[Russian Text Ignored]

The stability of the electromagnetic plasma confinement by powerful external s-polarized pump waves is considered. The parametric excitation of standing electromagnetic waves along the plasma boundary with frequencies close to the frequency of the pump wave leads to a periodic density modulation of the plasma boundary. The density disturbances along the direction of the external wave field are connected to the excitation of transverse p-polarized surface waves while the modulation in the direction perpendicular to the pump field are created by the parametric interaction between the external wave and s-polarized trapped leaking oscillations. Only when the leaking waves are excited the scale length of the modulation is larger than half the free space wave length of the incident radiation.