#2
The Russia Journal
November 23-29, 2001
New alliance proposal poses challenge
By ALEXANDER GOLTS
For the third time in 15 years, relations between Moscow and the West are set for fair weather. Following on from the visible success of the Russia-U.S. summit, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed a new formula for relations between Russia and NATO.
Blair criticized the work of the Permanent Joint Council that brings together Russia and NATO and proposed creating a new body that would encompass all the NATO member states and Russia, putting them all on an equal footing. In essence, this amounts to setting up a broader-based organization than NATO, which would be responsible for assuring European and international security.
Russia, whose defense minister has called NATO a "Cold War relic" and the Permanent Joint Council a "senseless talking shop," appears to have gratefully welcomed Blair’s new proposal. Russian analysts are already saying that the new strategic cooperation between Russia and the West will turn out to be of more importance in the current war against terrorism than relations between NATO member states. A little more and, for Russia’s sake, NATO will find itself abolished as no longer necessary.
This would all be great if only we could forget how previous periods of hope gave way to mutual disappointment. First, it would seem, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and then former President Boris Yeltsin got in the way of becoming real allies with the West. This is not the first time, after all, that the Kremlin has announced its strategic partnership with the United States.
But the crux of the matter is that not once has Moscow ever seriously discussed the possibility of concluding normal partnership agreements of the kind that bind the United States with Western Europe, Japan and South Korea.
Instead, Russian politicians spend their time trying to prove that it is the West that is reluctant to consider Russia an ally. President Vladimir Putin has recalled how first Josef Stalin and then Nikita Khrushchev tried to get entry to NATO. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov puts the lack of real ally status down to the fact that Moscow wants Washington to do more than just promise to unilaterally cut its nuclear arsenal by two-thirds. And this is when Russia’s own aging nuclear arsenal faces an inevitable drop by more than two-thirds.
Moscow’s unwillingness to sign formal treaties has been explained as arising from the fact that Russia has its own road to follow. The guardians of Russian uniqueness won’t have anything to do with treaties and agreements that would put Russia in the same category as other countries.
But what Moscow really fears is that serious discussions about joining NATO would require Russia to commit itself to undertaking far-reaching reforms in the way the state and the armed forces are run, so as to make the military more open and ensure civilian control over the Army and a transparent defense budget. Needless to say, such reforms won’t be welcomed by state and military authorities. But, despite his wish to draw closer to the West, President Vladimir Putin isn’t ready for confrontation with his conservative generals and secret services.
Before building new security structures, it would be good to work out why the old ones haven’t been effective. The Permanent Joint Council, for example, which was set up by the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act, has come under fire from all sides. Moscow says the problem is that Russia has no power of veto over NATO decisions. NATO can simply inform the Kremlin about its decisions and show no interest in Russia’s position – which is what happened with the decision to bomb Yugoslavia, for example.
But the problem is not just that NATO simply ignores Russia’s point of view. NATO officials responsible for cooperation with Russia are irritated by Moscow’s preference for often ill-thought-out and "surprise" security decisions rather than serious day-to-day work on establishing and coordinating security positions.
This attitude is illustrated by Ivanov’s description of NATO as a Cold War relic at the same time that the Russian-U.S. summit made clear Russia’s desire for closer ties with this same "relic." NATO officials accompanying Lord Robertson to Moscow simply shrug their shoulders at such paradoxes, indicating that contradictory statements from Russian officials are an all-too-common occurrence.
"If our opinion and our support mean something to you," one of these officials told me several months ago, "then it is time to stop feeling offended that we aren’t taking Russia’s position into account. You still haven’t understood how we make decisions. First the specialists meet and there are lengthy and thorough discussions to work out the positions of all 19 countries, then every word in the documents has to be approved. Only then does it go for open discussion by the ministers.
"But you think it’s enough for your ambassador to inform a Permanent Joint Council meeting about Moscow’s position on this or that issue and make some initiatives. We, it seems, are supposed to be grateful just for not having to learn about it from the newspapers. But in this situation, there is no sense in expecting a positive reaction from us. At best, without having any idea of the Russian approach, let alone an approved common position, the NATO representatives will send your proposals to be looked at by specialists. Russia’s position will be taken into account when you have normal representation at NATO, and when your diplomats begin serious daily work with us to work out common approaches."
No matter how many new organizations may be thought up by Western leaders anxious to thank Putin for his decision to support the United States in the fight against terrorism, nothing will replace the need for radical change in the way Russia is governed. Without such change, not even the most fulsome gratitude will make for a union.
(The writer is a correspondent for Yezhenedelny Zhurnal.)
Next Article