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Could the US and Russia wind up at war? 
By Graham Allison, 04/25/99 


ould NATO's current bombing campaign against Serbia lead to deadly
conflict between the United States and Russian military forces? Until
last week, my answer was a categorical no. But then I went to Moscow.


The primary reason for my trip was to speak to a conference of 6,000
participants from across Russia about mortgages and housing. For the
past 18 months, a Harvard project I head has been providing technical
assistance to Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his Moscow Mortgage
Initiative.


After my presentation, Mayor Luzhkov asked that I come see him that
evening. We discussed Moscow's progress in developing a market-based
mortgage system. We assessed Russian macroeconomic policies. As I
prepared to leave, he changed the subject.


''Is the American government thinking carefully about the consequences
of its decisions in Kosovo?'' he asked. To him, the United States
appeared surprised by the not unlikely consequences of its actions:
Milosevic's reaction to Rambouillet, dismissal of the threats of
bombing, defiance of the bombing campaign, increased support from the
Serbian people, and ferocious attack on the KLA and atrocities that
created the flood of refugees to Albania and Macedonia.


''Are American policy makers analyzing carefully scenarios from the
current situation to the end of this story?'' he asked.
''Specifically, have they considered the possibility that intensifying
pressures of public opinion in Russia as well as the United States
could create domestic dynamics that lead to direct military conflict
between the US and Russia?''


I responded that the foreign policy community was trying to analyze
all scenarios. I noted President Yeltsin's warning about such a danger
but discounted it as ''noise.'' I said that I had never seen a
credible scenario for such a catastrophic conclusion and offered a
judgment that such an outcome was almost inconceivable.


''If the bombing fails, as it appears likely to do, could NATO launch
a ground invasion to liberate Kosovo?'' he asked. I agreed that it was
quite possible. ''In that case, what would Russia do?''


He reiterated his condemnation of Milosevic and his barbarism. He
identified no significant national interest in Serbia. He has opposed
Communist-sponsored proposals for security guarantees to Serbia or
even confederation. He reaffirmed his belief that Russia should not
become involved in this war.


''But if NATO ground forces began invading Serbia,'' he asked, ''could
the Russian government maintain the embargo on the supply of arms to
Serbia?'' Unlikely, in his view. Russian arms, perhaps including S-300
surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting down US aircraft, would be
supplied to Serbia.


By what route? The mayor noted last week a convoy of military
vehicles, fuel, and humanitarian assistance to Serbia that had been
stopped by the Hungarian government at its border. Hungary would
undoubtedly deny ground shipments of arms to Serbia.


''What would Russia do then?'' he asked. ''Could it not deliver arms
by air transport? The United States took that route in supplying
Berlin during the blockade of 1948.'' Would NATO allow Russian
aircraft to violate Hungarian airspace and deliver arms to Serbia? Or
would they choose to shoot down Russian planes instead?


''If NATO were to shoot down Russian planes, how would Russia respond?
Would Russia stand down? Or would Russia retaliate by attacking NATO
aircraft, or the bases from which NATO aircraft that shot down Russian
airplanes had flown?'' Russia could, of course, do this with
non-nuclear missiles, he said.


This conversation went on into the night. Throughout, the mayor was
not threatening but analytic. In his view, allowing mad momentum to
push politics to such an end would be ''crazy.'' He recalled the logic
of Greek tragedy in which the actors are moved by a compelling,
self-destructive dynamic to results they would never have chosen
rationally. Remember 1914.


As I left the mayor's office I thought back to an uncomfortable
historical analogy. In the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, US
and Soviet leaders stood ''eyeball to eyeball,'' each with the
unilateral power of mutual annihilation in hand. On the final Saturday
of that crisis, a Soviet surface-to-air missile in Cuba shot down an
American U-2 aircraft, killing its pilot. The Kennedy administration
had considered that scenario and prepared its response. It would
retaliate by bombing Soviet SAM sites in Cuba - an action that in
their estimate would have killed at least scores of Soviet soldiers.


At this brink, President Kennedy paused. That evening, before
proceeding with the retaliatory attack, he undertook an extraordinary
initiative to provide Khrushchev an escape, including significant
concessions - sufficient to persuade Khrushchev to withdraw Soviet
missiles without war.


Even at this late date, after Milosevic's atrocities and four weeks of
steady NATO bombing, it may not be too late to pause for a serious
strategic reassessment of the path along which we are now being
driven.


Graham Allison is director of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs.