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In the past few weeks, Russia’s government-controlled press has been running a new anti-Western propaganda campaign, harshly criticizing NATO’s military operation against Yugoslavia and accusing the United States and its European allies of using it as a "dumping ground" for depleted uranium (DU).

DU, used to enhance the armor-piercing capabilities of shells, has caused leukemia and other diseases among the peacekeeping troops in the Balkans, according to the Russian media.

This propaganda campaign is increasing despite the fact that Russian defense officials said they had found no cases of DU-related diseases among the 3,600 Russian military personnel serving in Kosovo. The Moscow press criticizes these Russian experts because in their official statements they fail to see a link between DU and leukemia and other diseases.

In this campaign Moscow is using reports from some European countries whose governments are among the leading critics of DU-enhanced weapons. A front-page editorial in the Italian newspaper La Stampa, for example, depicted the DU debate as "the latest example of continental Europe’s struggle to come out from under the yoke of Anglo-Saxon hegemony in security and defense."

The Russian press also quotes officials in Greece, where the war against Serbia was deeply unpopular, who said that they were pressured to keep their own concerns about the use of DU quiet by fellow NATO members during and after the war.

The government in Athens said that in the wake of reports about potential health risks from DU, some 140 Greek soldiers have asked for permission to return home. The Moscow press also headlined an interview German defense Minister Rudolf Scharping gave to a newspaper in which he criticized U.S. handling of the release of information on the possible dangers of DU munitions.

The U.S. had not kept its allies properly informed, the German official told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. In particular, he dismissed a recent statement from Washington that said the relevant information had long been available in full on the Internet.

In early February Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev is due to visit the Balkans to hold talks with Yugoslav leaders and inspect Russian peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo, according to Russian news agencies. Russia has been the leading critic of NATO’s military operation against Yugoslavia in 1999, but it subsequently took part in the NATO-led peacekeeping operation.

The Russian press recalls that, after getting a nod from former President Boris Yeltsin in June 1999, Russian General Staff Chief General Anatoly Kvashnin ordered a column of paratroopers to proceed through Serbia to the airport of Kosovar’s capital Pristina and occupy it before Western peacekeepers could arrive.

At the time this move was very popular in Russia, and many believed that the West had been snubbed and Russian influence in the Balkans enhanced. Today it is obvious that Russian military bravado only heightened Western suspicions and gave Russia no advantage. At present Russian influence in the Balkans and throughout the former Yugoslavia is virtually zero.

The Russian press quoted Russia’s Defense Ministry’s Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov as saying Sergeev would discuss Kosovo with Yugoslav military and political leaders, and would visit Russian troops before leaving. He also said Moscow favored lifting a ban on arms sales to Yugoslavia imposed by NATO during the rule of former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted last year.

We know that Moscow, which is looking to expand the market for its arms, is interested in resuming ties with Yugoslavia, whose armed forces are equipped with Soviet-designed or Soviet-made weapons. But there is no doubt that the visit of Russia’s top military official to Yugoslavia will also bring on a new wave of anti-Western propaganda in connection with DU.

Officially, Moscow is pressing for an international investigation into the possible consequences of the use of DU munitions by the Western alliance in Kosovo and during the 1991 Gulf War. NATO insists there is no proven link between weapons of DU and cancer.

But in reality, Moscow is trying to use the so-called Balkans syndrome for achieving its old target – the cultivation of a split between the U.S. and its traditional European friends and allies. It is not a new tactic but it works, and now the alarm over the armor-piercing DU material has exposed rifts in the alliance not seen since the 1999 Kosovo war.

And there is no doubt that Kremlin leaders would like to use DU-related questions in future negotiations with NATO officials who, following the practice of the previous U.S. administration, are trying to establish partnership-like relations with Moscow. For example, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said on Jan. 19 he would visit Moscow next month in a sign of improving ties between Russia and the Western alliance.

"I hope to visit Moscow during the week beginning Feb. 19," Robertson said, adding that the trip would cap a steady thaw in ties after the strains of the 1999 Kosovo crisis.

"Russia and NATO are not enemies but partners today. We are trying to create a security zone in Europe," he told reporters a couple of days earlier.

Of course, the "Balkans syndrome" is not the only sore point used by Kremlin leaders to create a split in NATO. There is also Moscow’s attempt to undermine the idea of the U.S. NMD (Nuclear Missile Defense) among European governments, with Kremlin support of the creation in Europe of a non-NATO military force, and with other problems in the alliance which have arisen over the last eight years.

It is very difficult right now to predict the future of NATO, which was, and is currently, a cornerstone of European and international strategic stability. But in the months to come, the future of this alliance will be deeply dependent on the policies of the new Bush administration as it seeks to correct the mistakes made by the Clinton-Gore team during last eight years, and to find a way to fully cooperate with our allies in achieving security for the Western Hemisphere.

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