Putin, NATO and European Security
The Russian-Ukraine crisis is reaching its culminating stage with the much anticipated and transparently staged ‘provocation’ in the Donbas. This is how the playbook tells us that President Putin creates his pretext for war. A manufactured threat to the enclaves in Eastern Ukraine was always one potential casus belli, even though it does not relate to the big Russian theme of the past few months, which is that urgent action is needed to redress the bias against Russia in the European security order.
The Western powers have tried to find a diplomatic route out of the crisis by exploring options for some grand negotiations that might at least satisfy Putin that his concerns were being taken seriously. The effort is still – formally at least - not over as US Secretary of State Blinken is due to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov next week. There are reports that President Macron may make yet another visit to Moscow. There are issues of nuclear arms control that might be discussed over the long term. But it is still hard to believe that there is going to be any breakthrough. What Putin wants the West can’t give him.
The issues at stake are so fundamental that they were never going to be handled by carefully crafted proposals that give away little while appearing generous. No set of institutions and agreements designed to deal with disputes of this kind, and stop them getting out of hand, could accommodate Russia in its current mood and sense of deep grievance, without jeopardising the part of the European security system that is performing as it should at the moment – NATO.
After the Cold War
As the Cold War concluded there was an attempt to create a new order to replace the one that had just been lost. Instead of a military balance between antagonistic alliances stability would be achieved though shared prosperity and the peaceful resolution of disputes. The aspiration was confirmed in conferences, declarations and agreements. Mikhail Gorbachev spoke of a ‘common European House’. There were references to pillars, building blocks and firm foundations, all designed to produce stability and order. The metaphors came from construction, promising a new structure that would be durable, permanent and provide security for all. These metaphors turned out to be inappropriate. They assumed that there would be no large changes in European geopolitics that would undermine these structures. But change was bound to happen. Better metaphors might have reflected a more fluid and dynamic situation, requiring agility and flexibility.
In 1990 the big issue was German unification. The slogan of the day was a ‘European Germany and not a German Europe’. Instead of an unfettered Germany throwing its weight around, the merger of the country’s two parts became part of an ambitious but benign EU project. Concerns about German power have not gone away, but now it is about its economic rather than military clout. The criticisms during the current crisis have been about Berlin’s tentativeness and not its assertiveness.
The most contentious issue then – and still – was how to secure the interests of the smaller states, especially those just released from Soviet domination. The pan-European option, based on the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), gave every state a voice but had limited powers of enforcement. The alternative was to make use of the existing institutions of the West – NATO and the EU. These could gather the post-Communist states in structures with agreed rules and dispute mechanisms, and backed by the Western great powers. With NATO there was the benefit of security guarantees from the US. This was the model favoured.
We don’t know the counter-factual of what would have happened if NATO and the EU had not expanded to the east but it is hard to believe that keeping so many states outside of established support structures would have been more stable and mutually beneficial. The Russian analysis of the current crisis implies that these countries might have stayed snugly in a Russian sphere of influence. But none of them wanted this. Because of the lengthy time horizon for joining the EU, membership of NATO was an attractive, quicker, option. They also had their own memories of betrayal not only at Munich in 1938 but also at the Yalta conference of February 1945 which is when they were consigned to the Soviet sphere. Efforts to achieve the benefits of a closer association without full membership through NATO’s Partnership for Peace’ faltered because it seemed too loose.
The Enlargement Issue
Enlargement is presented now as being deliberately provocative to Moscow but at first every effort was made to render it as non-threatening as possible. In 1997 NATO and Russia signed a Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. This set up the ‘NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council’ to serve as a venue for consultations, cooperation and consensus building. President Yeltsin acknowledged at the time that this made enlargement tolerable though he was never going to be enthusiastic. The basic principle he accepted was that sovereign states could choose their own security arrangements and that could include membership of NATO.
Most important to Russia was to be respected as a great power and treated like one. It took over the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up theirs in 1994) and inherited the permanent membership of the Security Council with its veto power. Its internal weaknesses, aggravated by the financial crises of the 1990s, meant that until this century it was in no position to assert its interests. But then its economy revived with the higher commodity prices of the 2000s and with Putin’s harsher but more competent leadership.
Putin complained about NATO’s bombing of Serbia during the 1999 Kosovo War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as examples of failures of consultation by the West. Then, as NATO took in the former Soviet Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Georgia and Ukraine came into view. Their accession was always potentially inflammatory and NATO was cautious. For that reason the issue might have been avoided but for the ‘colour revolutions’ in those two countries in 2003-5, when popular movements objected to attempts to rig elections to favour pro-Russian governments.
