If recent media statements and official hints are anything to go by, the ruling elites of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, inspired by NATO success in Kosovo, now want the alliance to sort out conflicts in the disputed regions of Abkhazia, Trans-Dniestr and Nagorny Karabakh.

Azerbaijani Presidential Adviser for Foreign Policy Vafa Gulizade said he firmly believes NATO should intervene to settle the fate of Nagorny Karabakh, disputed by Azerbaijan and Armenia. Two Georgian presidential advisers, Shalva Pichkhadze and Archil Gegeshidze, said they would approve a NATO-led operation in Abkhazia like that in Kosovo.

Speaking at a North Atlantic Parliamentary Assembly meeting, Chairman of the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic's Supreme Soviet in Exile Tamaz Nadareishvili said NATO's operations in Kosovo "have given some hope to the many thousands of Abkhazian refugees."

And Moldovan ex-President Mircea Snegur threatened the self-proclaimed Trans-Dniester Republic and "its Moscow patrons" with NATO air strikes.

But NATO member representatives, including U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot and Col. Steven Randolph, one of those behind the Partnership for Peace program, are quick to assure Moscow that the alliance has no plans to use force in former Soviet countries.

NATO officials say that the existence of refugees is not in itself sufficient grounds for intervention, and recognize that both sides in the Abkhazia, Nagorny Karabakh and Trans-Dniestr conflicts committed their share of human rights abuses.

The West, fearing any possible revival of the Soviet Union, encourages CIS countries to build close ties with NATO. At the same time, NATO member states have no desire to be dragged into protracted smoldering conflicts on the outskirts of Europe.

On principle, NATO member countries do not set up military bases in volatile areas that, in times of crisis, could be cut off from communication links. Nor do they launch peacekeeping operations unless all parties in a conflict have signed an agreement, as was the case in Kosovo.

Those pushing for NATO humanitarian intervention in post-Soviet conflict zones understand that. But their hints and statements are for Moscow's ears.

Earlier this year, the three CIS countries Georgia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan declared their withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty - a Russia-led CIS military alliance.

Guluzade even said his country would allow a U.S. military base on its territory. His statement was followed by a series of leaks to the effect that Azerbaijan was willing to issue similar permissions to Turkey, NATO as a whole and even to Israel.

Georgian President Eduard Shev-ardnadze said participation in the treaty failed to help Georgia resolve its security problems and that the country would extend its Collective Security Treaty membership only if the treaty is fundamentally revised.

The treaty has failed to establish any effective conflict-resolution mechanisms. The Military Coopera-tion Coordination Center, composed of military representatives from the treaty's nine member states, is re-sponsible for promoting CIS military cooperation. But joint peacekeeping is only successful if the conflicting parties are willing to compromise. So far, that has not been the case.

Azerbaijan demanded that Russia cease military cooperation with Armenia and recently got upset with Moscow for deploying fighter-jets and air-defense complexes at a Russian military base in Armenia - even though strengthening the Armenian air-defense sector was essential for a unified CIS defense system.

Georgia wants Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia to police the Gal district, where Georgian refugees wish to return.

And would-be regional power Uzbekistan took an ambiguous stand in the neighboring Tajikistan conflict, insisting that Russian troops stay there as long as war remained a threat and calling for their departure once relative stability was achieved.

Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova established GUUAM, an alternative to the Collective Security Treaty in 1998.

Established as an economic alliance, it has increasingly gained military significance. The five GUUAM defense ministers adopted a resolution on forming an independent peacekeeping battalion during their January 1998 meeting, and at a meeting during April's NATO Washington summit declared their intention to maintain peacekeeping operations without Russian participation.

But GUUAM member-states do not have the resources to perform such independent operations, while the Western alliance will not likely agree to get involved in them. GUUAM leaders, however, seem more interested in the effects their declarations have on Russia.

Reacting to NATO's expansion and increased initiative, several Russian generals have made militant statements concerning the CIS military structure's role as a counterbalance to the Western alliance.

But Russia's CIS partners have reacted by dangling the threat of NATO intervention in Russia's zones of interest as a means of pressing Moscow for military-political as well as economic concessions.

That is why Shevardnadze is once again raising the issue of replacing Russian peacekeepers with NATO troops in Abkhazia, and Azerbaijani and Uzbek officials are threatening Russia with opening their republics for NATO military bases.

Even Belarus, Russia's most reliable Collective Security partner, is trying to benefit from Moscow's NATO-phobia. President Lukashenko, miffed at Russia's half-hearted promotion of the Russian-Belarussian Union, threatened to seek friends in the West.

But this will not change the military-political balance, and the best thing Russia can do is avoid giving in to blackmail.