Imperatives of constructing a new security system in the Euro-Atlantic region*

The European Union and its member-states rashly take for granted the reports their think tanks produce to the effect that it's business as usual, that the security structures they have created are quite reliable because they are self-sufficient, that all the others, including the Russian Federation, are quite ready and willing to content themselves with the status-quo or are even seeking to preserve it.

This is an erroneous interpretation of the wisdom of our recent common history. The first global economic and financial crisis has taught us plenty of things. We should have learnt a lot from a whole range of armed conflicts at different stages of escalation that we see unfolding. No less important are the lessons we should learn from the potential threats and new security challenges on the rise everywhere.

Power and influence, economic, military and military-political might in the world are becoming ever more diffused. The factors undermining international stability are becoming increasingly multidirectional in character. In this environment, it is impossible to cope with the negative trends by applying specific ad hoc measures, which NATO, the EU and their member-states are still banking on.

The situation dictates the need to pool the efforts and resources of all the states, their alliances and unions that are ready and willing to do so, to ensure genuinely indivisible security. The situation requires that all the prejudices and bias of the past, which still continue to poison international relations, including those between Russia and NATO, Russia and the EU and its member-states, should be relinquished. It moves to the fore of public policy the main priority, i.e. inclusive joint management of international processes, international cooperation and, above all, coordination in countering common and global threats.

Cold War's Accursed Legacy

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. A refreshing wave of velvet revolutions swept the continent. A large group of new countries emerged in the territory of the former Soviet Union, which were seeking renewal and whose foreign and domestic policies were being shaped. All the participants of those events, all the political forces, and the populations at large sincerely believed that the times of change were in the offing. Life would get better. The family of European peoples would be reunified. The dividing lines of the past would disappear. Hostility and confrontation would give way to allied relations, because mutually incompatible ideologies no longer place countries and political elites on opposite sides of the barricade. The ideological conflict had also become a thing of the past.

Two decades have passed since. But even the minimum program has not yet been implemented. The tenets and stereotypes of the Cold War have proved to be extremely tenacious. They thwart all the bold and innovative initiatives. The reflexes of the Cold War still linger on. Relapses of the Cold War still occur. The ghosts of the Cold War have not disappeared from our mentality and are still very much part of the political discourse and political decision-making mechanisms. Just read what the press wrote about the 5-day war in the South Caucuses in August and September of 2008 - and you will have no doubts left.

Moreover, the old political forces, keen on keeping the Cold War stereotypes intact, have survived, and similarly-minded new political forces have emerged. They continue to skillfully cultivate the image of an external enemy in the minds of the political class of Europe, nurture and foster it. They need the image to secure new military orders, rally the nationalist-minded electorate behind them, fight their political opponents, cling to power and sustain the illusion in the USA, within NATO and the EU that they are important, influential and reliable. The set of Cold War instruments remains in demand both in terms of ideology and practical policies.

The EU and NATO declare with tender emotion that the division of the continent has come to an end. They triumphantly report that the historic mission has been accomplished, that they succeeded in reunifying the continent. This is an undisguised distortion of facts. It is either a figure of omission or self-delusion.

In fact, what they did was to move the line of division and the dividing lines eastward, absorbing the former countries of the socialist camp and some of the countries that emerged in the post-Soviet space. No one intends to downplay these accomplishments: Central and East European countries needed political certainty and support of their choice. But the point we are making is different altogether.

NATO's and the EU's expansion did not accomplish the historic mission of reunifying the whole continent. Indeed, it could not have accomplished it. It was the USSR that had been seen as the West's adversary and a threat to it. Thus, without Russia's participation as the main successor state to the Soviet Union no reunification of the continent is possible.

The configuration of the Cold War division in Europe, despite NATO and the EU enlargement or, to be more precise, due to it, has remained intact. Consequently, so has the bitter, unfair and unbearable legacy of the Cold War. This legacy slows down disastrously the economic growth of the countries in the region, hampers the establishment of a common economic space and leads to ever more lost opportunities. Due to this legacy, political stability on the continent is lower than it would be desirable by an order of magnitude, and lower than it could have been under different circumstances.

