Towards a New NATO-Russia Partnership

RUSSIA WATCH

Analysis and Commentary

No. 8, April 2002

Towards a New NATO-Russia Partnership

ussia and the West have reached a new turning point in their relations. After decades of depending on mutual assured destruction to guarantee peace, and a tense period of transition following the end of the Cold War, NATO and Russia are preparing a new future of European security together. As U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell described it, the post-Cold-War era in Europe is over and a new “post-post-Cold War” era has begun.

From the fall of the Soviet Union in August 1991 until September 11, 2001, NATO-Russian relations were characterized by caution and suspicion on both sides of the former iron curtain. While each side made numerous and significant adjustments to the new realities of the post-Cold War world, these came in a progression of small steps, unaccompanied by any persuasive new vision of the future.

Following the events of September 11, the pace of change has accelerated dramatically. New threats have emerged; new horizons have opened; and a chorus of world leaders have proposed bold new ideas for the future of global security. None have been more influential than those of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, in the immediate wake of September 11, proposed a new collaboration between Russia and the West. This initiative was seized upon by Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. President George W. Bush, and NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, whose essay appears in this special issue of Russia Watch (p. 11). As a result, we now stand at a fateful crossroads in the construction of a new security order in the Euro-Atlantic region.

At this crossroads, several questions must be confronted. First, where do the roads ahead of us lead? What are the possible futures for NATO-Russian relations? In particular, what does the promise of new cooperation really involve? Second, can NATO as an organization transform itself to meet the demands of the future without undermining the successful collective defense formula of its past? Third, if new institutions can be designed and

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agreed, they will require a new culture of cooperation in order to work. Will NATO be able to instill a new NATO culture among its old and new member states and in Russia as well?

In addressing these questions, this essay explores the prospects of moving beyond the cautious NATO-Russia relations of the past to the challenges facing the transformed NATO of the future.

The NATO of the Future

In recent debates about the enlargement of NATO and the future of NATO-Russia relations, we have heard a great deal from the counsel of caution, arguing that NATO is in danger of undermining its past effectiveness in the process of reaching out to its European neighbors to the east. We have heard much less about the great promise of a NATO of the future, in which Russia is a member, or a close partner. What is the promise of such an alliance?

Events since September 11 show (continued on p. 3)

IN THIS ISSUE:

Mikhail Margelov, p. 10

Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs,

Federation Council of the Russian Federation

Russia-NATO Relations: Political Will is Needed

Lord George Robertson, p. 11

Secretary General of NATO

NATO and Russia: Why We Need Each Other

Sergei Rogov, p. 13

Director of the Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies

The New Relationship between Russia and NATO

Dmitri Trenin, p. 15

Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center

Walking Through Windows

Alexander Vershbow, p. 16

U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation

NATO and Russia:

Redefining Relations for the 21st Century

Celeste Wallander, p. 18

Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program,

Center for Strategic and International Studies

The NATO-Russia Council

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Members

NATO images, www.nato.int

Belgium

Canada

Czech Rep.

Denmark

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Italy

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Spain

Turkey

U.K.

U.S.

Albania

Armenia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Bulgaria

Croatia

Estonia

Finland

Georgia

Ireland

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyz Republic

Latvia

Lithuania

FYR of Macedonia Moldova

Romania

Russia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

Uzbekistan

Algeria

Egypt

Israel

Jordan

Mauritania

Morocco

Tunisia

(continued from p. 1)

clearly the promise of closer NATO-Russia relations. Russia offers important strategic assets to NATO, including intelligence sharing, overfly rights, and assistance in obtaining access to bases in the former Soviet Union. While Russia has numerous entanglements that make some NATO analysts wary, it also has significant military and political assets, whose value were demonstrated in the days after September 11. Having Russia in NATO enhances the alliance’s ability to take the lead globally on a variety of important security issues, such as anti-proliferation measures, missile defense, and fighting terrorism. It strengthens the political clout of any joint NATO-Russia decision, particularly in the developing world. In short, it makes NATO less of a regional security organization and more of a global alliance, spanning the Northern hemisphere from Vancouver to Vladivostok. By increasing interoperability of forces and military culture across the Northern hemisphere, the NATO of the future can manage conflict not only within Europe, but also play a role in out-of-area conflicts, as a community of countries with established patterns of military cooperation that may be called upon to act in a variety of formats and situations. The promise of this NATO of the future is great – and greater than many have imagined.

The promise of this NATO of the future is great – and greater than many have imagined.

Yet, how can NATO maintain its traditional role as a mutual defense alliance while it expands dramatically, including up to seven new Central and East European states, and also forge a new cooperation with Russia? NATO’s mutual defense role remains of continuing relevance in the post-post-Cold-War world. The U.S. relied upon its NATO allies to protect its airspace as it prepared to respond to the September 11 attacks. NATO’s European allies continue to rely on U.S. involvement in European security, as in the case of the former Yugoslavia. NATO’s role as a mutual defense system should not be compromised.

At the same time, it must be recognized that the threats to European security have changed. No longer is Europe threatened by a hostile and expansionist power on the continent, armed with massive conventional forces that could march over Western Europe and impose communist rule. Europe today is not threatened by any state, but rather by global forces, such as international terrorism. To a large extent, such global threats are shared by Russia and all European and North Atlantic nations.

