Nato–Russia relations: present and future

Abstract

NATO relations with Russia have seemed to develop in ups and downs throughout their entire history. But even at the stages of cooperation they have followed the ‘one step forward, two steps back’ formula. Moscow's relations with the alliance have always been hostage to inner processes of transformation of both parties, the micro–vectors of which have not necessarily coincided all the time. This article analyses the principal differences between Russia and NATO in the recent past and lessons learnt from these contradictions. It then characterizes the current status of relations and the impediments to deeper cooperation, including lack of trust and interoperability. As for the future, the author maintains that NATO–Russia relations have reached a certain ceiling and may stay like this for years, unless the parties break through this roof of inherited insults, lack of confidence, complacency and obsession with their own inner developments. Only this will help them to meet together the security challenges of the twenty-first century.

Notes

In 1990, Gorbachev and western leaders allegedly reached a gentlemens' agreement that NATO would not go beyond the borders of the FRG, if the Soviet Union provided for smooth unification of this country. Interview of the author with Victor Kuvaldin, foreign policy advisor to Gorbachev in the 1980s and currently expert at the Gorbachev Foundation, 25 March 2001.

As Alexander Gurov, ex-Chairman of the Duma's Security Committee, once put it: ‘when military force starts to concentrate around Russia, Russia at the genetic level feels danger, for every war it had in its history began with concentration of military forces on its borders’. Press Service of the State Duma, 7 June 2001.

Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, Paris, 27 May 1997, Brussels, NATO, 1997.

Interfax, 8 July 2004.

As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, partnership with NATO may follow the ‘parallel processes – transformation of NATO, development of the defence component of the European Union and substantial deepening of partnership with Russia within the establishment of the single pan-European security area’. RIA Novosti, 29 June 2004.

Joint Press Conference of President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and President of the United States of America George Bush, Ljubljana, 16 June 2001.

B. Johnson, ‘History “Turns Inside Out” as Russia Asks to Join NATO’, Daily Telegraph, 21 December 1991.

Russia was setting forth the idea of gradual expansion of the NRC after individual negotiations with each candidate country. Interview of the author with Vladimir Chizhov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, 22 July 2002.

All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), poll results, 27–28 March 2004, 1602 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

Polit.ru, 29 May 2002.

Interview of the author with Alexei Bogaturov, Deputy Director of the Institute for US and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 10 June 2003.

See Thomas Barnet, ‘The Pentagon's New Map’ (published in Russian in Rossiya v Globalnoy Politike, Vol.2, No.3 (2004)), where the author discusses the existence of the belt of instability and the ways to prevent the security challenges coming from the ‘gray zone’ between two worlds.

Interview of the author with Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Moscow office of the Center for Defense Information, 13 May 2004.

See Arkady Dubnov, ‘Afghanistan Rented’, Rossiya v Globalnoy Politike, Vol.2, No.3 (2004), p.148.

RIA Novosti, 6 April 2004.

Interview with Sergei Chemezov, Director General of Rosoboronexport, Izvestia, 19 July 2004.

Grani.ru, 16 June 2002.

The joint Russian–Belarusian exercise ‘Allied Security-2004’ combined offensive and defensive techniques in repelling the attack of a potential adversary and liberating the occupied territory. See, for example, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 13 July 2004.

ITAR–TASS, 12 July 2004.

Polit.ru, 28 July 2004.

RIA Novosti, 12 July 2004.

VCIOM, poll results, 18–19 October 2003, 1,600 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

VCIOM, poll results, 27–28 March 2004, 1,602 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

The ‘Barometer of integration’ project was conducted by VCIOM in cooperation with the Donetsk Information Analytical Center (DIAC) in Ukraine and NOVAK laboratory in Belarus. The major issues were the level of life satisfaction, satisfaction with the work of democracy and political institutions, attitude toward integration processes in the post-Soviet space and to rapprochement with Europe. The data for Russia is cited according to VCIOM's poll results (17–18 April 2004, 1,600 respondents in 39 regions of Russia).

VCIOM, poll results, 17–18 April 2004, 1,600 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

VCIOM, poll results, 17–18 April 2004, 1,600 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

VCIOM, poll results, 18–19 October 2003, 1,600 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

Seventy per cent of Russians stand for reviewing the results of privatization for this or that reason. 53 per cent are more radical, while 17 per cent assume that the enterprise may be nationalized if it does not work well or has arrears in paying wages to the employees. VCIOM, poll results, 20–21 September 2003, 1,600 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

Grani.ru, 28 July 2003.

Interfax-AVN, 23 January 2004.

Grani.ru, 24 January 2004.

See, for example, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2 July 2004.

Annual Address by President Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, 26 May 2004.

Interviews of the author at the NATO School in Oberammergau, 13 May 2004.

Interview of the author with Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the Committee for International Relations of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, 26 May 2003.

RIA Novosti, 20 November 2003.

Annual Address by President Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, 16 May 2003.

VCIOM, poll results, 24–25 January 2004, 1,595 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

Polit.ru, 21 July 2004.

VCIOM, poll results, 27–28 March 2004, 1,602 respondents in 39 regions of Russia.

Dmitry Polikanov, ‘CFE Treaty: Legacy of the Past or Hope for the Future?’, BASIC Reports, No.85 (2004), p.3.

Sergei Ilchenko, ‘Razvilka vozmozhnostei’, Dnestrovsky kurier, 8 July 2004.