NATO,Kosovo,Russia

List,
	Below are itemised some concerns I have about the recent launch of
NATO airstrikes on Serbia.  I am appalled by the rascist ideology
apparently characteristic of the region, and am fully persuaded that the
Serbian offensive in Kosovo is ethnic cleansing of the most brutal kind.
Further, I am convinced that the Serbian leadership cares far more about
its maintenance in power than the sacrifice of its civilians.  However,
there are important events happening inside Russia which make the current
airstrikes quite volatile, which I believe that list participants should
know and may not fully be aware of.
--Peter

(Cyrillic names may be grossly mis-spelled):

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1    The Serbians will not--CANNOT--accept the separation of
Kosovo.  Milosovic built his power on that rejection, but it's
also a common & popular Serb conviction.  Hence failure of the
imposed "solution" in France and Holbrooke trips.

2    Air strikes successful in demolishing Serb army,
consolidating Serbian national solidarity and Russian concern. 
But elimination of Serbian high-tech toys will not stop or even
diminish Serbian nationalist convictions, which may devolve into
lower-tech quasi-guerrila fighters.

3    Inside Russia, there is ALREADY *ENORMOUS* resentment among
general pop against US Hegemony, feeding irredentism in an
already "Weimar Republic" situation.  The recent US Senate
decision to re-ignite "Star Wars" (which the Russians correctly
interpret as a direct abrogation of the ABM treaty), came at
*PRECISELY* the same week that the Russian Duma was once again
considering passage of the START III accord--which for the *3RD*
time failed in that body because of US actions insensitive to
Russian concerns (the 2nd time was when Clinton launched air
strikes against Iraq in December, again at the exact time of the
Duma's consideration of START III).  On each of these occasions,
the original expectation had been that the Duma would have passed
the treaty had the US avoided its insensitive blunders.
     All of this against the background of deep Russian fear that
NATO expansion is simply a cover for US Imperialist expansion in
Europe.  Additionally infammatory to the Russian sensibility is
the acute awareness that they are dismissed as too weak to be a
player.  This only increases their motivation that they WILL
play, no matter WHAT the cost, if only to counter their painful
dismissal by the West.

4    The collapse of mafia-based kleptocratic capitalism in
Russia--in parallel w/the physical collapse of Yeltsin--has
provided renewed vigor to the presidential ambitions and neo-
Stalinist/Russian Nationalist ideology of Gennadi Zuganov
(irredentism).  His consistant attck on cooperation with &
dependency upon the "capitalist banks of the west" has been
gaining rising credibility as Primokov & others have been
compelled to repeatedly return to the IMF, hat in hand, only to
return with more "austerity" & "structural adjustment."  

5    NATO air strikes confirm every one of the worst fears of the
Russians.  It is acting as a force of "overt aggression,"
invading a sovereign nation over a civil war within a former
member of the Soviet Bloc.

6    The INEVITABLE outcome is that the next Russian president
will be either Zuganov himself or someone representing his
faction.  It may be that a coup will generate the same result
without awaiting the next election in 2000.  His platform and
foreign policy position will be founded upon the requirement of
re-asserting Russian military power abroad in direct opposition
to US intervention, probably first in the Balkans.  Insofar as
NATO objectives in Kosovo CANNOT be acheived without a ground
invasion, the most probable outcome with be a direct clash
between Russian and NATO troops, which COULD lead to a serious
nuclear exchange circa 2000.


PS--Non-involvement will certainly lead to Albanian genocide or
at least continued MASSIVE displacement from Kosovo.  Were it not
for the Russian factor, I would approve the proposed US policy,
and wished that it had been applied in Rwanda & Cambodia as well!