Switzerland and Serbia recently confirmed that “the most urgent and sensitive security issues” will be at the center of their consecutive chairmanships of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Alongside the promotion of dialogue on arms control, cyber security and other issues, their chairmanships will be heavily influenced by the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. The anniversary provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the work of the OSCE and the Helsinki Act’s relevance in a post-bipolar world. It is also time to consider why, after the removal of all ideological barriers, are relations between Russia and the West so problematic and sometimes resemble mistrust and profound misunderstandings of the Cold War era.
A LACK OF TRUST
The most common explanation of the growing divide between Russia and the West is a complete lack of trust. But what exactly constitutes “trust” in international relations? Is it a political category, an independent variable or just a belief-based willingness to place the fate of one’s interests under the control of others? Is it even possible to develop international security cooperation if trust is lacking and where may the trust come from in the ansence of security cooperation? To help answer these questions within the framework of Russia’s relations with the West, it might be worthwhile to consider the evolution of the European integration project.
Generally speaking, Europe’s past is a history of mistrust. However, the Second World War brought to light the suicidal absurdity of nationalist rivalry, thereby paving the way first for the European Economic Community (EEC) and eventually the European Union (EU). Franco-German relations are a case in point. Between 1870 and 1945, these states fought three devastating wars. Only in the context of European integration (as embodied by the Elysée Treaty, 1963) have relations between Paris and Berlin changed from mistrust and suspicion to friendship and cooperation.
Accordingly, Europe’s recognition of its weakness and its desire to replace confrontation with cooperation pushed the region towards integration. This suggests that trust between states can be achieved through the recognition of concrete common interests which should be preferably codified by a solid legal foundations and lead to close cooperation and evenntually in some areas to integration.
By contrast, Russia-West have gone through several stages since the collapse of the Soviet Union, starting with high expectations, but now experiencing disappointment and dissatisfaction. Currently, Russia is widely perceived by its West as an authoritarian country that is drifting away from liberal values, prone to neo-imperialism and developing an assertive foreign policy.
In this respect, the Yeltsin era is still singled out by the West as the most favorable period in the post-bipolar international relations. But why was “democratic Russia” not involved in the negotiations over the expansion of NATO to include former Soviet bloc states? Because ‘trust’ over that period was based not so much on legal foundations, but rather on personal relations between Clinton and Yeltsin. Yet personal relations are never enough for developing trust between nations. For instance, the Bush-Putin honeymoon period ended in 2008 as tensions flared up and led to risky juxtaposition over the Georgian conflict.
The superficial judgment of Yeltsin made by the West reflects its nostalgia for a weak Russia that it can dictate terms to. Without any good reason, Russia, which was the main driving force behind the dissolution of the Soviet Union and gained its present statehood as a result, was widely regarded during the 1990’s as the defeated party of the Cold War. For its part, the Yeltsin leadership sincerely believed in Russia’s rapid integration into the West and wholeheartedly accepted the model of relationship offered by its Western partners. This model was most bluntly described by the prominent British political scientist Laurence Freedman, who wrote that “there is now no particular reason to classify Russia as a ‘great power’… It cannot therefore expect the privileges, respect and extra sensitivity to its interests normally accorded a great power.”
Instead, the real breakthrough in trust–building between East and West occurred under Mikhail Gorbachev. However, the breakthrough was not the result of Gorbachev’s image or his long speeches about ‘new political thinking’, most notably over a ‘common European home’. Instead, dialogue was kick-started by the most sweeping disarmament proposals in history and unilateral forces reductions and their withdrawal from Eastern Europe that, in turn, ushered in a new era of US-Soviet/Russian relations. The treaties’ unique elements achieved unprecedented negotiating objectives, weapons elimination, and monitoring and verification regimes. By contrast, the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) 2002 marked a significant departure from the Strategic Arms Reduction (START) process. While Moscow and Washington agreed to limit their stockpile to between 1700 and 2000 operationally deployed warheads, neither side could agree on verification arrangements or procedures for cuts and dismantling. So much for the role of mutual trust, which was repeatedly proclaimed by the two presidents of that time…
Unfinished Business
During the two decades since the Paris Charter Summit tried to reshape relations between East and West, every one of the ten principles of the Helsinki Final Act (1975), which brought the OSCE into existence, has been violated. As the Kosovo (1990) and Caucasus (2008) crises demonstrate states now have the opportunity to selectively apply these principles to match their specific foreign policy goals.
Another problem is that Russia has still not found, nor been proposed its proper place in the post-bipolar Europe. As long as the EU and NATO are cosidered the principle pillars of European security – “without Russia” will be always interpreted by Moscow as “against Russia”. As a result of being placed somewhere in between being an ally or an adversary of the West, Russia will, therefore, always be looking for allies in Eurasia or Asia-Pacific. This is because hard security still matters to Moscow, which feels so much inferior geopolitically and militarily, and without radical changes in NATO-Russia relations this fear will remain a major source of insecurity across Europe. Moreover, Moscow’s current emphasis on legally binding agreements with Western counterparts stems from the bad experiences of the late 1980’s, when the West gave assurances that it would not expand NATO in the aftermath of German reunification but subsequently discarded those political obligations.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
Thus, the biggest challenge now confronting the OSCE is whether it can turn itself into a genuinely Pan-European security structure, or “remains an organization in which the West stands apart from the space ‘to the east of Vienna’. For the time being, the signs do not look encouraging. Moscow seems obsessed with the idea that the West is planning to dismiss the ruling regime with a “colored revolution” akin to events in Ukraine a decade earlier.
For its part, many Western policymakers worry that Russia is building up a new sphere of dominance. Russia and the West also remain at odds over the arns control priorities, the course of the Arab Spring, the status of Iran’s nuclear program and other high-profile issues. In the past, disagreements and differences were often mitigated by successful arms-control negotiations. However, further arms control agreements are hampered by the sivere deficit of trust while trust is undrcut by the deadlock in arms control.
Yet the vicious circle can be broken, if Russia and the West identify and refocus on issues of common strategic interest. These include developing coordinated ‘neighborhood’ policies – for instance over Syria – and promoting post-2014 stability in Afghanistan, enhancing nuclear and chemical arms non-proliferationtrade, expanding trade and high-tech cooperation.
Russia should stop its heavy-handed policy in forging its sphere of influence across the post-Soviet space. For its part, the West should stop seeing any voluntary and mutually beneficial post-Soviet integration as neo-imperialism which should be thwarted at all cost. Also the West should acknowledge that it cannot simply impose its model of democratization on Russia – however justified is the criticism of the recent anti-democratic propensities of the Kremlin.
However this criticism should be matched by a new effort to demonstrate to Russia that its coming back on democratic track and reintegration in Euro-Atlantic cooperation networks and institutions would be most beneficial to its economic, political and security interests – without encroaching on Russian national traditions and values.
Also the present dichotomy between states’ territorial integrity and the right of ethnic minorities for self-determination, or between national sovereignty and possibility of external intervention in case of genocide or rude violation of human rights – must be resolved legally, politically and institutionally across Europe and post-Soviet space.
Neither US-Russian negotiations, nor NATO or EU can perform these most difficult and delicate functions and policies at least not on their own. If any organization can do it at all – it is clearly the OSCE and Council of Europe. Mutual trust will not descend on us from heavens. It may only stem from the results of hard and consistent collective work on these fundamental problems of post-Cold War Europe.
