6:48, 26 October 2009
By Riccardo Alcaro and Emiliano Alessandri
In spite of the recent warming, mutual trust between the West and Russia remains a distant goal. Russia continues to be dissatisfied with the political and security outline of post-Cold War Europe, which, it feels, reflects insufficiently its security concerns. It remains consequently committed to a revisionist agenda (especially in the former Soviet space), confronting the United States and the European Union with the difficult task of choosing the approach that would best serve their long-term security interests.
Adopting a strategy of ‘soft’ containment, as was suggested in particular after Russia’s intervention in Georgia, would amount to conceiving of the relationship with Russia as a zero-sum game. The least one can envisage is a situation in which parties display some self-restraint but the relationship remains intrinsically conflictual.
Some European countries, most notably Germany and Italy, have apparently opted for a kind of ‘appeasement’, in the hope that deeper economic integration and political dialogue would assure greater influence over Russia than detachment or criticism. Evidence, however, points in the opposite direction. Even Germany, arguably Moscow’s most important partner, has not been able to have any significant impact on Russia’s international behaviour.
Another option is ‘selective engagement’, in which the West and Russia would concentrate on areas of overlapping interest only (such as nuclear proliferation, arms control, counter-terrorism and other non-security matters like global financial stability, climate change, etc.). But neglecting or leaving aside the areas of competing interests for the sake of peace is short-sighted and self-defeating, since issues like Georgia and Ukraine’s applications to enter NATO cannot be kept off the agenda indefinitely.
Thus, what is needed is a strategy of engagement which is at the same time comprehensive and proactive. This strategy should exclusively aim to have Russia take on the role of a responsible stakeholder in a multi-pillar security arrangement in Europe comprising NATO, the United States, the European Union, and Russia. A process of reform narrowing the gap in values between Russia and the West can in the end take place as an indirect consequence of a more constructive interaction, but it is not a constitutive part of the strategy since the point is transforming the Western-Russian security relationship, not Russia itself.
The effectiveness of this engagement strategy is related to a unity of purpose both at the transatlantic and European levels. The difficulties that the United States and the Europeans have often found in coalescing around common positions stem from a different order of priorities concerning Russia. The United States focuses almost entirely on geopolitics, while Europeans are unable to harmonise the much wider and more complex set of issues they are confronted with due to their geographic proximity to Russia and their strong reliance on its energy supplies. However, particular interest configurations do not automatically dictate policy positions, as illustrated by the fact that the same American administration has sometimes held different attitudes towards Russia, and that European Union Member States with comparable interests sometimes have diverging approaches (for instance, a high level of energy dependence does not automatically translate into a more acquiescent stance towards Russia). Reconstituting cohesion both within Europe and across the Atlantic is therefore a matter of political choice.
The long-term objective of the strategy of engagement is a security compact based on the vision of Europe as a single security space. The absence of such long-term vision is detrimental to Western interests as it engenders misunderstandings within the Western camp while not fostering security. Nothing testifies to this fact more convincingly than the controversies surrounding NATO enlargement to Georgia and Ukraine. In hindsight, it seems safe to say that offering the prospect of NATO membership to countries that offer no solid guarantee of reliability and have unsolved disputes with their neighbours was a faux pas. Allies, however, cannot realistically renege on their promise lest their credibility suffer a serious blow. New and more advanced solutions, overcoming the membership/non-membership dichotomy, should be explored. The allies should convey to Moscow the message that Georgia and Ukraine have the right to choose their international course in full autonomy and that their independence is key to Europe’s stability. They should also make clear, however, that NATO membership is by no means a corollary to this position and that they can accept that the legitimate security concerns of Georgia and Ukraine be addressed within a broader framework which includes Russia.
Recognising that NATO cannot exhaust all Europe’s security needs, Europeans and Americans may find it worth responding to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s call for a ‘new Euro-Atlantic security architecture’. The Alliance would be a constituent part of it, alongside a European Union able to act as a security provider, the United States, and Russia. A new European security treaty, as hinted at by Medvedev, seems beyond reach for the time being, but a political compact is feasible and actually should become a top priority of the security policies of European Union Member States and Russia and of the European policy of the United States.
