In 2010 relations between Russia, on the one hand, and the United States, the European Union and its members, on the other, look much improved compared to two or three years ago. Yet, there is no guarantee that they will not deteriorate to a dangerous point as a result of developments in, for example, the “new” Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, or over Iran. Calls for a new security architecture, built on a new European security treaty, or even more radical thoughts of including Russia in NATO or of creating a Euro-Russian confederacy are important in that they stimulate debate but are probably unworkable. Yet, the problem of Europe’s basic security deficit remains, and can lead to complications if left untreated.
In this author’s view, the appropriate treatment is creation of a security community that covers the entire Euro-Atlantic area. A security community is understood to be a group of states within which all disputes are resolved exclusively by diplomatic, legal, or other non-violent means, without recourse to military force or a threat to use such force. To put it differently, a security community is a demilitarized political space. It can be alternatively described as a zone of stable peace.
Countries adhering to a security community agree on a set of rules and norms as well as mechanisms for dispute resolution. There are also sanctions for breaking these rules. When a dispute breaks out, or force is used or threatened, the situation is dealt with by the community as a whole, based on communication patterns established within the community.
There is a body of theoretical literature on security communities as well as historical and contemporary examples of such communities, including the Concert of Europe, which kept peace among the major powers for almost four decades. More contemporary examples would include the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and several others. Of course, both NATO and the EU are much more than security communities, but they were built on that foundation.
It must be stressed at this point that a security community is not a mutual admiration society, nor does it represent a community of values, although some shared values will exist from the beginning and become strengthened in the process. To put it bluntly: A security community does not have to be a community of democracies. A security community is built, clearly and squarely, on a mutual desire for international stability and peace. It must be also noted that a security community does not constitute an alliance created against a specific threat, and it differs from a collective security system.
Since, by definition, a security community implies special relations among those who choose to belong to it, establishing a geographical scope is important. For the purposes of this paper, the term “Euro-Atlantic area (space)” includes: NATO countries; EU member states; Switzerland; the Balkan countries outside NATO and/or the EU; the countries of the South Caucasus; Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova; the Russian Federation; Kazakhstan. The term “Euro-Atlantic” covers a much broader area than the term “Transatlantic” (essentially, NATO), but is smaller than the “OSCE space”: It does not include several Central Asian countries, which face very different security issues. By the same token, the Asia-Pacific region, in which both the United States and the Russian Federation are present, is not discussed in this paper. Inclusion or exclusion of countries and regions in the space under discussion does not create dividing lines. It should merely help to focus on fundamentally improving security within geographical Europe.
The case for a security community holds that, while wars in the Euro-Atlantic area have long become unnecessary and would be utterly senseless, security in the region is still not properly assured. The 2008 Russo-Georgian war, recent tensions over NATO’s eastern enlargement, and disputes over missile defense deployments are all reflections of an underlying malaise. The outward lack of major tensions at present does not equal a solution of any kind. Unless treated, the malaise will probably give rise to new conflicts and confrontation.
Past experience of treating the post–Cold War malaise has brought mixed results. The 1990s Western concept of a “democratic peace” that was to result from liberal and democratic transformation in the former member states of the Warsaw Pact has only been partially realized – through the dual accession of a number of CEE countries to NATO and the EU. From the mid-1990s, NATO’s eastern enlargement produced a political and psychological backlash in Russia. Since 2007, the accession process has run into serious difficulties in Ukraine and Georgia, and has been de facto suspended. However, even if unfrozen, the enlargement process is unlikely to include Russia, which is crucial for creating a zone of stable peace in the Euro-Atlantic area.
Similarly, Russian hopes of integration into the West on special terms, or, alternatively, creating a balance with NATO/EU by means of building a Moscow-led geopolitical bloc – composed of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Customs Union – have failed to materialize. Two decades after the end of the Cold War, neither integration nor balance is available.
For their part, the countries in the new Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Moldova) and in the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan and Georgia), wedged as they are between the Russian Federation and the Transatlantic community, feel a measure of security deficit.
Since early 2009, the more cooperative foreign policy of the Obama administration; the current situation in Russia’s relations with the United States and the European Union – resulting from the Kremlin’s quest for “modernization alliances”; as well as Moscow’s efforts to improve relations with Kiev and Warsaw have presented a window of opportunity. This window needs to be used now to lay the groundwork for stable peace in the Euro-Atlantic area. In particular, Moscow’s course correction, which is still tactical at this stage, could become strategic.
In essence, there are two major sets of problems to be dealt with by anyone who wishes to create a security community in the Euro-Atlantic area.