Institutional Deficiency or the Absence of a Security System in the Euro-Atlantic region

The security structure on the continent credibly reflects the situation. NATO was created to countervail the USSR, to contain and deter it, to defend its member-countries from the USSR's possible attack. This military-political Alliance has never had any other functional mission as important as this one. But lately, instead of defense, which has actually ceased to be necessary, NATO has embarked upon conducting out-of-area military operations.

Indeed, Stalin, to no lesser degree than Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, was one of the midwives of the EU. Talking about this is considered inappropriate, and more often than not this tends to be ignored. But the EU was created during the Cold War and the ideology underlying the EU activities and its practical policies bear the inerasable imprint of the Cold War.

The Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) also came into being as a product of the Cold War. Yet the purpose of the Helsinki process had been quite different. It was launched to defuse tensions in relations between the two blocs. One of its most significant upshots, the CFE Treaty (the original one, not its adapted version) was built on an inter-bloc foundation and permeated by inter-bloc ideology.

The OSCE has never found its role in the new environment. It did not become an umbrella structure with regard to NATO and the EU, as Russia had insisted. It did not acquire a new mission. Even worse, Moscow believes, NATO and the EU have turned the OSCE into a screen, a political cover-up for pursuing their lop-sided and narrow-minded egotistic policies in the Balkans and in the post-Soviet space. The crisis in the OSCE was vividly illustrated by the impasse it found itself in when Russia's proposals were debated on reforming the Organization, on the need to adopt its Charter and regulate its functioning. The depth of the crisis was borne out by the unraveling of the CFE Treaty regime.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is another important geostrategic actor in the sphere of security on the continent. Russia is the fulcrum and the major driving force of the CSTO. However, because of the adamantly obstructionist stand of NATO and the EU with regard to the CSTO there is no interaction between them. All the proposals to this effect have invariably been rejected. This is done, in particular, under the pretext that the CSTO is still in an embryonic state. This argument is only partly true, though it can hardly be doubted that the CSTO is only building up its authority and influence.

In the long term, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will increasingly contribute to maintaining security in Eurasia. Even now it is active and comes up with various initiatives. Its missions include maintaining security. The role the SCO intends to play is determined by the fact that it is the world's biggest regional organization. Yet, so far it has no contacts with the Euro-Atlantic structures, which also seems strange. Both in terms of common sense and objective needs, there is no logic in such a state of things whatsoever. What can be discerned there, however, is the logic of political rivalry.

Thus, in the Euro-Atlantic region there seem to function quite a few international structures, organizations and associations, but none of them deals with overall regional security. They do not ensure or guarantee it. Security space remains fragmented, divided and patchy. In practice, there is no collective security, as has been demonstrated in the case of Yugoslavia and, subsequently, Serbia. Nor is there indivisible or equal security for all, which had been histrionically proclaimed by the OSCE documents and joint statements and declarations of NATO member-states and Russia.

Moreover, the security space is structured in a way that automatically generates contradictions, misunderstandings and suspicion. In turn, these give rise to mutual distrust and destabilize the situation in the Euro-Atlantic region. Such partnership and cooperation structures as the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) and the EU-Russia political and sectoral dialogues at summit, ministerial and high-ranking civil servants' level, including the Permanent Partnership Councils in different configurations, purportedly are called upon to serve as bridges between Russia and NATO, Russia and the EU. But let us not delude ourselves: in fact, they only serve to legalise a divided Europe and legitimise the absence of a common security space, while the opposite is necessary.

All these structures proceed from the assumption that, on the one hand, there is NATO and the EU, on the other - there is Russia, and an insurmountable barrier exists between them, which it would be desirable to surmount. Yet these structures only serve to perpetuate the existence of this barrier and confrontation, but cannot overcome them. They are simply incapable of doing it. They are designed in a way that makes it impossible for them. They have neither the powers nor the set of instruments - virtually nothing - to do it.

