaimed both their 
vulnerability and their determination that if NATO is expanded, the no-
first-use principle, which saved mankind in the 20th century, is over 
because all they have to defend themselves are nuclear weapons. It is a 
curiously ironic outcome that at the end of the cold war we might face 
a nuclear Armageddon.
  I leave it there. I have nothing more to add at this moment.
  But I ask, Madam President, if I might have excerpts printed from the 
Russian National Security Blueprint in the Congressional Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           Excerpts From Russian National Security Blueprint

            (Moscow Rossiyskaya Gazeta in Russian 26 Dec 97)

       [``Russian Federation National Security Blueprint'' 
     approved by Russian Federation presidential edict No. 1300 
     dated 17 December 1997]
       `FBIS Translated Text] The Russian Federation National 
     Security Blueprint (hereinafter the Blueprint) is a political 
     document reflecting the aggregate of officially accepted 
     views regarding goals and state strategy in the sphere of 
     ensuring the security of the individual, society, and the 
     state from external and internal threats of a political, 
     economic, social, military, man-made [tekhnogenyy], 
     ecological, informational, or other nature in the light of 
     existing resources and potential.
       The Blueprint formulates key directions and principles of 
     state policy. The Blueprint is the basis for the elaboration 
     of specific programs and organizational documents in the 
     sphere of ensuring the national security of the Russian 
     Federation.


                  1. Russia Within the World Community

       At present the situation in the international arena is 
     characterized primarily by the strengthening of trends toward 
     the formation of a multipolar world. This is manifested in 
     the strengthening of the economic and political positions of 
     a considerable number of states and their integration-
     oriented associations and in the improvement of mechanisms 
     for multilateral control of international political, 
     economic, financial, and informational processes. While 
     military force factors retain their significance in 
     international relations, economic, political, scientific and 
     technical, ecological, and informational factors are playing 
     an increasing role. At the same time international 
     competition to secure natural, technological, and 
     informational resources and markets is intensifying.
       The formation of a multipolar world will be a lengthy 
     process. Relapses into attempts to create a structure of 
     international relations based on one-sided solutions of the 
     key problems of world politics, including solutions based on 
     military force, are still strong at the present stage of this 
     process.
       The growing gap between developed and developing countries 
     will also affect the pace of and directions in the formation 
     of a new structure of international relations.
       The present period in the development of international 
     relations opens up for the Russian Federation new 
     opportunities to ensure its security, but entails a number of 
     threats connected with the change in Russia's status within 
     the world and the difficulties in carrying out internal 
     reforms.
       The preconditions for demilitarizing international 
     relations and strengthening the role of law in settling 
     disputed interstate problems have been created and the danger 
     of direct aggression against the Russian Federation has 
     decreased. All this opens up fundamentally new opportunities 
     to mobilize resources to solve the country's internal 
     problems.
       There are prospects of broader integration of the Russian 
     Federation with the world economy, including international 
     credit and financial institutions--the International Monetary 
     Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and 
     Development, the European Bank for Reconstruction and 
     Development. A trend toward increased cooperation between 
     Russia and a number of CIS member states has emerged.
       There has been an expansion in the commonality of Russia's 
     interests with many states on problems of international 
     security such as countering the proliferation of weapons of 
     mass destruction, settling and preventing regional conflicts, 
     countering international terrorism and the drugs business, 
     and solving acute global ecological problems, including 
     nuclear and radiation security. This significantly increases 
     the opportunity to ensure Russia's national security by 
     nonmilitary means--by means of legal treaty, political, 
     economic, and other measures.
       At the same time Russia's influence on resolving cardinal 
     questions of international life which affect our state's 
     interests has decreased significantly. In these conditions 
     the desire of a number of states to weaken Russia's positions 
     in the political, economic, and military spheres has 
     increased.
       The process of creating a model of general and all-
     embracing security for Europe on the basis of principles 
     advanced in many respects on Russia's initiative entails 
     considerable difficulties. The prospect of NATO expansion to 
     the East is unacceptable to Russia since it represents a 
     threat to its national security. Multilateral mechanisms for 
     maintaining peace and security at both the global (United 
     Nations) and regional (OSCE, CIS) levels are still 
     insufficiently effective, which limits our potential when 
     using such mechanisms to ensure Russia's national security 
     interests by political and legal means. Russia is in a 
     certain degree of isolation from the integration processes 
     under way in the Asian and Pacific region. All this is 
     unacceptable to it as an influential European-Asian power 
     with national interests in Europe, the Near East, Central 
     and South Asia, and the Asian and Pacific region.
       The positive trends in the internal development of the 
     state and society are still not stable enough. The main 
     reason for this is the preservation of crisis phenomena in 
     the Russian economy. Production has declined and its 
     structure has deteriorated in comparison with the pre-reform 
     period. Investment and innovation activity is declining. 
     Russia is lagging increasingly far behind developed countries 
     in terms of science and technology. Dependence on imports of 
     food, consumer goods, equipment, and technologies is 
     increasing. The external and internal state debt is growing. 
     There is an exodus of skilled personnel form the sphere of 
     material production and from the scientific sphere. The 
     number of man-made emergencies is increasing. The property 
     stratification of society is increasing, and the living 
     standards of much of the population are declining. The level 
     of crime and corruption is still high.
       The country's economic, scientific, and demographic 
     potential is declining. The markets and raw material 
     infrastructure of Russian industry have shrunk. Despite the 
     unprecedented increase in the share of GNP accounted for by 
     foreign trade, Russia's integration with the world market 
     often takes place on terms that are not to our country's 
     advantage.
       Social accord has not been achieved, and the process of 
     establishing a unifying national idea that defines not only 
     the philosophical basis but also the long-term goals of the 
     development of multinational Russian society and the main 
     ways and means of achieving them has not been completed.
       The former defense system has been disrupted, and the 
     creation of a new one is proceeding slowly. Long unprotected 
     sections of the Russian Federation state border have 
     appeared.
       At the same time Russia has all the preconditions for 
     maintaining and consolidating its position as a power capable 
     of ensuring its people's prosperity and playing an important 
     role in world processes. Russia possesses a considerable 
     economic and scientific and technical potential which 
     determines the country's capacity for stable development. It 
     occupies a unique strategic position on the Eurasian 
     continent and possesses considerable reserves of raw 
     materials and resources. The main institutions of democratic 
     statehood and a mixed economy have been established in the 
     country. Measures are being taken to stabilize the economy 
     and create the preconditions for production growth on the 
     basis of the structural restructuring of industry. Russia is 
     one of the biggest multinational states and has an age-old 
     history and culture and its own national interests and 
     traditions.
       All these factors, bearing in mind that the Russian 
     Federation has a powerful nuclear force potential, create the 
     preconditions for ensuring reliable national security for the 
     country in the 21st century.


