When the Soviet Union first heard of AIDS, people liked to say that the disease posed no threat to Soviet citizens because it was a disease of the 20th century, while they were living in the 19th century.

I was reminded of that joke when trying to ascertain from Russian rocket-force officers whether or not the Y2K computer bug is a danger for our nuclear forces. They take an ironic view regarding the apocalyptic predictions of all the terrible things that could happen when the two nines in computer dates switch to two zeroes.

For a start, they say that Russia began introducing computer technology to its armed forces much later than in the West. Anyone who has the opportunity to visit the main space testing and operations center will see an unfinished multistory building that was to have housed cooling equipment for immense computers. By the time the move was made to more compact technology, the armed forces were able to purchase personal computers programmed to deal better with potential Y2K glitches.

The strategic rocket forces are not worried about Y2K because, as Defense Ministry Research Institute Director Vladimir Dvorkin explained, the missiles' launch and control systems are not date-based.

The system that warns of impending missile attacks is a more complicated case as it does use time-linked programs. If something were to go wrong, reconnaissance satellites and monitoring stations could mistake flashes of light from the sun or moon for traces from a missile launch.

Of course, both the Pentagon and the Russian Defense Ministry are aware of the limits of rocket attack warning systems, as there have already been cases when the systems sent false information - and that was without any Y2K bug.

Russian and U.S. nuclear-risk reduction centers have been working on this issue for more than 10 years now. They have set up satellite communication channels to find out as quickly as possible whether a missile launch has taken place or not. Moscow and Washington have also agreed on setting up a joint early warning and missile launch information exchange center.

But this center will not be ready by the critical Y2K date change. U.S. officials, worried that Russian warning systems will misinterpret computer glitches as missile launches, have invited a group of specialists from Moscow to Colorado-Springs, home to the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) command center. The Russians will be stationed there alongside their U.S. counterparts for a month, to avoid any misunderstandings arising.

So, it seems unlikely that Jan. 1, 2000, will be the end of the world. In fact, it is the beginning of June 2000 that is potentially more dangerous for world security. It is then, just before Russia's presidential elections, that the U.S. Congress must decide the issue of developing a national anti-ballistic missile defense system.

Opinion in Moscow (and not without reason) is that the United States wants more than just to be able to protect itself from an attack by some pariah state of the likes of North Korea. Russian military officials think that the Americans want to set up an ABM defense system to break for once and for all the strategic parity between the two countries so as to have the ultimate bargaining chip in its relations with Russia.

The Russian view is that, in violating the 1972 ABM treaty, the United States would undermine the foundations of all the security treaties. Russia would probably then declare itself free of its commitments to the treaties.

No one seriously imagines that in a time of economic crisis, Russia would be able to start churning out increased numbers of warheads and missiles. But the problem lies elsewhere. Today, Russia and the United States have the possibility of carrying out mutual inspections and working together, but that is the result of fulfilling their commitments to the security treaties. Withdrawing from the treaties will make each side more unpredictable for the other.

It is precisely in that kind of atmosphere of confrontation and mutual distrust that a fatal mistake could take place, and here, Y2K would not have the slightest responsibility for anything.