NATO members should consider ratification of the updated Conventional Armed Forces in Europe treaty as the effects of the treaty’s entry into force would pay off more than sticking to the unrealistic demand that Russia withdraws troops from Georgia and Moldova. Progress on nuclear forces reduction and the scrapping of the missile shield plan in East Europe are also something the Kremlin should consider worth paying a price for.
Missile defence is of particular relevance. It is now impossible for Russia’s leaders to keep dismissing American assurances that the ballistic missile threat the shield is expected to protect from emanates from Iran and not Russia. But Moscow would incur in a regrettable error of judgement if it were to regard Obama’s decision as just the correction of a blunder. On the contrary, the fact that Obama has taken his decision ‘unilaterally’ (that is, without directly linking it to Moscow’s readiness to make concessions on other issues of concern) is a signal that the Americans are more willing than in the past to recognise Russia’s status as an independent interlocutor when it comes to deal with international controversies. Moscow would be unwise not to consider the benefits to reciprocate Obama’s move by supporting more incisive action on Iran.
Afghanistan is another area which should be part of the compact. Given NATO’s high stakes in Afghanistan, the United States and its European partners should give Russia assurances that they have no intention of establishing a permanent military presence in Central Asia. At the same time, they should miss no occasion to politely remind the Kremlin that a never-ending conflict in Afghanistan, coupled with its dangerous extension into Pakistan, would present a more direct threat to Russia than to distant America and Europe. The latter should therefore emphasise that, under the current circumstances, the focus in the region should be on security and stability rather than competition for influence, and work on widening the scope of NATO-Russia cooperation in containing the Taleban challenge.
A European security space can hardly be conceived of without addressing the question of energy or, better, the security implications of Russia’s energy policy. The European Union’s massive dependence on Russia’s supplies, in particular, causes much concern in both America and Europe. The reality is however more complex – and less troubling – than the vulgarised media version of a European Union in thrall of Russia’s state-controlled supply companies. Moscow’s energy leverage stems not from the European Union’s dependence, but from the deep asymmetry of the Russia-European Union energy relationship, since the level of imports from Russia varies significantly among the Member States. This asymmetry has often been to Moscow’s advantage, as Russia has managed to clinch bilateral deals on favourable terms. Diversification of source countries is usually presented as a geopolitical imperative, but advocates of this policy too often fail to add that it would hardly solve the ‘dependence’ problem.
In fact, the European Union’s reliance on Russia’s deliveries is expected to rise anyway. The European Union should therefore make use of its leverage on Russia (after all, Russia is as dependent on the European Union’s deliveries as the European Union is on its supplies) to negotiate firmer guarantees of no supply interruptions in its new ‘strategic partnership’ agreement with Russia; insist on reciprocity as the rule governing access of Russian companies to its energy market; and standardise the procedures of the Member States’ deals with Russia (like Nord Stream and South Stream) so as to ensure that they do not put the needs of any bypassed Member States at risk. A stabilised energy relationship between the European Union and Russia would rein in American concerns about Russia exploiting energy exports as a foreign policy tool, and incentivise a healthy de-securitisation of energy, which is consistent with and arguably a constitutive part of the vision of Europe as a single security space.
By committing to the idea of a single European security space, the United States and Europe would lend strategic coherence to their effort to normalise relations with Moscow, as they would rely on a framework where both transatlantic and intra-European Union differences might be reconciled. Anchored to a shared, long-term objective, the American-European engagement with Russia would then be less prone to fall victim of every and each contingency. By pro-actively engaging with Russia on the issues to which it is most susceptible, the United States and European Union Member States could be more effective than by confronting it. They would address Moscow’s legitimate concerns while demanding that it behaves responsibly. An unresponsive Russia would risk condemning itself to the very condition it claims to have been fighting against in the last years: that of being excluded and contained.
[Update: To read a response to this article by James Rogers, please click here.]