II. Russia's National Interests

                           *   *   *   *   *


       The Russian Federation's national interests in the 
     international sphere require the implementation of an active 
     foreign policy course aimed at consolidating Russia's 
     positions as a great power--one of the influential

[[Page S2193]]

     centers of the developing multipolar world. The main 
     components of this course are: the formation on a voluntary 
     basis of an integration-oriented association of CIS member 
     states; the development of equal partnership with the other 
     great powers--the centers of economic and military might; the 
     development of international cooperation in combating 
     transnational crime and terrorism; the strengthening of those 
     mechanisms of collective management of world political and 
     economic processes in which Russia plays an important role, 
     and first and foremost the strengthening of the UN Security 
     Council.
       An undoubted priority in Russia's foreign policy course is 
     and will remain activities to ensure the inviolability of 
     borders and the territorial integrity of the state and to 
     protect its constitutional system against possible 
     encroachments by other states.
       The realization of Russia's national interests in the 
     international sphere is largely determined by the nature of 
     relations with the leading powers and integration-oriented 
     associations of the world community. The development of equal 
     partnership relations with them accords with the Russian 
     Federation's status and its foreign policy interests and is 
     intended to strengthen global and regional security and 
     create favorable conditions for our country's participation 
     in world trade and in cooperation in the scientific-technical 
     and credit and financial spheres.

