Security Community*
Introduction
1. Dear colleagues, I would like to start my introductory remarks with a short diplomatic story. On 9/11 I was in Strasbourg as a chargé d'affaires of the Russian Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe. Next day we convened a Committee of Ministers meeting. I took the floor and expressed my country's solidarity with the people of the United States. I told them that Russia and USA are on the same side. We have the same enemies. We need to unite our efforts and resources to counter common threats. As far as Russia is concerned, we are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder in waging war against international terrorism and other evils of our time as we did during the time of World War II. Nobody took the floor that day, no representative of other European countries. Only ten days later countries of the European Union joined us in expressing solidarity and supported our proposals to strengthen through the Council of Europe the legal basis of international cooperation in the field of combating terrorism.
I. Objective need for cooperation and its acknowledgment
2. Nobody doubts any more now that Russia, USA, EU and third European countries have the same enemies, that we must withstand the same challenges and solve the same problems. All this could be achieved through enhanced partnership and efficient cooperation, especially on security issues. These are the objective needs of our time. The preconditions for close cooperation and partnership were created by people of the Russian Federation. More than 20 years ago, Moscow made it choice. It put an end to the Cold war and started on its path to democracy and the market economy. The ideological division of the path vanished. There are no antagonistic divergences among us anymore.
3. The objective necessity of partnership and cooperation in ensuring security is acknowledged by all parties. Moscow's position is explicitly expressed in Vladimir Putin's programme article “Russia and the changing world” published by the Moscovskiye Novosti newspaper. It says: “I do not doubt that we will continue on our constructive course to enhance global security, renounce confrontation, and counter such challenges as the proliferation of nuclear weapons, regional conflicts and crises, terrorism and drug trafficking … We will strive to ensure that transition to a new world order, one that meets current geopolitical realities goes smoothly and without unnecessary upheaval”.
4. Nearly the same about a constructive approach and cooperation though by other words is said in a number of statements, declarations and other documents produced by NATO, the EU, and the OSCE. Let me quote only one of them, the Strategic Concept for the Defense and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted at the NATO Summit in Lisbon 19-20 November 2010. In its points 33-34 we may read: “NATO-Russia cooperation is of strategic importance as it contributes to creating a common space of peace, stability and security. NATO poses no threat to Russia. On the contrary: we want to see a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia, and we will act accordingly, with the expectation of reciprocity from Russia … Notwithstanding differences on particular issues, we remain convinced that the security of NATO and Russia is intertwined and that strong and constructive partnership based on mutual confidence, transparency and predictability can best serve our security”.
II. Sad reality or symptoms of the disease
5. Such good intentions nevertheless are not transformed into practical deeds. Real politics in the sphere of security resemble very much the policy of economic protectionism so popular in the past, outlawed by the Group of 20 in its most important decisions. Major countries and blocks of countries stick to unilateral measures and try to promote their proper security interests at the expense of others.
6. There are more and more issues of a practical nature on which Russia and its western partners are unable to reach an agreement. The list is very long. The tendency towards shortening it is not on the horizon. It includes first of all:
6.1. Expansion of NATO that includes the deployment of a new military infrastructure with the U.S.-drafted plans to establish a missile defense system in Europe.
6.2. Unilateral use of force, abusive implementation of jointly imposed UN sanctions, and interference in internal conflicts on the side of forces supported from beyond the borders of the country.
6.3. Support of the Georgian claim to regain its former territories which gained independence.
6.4. A selective approach to cooperation in the soft security areas. One of the examples being blocking further measures to stop drug proliferation from Afghanistan and so on…
III. True disease
7. All these are not more than symptoms of the disease. The true disease is the deficiency of collective security in Eurasia.
7.1. There are a number of security organizations here, but none of them provide peace and security for the whole area, for all nations of the region. Competitive security structures cannot be treated as elements of a larger one. They impede its creation.
7.2. It is not true that NATO may ensure stability here. On the contrary NATO creates a division or even a gap. With its deeply entrenched block mentality and block policies it labels different states as allied countries and all others not, meaning that it may take measures unilaterally against each of them.
7.3. The persistent division of Europe into two parts with two different levels of security and cohesion de facto conserves the legacy of Cold war with its search for an enemy, the mentality of confrontation and etc.
7.4. Instead of creating an inclusive security it creates an exclusive one, where there is no equal place for others.
8. The second dimension of the same disease is a lack of trust. Both sides are suspicious about each other's plans and intentions.
8.1. In the beginning of the transition period there was much more trust. We may put it in another way. There was much more hope. After so many conflicts, in which western partners took a stand ignoring Russia's position – in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and etc. – a crisis of confidence and hope erupted.
8.2. NATO is not considered anymore as a strictly speaking defense community.
8.3. After so many years of cooperation no culture of working together, of taking each other's interests into consideration or of mutual concessions has emerged, as is the case in the EU or NATO.
9. The third dimension of the disease is the lack of an international forum where Eurasian interests could be articulated.
IV. Recommended cure
10. What is badly needed to ensure true security in Eurasia is a system of legal and material security guarantees for all its participants with an all-inclusive structure to express common interests, to reach compromises, take decisions and supervise their implementation.
11. Crucial elements or principles of this lacking system are:
- Indivisibility of security
- Equal security for everybody
- Comprehensive security
- Recognition of indivisibility between defensive and offensive strategic military systems
- Laying down of mutual agreements and understandings into law
- Rule of law in transnational relations
- Establishing relations of real strategic and efficient partnership between all security organizations in the area and between them and the UN
- Transformation of former defense structures into collective security organizations
- Tracking down a new global role for the OSCE.
12. To start thinking over and launch far reaching discussions of a Security Community from Vancouver to Vladivostok we need to create a permanent framework for negotiations with a clear cut mandate. In the past such an approach paved way for START, DOVCE, and the Helsinki Final act. It is likely to prove efficient this time as well.
13. At the same time we need to start creating favorable conditions for the success of such negotiations. They must include, inter alia, an end to demonizing each other, putting an end to information warfare and changing the mass media's attitudes.
14. The last but no less important element is the involvement of expert and civil society in supporting the concept of the Security Community and giving birth to it.
© Mark ENTIN, professor of international law,
director of the European studies institute
at MGIMO-University
* Introductory remarks at the Roundtable I. “Towards a Security Community: The vision of a Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian Security Community. The Rule of (International) Law as the Fundament of a Security Community. Indivisibility of Security” of the IV IDEAS Workshop “Towards a Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian Security Community”, Moscow, 3 July 2012.