Russia has long been viewed by the West as a Raskolnikov type figure: a state fluctuating between extremes and unsure of its place in the world. President Obama's recent visit to Moscow has not helped allay these perceptions, especially with his references to the Russian leadership's supposed Cold War mentality. Russia's take on affairs is not just conditioned by its experiences of the Cold War, but rather geopolitical fears that have existed in the Russian mindset since at least the eighteenth century. Above all else, Russia does not want to be constrained militarily on its borders and it wants to feel that it is a great power once more.
Russia still feels, rightly or wrongly, that it is being hemmed-in by the US and Europe. Balancing the dynamic between Eurasian geopolitics and Russia's pride is key to successfully fostering a more cooperative Russia.
Handling Russia's geopolitical fears requires a delicate approach. On the one hand, Russia cannot do much about NATO's or the EU's enlargement further eastwards. NATO and EU membership requires that prospective members engage in a deeper process of democratisation, and it is this that represents an uncomfortable prospect for the Russian elite especially if its citizens start demanding more political freedoms. Georgia's and the Ukraine's trajectory towards NATO and EU accession is, however, not something that Russia has a determining say over. Only the governments of these countries can decide their own fates and their strategic partnerships.
With this said, one must question whether Georgia's and the Ukraine's membership of NATO and the EU will give these countries added protection against Russia. It does not at all seem clear, for example, that NATO would invoke Article 5 of the Charter should Russia intervene in Georgia once more. Indeed, with resources concentrated on Afghanistan the US would be severely constrained in its ability to back-up its displeasure with Russia's activities in Eurasia with a military response. The danger here is that when states such as Georgia do become NATO and EU members they will not necessarily gain the security they crave from Russian dominance in the region.
One way to ease Russian belligerence would be for the US to move the proposed US missile defence system away from Poland and closer to the Middle-East. Such a move would not just abate Russia's concerns about US missiles on its doorstep, but also afford all NATO members with protection: a system based in Poland would not protect Greece or Turkey. Scrapping the system could possibly give Russia less reason to question US motives in Eastern Europe, and would certainly give it less of a rationale to stamp its authority in neighbouring states.
Where Russia's pride is concerned the West can do little. In this regard, the emerging power should realise that the vacuum left in the post-Cold War world by the Soviet Union cannot now be filled with military strength. Accordingly, Russia would do better by instead concentrating on building its economic power - indeed, Russia's military power has never been in doubt but its economic power has wavered on many occasions. Russia will do well to seek closer relations with the EU's common market through a new strategic-partnership agreement that stresses economic over security issues.
Russia should also keep its head-down and get-on with trying to diversify its economy away from natural energy resources. Russia's current ability to use energy as a "weapon" will not last for long, especially when one considers that the US and Europe are taking steps to wean themselves off of gas and oil. Concentrating on economic development rather than military posturing will no doubt increase Russia's credibility vis-à-vis the US and Europe. In this sense, Russia should take inspiration from the way the EU has become a powerful actor in international relations through economic and not military power.
Greater cooperation with Russia will occur when the US and Europe show a healthy respect for Russia's needs and not when politicians dabble in harmful rhetoric. Language that implies Russia is still living in a Cold War world will not secure cooperation. Russia will become more cooperative when it is truly valued by other powers, and when it feels that its geopolitical pressures have been purged.
Daniel Fiott is working as an independent journalist based in Cambridge (UK).
Related Materials from the Atlantic Community:
- Thomas Speckmann: A nightmare, Obama Wants Nuclear Disarmament
- Editorial Team: A Future with Russia as a Strategic Partner?
- Andrey Chubyk: European Energy Security Requires Transparancy
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July 20, 2009
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In a speech he delivered in Berlin last June, Medvedev suggested that an "all-European summit" be convened to draft a new security arrangement to govern relations between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community. He indicated that the new pact should attempt to build on the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. If final product, under Medvedev’s scenario, would be a “Helsinki Plus” agreement that created new guidelines for inter-state relations.
At the time of Medvedev’s Berlin speech, ties between Russia and the West had already been damaged by NATO’s continued eastward expansion, Washington’s missile defence plans, Moscow’s decision to suspend its participation to the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, and Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence. The August 2008 Russian-Georgian war and the subsequent Russian-Ukrainian natural gas dispute further strained those relations.
New Security Treaty
In a keynote speech at the University of Helsinki on April 20th 2009, Medvedev also offered another glimpse of his designs for”new European security architecture," first floated in June 2008. Citing well known recent conflicts the Russian president said existing security organizations are no longer capable of guaranteeing Europe's security.
Recalling that 2010 will mark the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, the President said the future treaty on European Security should be seen a ‘Helsinki plus’ treaty. It should be viewed as the confirmation, continuation and effective implementation of the principles and instruments born out of the Helsinki process, but adapted to the end of ideological confrontation and the emergence of new subjects of international law.