                           *   *   *   *   *



    iii. threats to the national security of the russian federation

       A geopolitical and international situation that is new to 
     Russia, negative processes in the country's economy, the 
     deterioration in interethnic relations, and the social 
     polarization of Russian society create a direct threat to the 
     country's national security.
       The critical state of the economy is the main cause of the 
     emergence of a threat to the Russian Federation's national 
     security. This is manifested in the substantial reduction in 
     production, the decline in investment and innovation, the 
     destruction of scientific and technical potential, the 
     stagnation of the agrarian sector, the disarray of the 
     monetary and payments system, the reduction in the income 
     side of the federal budget, and the growth of the state debt. 
     An undoubted threat is posed by the increase in the share of 
     the fuel and raw materials sector and the formation of an 
     economic model based on the exportation of fuel and raw 
     materials and the importation of equipment, food, and 
     consumer goods, which could lead to the conquest of Russia's 
     internal market by foreign firms.
       These threatening phenomena are characterized by an 
     increase in the exportation from Russia of foreign currency 
     reserves and strategically important raw materials along with 
     extremely inefficient or criminal utilization of the profits, 
     an increase in the exodus of skilled personnel and 
     intellectual property from Russia, uncontrolled outflow of 
     capital, growth in the country's dependence on foreign 
     producers of high-tech equipment, underdeveloped financial, 
     organizational, and information support for Russian exports, 
     and an irrational structure of imports.
       The decline in the country's scientific and technical 
     potential leads to Russia's loss of its leading positions in 
     the world, a fall in the quality of research in strategically 
     important areas of scientific-technical progress, the decay 
     of high-tech production facilities, a decline in the 
     technical standard of physical production, an increase in the 
     probability of man-made disasters, Russia's becoming 
     technologically dependent on the leading Western countries, 
     and the undermining of the state's defense potential, and 
     makes it hard to achieve a radical modernization of the 
     national technological base.
       A particular threat is created by the low level of large-
     scale investment in the Russian economy. The economic revival 
     of Russia is impossible without major capital investments in 
     the strategic spheres of the economy.
       A threat to Russia's security in the social sphere, in 
     consequence of the critical condition of the economy, is 
     posed by the increase in the proportion of the population 
     living below the poverty line, the stratification of society 
     into a small group of rich citizens and the vast bulk of 
     poorly-off citizens, and the escalation of social tension.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The negative processes in the economy exacerbate the 
     centrifugal tendencies of Russian Federation components and 
     lead to the growth of the threat of violation of the 
     country's territorial integrity and the unity of its legal 
     area.
       The ethnic egotism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinism that are 
     displayed in the activities of a number of ethnic social 
     formations help to increase national separatism and create 
     favorable conditions for the emergence of conflicts in this 
     sphere. Apart from increasing political instability, this 
     leads to the weakening of Russia's single economic area and 
     its most important components--manufacturing, technological, 
     and transportation links, and the financial, banking, credit, 
     and tax systems.
       The factors intensifying the threat of the growth of 
     nationalism and national and regional separatism include mass 
     migration and the uncontrolled reproduction of human 
     resources in a number of regions of the country. The main 
     reasons for this are the consequences of the USSR's breakup 
     into national-territorial formations, the failures of 
     nationalities policy and economic policy both in Russia and 
     in the CIS states, and the spread and escalation of conflict 
     situations based on national and ethnic grounds.
       Other factors are the deliberate and purposeful 
     interference by foreign states and international 
     organizations in the internal life of Russia's peoples, and 
     the weakening of the role of Russian as the state language of 
     the Russian Federation.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The threat to the nation's physical health is perturbing. 
     Its sources lie in virtually all spheres of the state's life 
     and activity and are manifested most graphically in the 
     critical state of the systems for health care and the 