Insecurity I: Russia vs. United States
Russia, for once a clear military underdog, fears much-increased US military power. In the absence of both mutual trust and traditional elements of reassurance (military balance), Russia feels increasingly insecure in military terms – even as other aspects of US-Russian relations may flourish. Left to itself, this relationship can produce an asymmetrical arms race, in which Russia will seek to undermine US military superiority through a combination of nuclear and unconventional military build-up.
Insecurity II: (some) CEE nations vs. Russia
CEE nations, having escaped from Moscow’s tutelage – or in several cases its direct rule – fear reconstituted Russian power on its borders. In the absence of trust-based relations between a big former hegemonic country and its much smaller ex-satellites or provinces, the only element of reassurance is accession to a powerful alliance (NATO) and/or strong relations with the United States. Compared to their neighbors farther to the west, these countries see a “different (i.e., a more hostile) Russia.”
Both sets of insecurities produce the reverse effect (inversion).
Inversion of insecurity I:
Russian efforts to rebuild its power and find new ways of challenging the United States will result in a portion of US military power remaining focused on the Russian arsenal. This imitates the Cold War situation in the absence of conditions that led to and sustained the Cold War.
Inversion of insecurity II:
CEE countries’ efforts to get into NATO create a fear of encirclement on the Russian side. Moscow sees NATO enlargement as a geopolitical tool of the United States designed to contain Russia. There is an element of schizophrenia here, too. Even when Moscow describes the United States and its major European allies as partners, their alliance’s growth is described as a threat.
There are well-known ways and means used to alleviate these problems. These include:
- Arms-limitation and -reduction agreements: START, New START; CFE, Adapted CFE; Confidence-Building Measures, CBM, etc.;
- Cooperative security arrangements: OSCE, “Helsinki+,” the Corfu Process;
- Joint peacekeeping efforts, such as NATO-Russian cooperation in the Balkans, 1995–2003;
- Partnership, dialogue, and cooperation policies: NACC, EAPC, PfP, NATO-Russia PJC, NATO-Russia Council; etc.
All the above are useful, and all need to be improved and implemented more fully. All, however, have had their ups and downs and, even in their totality, fall far short of the aspired goal of creating a security community.
More radical solutions have also been put forward. One of the more radical among them would involve one ultimate expansion of NATO, to include Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries in the Euro-Atlantic area. Russia’s inclusion in NATO, in particular, was advocated by some in the early 1990s; it resurfaced then at the turn of the 2000s and is being revived again now.
However, NATO integration clearly does not meet the Russian criterion of strategic independence, nor does it meet the Western criterion of democracy. It faces major and multiple obstacles (27 ratification processes) and, even if successful, this would likely produce an unwieldy construct. Finally, but importantly, it would unnecessarily complicate the West’s and Russia’s relations with China. “Russia in NATO” is an excellent idea whose time has either passed (it appeared feasible in the 1990s) or has not yet come back. In the next decade, a security community holds more promise than a radically expanded alliance.
Creating a security community is a long and multifaceted process. The main – double – thrust of the effort needs to be demilitarization of Russian-Western – essentially US-Russian – relations, and creating a qualitatively new relationship between Russia and its CEE neighbors. All this will need to be done without prejudice to the existing security arrangements, such as NATO or the CSTO.
There are two principal elements to demilitarization:
- dismantling the strategic, political, and psychological legacy of the Cold War; and
- forging new cooperative strategic ties.
Dismantling the strategic legacy of the Cold War (back-edge) would include:
- Parallel unilateral renunciation of enemy images: So far, former adversaries in the Cold War have made joint declarations that they do not regard one another as enemies. It is time, however, that they drew logical consequences from that statement. In a new departure, they need to revise their national military guidelines to explicitly exclude NATO countries – essentially the United States (for Russia), and the Russian Federation (for NATO countries) – from de facto potential adversaries’ lists. This would have massive implications for contingency planning, force deployment, exercise patterns, etc. There is also a major task involved in revising nuclear deterrence strategies and nuclear planning.
- Unilateral and mutual restraint: Implementing US missile defense programs in a way that would not have potential use against Russian ICBMs and thus would not risk provoking a Russian nuclear build-up as backlash; cessation of NATO-oriented military exercises (like Zapad-2009), and of Russia-focused military activity in neighboring NATO countries (e.g., in the Baltic States). Prioritizing cooperation over rivalry in the Arctic.
- Mutual accommodation: Respecting the freedom of choice by all countries within the Euro-Atlantic area. Allowing Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan to decide upon their strategic alignments. This would ensure that there are no “gray zones” or “security vacuums” in Europe that would lead to strategic rivalry.
