RESTORATION WATCH # 9: MT. YAMANTAU — FROM THE FOLKS WHO BROUGHT YOU THE COLD WAR

(Washington, D.C.): The New York Times today gave
front-page coverage to an ominous facility being created deep
underground beneath Mt. Yamantau in the southern Ural Mountains.
The article underscores that the U.S. government is unsure
exactly to what purpose this hardened, military-related facility
will ultimately be put and notes that the Russian government of
Boris Yeltsin refuses to respond to questions on the subject —
either to its friends in the Clinton Administration, to members
of the foreign or domestic press or even to its own parliament.

The Times nonetheless provides some insights into
the scale of this immense undertaking. For example, according to
one unnamed American official: “The complex is as
big as the Washington area inside the Beltway.”
U.S. intelligence — which a Defense Department spokesman said
today has been “aware of this facility…for some time”
has been able to assess the progress of its construction
primarily through monitoring materials supplied to it, the
above-ground construction activity and the many thousands of
workers and security personnel housed at and involved in the
project.

Such evidence is, of course, circumstantial and fragmentary.
It does, nonetheless, lead to informed judgements about not only
the size (described as “massive”) of the Yamantau
complex, but also the purpose to which it will ultimately be put.
Based on U.S. understanding of similar deeply buried facilities
constructed nearer to Moscow — known as Sherapova and Chekhov —
with the help of tunneling equipment provided by then-West German
companies, the Yamantau complex’s probable mission would
be to allow key Russian military and civilian personnel to
conduct and survive nuclear war-fighting operations.
Given its vast size, the facility may also serve other,
no-less-troubling purposes in peacetime (e.g., as a site for the
covert production of weapons of mass destruction).

‘Keep a Lid On It’

The Clinton Administration officials appear,
characteristically, less concerned about the strategic
implications of this monstrous military undertaking than they are
about the potential domestic political ramifications.
The Times quotes one “senior American
official” in Washington as saying: “It is being built
on a huge scale and involves a major investment of resources. The
investments are being made at a time when the Russians are
complaining they do not have the resources to do things
pertaining to arms control.” This apparently refers to the
financial excuse the Administration has largely accepted for
Russian non-compliance with various arms control monitoring and
weapons dismantling obligations.

Then there is the problem of the executive branch’s
certification to Congress associated with the annual provision of
some $400 million in U.S. tax dollars in connection with the
Nunn-Lugar program⁽¹⁾,
a program intended to result in the dismantling of and improved
security over the former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. By law,
the Administration must certify that the Russians are
“foregoing any military modernization program that exceeds
legitimate defense requirements.” Clearly, Yamantau does not
conform to such a standard; it also provides further evidence
that American funds are helping to underwrite activities inimical
to U.S. interests.⁽²⁾
The New York Times cited a Clinton Pentagon official as
saying: “The toughest question we can get from the Congress
when we ask them for funds to help disarm and dismantle the
Russian strategic arsenal is why are they using their
meager rubles to build such a thing as Yamantau mountain?“
(Emphasis added.)

Hard Questions

As Congress returns from recess this week, that hard question
should be among those put insistently to the Clinton
Administration. This is particularly true since President Clinton
is simultaneously heading to Moscow to discuss the dismal state
of Russian control over nuclear weapons, materials and technology
— a setting where commitments to increase
Nunn-Lugar-type cash infusions are to be expected.

Another question on which both the executive and legislative
branches ought urgently to focus is: If there is any validity to
the contention often made in the immediate aftermath of the fall
of the Berlin Wall — to the effect that the United States would
have (depending upon the speaker) somewhere between three and ten
years of “warning” before something approximating the
old Soviet-style threat might reemerge from Russia — what
would the indicators of the first one or two years of
warning look like?

What specific actions in the political, economic, foreign
policy, military and strategic arenas should the United States be
on the alert for? Would they include: the ascendancy of
communist forces and policies in the Russian government; the
reassertion of state-domination of the economy; renewed links
between the Kremlin and rogue states from Libya to North Korea; a
substantial modernization program for the Russian sea- and
land-based nuclear forces; and the continuing construction of
ominous facilities like Yamantau? If not
these, what sort of strategic warning of future Russian
intentions and capabilities could the United States and its
allies possibly hope to have?

The Bottom Line

Finally, there is the question of what the U.S. should do
about these alarming trends in Russia. The answer to that
multi-billion dollar question had better be a focus for the 1996
presidential campaign, as it is but one of a number of major
foreign policy challenges sure to confront the next occupant of
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and the country he will lead.

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief
addressing waste, fraud and abuse in the Nunn-Lugar program
entitled ‘Chicken Diplomacy’ and Other
Clinton-Yeltsin Campaign Scams Are Bad for Democracy, Bad for
U.S. Taxpayers (No. 96-D 32,
28 March 1996).

2. For example, on at least one occasion,
the Kremlin’s mole in the CIA, Aldrich Ames, was paid with
dollars provided from the International Monetary Fund — some 30%
of which are supplied from the U.S. Treasury.