Page 2 of
2 INTERVIEW 'Nobody wants a new cold
war' US Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates
Serbia have had
a strong political relationship going back well
before World War I. Serbia can't have it both
ways: it can have a friendly relationship with
Russia, but its economic future is almost
certainly tied to Europe.
And I think
these other countries, it's an open question, in
my opinion, whether Russia's actions are intended
to - whether they
actually think they can create
some sort of an alternative architecture, or
whether they're trying to build a bulwark against
what they might see as NATO and the Western
architecture enveloping them. So whether it's an
offensive or a defensive reaction, I'm not
entirely sure.
RFE/RL: The
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and things like
that don't cause concern? [The SCO includes China,
Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan.]
Gates: They
don't bother me very much. We can't be terrified
and looking over our shoulder every time some
other country makes an overture to others about
associating with it. We, the United States and the
NATO alliance, this is the most powerful alliance
the world has ever known, and I don't think we
need to be afraid of our own shadow.
RFE/RL: You travel to
Germany and the Netherlands in the next days. What
is your message for the Europeans? You mentioned
that you want to encourage the Europeans to do
more, to take over more responsibility, especially
with regard to Afghanistan, sending more troops.
So, your approach is to bring the Europeans more
into play in regards to Russia and to Afghanistan?
Gates: No, it has nothing to
do with Russia, the message I am going to have in
the Netherlands at the NATO defense ministers'
meeting is a very simple one and that is that the
nations should fulfill the commitments that their
leaders made in Riga, in terms of their support in
Afghanistan. It is not about us, it's about
commitments that were made by the leaders of NATO
in Riga and I just want to make sure that everyone
understands that those obligations continue. That
is the fundamental message.
RFE/RL: On missile defense,
how would you assess your visit here in the Czech
Republic?
Gates: Well, I
think that the Czech leadership was intrigued, as
was the Russian government, by the new proposals
that Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice and I
put on the table when we were in Moscow a couple
of weeks ago looking for ways for greater
transparency to provide the Russians reassurance.
Going forward with the agreements, we made it
perfectly clear in Russia that we were going to
proceed with the negotiations with the Czech
Republic and Poland regardless and, if those
negotiations are successful, then to proceed to
deploy, or build, these radars and interceptors.
However, we also said that if the question
is about the threat, then we might be willing to
sit down and talk with the Russians about not
activating the completed systems until the threat
was apparent, in other words, until the Iranians
or others in the Middle East had flight-tested
missiles of a range that could hit Europe, as an
example. And I think the government here, as in
Moscow, was taken with it, even President Putin
referred to the proposals as constructive. [1]
RFE/RL: The press played up
a lot of the so-called chilly reception that you
received there with Secretary Rice. Do you think
that was more spin, or did you feel a chilly
reception?
Gates: Well,
first of all, that's inaccurate. The big piece of
this was the perception that Secretary Rice and I
were kept waiting for about 40 minutes. Well, the
reality is that about five minutes past the time
for the meeting, we were taken to the room where
the meeting with President Putin was to take
place, all the press was already in place, we were
waiting outside the door, we waited a few minutes
and an aide came to tell us that he [Putin] had
had to take an urgent telephone call.
We
subsequently were able to confirm that that was
the fact, that it was a foreign leader who had
called, that it was a fairly important call, and I
don't think that either Secretary Rice or I felt
that we were impolitely treated or kept waiting in
some kind of old Soviet way, if you will, and in
fact our meeting with President Putin went about
half an hour or 45 minutes beyond the scheduled
time, or the allotted time. So I think that we
both felt that they were very productive meetings.
RFE/RL: Coming back to the
larger picture, how do you see Russia in 10 years?
Gates: Well, one of the
things that impresses me is it has been about 18
years since my first visit to Russia in 1989 and
certainly in terms of the well-being of the
Russian people, materially, they are a lot better
off than they were. And as I wrote in my book [2],
I think one of President [Mikhail] Gorbachev's
last contributions, and historic contributions, in
Russia was that in dismantling the Stalinist
economic bureaucracy and in paving the way for
democratic change, he really gave the Russian
people their future. And I think that the
future is still open for the Russian people. My
own view is that there will be a gradual increase
in democratic reforms and freedoms in Russia. I
think part of the problem in Russia was that
because the economy collapsed along with the
Soviet Union, in the early stages after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, in the minds of many
Russians democracy became confused with economic
disaster, with criminal activities, with
activities of the oligarchs and thievery and so
on, and chaos. And so an opportunity was lost. And
I think now, with stability, with economic growth,
with growing prosperity, my hope is that that
opportunity that we missed, that the Russians
missed early in the 90s will be recaptured and
that would be my hope for Russia over the next 10
years.
RFE/RL: Can we
recapture it even given the backsliding on
democratic reform right now and given the fact
that former KGB officers are in power?
Gates: We can't recapture it
but the Russians can. And frankly, the role of the
KGB today, of the Russian intelligence services,
is nothing like what it was in the Soviet period.
Notes 1. Gates' reference
to "not activating the completed [missile]
systems" contrasts with comments made by President
George W Bush on Tuesday. Bush said that a missile
defense system is urgently needed in Europe to
guard against a possible attack on US allies by
Iran. "The need for missile defense in Europe is
real, and I believe it's urgent," Bush said at the
National Defense University. "Today we have no way
to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian
threat, so we must deploy a missile defense system
there that can."
Gates made his offer
directly to senior Russian officials during a
visit to Moscow last week, but only publicized it
on Tuesday. "The idea was we would go forward with
the [Polish and Czech] negotiations, we would
complete the negotiations, we would develop the
sites, build the sites, but perhaps would delay
activating them until there was concrete proof of
the threat from Iran," Gates said in Prague.
2. In 1996, Gates' autobiography, From
the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five
Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, was
published.
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