Medvedev also repeated Russia's call for a new security pact to replace NATO, an idea that initially got a cool response when first broached at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) meeting in Helsinki in December. Russia has said NATO is a Cold War relic. It wants a legally binding pact enshrining arms control, a commitment not to use force, and guarantees that no single state or group of states can take a dominant role in the continent's security.
Russia is inviting all states and organizations operating on the European continent to work together to come up with coherent, up-to-date and, most importantly, effective rules of the game. For this work neither NATO nor the EU seems fully appropriate, because there are countries that do not belong to either. The same applies to organizations such as the CIS or CSTO. It could take place at a summit of the OSCE but of course in Russia’s view there is a problem with the OSCE as well. According Russia the OSCE has focussed on solving partial, sometimes even peripheral security issues, and this is not enough. Therefore, Russia proposes another forum which could lead to a productive dialogue among all parties without exception.
The Russian President said the new Euro-Atlantic treaty should replace the imperfect arrangements that are and create an undivided security area encompassing the hemispheric band from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The basic principles in the treaty are compliance with international law, respect of sovereignty, control of arsenals, renunciation of force and resolution of conflicts through peaceful talks.
New Energy Charter
Same day when Medvedev made his key note speech, Russia made public their “Conceptual Approach to the New Legal Framework for Energy Cooperation (Goals and Principles). Russia gave the documents to G8, G20, CIS countries, international organisations, and our neighbouring countries. The conceptual approaches to a new legal base in international energy cooperation consists of three sections, which are
* The first one contains the international energy cooperation principles, which must be included in the new international legal act.
* The second section contains elements of an agreement governing [energy] transit, an integral part of which will be an agreement on resolving transit conflicts.
* The third section contains a list of energy materials and products that Russia suggest applying these legal acts to. So, besides gas or oil, also all other energy products, including nuclear fuel, electricity, coal, and all the other goods traded by in the energy sector.
According Russia it would be advisable to elaborate a new universal international legally binding instrument, which, unlike the existing Energy Charter-based system, would include all major energy-producing (exporting) countries, countries of transit, and energy consumers (importers) as its Parties and cover all aspects of global energy cooperation. The new framework would according Russia create transparency of all international energy market segments production/export, transit, consumption/import.
Updating old or building new?
The core question for further development of Russia’s security initiative is from which platform start the process. There has been and is different scenarios about this.
USA's long-standing preference for NATO as the transatlantic institution of choice has several explanations. The Alliance has been successful — at least until Afghanistan — and it helped the West win the Cold War without firing a shot. NATO's job, as British Secretary-General Lord Ismay famously put it in 1967, was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." But rather than close up shop with mission accomplished in the early 1990s, the 1949-founded pact sought to find a new purpose.
Then there is the proposal to open NATO to Russia. The Russians favored this option throughout the 1990s and even during Putin's first term in office; today this option seems quite unrealistic.
Yet another option is to resuscitate the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and turn it into a real pan-European security organization. This was one of the ideas back in 1990, when the OSCE (then the CSCE) was still connected with the spirit of the Helsinki process. This is no longer the case. Through neglect and infighting, the OSCE has fallen into tragic disrepair.
EU is a bit question mark as leader of this project. Even if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified this year — a prerequisite for serious EU security policies — the European Union will still need to prove that it can act effectively in the face of crisis.
Realization
Did Russia's so-called Helsinki-plus initiative take a step forward in Helsinki, or not? Finland's chairmanship of the OSCE and the OSCE meeting that was held in Helsinki in December last year stuck closely to the line that the current structures are a good basis for agreement on European security issues.
Despite recent improvements in Russia-EU and Russia-NATO relations, Georgia, Ukraine, the three Baltic States and most Central and Eastern European countries -- all states that view NATO as the main pillar of Europe's security -- remain either openly hostile to, or extremely wary of the Russian security proposal.
By contrast, Azerbaijan and members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- a Russian-led regional body that brings together Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- support Medvedev's plan.
Bottom line
According Russia the proposals would be discussed at a prospective summit forum in Helsinki, to be called "Helsinki-plus". One summit is however only a tiny part of realization. When the Heads of State and Government of the CSCE met in Helsinki in 1975, the participating States had held more than 2400 meetings in Geneva, and deliberated on 4,660 proposals. So a new pact will require careful work and time.
Since 1975 the map of Europe has changed a lot, the same occurred to problems which today are more complicated and having various global aspects and local variants. From my point of view the international organizations managing security, economical and energy issues have not necessary developed with same scale – some updated structure could be suitable.
Two last decades have been giving many bad practices which – if copied – can make Europe with surrounding regions more unsecure. I think that now it is time at least discuss about lessons learned, develop and copy better practices. Will the outcome be a new structure or updated old one shall be seen but even more important is to start process itself.