WELCOMING THE BEAR, CAREFULLY

Russia will join NATO under the Partnership for Peace" strategy, President Boris Yeltsin said, which may end months of uncertainty about how the former Soviet Union would fit into the West's premier military alliance. Moscow will be given a place alongside other former Soviet-bloc nations but apart from the core of the organization's decision makers. That's a capitulation on the part of Yeltsin, who once argued for a "special" relationship giving Russia more influence than other countries that joined under the Partnership program.