     population's social protection and in the rapid rise in the 
     consumption of alcohol and narcotics.
       The consequences of this profound systemic crisis are the 
     drastic reduction in the birth rate and average life 
     expectancy, the deterioration in people's health, the 
     distortion of the demographic and social composition of 
     society, the undermining of manpower resources as the basis 
     for the development of production, and the weakening of the 
     fundamental cell of society--the family.
       This development of demographic processes is causing a 
     reduction in society's spiritual, moral, and creative 
     potential.
       Threats to the Russian Federation's national security in 
     the international sphere are manifested via the attempts of 
     other states to counter Russia's consolidation as an 
     influential center of the multipolar world that is taking 
     shape. This is reflected in actions aimed at destroying the 
     Russian Federation's territorial integrity, including actions 
     involving the use of interethnic, religious, and other 
     internal contradictions, and also in territorial claims 
     involving allusions in individual cases to the lack of the 
     precise registration of state borders in treaties. By their 
     policy these states are seeking to reduce the Russian 
     Federation's importance in the solution of key problems of 
     the world community and in the activity of international 
     organizations. As a whole this could lead to the limitation 
     of Russia's influence, the infringement of its most important 
     national interests, and the weakening of its positions in 
     Europe, the Near East, the Transcaucasus, and Central Asia.
       The threat of the emergence or aggravation in the CIS 
     states of political, ethnic, and economic crises capable of 
     delaying or destroying the integration process is acquiring 
     special importance for our state. These countries' 
     establishment as friendly, independent, stable, and 
     democratic countries is extremely important to the Russian 
     Federation.
       Despite the positive changes in the world, threats to the 
     Russian Federation's national security remain in the defense 
     sphere. Considering the profound changes in the nature of the 
     Russian Federation's relations with other leading powers, it 
     can be concluded that the threat of large-scale aggression 
     against Russia is virtually absent in the foreseeable future. 
     At the same time we cannot rule out attempts at power rivalry 
     with Russia. The most real threat to Russia in the defense 
     sphere is posed by existing and potential hotbeds of local 
     wars and armed conflicts close to its state border.
       The proliferation of nuclear and other types of weapons of 
     mass destruction and the technologies for their production 
     and means of delivery poses a serious threat, primarily in 
     countries adjacent to Russia or regions close to it.
       At the same time the spectrum of threats connected with 
     international terrorism, including with the possible use of 
     nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction, is 
     expanding.
       The conservation or creation by major powers (and their 
     coalitions) of powerful groups of armed forces in regions 
     adjacent to Russia's territory remains a threat to Russia's 
     national security in the defense sphere. Even when there are 
     no aggressive intentions with regard to Russia, these 
     groupings present a potential military danger.
       NATO's expansion to the East and its transformation into a 
     dominant military-political force in Europe create the threat 
     of a new split in the continent which would be extremely 
     dangerous given the preservation in Europe of mobile 
     strike groupings of troops and nuclear weapons and also 
     the inadequate effectiveness of multilateral mechanisms 
     for maintaining peace.
       The technological upsurge of a number of leading world 
     powers and the buildup of their potential for creating new-
     generation arms and military equipment could lead to a 
     qualitatively new stage in the development of the arms race.
       Threats to the Russian Federation's national security in 
     the defense sphere also lie in the incomplete nature of the 
     process of the reform of the state's military organization, 
     the continuing gulf between political aims and their 
     implementation in military and military-technical policy, 
     inadequate financing for national defense the lack of 
     elaboration of modern approaches toward military 
     organizational development, and the imperfection of its 
     normative legal base.
       At the present state this is manifested in the extremely 
     acute nature of social problems in the Russian Federation 
     Armed Forces and other troops and military formations and 
     organs, the critically low level of operational and combat 
     training of the troops (forces) and staffs, the intolerable 
     decline in the level of provision of the troops (forces) with 
     modern and promising types of

