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International Herald Tribune
December 6, 2001
Alliance Needs Better Ties With Moscow
By Andrew S. Weiss
The writer, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as a Russia specialist on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
NEW YORK Russia's cooperation in the war on terrorism is paying unexpected dividends, including a major overhaul of long-frosty ties between Russia and NATO. Changes will be formally unveiled when Secretary of State Colin Powell meets with his NATO and Russian counterparts in Brussels on Thursday.
The knives are already out for a new and improved NATO-Russia relationship. Prominent hawks such as Zbigniew Brzezinski are warning that this U.S./British-led effort to reinvigorate NATO-Russia cooperation could split the alliance.
Their criticism is rooted in growing anxiety in the Baltic states and other Central European countries seeking NATO membership next year that Russia will try to use its new relationship with NATO to put future NATO enlargement on ice or to block NATO actions that it disagrees with.
Concerns center on plans to create a Russia-North Atlantic Council for discussions and decision-making on issues of mutual interest. To some observers, this looks like a potential replacement for NATO's preeminent body, the North Atlantic Council. And they fear that Russia could use the new forum to sabotage decisions on sensitive NATO business or to stave off NATO military action.
Scrutiny of NATO's actual proposals reveals that these concerns are overblown. NATO officials have made clear that even if consensus cannot be reached in the enlarged council, NATO would retain the ability to take necessary action on its own.
The alliance also wisely wants to limit initial discussions in the enlarged council to less controversial issues like counterterrorism, nonproliferation and disaster relief missions.
The new mechanism that NATO and Russia are developing would help both sides to work more effectively on the urgent security problems of the post-Sept. 11 world.
It is important to remember that the NATO-Russia relationship can help address lingering mistrust on both sides. Only two and a half years ago, NATO and Russia were at each other's throats over Kosovo.
A stronger NATO-Russia relationship should be part of the response to recent reports of greater than expected progress in Osama bin Laden's quest for weapons of mass destruction, and official Russian revelations that terrorists were spotted twice conducting surveillance of a secret Russian nuclear storage site.
President Vladimir Putin's far-reaching effort to retool Russia's military for the post-Cold War world is controversial at home. Although they are starved for funds, key figures in the Russian military and intelligence services are fighting a bitter rearguard action against these reforms and see utility in playing up the dangers posed by American military muscle.
Getting the NATO-Russia relationship right can help the allies to influence that internal Russian debate and guarantee that the next round of NATO enlargement, in the autumn of next year, goes smoothly.
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