Word: russian
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...traveled across Russia's far east on a train that included 21 Japanese-made armored carriages, with darkened windows, and then emerged for Soviet-style welcomes dressed in a black smock with sunglasses and his bouffant hairdo. He looked like a visiting Hollywood director, being welcomed by hundreds of Russian soldiers, and officials making speeches professing mutual friendship that sounded like they could have been written in 1975. The spectacle left even many Russian foreign policy experts gaping in disbelief...
...then in keeping with the schizophrenia of the current foreign policy, Russian officials downplayed his visit as a personal trip, visiting places of importance to his family. But the timing is all-important, because Kim is not a man who takes his travel casually. Gestures aside, the Russians clearly want a deal on National Missile Defense...
...Rice said the U.S. wants to avoid being perceived as violating the ABM treaty. And that forms the basis of the Russian game plan. Washington made clear that a robust testing plan for a missile defense system will begin shortly. They won't get into the semantics of when they'll violate the terms of the 1972 treaty, but it's clear that they will. The Russians may be waiting for that phase to begin, and to then denounce the U.S. as the violator of treaties...
...Both sides insist that they are not negotiating, merely holding "consultations." The Russians are insisting that they've never said the ABM treaty can't be modernized. Rice says Washington doesn't believe in tinkering with a 30-year old treaty, which is what the Russians want. But most good, independent Russian arms control experts say that no matter how much the treaty is modernized, the ABM treaty is by its very definition an obstacle to National Missile Defense...
What with Bush pushing a missile-defense system, scrapping the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and encouraging NATO expansion to Russia's borders, Vladimir Putin has every reason to be delighted with the U.S. President. The Russian leader now has all the excuses he needs to justify meeting the demands of his generals for increased military funding. RALPH KRESS La Mesa, Calif...