They are not authorized to take binding decisions. No one vested such powers in them. Brussels would not hear of it. No other mechanisms of making binding decisions have been established, however makeshift, primitive or palliative.

Nor do these structures have in-built obligatory mechanisms and procedures of dispute settlement. They are not provided for. They do not exist. Even those non-obligatory ones that do exist are easily transformed into their opposite. This was graphically evidenced by the crisis in relations between Russia and NATO, and Russia and the EU in connection with Georgia's military attack against South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers, Russia's response measures and NATO's and the EU's inadequate reaction.

Political documents proclaimed that the NRC was to prevent such things and render assistance in situations like that. However, it was blocked. That was absurd. It defies credibility. But that is how it was.

The mechanisms designed to manage interaction, envisaged by the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Russia and the EU and its member-states, also failed. The French President undertook mediation actually under the cover of his country's rotating presidency of the EU. Russia and the EU in no time flat found an ad hoc solution for that specific case. It worked. But it is impossible by definition to build long-term cooperation on the basis of ad hoc solutions.

At the same time, the EU and NATO countries have mastered to perfection the methods of politicizing bilateral disputes with Moscow and giving them Europe-wide resonance. By the same token, they took on board the techniques of conflict escalation. Examples are numerous. The simplest one is the deployment of NATO fighters to the Baltic countries at their insistent request to police the air space along their border with Russia. There was no need to do so whatsoever. In Russia, it caused a storm of anger and indignation. A somewhat more complex example is the negotiations between Brussels and Moscow on a new fundamental EU-Russia agreement, which both sides need so much, torpedoed for almost two years due to a routine trade dispute between an EU member state and Russia.

The security agenda of the above structures viewed through the prism of strategic aims related to promoting indivisible security and a profound deepening of partnership relations, is confined to strictly subordinate, peripheral matters, whereas the core issues of dramatic importance concerning internal military planning and development are excluded from it. The EU and NATO's prime concern consists in preventing Russia from obtaining, not to say exercising, a veto on matters of security. However, without a multilateral diplomacy and mechanisms to prevent incorrect, incautious and one-sided decisions no common security would be possible.

Therefore, a common security is non-existent. A couple of joint missions of the kind performed by combat helicopters and their crews to support the EU operations in Tropical Africa or coordinated action against the Somali pirates do not count, nor does the work on a crisis resolution agreement begun by Moscow and Brussels.

Shifting the blame

Yet in the current security vacuum characterized by the hoax of equal and indivisible security and a lack of common security structures many statesmen, politicians, military commanders and experts in NATO and EU member-states are clearly juggling with facts. It is being alleged that Russia seeks to maintain the status quo, implying the Kremlin's extremely negative attitude to plans of drawing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. As one could see, there is nothing to maintain.

It was in his famous Munich speech that following unsuccessful attempts to bring home his concerns to the EU and NATO leaders, Vladimir Putin, then in office as president, publicly expressed Russia's dissatisfaction with the current situation. Putin's speech caused an almost unanimous uproar in the West and was immediately stuck with all the traditional labels of the Cold War rhetoric, the only reason for criticism being that instead of whitewashing the reality as befits the unwritten rules of political correctness, the Russian politician had dared call a spade a spade.

As regards the initiative of the incumbent Russian president D.A.Medvedev on signing a European Security Treaty (EST), it does not at all seek to maintain a status quo unacceptable to Russia. Rather, it aims to set in motion, albeit with a twenty-year delay, the building of common security foundations in the Euro-Atlantic region.

The second, equally artificial allegation may be summed up as follows: Medvedev's initiative must be caused by Russia's dissatisfaction with its place in the system of Euro-Atlantic security where, having failed to become part of it, Russia has no role to play. Indeed, dissatisfied Russia is. Indeed, the current situation is unacceptable to Russia and it will never tolerate attempts to portray the heavy legacy of the Cold War as an ideal Euro-Atlantic international system. But it would be absolutely impossible to occupy a dignified place in or become integrated into what is non-existent. Hence, Moscow's clear and unequivocal call for a Euro-Atlantic security system in which it will play a natural, indeed a substantial, role. The difference is evident.