- In the case of Ukraine – Europe’s largest country except for Russia – the idea is that of strategic self-determination. This would be a logical follow-up to Ukraine’s 1994 strategic decision to renounce nuclear weapons and join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons state. This decision was recognized in the Lisbon Protocol, whose signatories undertook to honor and preserve Ukraine’s security and integrity. As a next step, Ukraine would determine its own security status within Europe, to be recognized and respected by fellow members of the security community.
- In the case of Moldova, the arrangements for its unification and existence as a sovereign state would be linked to its freely chosen security status.
- Georgia would need to proceed to resolve the Abkhazian and Ossetian conflicts, and normalize its relations with Russia, upon which it, too, would be able to determine its own strategic orientation.
- Arms build-down: Post–Conventional Armed Forces in Europe conventional arms arrangements; reaching an agreement on eliminating/constraining US and Russian sub-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe, and other similar measures.
The process itself is the vehicle for overcoming the issues inherited from the past. Solving the frozen conflicts would be a bridge between the Cold War and post–Cold War security agendas.
Forging new cooperative strategic ties on the basis of a new security agenda (front-edge) would require the following:
- Philosophical foundation for strategic cooperation: A realization that not only war, but defending against a military attack in Europe has become obsolete. Georgia in 2008 / Kosovo in 1999 were costly exceptions that need to bolster the general rule. Real military security contingencies in the 21st century lie elsewhere. Thus, one needs to focus on new threats and risks, and engage in a serious and public discussion of national/alliance security strategies and military doctrines. While doing so, one has to be careful not to antagonize large groups of people, in particular Muslims, and not to alienate or undercut potential partners among Muslim moderates and modernizers.
- The political basis for this forward-looking agenda is cessation of strategic rivalry. This would require strategic and military transparency, which can help create trust. In particular, a joint approach to nuclear proliferation would need to be forged, as well as coordinated policies/strategies on regional security issues outside of the Euro-Atlantic area.
Practical areas of cooperation would include:
- Missile defense collaboration is a true game-changer in US-Russian relations. A global US-Russian and a regional NATO-Russian strategic cooperation featuring a Europe-wide regional coordinated (sopryazhennyy) ballistic missile defense (BMD) program would de-emphasize and de-prioritize nuclear deterrence. To be realistic, this collaboration needs to focus on likely sources of missile danger. It should also be based on clear strategic interest. To strike at the United States, for example, missiles from the likely sources – Iran and North Korea – will have to be launched over Russia’s territory. Intercepting them there, rather than over the North Atlantic or North America, would provide the United States with added protection. Also, Russia possesses not only strategically important territory, but conveniently positioned radars and advanced missile interceptors. Finally, efforts toward missile defense and progress toward nuclear disarmament are intimately interrelated. Harmonizing the two requires a new kind of strategic relations between the United States and Russia. A coordinated BMD system would include integrated surveillance and analysis assets, reporting to a joint data exchange center, and independently controlled weapons, thus making a dual key provision unnecessary. Each partner (the United States/NATO, Russia) would be acting within its designated area of responsibility. Currently, the focus of the United States/NATO is on theater missile defense (TMD), rather than BMD against ICBMs, but one needs to be able to operate within the broader context of layered defense, from short-range missiles to ICBMs. At minimum, nothing that the United States and Russia do now should prevent collaboration on missile defense in the future.
- Solving the frozen conflicts, starting with the Transnistrian one, but eventually also the conflicts in the South Caucasus. Reaching the ultimate settlement for Kosovo would be a good example.
- Defense industrial collaboration: co-development and co-production of weapons systems, particularly with participation of Russia, Ukraine, and NATO countries.
- Increasing inter-operability of military forces, achieving systems integration between NATO and non-NATO members states.
- Collaboration to enhance cyber security.
- Coordinated policies on regional security in Central Asia.
- Coordinated policies on Afghanistan.
- Coordinated policies to bolster stability in Central Asia.
- Joint peacekeeping and maritime security operations.
- Joint efforts to combat terrorism, piracy, drugs trafficking.
To deal with the CEE countries’ insecurity vis-à-vis Russia, Moscow needs to take the initiative to come up with a new enlightened policy toward its former satellites/provinces. Essentially, this should be a Peaceful Neighbor policy that takes account of the neighbors’ sensitivities. Such a policy would use both big and small steps, substance and symbolism. In the foreseeable future, it needs to include:
- Deepening and broadening the rapprochement with Poland, leading to a qualitatively new relationship between the two countries, akin to the one between Poland and Germany. Post-WWII and post–Cold War changes in Germany’s relations with neighbors – from France to Poland to Luxembourg – can serve as a reference, if not a model.
