Russian envoy shrugs off NATO rapid force plan

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- NATO is rushing to put together a Rapid Response Force to deter Russia from any more military operations against its neighbors like the invasion of Georgia in August. But Moscow says it regards the Atlantic alliance's plans as an empty bluff.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Monday shrugged off the new NATO proposal as nothing more than a "noisemaker," the RIA Novosti news agency said in a report.

The new rapid-response force is being designed to be sent as quickly a possible to member nations of NATO that say they fear a Russian military incursion into their territory.

Three NATO member states -- the three Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- were forcefully incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940. They regained their freedom during the tumultuous two years before the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1990. Then U.S. President George H.W. Bush promised the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, that NATO would never be allowed to expand into Central and East Europe to also include states that had been members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance or that had been member republics in the Soviet Union. However, U.S. President Bill Clinton broke the first pledge and current U.S. President George W. Bush broke the second one.

Rogozin asserted that the new NATO proposal had no significance except to sound good as one of the "arsenal of weapons" that the Bush administration was trying to present to help Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the current U.S. presidential campaign, the report said.

NATO defense ministers discussed the Rapid Response Force plan at an informal two-day gathering in London on Sept. 18 and 19. However, Rogozin said the project was bound to flounder. He claimed that no significantly sized European nation feared any attack or intervention by Russia.

"I am very skeptical about this idea," Rogozin said, according to the report. It was only "a distraction from the real work of the rapid-response forces," he added.

NATO nations gave broad support for the Rapid Response Force plan, but it remains only an idea that has yet to be implemented. No decisions have yet been made or national commitments made by NATO states about how large the RRF should be, what each nation should provide for it, and no timetable has yet been set within which to make it a reality.

Nor did the NATO ministers make any decision as to what command mechanism would have to be created to activate and order the rapid deployment of the force in the event of any call for help from an individual NATO nation.

The plan was proposed as part of the reaction in NATO nations against Russia following its successful military occupation of one-third of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the Caucasus in only five days from Aug. 8 to Aug. 12.

Russia makes big comeback in African arms market.

Russia this month celebrated its return to the African arms market in a big way following its displays at the continent's biggest and most important annual arms show in Cape Town, South Africa.

Anatoly Isaykin, the general director of the giant Rosoboronexport corporation that directs and coordinates all major Russian arms exports, told reporters at the arms show last week that the conference marked his country's restoration of military-technical cooperation with major nations throughout Africa on a scale not seen since before the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.

"We have recently revived our contacts with all African countries that used to be traditional buyers of Soviet weaponry," Isaykin said at the news conference held on Sept. 17 during the Africa Aerospace & Defence-2008 exhibition near Cape Town, according to a report carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.

RIA Novosti said Russia's main customers for weapons across Africa already included the nations of Algeria, Libya, Angola, Ethiopia, Uganda, Morocco, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique and Burkina Faso. "African countries are attracted to the reliability and competitive prices of Russian arms," the news agency said.

The report said Moscow had been particularly successful in selling its low-cost, tough and rugged helicopters to many African nations. It said already more than 700 helicopters, including Mi-24/35 Hind attack helicopters, had been sold to different African countries.

Rosoboronexport is confident of making more major sales in the region, and it intends to make one of its top goals in Africa the creation of helicopter maintenance centers that will offer repair services for Russian helicopters already being operated by various African air forces and security forces, Isaykin said.

"We are offering a variety of post-sale services to our traditional customers, prioritizing maintenance of helicopters as well as Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23, MiG-27, MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-24 combat aircraft, and also pilot training," Isaykin said, according to the report.

Lack of hard currency to pay for the helicopters, support services and other weapons systems will not be a problem for a Kremlin still flush with record oil revenues from its enormous oil and gas exports.

Isaykin said the Kremlin was willing to accept "alternative and flexible" kinds of payment for its military wares, such as joining in joint ventures with African states, accepting exclusive rights to prospect and develop natural resources in those nations, or to receive payment in the form of such products as diamonds, cotton and coffee.

"These offers give our African customers additional opportunities to acquire Russian-made military equipment," Isaykin said.