[[Page S2194]]

     weapons and military equipment and in general in the 
     reduction of the state's potential for safeguarding the 
     Russian Federation's security.

                           *   *   *   *   *



iv. safeguarding the russian federation's national security

                           *   *   *   *   *


       The main aim of safeguarding the Russian Federation's 
     national security is the creation and maintenance of an 
     economic, political, international, and military-strategic 
     position for the country which creates favorable conditions 
     for the development of the individual, society, and state and 
     rules out the danger of the weakening of the Russian 
     Federation's role and importance as a subject of 
     international law and the undermining of the state's ability 
     to implement its national interests in the international 
     arena.
       The most important tasks for safeguarding the Russian 
     Federation's national security are: the boosting of the 
     country's economy and the pursuit of an independent and 
     socially oriented economic course; the improvement of Russian 
     Federation legislation, the consolidation of law and order 
     and the sociopolitical stability of society, Russian 
     statehood, federalism, and local self-management; the 
     formation of harmonious interethnic relations; the 
     safeguarding of Russia's international security through the 
     establishment of equal partnership with the world's leading 
     states; the consolidation of the state's security in the 
     defense and information spheres; the safeguarding of the 
     population's vital activity in a technogenically safe and 
     environmentally clean world.
       The basic principles for safeguarding the Russian 
     Federation's national security are: the observance of the 
     Russian Federation Constitution and Russian Federation 
     legislation while implementing activity to safeguard national 
     security; the unity, interconnection, and balance of all 
     types of security and the alteration of their priority 
     depending on the situation; the priority of political, 
     economic, and information measures to safeguard national 
     security; the feasibility (considering available resources, 
     forces, and facilities) of the proposed tasks; the observance 
     of norms of international law and Russian laws when 
     implementing measures of an enforced nature (including those 
     involving the use of military forces); the combination of 
     centralized management of forces and facilities for 
     safeguarding security with the transfer of some of the 
     powers in this field, in accordance with Russia's 
     federative structure, to the organs of state power of the 
     Russian Federation components and the organs of local 
     self-management.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The implementation of the idea of national and social 
     accord will enable our country to enter the new age as a 
     power which has achieved economic and spiritual progress and 
     enjoys a high growth potential based on democratic principles 
     of state structure, internal harmony of social relations, and 
     responsibility for the maintenance of global stability and 
     stable development of panhuman civilization.
       The strengthening of Russian statehood and the improvement 
     and development of federalism and local self-government are 
     most important tasks whose solution will lead to the ensuring 
     of the Russian Federation's national security. The main 
     objective in this sphere is to elaborate and implement a 
     comprehensive approach toward the solution of legal, 
     economic, social, and ethnopolitical problems while ensuring 
     that the interests of the Russian Federation and its 
     components are observed.
       The implementation of the constitutional principle of 
     people's power, under which the multiethnic people exercise 
     their power both directly and through organs of state power 
     and organs of local self-government, requires the ensuring of 
     coordinated functioning and collaboration by all organs of 
     state power, a rigid vertical structure of executive power, 
     and unity of Russia's judicial system. This is ensured 
     through the constitutional principle of the separation of 
     powers, the introduction of a more clear-cut functional 
     distribution of powers among state institutions, and the 
     strengthening of Russia's federal structure by improving its 
     treaty relations with Russian Federation components within 
     the framework of their constitutional status.
       The strengthening of Russian statehood presupposes the 
     enhancement of the state's role in the basic spheres of 
     social life, the improvement of Russian Federation 
     legislation as the universal basis of state activity in the 
     conditions of building a rule-of-law state, the ensuring of 
     the supremacy of the Russian Federation Constitution and 
     federal laws over other legal acts, the formation and 
     development of organizational and legal mechanisms to prevent 
     breaches of the laws, and the adoption and execution of state 
     decisions in crisis situations.
       The building of a rule-of-law depends largely on the 
     correct definition and clarification of the extent of the 
     responsibilities and powers of organs of state power, the 
     specific categories and status of promulgated normative legal 
     acts, the procedure for their amendment or repeal, the 
     improvement of the mechanism and procedures for mutual 
     relations between state and society, and the procedure for 
     taking into account the interests of Russian Federation 
     components.
       The protection of Russian federalism includes purposeful 
     activity to block any encroachments on the country's state 
     integrity, the system of organs of state power, and the unity 