- Privileged political consultations, putting Warsaw firmly among Moscow’s half-dozen top interlocutors in the EU;
- Trilateral Polish-Russian-German exchanges;
- Opening the Soviet-era archives for historians, stimulating research and academic exchanges on historical issues;
- Youth exchanges programs, both bilateral Russo-Polish and multilateral;
- Extending the policies of rapprochement to the Baltic States;
- Forging a stable and equitable relationship between Russia and Ukraine;
- Overcoming hostility in Russian-Georgian relations.
Peaceful Neighbor policies are aimed at reconciliation between former enemies or forging new relations between the metropolitan and borderland parts of an empire. They work both ways. Russia’s neighbors need to learn to manage relations with that big country, in many cases a former hegemon or overlord. Both historical and current examples demonstrate this is not a mission impossible.
Other security issues in the Euro-Atlantic area
Besides the issues pitting Russia against the “old” and “new”/aspiring West, the Euro-Atlantic security field features a number of problems arising mainly from imperial collapse in the Balkans and the Caucasus/Black Sea region. These are all fully treatable threats. Some of them may be fenced off, but not indefinitely.
These include the unresolved conflicts over Nagorny Karabakh, in Cyprus, and the unsatisfactory condition of Kosovo. In some cases, there is a clear case for leadership. It is very much the responsibility of the European Union to lead on the Kosovo issue toward its full resolution.
The EU would also contribute to the Transnistrian settlement by indicating that a unified Moldova would have, in principle and under certain conditions, a prospect for EU membership. By the same token, it is Russia’s responsibility to lead on the Transnistrian issue, and – in cooperation with the United States and the EU in the Minsk Group, and Turkey in the region – to bring Armenia and Azerbaijan to agreement over Karabakh. An Azeri-Armenian war is thoroughly preventable.
Going beyond the well-known dilemma of national self-determination vs. inviolability of borders, one needs to work toward practical compromise solutions in each case, which would be acceptable to the parties involved, and formally legalized in relevant documents.
Conclusion and the way forward
To achieve the goal of a stable peace, one has to Think Big.
One also has to think in a new way. For example, the notion of equality – popular among some Russians – needs to be rethought. Not in terms of balance, that is, material weight, but in terms of moral standing and cross-perceptions of security community members as equals.
It is important to think inclusively, not exclusively. The Euro-Atlantic security community, while clearly defining its scope to be meaningful, need not create dividing lines between itself and other countries and regions. Actually, this is materially impossible. The United States is intimately linked, with countries of Latin America through the OAS, NAFTA, etc., forming a security community in the Western Hemisphere. The EU countries – through the Barcelona Process and NATO’s partnerships – are closely tied to the Mediterranean region, and also to Africa. The Russian Federation is allied to countries in Central Asia; Moscow also cultivates an important relationship with Beijing, in and outside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, etc.
It is crucial to think in new terms. Cold War and Great Game language throws countries back by reviving the ghosts from the past. One needs to come up with new semantics reflecting the realities of the 21st century and develop a new narrative that would permit advancement of a new identity. In fact, this is precisely what happened between the United States and Great Britain at the turn of the 20th century; between Germany and France after World War II; and between Western and Central Europe after the Cold War. The task at hand now is to finish the job of making Europe whole, at last, by extending the security community to the east of the continent, without exception. This is only possible through changing the strategic mentality across the Euro-Atlantic space.
Think domestically as well as internationally. Russia faces the mammoth task of domestic transformation – societal and political, as well as economic and technological. A security reform is very much part of this. Whether Russia is able to modernize at this stage will be crucial for the purposes of strengthening the nascent security community in the Euro-Atlantic, and guaranteeing that it will not collapse. Material and mental change in Russia is bound to lead to changes in the way the country is perceived elsewhere in Europe and in North America. However, de-demonizing Russia is a favor that other countries could and should do.
Think in practical terms. Nothing is possible without men, Jean Monnet is often quoted as saying; and nothing is lasting without institutions. The Euro-Atlantic security initiative needs to be operationalized. Programmatic guidance by enlightened leaders; an intellectual movement to generate ideas and enhance their impact; lobbying for support among politicians, business, and opinion leaders are the necessary ingredients for empowering the change, which is long overdue.
Act promptly. Mind the sudden shutters on windows of opportunity. President Obama’s tenure, Russian leaders’ interest in modernization, and Yanukovych’s presidency in Ukraine all have their limits. Also consider that while NATO’s new Strategic Concept is to be unveiled before the end of 2010, NATO’s decision on missile defense in Europe is still pending. Whether Russia is part of it or not will make a difference.
Dmitri Trenin is Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.