However, NATO will hold back from offering Russia full membership in the alliance. There are several reasons why Russia should not be brought into the mutual defense guarantee at NATO’s core. Primary among them is that NATO’s members have determined that they are not prepared, or willing, to defend Russia against an attack. Russia is an enormous country, with long borders that are difficult to defend. Russia’s military is powerful and autonomous, and not yet under civilian control, making the ascendance of military over political leadership possible. And finally, some of NATO’s newest members have recent memories of invasion by Russia, and would be unwilling to accept Russia’s protection or rise to Russia’s defense.

As a result, the chief problem of today is to preserve NATO’s role as a mutual defense pact for the core members, while forging a new cooperation with Russia that enables an enhanced global security role for the alliance. Achieving these dual goals requires careful work in modifying the alliance’s institutional design and culture.

Organizing a New NATO

Prime Minister Blair’s original proposal for NATO-Russia cooperation envisioned having Russia sit in the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s central decision-making body, however with power only over a limited range of issues (see box on p. 9). This proposal has since been superceded by the idea of founding a second decision-making body, a NATO-Russia Council “at 20” (or perhaps 27 after the coming enlargement). This solution seeks to institutionalize a separation between the old NATO of mutual defense and the new NATO of global security cooperation.

The most pressing questions of the current debate are how to divide responsibilities between these two bodies and how to ensure that they work well in tandem. One can readily imagine tensions arising between the old NATO and the new. Indeed, we see today tensions between expanding the boundaries of the mutual defense pact and forging a new cooperation with Russia. Thus, an expansion of the old NATO’s role makes the emergence of a new NATO more complicated, but also more necessary. Second, in the future, Russia could hold a different view of a conflict affecting the security of old NATO member states, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia. Russia might be able to use the resources of the new NATO to frustrate actions that other NATO members see as being in their collective defense. Third, members of the old NATO might perceive a security threat in actions that Russia believes to be justified by its own national interests.

The success of the old NATO’s mission enables the emergence of the new.

These possibilities exist, but the missions of the old and new NATO can also be complementary, since the possibility of harmonious NATO-Russia relations increase as the potential for conflict within Europe subsides. When the old NATO is working, creating security through mutual defense within Europe itself, the issues that need to be addressed in the NATO-Russia Council – like missile defense and fighting terrorism – take on greater importance. Thus the success of the old NATO’s mission enables the emergence of the new.

To the extent that NATO can transform itself into the premier arena for the solution of global security problems like terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, attention and resources will turn to these new tasks. These tasks can be best accomplished by a new NATO cooperating with Russia. The promise is great, though as commentator Celeste Wallander argues on page 17, today’s opportunities are in danger of being squandered by the counsel of caution, which wants to reduce the power and competencies of any new NATO-Russia Council. This would be a mistake in a world that badly needs both the old NATO and the new.

A New Culture of NATO

Even more challenging than designing the institutions of a new NATO is developing the informal organizational norms, or culture, that will make this new structure work. What makes any organization work is not just the formal structure, but the interaction between this formal structure and the informal norms, values, and rules that lay behind it. NATO has always been cognizant of the need to create a culture of cooperation, discussion, and consensus in order to make collective security work. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow, in his contribution to this issue (p. 16), remarks that, “The ‘20’ will only work if both sides change attitudes, and not just procedures.”

The culture shift that is required to make a transformed NATO work is profound. One can only be encouraged, however, by the extent to which attitudes already have changed among both Russian and Western elites in recent years (see p. 8). Current NATO members will have to drop the reflexively adversarial inclinations of a formerly Cold War era. They will need to listen more carefully to Russian concerns – not only symbolically, as commentator and Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Mikhail Margelov notes (p. 10) – but with the intention of finding mutually acceptable approaches.

Still, even greater is the transformation required of Russia and its military and civilian elites, who are, after

What is NATO? A short history

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded with the signing of the Treaty of Washington in April 1949 by twelve north Atlantic states: Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The desire among these states to form a common security system arose out of post-World War II fears over the Soviet Union’s policies, which the Western European states and their North American allies viewed as expansionist. Faced with the enormous challenge of economic reconstruction, Western states’ concerns increased as it became clear that the Soviet Union intended to maintain wartime level military strength while the Western allies reduced their defense establishments. The declared ideological aims of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the imposition of undemocratic forms of government in many Central and Eastern European states further contributed to these fears. Greece and Turkey joined the alliance in 1952, West Germany in 1955 (replaced by unified Germany in 1990), and Spain in 1982.

Members of the North Atlantic Alliance enter freely into the Treaty. The Treaty upholds the individual rights of each member as well as its international obligations as outlined in the Charter of the United Nations. For the majority of NATO’s history, the Alliance’s focus has been on the immediate defense and security of its members. The essential principle of the Alliance is a commitment to mutual cooperation to ensure that no member state is forced to rely solely upon its own national efforts to counter security challenges.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, NATO’s purpose had to be re-evaluated. In order to preserve the successes and benefits of the collective security NATO has provided, the Alliance has striven to adapt its focus to meet the changing dynamic in European states’ political and security development and reflect preparedness to counter changing security threats. In 1994 NATO began the Partnership for Peace program. This program invites non-NATO members to participate in joint military planning and exercises with NATO members but does not involve NATO membership. More than twenty states, including Russia and other former Warsaw Pact states, are participants.

The acceptance of post-Communist states as NATO members began in 1999 when Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined the alliance. Expansion of the alliance continues, with ten Central and Eastern European states interested in becoming members. Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are considered the most likely candidates to enter the alliance, and could receive an offer of invitation during the NATO summit in Prague in November.