I'm confused. Most of us heard early on in the first days of NATO's involvement in Yugoslavia, that Russians backed out of plans to cooperate with the U.S. to prevent the launch of Nuclear missiles if their early warning screens went blank (or something like that).

Then someone in government (may have been the Pentagon) said, "No, that's not true. We're still working with them."

Now we have Senator Bennett (in Y2k Today, May 20, 1999) saying:

We had been working with the Russians in the defense area, in order to avoid misunderstandings that might arise due to Y2K communications and monitoring glitches. Unfortunately, that cooperation was suspended in response to the NATO action in the former Yugoslavia.

Huh? Anyone know anything more about this? I assume Senator Bennett knows of what he speaks.

:(

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), May 22, 1999

Answers

FM:

Can't give you links, but there WERE several scattered stories (AP Reuters, Drudge) confirming that Russia HAS stopped cooperation on nuclear missle launch problems. The stories said that the talks/plans have simply stopped. No movement or comments on Russias part, US still trying to get an agreement --- Russia ignoring us on this for present. I think there were some threads here also.

Trying hard not to be just negative here, but the "they're still cooperating" was just political spin as far as the stories I read go.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), May 22, 1999.

We're still working with them. They're in the Tampa, Fla area training for "peacekeeping" missions. (Tampa Tribune)

-- KoFE (Your@town.USA), May 22, 1999.

FM - yes, they withdrew from y2k cooperation on military systems after the second or third day of NATO bombing. I've heard *rumors* that there are still attempts at cooperation on the civilian side - most specificly in dealing with their nuke power plants, but that's about it. This is another one of those cases where the mainstream press is trying to ignore something in the hopes that it will go away.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), May 22, 1999.

Maria said Russia is a non-issue, so that settles the matter for everyone, right?

-- Doug (douglasjohnson@prodigy.net), May 22, 1999.

nope the only person *that* settles it for is Maria..

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), May 22, 1999.