From this point on Putin became obsessed with a need to keep them, and other neighbouring post-Soviet republics, under Russia’s influence. He feared that the basic Western objective was not enhanced security but regime change, getting in place governments that took their politics and policies from the West. Thus when the issue of eventual NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine was raised at NATO’s Bucharest summit in 2008, Putin was furious, even though the actual outcome was to delay consideration of membership. That year Georgia allowed itself to be drawn into action against the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and was knocked back when Russian forces intervened.
In 2014 Putin reacted even more strongly after his effort to pressure a pro-Russian government in Ukraine into rejecting an association agreement with the EU completely backfired. The subsequent conflict between Moscow and Kyiv is not because Ukraine joined a Western institution, as it has yet to do so, but because it is viewed by Putin as being anti-Russian in its practices and policies. Nor despite Putin’s heavy-handedness in dealing with Ukraine, by annexing Crimea and sponsoring separatists in Eastern Ukraine, and now by building up forces and mounting exercises on its border, has a formal offer of membership been made to Ukraine. As President Zelensky complained in Munich, should an invasion come Ukraine would enjoy none of the benefits of alliance.
A New Security Order
When explaining what Russia wants from a new security order, a statement released last Thursday spoke of ‘creating a stable foundation for a security architecture in the form of an agreement on NATO refusing to take further actions that harm Russia's security.’ Without this ‘strong foundation’, it added, ‘interrelated arms control and military risk reduction measures that ensure restraint and predictability of military activity in separate areas, even if they can be agreed upon, will not be sustainable in the long term.’ This demand covers more than formal Ukrainian membership but all forms of military assistance that might be offered to Kyiv. It is a non-starter.
So far the results of this crisis have been to make Russia less rather than more secure. NATO has become more rather than less important to European security. President Macron’s observation of a few years ago that the alliance was ‘brain dead’ now looks premature and his desire for more European ‘strategic autonomy’ less compelling. The US has shown more leadership and the alliance has come together far more effectively than their critics feared. All that Putin has been doing to make Russia appear more menacing, including the cyberattacks and squeeze on energy supplies, confirms the allies on the need to work together and make themselves less dependent on Russia in the future.
The more Putin bites and snaps at Ukraine the more he alarms other European states and pushes them closer to US, and to increase their defence provisions. A limited invasion would leave Kyiv even more wedded to the West. An attempt to change the government would require a long and uncomfortable occupation, dealing with an insurgency supported from neighbouring states. The effects could easily blowback into Russia itself, just as the failed campaign in Afghanistan weakened the Soviet regime. It remains the case - and this cannot be asserted too often - that a full invasion of Ukraine will not result in his grievances being addressed.
So the problem for Putin is that he has no obvious diplomatic or military means to create a new European security order. Whatever he plans to do now in Ukraine it is not going to produce long-term stability. NATO has refused to agree to any move that would undermine it. For most Europeans NATO is the most valuable part of the current security order. Putin’s best hope is that for reasons unconnected to Ukraine – perhaps a return of President Trump – the alliance starts to unravel.
NATO has offered to go back to the 1997 Founding Act, which has fallen into disrepair, promise non-aggression and that no offensive weapons will get too close, but they will also expect reciprocal obligations from Russia. And how can they have confidence in the word of a man who dabbles in flimsy pretexts and crude denials when it suits his purposes? Another consequence of the current crisis is confirmation that Russia can always concoct an implausible story to explain why it can ignore its international obligations and why others are behaving unacceptably. Given this mistrust negotiating a new security architecture is not a serious option at the moment.
At most – if there is no war - the contact between Putin and Western leaders can continue. If war can be avoided then the conversations can continue and should become more routine, with arrangements put in place to calm future crises, explain unexpected developments, and provide reassurance. With war Russia is left isolated, coping with a mess of its own making. The main victim of course would be Ukrainians who may take some convincing that they would not have been better off if NATO enlargement had come their way.
To compensate for his alienation from the rest of Europe, Putin has made a point of seeking to forge a stronger partnership with China. He met with President Xi at the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and they produced a long communique which explained their distinctive approach to democracy and addressed a wide range of international issues. It included opposition to NATO enlargement and Western interference in their affairs. But China has notably not however given a green light to an invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, this is a very unequal partnership, with few economic benefits. China still claims chunks of Russian territory. Many Russians are therefore wary about getting too close to China and worry about becoming separated from the rest of Europe.
Russia is strong enough to go its own way and cause problems for its neighbours if they do not wish to come into its sphere of influence. But it is still essentially operating within the old Soviet space. Most European countries would prefer to see calmer relations with Russia, but for the moment they see it as a source of military menace, cyber-attacks, information campaigns, and energy dependency. If Putin wants a solution to Russia’s problems with the current European security system he needs to look in the mirror.