The above said, however, is but one aspect of the problem. There is another, which is that Moscow also finds the existing Euro-Atlantic security configuration ineffective, and therefore, unacceptable. Unable to prevent disregard of peace and stability ideals, the current system condones lawlessness while failing to address any of the key tasks needed to diminish threats and challenges facing the world.

Over the past twenty years the US, NATO and the EU have occupied the leading positions in the world, a factor now defining the security configuration in the Euro-Atlantic area. They have turned into de-facto custodians of international peace and stability while Russia remained self-immersed and China was building up muscle. As to the Non-Aligned Movement, it has lost all influence. The Euro-Atlantic leadership has produced catastrophic results.

Nuclear arms are inexorably spreading across the planet whereas the triumvirate has done nothing to nip this process in the bud. India and Pakistan have gate-crashed the nuclear club making the world hostage of their rivalry. The half-hearted sanctions temporarily imposed on them have been pointless and ineffective from the outset. Now Israel and North Korea also have nuclear weapons of their own, with others seeking possession, both openly and in secrecy. The world is almost on the brink of bursting aflame like a gunpowder barrel. Then all rational perceptions of world politics and international relations will prove futile and no measure of missile defense will give protection. After all, a nuclear device could be exploded anywhere, not to mention the nightmare of potential blackmail should a nuclear warhead fall into the hands of a terrorist network not in a Hollywood, but in a real-life scenario.

As before, the Middle East conflict is sending waves of tension across the globe constantly fuelling a veritable clash of civilizations, impeding progress in various negotiation processes and undermining the normal functioning of many international organizations by diverting attention away from other, no less important issues. The triumvirate, however, has done next to nothing for its resolution, with the actual contribution being a minimal one. Just as many times in the past, the conflict in the Middle East may reach a boiling point at any given moment.

In all parts of the globe there has been a growing number of wars, internal and international armed conflicts, both blazing and smoldering, in which record numbers of human lives are being lost. Some of those have either been provoked or unleashed by the triumvirate itself thus making it directly responsible. Mankind has made no significant progress towards eliminating the endogenous causes of such conflicts, nor has the number of failing states diminished, despite the many billions of development aid money sent in assistance of local and regional problem resolution.

The USA and NATO have stood at the head of the anti-terrorist coalition in which the EU and its member-states are playing a vital role. But they are losing their battle against terrorism – first and foremost in Afghanistan, but also elsewhere as terrorism is taking a strong root in all troubled nations and regions. The war on organized crime, illicit drug trafficking, etc. seems to be following a similar defeatist scenario, which renders the internal and the external security of all Euro-Atlantic nations ephemeral. Russia, in particular, is feeling painfully affected.

Regrettably, even without venturing into the spheres of financial, economic or energy security, the above list of grievances could still be continued. However, the conclusion is already evident and it would be foolish to try and disprove it. The existing security configuration with its extremely poor record does not meet the current needs and should be transformed as soon as possible. A re-formatted and an upgraded system will need to take account of everyone's interests, including those of NATO and the EU member-states as well as of Russia.

Positive change program

The sphere of security is known to be extremely inert, where all change has to be preceded by a ripening of necessary prerequisites, both objective and subjective ones.

The objective prerequisites are already there consisting in the concurrence of interests on a scope of issues between Russia and NATO on the one hand, and between Russia and the EU with its member-states on the other. Consider also a synergy effect likely to result from pooling their resources, capabilities and efforts. Another consideration is that destructive rivalry will lead nowhere and those indulging in it are only inflicting damage to themselves by undermining their own positions. Only through joint effort will they be able to prevent further degradation of the security sphere, reverse the situation and overcome global threats and challenges, providing a universal security for all.

As regards subjective prerequisites, they have been non-exisistent so far. However, D.A.Medvedev's EST initiative has done a lot for them to appear. Initially his initiative was received with outright hostility – we have already seen why. But the harder the Russian politicians, diplomats and the expert community worked to promote the idea, with more and more discourse tracks emerging in the process and a closer attention being paid, the more evident was becoming the following: there is something to it after all. The initiative did not materialize out of thin air; it takes account of actual needs and it is for real.

