The Russians seemed to accept this gesture of goodwill… though without much visible enthusiasm.
Later, McCarthy and the others in his delegation subtly probed to detect if the Russians saw their role as being agents of political change or if they intended to take a more commanding part in the new Russia. It very quickly became apparent that they didn’t have much enthusiasm for politics, either.
After the initial, formal presentations, the Russian and NATO officers split up into more specialized groups, and later transferred to a conference center outside Moscow. Zinni was paired off with the Russian director of operations (the counterpart of the J-3 at the Pentagon); they talked cordially about operations issues[37].
As the day wore on, Zinni began to pick up strange vibes from this impressive collection of senior Russians. Not the vibes you might expect: He had zero sense that the Russian leaders were dangerous, or posed a threat. Far from it. They were not hostile; they were not unfriendly. Though they recognized that their system was defeated, they did not seem defeated or crushed or resentful. On the contrary, they were welcoming. Marshal Shaposhnikov and his senior staff were cordial and pleasant. But they never probed, never took initiative, never showed the slightest curiosity. If there had ever been fire in this group, the fire was dead.
At first, Zinni wondered why they didn’t seem especially enthusiastic about the NATO visit, or get immersed in any way in the discussion, but it soon became clear that they weren’t very enthusiastic about anything. Neither did he see any burning resistance… or any burning sense of cooperation; yet they proved to be as cooperative as the Americans wanted them to be.
For all their unresponsiveness and lethargy, the Russians were amazingly open… and this from some of the most secretive people in the world. Though none of them would take the initiative, they would certainly respond — and with astonishing candor. If asked about the change to democracy, they’d spill their guts. If asked about problems in their military, they’d show their dirty laundry. They didn’t blink at talking about the severe hazing in the ranks or the epidemic of alcoholism.[38] And Zinni was shocked to see the openly permitted dissent and criticism of the senior leadership by junior officers.
And yet — again — the unexpected openness did not carry with it a burning sense that “We have to do something about our problems.” There was no sense that these senior leaders expected to do much of anything.[39]
The truth, Zinni concluded later, was that the Russian military leaders were just there. Events had blown by them, and they were going through the motions. They had no plan. They had no vision — good or bad — about where they fit, what they would do. They were just along for the ride. Their message to the NATO delegation: “This is happening. You’re here. Okay. This is what we do today. And fine, you’re nice people, we like you. But don’t expect us to give a damn.”
The organization had resigned itself to being passengers in the car. The car was going wherever it was going, and they were along for the ride. They didn’t intend to drive it, steer it, or put the brakes on. They were just in there.
To Zinni, this was simply an astonishing mental state. It was beyond his experience. He couldn’t figure it out.
The good news, he realized, was the younger officers. The open dissent and criticism he’d noticed was a sign of hope. Many colonels proved to be fiery, outspoken reformers, railing at the collapse of the military and the corruption of senior officers. The younger officers were far more curious than their elders. They asked questions about America and Europe. They made it clear that they hadn’t bought the line they’d been trained to follow, that NATO was the enemy they were supposed to hate. “You guys are not bad guys,” they told the delegation. “We need to change things and learn from you.”
The most outrageously outspoken of the younger officers turned out to be the aide assigned to Zinni, a cadet from the Propaganda Corps named Vlad. Vlad, who had learned to speak English by watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, salted his conversations with Schwarzenegger cliches — and Schwarzenegger-type attitudes. His irreverence got him in constant trouble with the stern, hard-nosed, never smiling, but extremely beautiful, female captain who supervised the aides. She was always shooting him with killer looks, but he never seemed to notice them. Zinni came to call him “Vlad the Impaler,” after his ability to skewer himself.[40]
In his comic Austro-Russian American accent, Vlad gave Zinni the low-down on life for the troops in the barracks: There was no morale. There was no unit cohesion and unit pride. There was no leadership (the senior leadership spent much of the time drunk). Vlad’s pay was so low (he got the equivalent of $4 U.S. every month) that by the end of the month he had no money; if his mother didn’t send him food, he was in trouble. He laughed: The old indoctrination had tried to promote the belief that America and the decadent West were on the edge of collapse, where the truth was the reverse. Everything he’d been led to believe about communism had been a lie.
It was hard to believe how far the great Soviet military machine had fallen.
But they were still capable of grand, old-style Russian hospitality, highlighted by lavish banquets for the NATO delegation. For Vlad these were a gift from the gods. He had never seen such meals. He wolfed them down like a starving man (which was not far from the truth), and drank with no less fervor; he never left a banquet sober. “For God’s sake,” he pleaded with Zinni, “I’ve gotta eat. Keep your toasts and speeches short. If you make them long, I’ll have to translate, and I’ll starve.”
On a trip one evening to the famous Moscow Circus, Vlad grabbed the tour bus microphone and performed a politically incorrect monologue aimed at the Russian leaders. This did not amuse the senior Russian officers on the bus. When Zinni told him to cool it, he just laughed, “Hey, man, no pain, no gain.”
Vlad was always in trouble, but he was also shrewd and a survivor; and it turns out that he had what amounted to an escape clause from the Russian Army. Though his father was Russian, his mother was Latvian. This meant he’d be able to choose his homeland in the emerging breakup of the USSR — Latvia or Russia. Since Latvia was becoming independent and would have its own military, he could, if he chose, join the Latvian Army… This was not an easy decision. The Russian Army was obviously a very bad fit; but did he want to make the big leap to Latvia? (Zinni never learned what happened to his irreverent young aide.)
The Moscow Circus’s grand finale was the magical appearance out of nowhere of a man on a white horse, who raced around the ring carrying a Russian flag. The crowd roared with joy. It was the Russian and not the Soviet flag they were cheering. One month later, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics officially ceased to exist.
Some things took a long time to change.
On a shopping expedition near the U.S. Embassy, Zinni got interested in a Christmas present for his wife Debbie. Since he was in uniform, he was treated with special attention (he didn’t realize how special), but that did not spare him from the incredibly tedious process everyone had to go through to buy anything at a communist store. The idea was to provide as many jobs as possible, which meant that the purchaser had to pass through multiple lines, each presided over by a clerk who had zero interest in serving customers. First, you stood in a line to wait your turn to look at an item. Then, if you wanted it, you were given a chit to pay for it at the end of another line. You then took your chit to another line to wait for your purchase to be wrapped.
Zinni went through this process to buy a Father Frost tea cozy (Debbie collected Santas; Father Frost is the Russian version of Santa).
Back home a few weeks later, as she was getting the Zinni house ready for Christmas, Debbie took Father Frost out of his box, planning to put him on display in the dining room, when she discovered a strange device in his pouch of toys.
The next day, curious, Zinni took the device into the EUCOM security section. They confirmed what he expected: It was a listening device… a bug.
Before taking it in, he yelled into it: “The Cold War’s over!”
He doubted if anybody heard him.
Shortly after the Gulf War, Zinni took part in a Marine Corps delegation that visited several former Eastern bloc nations[41]—as part of the growing military-to-military exchange programs developed by EUCOM. Unlike his trip to Moscow, this proved to be a hopeful experience. Eastern Europe was adapting far more easily to democratization and a free-market economy than their eastern neighbors in the FSU. Unlike the Russians, they were ready and eager for the change, having, in their past, experienced free political