     of Russia's legal area.
       The main objective of the protection of Russian federalism 
     is to prevent the transformation of federal relations into 
     confederal ones.
       The main avenues for the protection of Russian federalism 
     are: ensuring the supremacy of federal legislation and, on 
     this basis, improving the legislation of Russian Federation 
     components; elaborating organizational and legal 
     mechanisms to protect the state integrity, the unity of 
     the legal area, and the national interests of Russia; 
     developing and implementing a regional policy which 
     ensures the best possible way of taking federal and 
     regional interests into account; improving the mechanism 
     for preventing the emergence of political parties and 
     public associations pursuing separatist and 
     anticonstitutional objectives and for blocking their 
     activity; pursuing a considered and balanced nationalities 
     policy.
       The efforts of society and the state in the struggle 
     against crime must be aimed at creating an effective 
     counteraction system to ensure reliable protection of the 
     interests of the individual, society, and the state.
       The following tasks are paramount: to enhance the state's 
     role as guarantor of national security and to create the 
     legal basis necessary for this purpose and the mechanism for 
     its application; to strengthen the system of law enforcement 
     organs; to involve state organs, within the limits of their 
     powers, in activity to prevent illegal actions.
       Glasnost is the most important condition for a successful 
     struggle against all manifestations of crime. Society is 
     entitled to know about the decisions and measures adopted by 
     organs of state power in this sphere. They must be open, 
     specific, and comprehensible to all citizens, they must be 
     preventive, they must ensure the equality of all before the 
     law and the inevitability of punishment, and they must rely 
     on society's support.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       A most important role in the preservation of traditional 
     spiritual values is played by the activity of the Russian 
     Orthodox Church and the churches of other confessions. At the 
     same time, it is necessary to take into account the 
     destructive role played by sundry religious sects which 
     inflict considerable damage on Russian society's spiritual 
     life and pose a direct threat to the life and health of 
     Russia's citizens, and are often used as cover for illegal 
     activities.
       Society's spiritual rebirth is impossible without enhancing 
     the role of the Russian language. Its proclamation as state 
     language and the language of international contacts between 
     the peoples of Russia and of CIS member states is a most 
     important factor for unifying the people of multiethnic 
     Russia.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Russia will firmly and consistently honor its commitments 
     in the sphere of reduction and elimination of weapons of mass 
     destruction and conventional armaments, will implement 
     measures to strengthen confidence and stability and to ensure 
     international monitoring of deliveries of military 
     technologies and dual-purpose technologies, and will assist 
     in the creation of zones free from weapons of mass 
     destruction.
       The Russian Federation will also direct its efforts in 
     ensuring national security in the foreign policy sphere into 
     resolving problems of international and economic cooperation, 
     first and foremost from the viewpoint of strengthening its 
     position in international financial and economic 
     organizations.
       Ensuring the Russian Federation's national security in the 
     defense sphere is a most important area of state activity and 
     an object of constant public attention. The main aim of the 
     practical activity of the state and society in this sphere is 
     to improve the military organization of the Russian 
     Federation in order to ensure the potential for an 
     appropriate response to the threats that could arise in the 
     21st century, in conjunction with rational levels of 
     expenditure on national defense.
       The nature of these threats requires the clarification of 
     the tasks of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other 
     troops, military formations, and organs, the optimization of 
     their structure and composition, the expansion of their 
     professional nucleus, and the improvement of the legal bases 
     and planning mechanism for military organizational 
     development and the formulation of up-to-date approaches to 
     economic and financial support for it in the light of the 
     need to form a collective security system within the CIS 
     framework.
       Russia does not seek to maintain parity in arms and armed 
     forces with the leading states of the world, and is oriented 
     toward the implementation of the principle of realistic 
     deterrence, at the basis of which is the determination to 
     make appropriate use of the available military might to avert 
     aggression. In seeking to avert war and armed conflict, the 
     Russian Federation gives preference to political, economic, 
     and other nonmilitary means. However, until the nonuse of 
     force becomes the norm in international relations, the 
     Russian Federation's national interests require the existence 
     of a military might sufficient for its defense.
       The Russian Federation Armed Forces are the basis of the 
     state's military organization. They play the main role in 
     safeguarding the Russian Federation's national security by 
     means of force.
       The most important task for the Russian Federation Armed 
     Forces is to ensure nuclear deterrence in the interests of 
     preventing both nuclear and conventional large-

[[Page S2195]]

     scale or regional wars, and to implement alliance 
     commitments.
       In order to perform this task the Russian Federation must 
     have nuclear forces with the potential to guarantee the 
     infliction of the required damage on any aggressor state or 
     coalition of states.
       The protection of the state's national interests requires 
     comprehensive counteraction of military threats on a regional 
     and local scale. The Russian Federation Armed Forces in their 
     peacetime combat composition should be capable of ensuring 
     the reliable defense of the country against air and space 
     attack and the performance of tasks to rebuff aggression in a 
     local war, and of deploying a grouping of troops (forces) to 
     perform tasks in a regional war. At the same time the Russian 
     Federation Armed Forces must ensure the Russian Federation's 
     implementation of peacekeeping activity both in its own right 
     and within international organizations.
       The interests of ensuring Russia's national security and 
     the evolution of the geopolitical situation in the world 
     predetermine, in certain circumstances, the need for Russia's 
     military presence in certain strategically important regions 
     of the world. The stationing of limited troop contingents 
     (military bases) there on a treaty basis and on the 
     principles of partnership should demonstrate the Russian 
     Federation's readiness to fulfill its alliance commitments, 
     promote the formation of a stable military-strategic balance 
     of forces in the regions, and give the Russian Federation the 
     potential to react to a crisis situation at the initial 
     stages of its emergence.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       A most important area in ensuring the Russian Federation's 
     national security in the defense sphere is the clarification 
     and optimization of the tasks of the system of ensuring 
     national security. In performing tasks in preventing and 
     countering internal threats to the Russian Federation's 
     national security, priority belongs to the Russian Federation 
     Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Russian Federation Federal 
     Security Service, and the Russian Federation Ministry for 
     Civil Defense, Emergencies, and Natural Disasters, which must 
     have the appropriate forces, resources, and organs capable of 
     fulfilling specialized tasks.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The Russian Federation examines the possibility of using 
     military force to safeguard its national security on the 
     basis of the following principles: Russia reserves the right 
     to use all the forces and systems at its disposal, including 
     nuclear weapons, if the unleashing of armed aggression 
     results in a threat to the actual existence of the Russian 
     Federation as an independent sovereign state; the utilization 
     of the Russian Federation's Armed Forces must be effected in 
     a decisive, consistent, and planned manner until conditions 
     beneficial to the Russian Federation for the conclusions of 
     peace are created; the utilization of military force must be 
     effected on a legal basis and only when all nonmilitary 
     measures for resolving the crisis situation have been 
     exhausted or proved ineffective; the utilization of military 
     force against civilians to achieve domestic political 
     objectives is not permitted. At the same time, joint actions 
     by individual formations of the Armed Forces and other 
     troops, troop formations, and organs against illegal armed 
     formations posing a threat to the national interests of the 
     Russian Federation is permitted in accordance with the 
     Russian Federation Constitution and federal laws; the 
     participation of the Russian Federation Armed Forces in wars 
     and conflicts of different intensity and scale must be 
     effected in order to resolve priority military-political and 
     military-strategic tasks meeting Russia's national interests 
     and also its commitments as an ally.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       In current conditions of universal computerization and the 
     development of information technology the significance of 
     safeguarding the Russian Federation's national security in 
     the information sphere is growing sharply.
       The most important tasks here are: the establishment of the 
     requisite balance between the need for the free exchange of 
     information and permissible restrictions on its 
     dissemination; the improvement of the informational 
     structure, the acceleration of the development of new 
     information technologies and their widespread utilization, 
     and the standardization of systems for the retrieval, 
     collection, storage, processing, and analysis of information 
     taking account of Russia's becoming part of the global 
     information infrastructure; the formulation of an appropriate 
     statutory legal base and the coordination--with the Federal 
     Government communications and Information Agency Under the 
     Russian Federation President playing the leading role--of the 
     activity of federal organs of state power and other organs 
     resolving information security tasks; the development of the 
     Russian telecommunications and information systems industry 
     and the priority dissemination of these systems on the 
     domestic market in comparison with foreign counterparts; the 
     protection of state information assets [resurs], primarily in 
     federal organs of state power and at defense complex 
     enterprises;

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The Russian Federation intends to resolutely and firmly 
     strengthen its national security on the basis of both 
     historical experience and the positive experience of the 
     country's democratic development. The legal democratic 
     institutions that have been created, the structure of Russian 
     Federation organs of state power that has become established, 
     and the extensive participation of political parties and 
     public associations in formulating the strategy for 
     safeguarding national security make it possible to safeguard 
     the Russian Federation's national security and progressive 
     development in the 21st century.
       As Russia continues to develop and a new system of 
     international relations based on equal partnership is formed 
     and strengthens, individual provisions of the Russian 
     Federation National Security Blueprint will be augmented, 
     clarified, and concretized in the Russian Federation 
     president's annual messages to the Russian Federation Federal 
     Assembly.