Hence the need to maintain the effort to explain Medvedev's initiative at both - political and professional- levels. It is necessary to multiply the number of negotiating forums by engaging more and more knowledgeable persons in the debate. Work needs to be done on drafting concrete proposals and documents. Then realization of the need to re-construct the Euro-Atlantic security structures can be expected to take root. Meanwhile, subjective prerequisites for real practical steps and strategic decisions will also ripen.

In order to achieve all of the aforesaid one other ingredient is necessary – that of securing support of the media, non-profit organizations (NPOs) and the civil society in the nations concerned. They must be engaged as allies capable of neutralizing all those negative messages constantly injected into the public consciousness. Indeed, it is an open secret that the Russian media are demonizing NATO while also foretelling the EU a near disintegration and demise. The media in the EU and NATO member states, for their part, engage in slandering the Kremlin's domestic and foreign policies while NPOs are fixated on attaching strings to constructive cooperation. They should take a panoramic, bird's eye, instead of a parochial, narrow view of the security situation to allow a realistic assessment. Having taken such a view and becoming appalled by the spectacle, the media, NPOs and the civil society will serve as social pillars in the process of modernizing international relations and the security sphere in the Euro-Atlantic area. They will transform themselves into an intellectual pool of ideas and considerations to be implemented in further practical work.

That, among other things, is what Medvedev's initiative aims to achieve. Moscow has never before intended and has no intention now to impose ready-made solutions on anyone, not that such solutions are easy to find, if truth be told. The initiative says: there is a problem to address, let us address it together. It sends an invitation to an open, sincere and meaningful dialogue. It suggests building security safeguards and structures together, for only together could common approaches be found and a political culture of partnership, mutual understanding and trust be formed. Only by moving off the ground could viable, strategic and mutually acceptable solutions be found.

To a considerable extent, the Russian initiative relies on self-development fuelled by its stated objectives being tuned to the actual needs of the region as a whole. Such an approach seems to be bearing fruit with intensive bilateral consultations already under way and the Corfu process launched within the OSCE framework. Concrete proposals have been made at the political level, and many new interesting ideas concerning the disarmament agenda, confidence-building measures and institution-building mechanisms have been aired at the expert community forums.

The EST project officially delivered by the Russian side to NATO, the EU, the OSCE and their respective member-states, will neither obliterate nor substitute the aforesaid efforts. Rather, it could be built into them as a single-theme project whose theme is seen as a key one by Moscow. It is meant to put mutual Euro-Atlantic indivisible security commitments on a treaty basis and to establish international conflict prevention and de-escalation procedures to underpin indivisible security structures. In conjunction with many other measures concerning all the key issues of increased confidence-building and cooperation in the joint struggle against common and global threats, the EST initiative would lay down a totally new foundation of Euro-Atlantic security.

Medvedev's initiative deserves a serious in-depth analysis, but there are also other attention-deserving ideas and proposals offered for public scrutiny. Some are designed to specify the general norms of international law and the key notions of cooperative, collective and inclusive indivisible security, while others foresee measures to establish joint structures for evaluating and monitoring potential threats and suggesting recommendations for their prevention. Still others analyze ways and means of building a new umbrella framework to allow coordinated effort of international organizations operating in the security sphere. There are also new ideas and proposals in a number of related areas.

The Russian initiative looks particularly attractive and promising because it dedicates all effort, all negotiations and all discussions to the cause of achieving through cumulative effect its principal goal – that of providing increased and genuinely guaranteed security for all Euro-Atlantic nations and their peoples.

© Professor Mark L. ENTIN, LL.D, Director, ESI, MGIMO (U)

* The print version of intervention at the conference “The Frontiers of Europe: A Transatlantic Problem?” Rome, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 5–7 July, 2010, of Professor Mark Entin, Ph.D. (Law), Director of the European Studies Institute at MGIMO, Moscow.

№10(48), 2010