Does the tension foreshadow a permanent frost? Certainly Yeltsin's complaints are reminding U.S. leaders of Russia's ability to act as a destabilizing force in the Balkans region. Although Russia is in economic and political turmoil and appears unwilling -- and probably unable -- to take military action on the ground, the Yeltsin-Primakov government still has at its disposal a large nuclear arsenal. Moreover, Operation Allied Force has intensified anti-American sentiments in Russia, tarnishing the image of the United States as a helpful partner in reform and a model of democratic humanism.

Russian specialists disagree about what Moscow's latest moves mean. But most are united in dismay at the Clinton administration's current policies toward the former Soviet Union. Salon asked two Russia experts to talk about the current state of American-Russian relations and the war in Yugoslavia. Stephen F. Cohen is a professor of Russian studies and history at New York University and a contributing editor to the Nation. Dimitri K. Simes is director of the Nixon Center and served as a policy advisor for the Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations. He emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1973.

Could the war in Yugoslavia mean a return to the Cold War?

Cohen: The short answer is yes, absolutely. The reason is that the bombing has aroused latent Cold War feelings on both sides, in Moscow and in Washington, but more so at the moment in Moscow. The anti-American feeling there is authentic and widespread and is being expressed by both the political elite and ordinary citizens. Now you can't replicate the Cold War. The circumstances were different. But certainly driving Russia out of the West, out of Europe, and erecting some latter-day variant of the Iron Curtain between the countries is possible. It is not inevitable, but the bombings have been a substantial stride in that direction, a stimulus to that kind of development.

You want to remember there is no one Yeltsin administration, no one Russia, no one set of Russians, and that there are different groupings and points of view that are struggling over this very issue. Based on what I know, on firsthand discussions in Moscow on a fairly regular basis and on reading the Russian press, there is no one point of view. Even within the Yeltsin administration there are several. There is the viewpoint that there should be a very hard, even military, reaction to the American bombing, which would be strengthened if ground forces were introduced. There is the viewpoint that under no circumstances should the Russians resort to any kind of military reaction; i.e, that Russia should remain rhetorically engaged but practically laid back in order to A) avoid spoiling the relationship with the West, and B) hold Russia in reserve for an important diplomatic role when it becomes clear that a military solution is in the making.

Simes: Russia is a country which throughout history has been slow to adjust to new foreign policy situations. But once it begins to change it unfortunately also begins to change with great speed and goes beyond reason. And what you see in the making is a serious anti-Western, and particularly anti-American, political wave in Moscow. Up until now, the Russian government and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov were trying to control this wave by offering a lot of pseudo-patriotic rhetoric, but substantively doing very little that would harm the United States. I do not know where the red line is beyond which Primakov would make a choice between losing domestic legitimacy and starting to create problems in the U.S.-Russian relationship. But I think we are moving in the direction of this invisible line and perhaps are very close to it.

I think our relations with Russia depend very much on how this war ends. If this war ends with a negotiated solution, in which Russia is invited to play a role and has helped to bring about a settlement, I think we can limit the damage and create perhaps not a new foundation but at least a new impulse for the U.S.-Russian relationship. If NATO prevails on the battlefield through air strikes and Milosevic is forced to surrender, it would do a lot of damage to the U.S.-Russian relationship. It would move Russian public opinion and the Russian political process in a more nationalistic and xenophobic direction. But hopefully it still would be controllable, at least in the short run. If contrary to our hopes, Milosevic resists and the war continues on the ground for a couple more weeks, then all kinds of political scenarios may become possible. You have to understand there is a potential for a very dangerous escalation of global tensions. We do not want to start the 21st century by prevailing in Kosovo but losing Russia and China.

But is this conflict about more than Yugoslavia?

Cohen: What you've got is a bombing arousing conflicts within the Kremlin and the Russian political class coming at a moment when a political succession struggle is under way. Yeltsin won't be around too much longer. Therefore a struggle for power and policy is underway, which affects Russian reactions.

Simes: The anti-Americanism that we see in Russia today did not begin with the bombing. It originated in the disastrous impact of Yeltsin's economic policies -- of so-called shock therapy -- which fairly or unfairly millions of Russians believe were made in America. That was the origin of the current anti-American sentiment. It was exacerbated by the expansion of NATO. It was further exacerbated by the bombing of Iraq. And now it is greatly exacerbated by the bombing in Yugoslavia.

So it is a process, a process of the Russian backlash against American policies. Part of that is an enormous disillusionment by the generally pro-Western middle-class intellectual professionals, who believed that, if nothing else, America was a humanitarian nation that would not do the kinds of unhumanitarian things the Soviet regime had done over the years.

Next page | Russia is on her knees