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I finally thank my friend from Delaware for the 
civility with which this debate is taking place. If David Broder is 
watching, I am sure he is relieved--he wrote this morning that there 
are things more important than renaming airports--that this debate has 
commenced. And let it continue in this mode and we will see how it 
comes out.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. While the Senator from New York is in the Chamber--and I 
have said this privately but also sometimes it is worth saying in 
public--there quite literally is no one for whom I have greater respect 
than the Senator from New York. I think he is the single most erudite, 
single brightest and the single most informed person serving in the 
Senate. I must tell you only he has made me wonder even for a moment, 
after 5 months of debating this with myself, whether the resolution I 
have reached with expansion is correct. Only he has given me a twinge 
in his opposition. I mean that sincerely. He was kind enough, after 
meeting with some of our colleagues, to call me at my home a couple 
weeks ago and to sort of forewarn me--that was not the purpose of the 
call--but forewarn me that he may be settling on the position he has, 
and I made my plea over the phone with him. I kept him on the phone for 
about 15 minutes making my arguments why I thought we should expand. 
And I got off the phone, and I turned to my son, who knows of my 
admiration for the Senator, and I said, I have been around this place a 
long, long time. Here I am on the phone trying to--and I say this very 
respectfully--educate the most informed man I know about a position 
that I thought he was wrong on. I was certain of my assertions on the 
phone. And I hung up and I thought for a brief moment, if he thinks 
that way, I must be wrong. But I quickly overcame that, and I would 
just suggest that it is one of the rare occasions I have disagreed with 
the Senator. So it is not hard to be civil when you admire someone as 
much as I do the Senator. I promise I will not resort again to such 
personal references, but I mean it sincerely when I say to my friend 
that I listen to everything he has to say. I disagree with him on this.

  I would make one comment--I know he has to leave the floor--and then 
I will yield the floor to my friend from Rhode Island, because I have 
had plenty of occasion to speak already today.
  With regard to the document my friend references, it does reference 
expansion of NATO. But I would respectfully suggest that, like many 
times in human endeavors, the same conclusion would have been reached 
had expansion not been contemplated. I assert that the demise of the 
Soviet--I doubt whether my friend would disagree with me--the demise of 
not only the Soviet Union and the Soviet Army but the Russian military 
had nothing to do with the expansion of NATO.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. No.
  Mr. BIDEN. And I would further argue, although I have not read the 
document, that if the document is complete, which it is asserted to be 
and I believe it to be, that the strategic judgment made to rely upon 
nuclear weapons was arrived at in the same way that NATO arrived at a 
similar judgment 30 years earlier when we concluded that we were not 
prepared or able to keep 40 or 50 or 60 divisions in Europe to meet a 
conventional attack by our Warsaw Pact enemies.
  That is a long way of saying that, were we to announce that we were 
ceasing and desisting from an effort to expand NATO at this moment and 
went on record, the strategic planners in

[[Page S2196]]

Moscow, in my view, would be compelled to reach the conclusion that 
they reached in the document that was posited on the Senate floor for 
the Record today.
  I do not in any way underestimate the impact of damaged psyches on 
national policy. I do not in any way, in any sense, underestimate that 
feelings of isolation on the part of the Russian military, the 
Russians, might produce an extension of a position that otherwise would 
have been reached anyway. But I would conclude by saying I do not 
believe that the strategic document that the Senator spoke to today is 
as a consequence--notwithstanding that it mentions the expansion of 
NATO--of the talk of expanding with the inclusion of Hungary, the Czech 
Republic, and Poland into NATO.
  But my friend from Rhode Island has another urgent meeting he wishes 
to attend. I am happy to yield the floor.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I, too, yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). The Chair recognizes the 
distinguished Senator from Rhode Island.