ახალგაზრდა მკვლევართა ჟურნალი № 3 ივლისი 2016

რეზიუმე

2008 წლის რუსეთ-საქართველოს ომი და 2014 წელს რუსეთის მიერ ყირიმის ანექსია და დონბასის რეგიონში საომარ მოქმედებებში მონაწილეობა მიიჩნევა ევროპის უსაფრთხოების არქიტექტურის გარკვეული გაუმართაობის ნიშანსვეტად. თუმცა, უსაფრთხოების ძირითად აქტორებს შორის არსებობს სრული უთანხმოება იმის შესახებ, თუ რა წარმოადგენს უსაფრთხოების სფეროში ევროპულ და ევრო-ატლანტიკურ ქვეყნებს შორის თანამშრომლობის ჩავარდნის მიზეზს. დასავლეთის სახელმწიფოები მიიჩნევენ, რომ მიზეზია რუსეთის მხრიდან არასაკმარისი პოლიტიკური ნების ქონა დაემორჩილოს უსაფრთხოების ფუნდამენტურ დოკუმენტებში მოცემულ პრინციპებსა და ნორმებს, ხოლო რუსეთი მიიჩნევს, რომ მიზეზები უნდა ვეძებოთ დასავლეთის უსაფრთხოების პოლიტიკაში, რომლის მთავარი ნიშანსვეტი ნატოს გაფართოებაა. რუსეთის პასუხი საქართველოს, უკრაინისა და სხვა კრიზისულ სიტუაციებთან დაკავშირებით მუდმივად არის, რომ დღევანდელი ევროპის უსაფრთხოების წესრიგი არასრულყოფილია, მიუხედავად იმისა, რომ რუსეთმა თითქოს არაერთხელ შესთავაზა დასავლეთს უფრო ეფექტური ერთიანი კოლექტიური უსაფრთხოების სისტემის შექმნა. ამ არგუმენტს რუსული მხარე ისტორიული დისკურსით ამყარებს და დროდადრო მწვავედ აკრიტიკებს დასავლეთს გაშვებული შესაძლებლობის გამო. სტატიის მიზანია სწორედ ამ ისტორიული ეპიზოდის (ცივი ომის შემდგომ პერიოდში ევროპის უსაფრთხოების წესრიგის შექმნასთან დაკავშირებული რუსული ინიციატივები) დეტალური აღწერა და რეჟიმების თეორიის მეშვეობით ინტერპრეტაცია, რაც საშუალებას იძლევა ზუსტად შეფასდეს განსახილველი ისტორიული პროცესი და ნათლად წარმოჩნდეს ევროპის უსაფრთხოების წესრიგში არსებული პრობლემების რეალური მიზეზები. სტატია ადგენს, რომ ცივი ომის შემდგომ პერიოდში არცერთი რუსული ინიციატივა არ ყოფილა განხორციელებადი, მითუმეტეს, რომ რუსეთის თანამდევი ქმედებები არ ქმნიდა კარგ წინაპირობას უსაფრთხოების სფეროში ახალი კოლექტიური უსაფრთხოების რეჟიმის შექმნის თაობაზე სახელმწიფოთა შორისი თანამშრომლობის განმაპირობებელად. სტატია ასკვნის, რომ ევროპის უსაფრთხოების წესრიგის გაუმჯობესება საჭიროებს რუსეთის მხრიდან პარტნიორებისა და განსაკუთრებით მეზობლების მიმართ დაშვებული შეცდომების აღიარებას; ამასთან, საჭიროა მმართველმა რუსულმა ელიტამ გაითავისოს, რომ შეუძლებელია უსაფრთხოების რეჟიმის ქვეყნებზე თავსმოხვევა ხელშეკრულების მეშვეობით, არამედ აუცილებელია ინტეგრაცია, რისთვისაც უპირველეს ყოვლის რუსეთმა უნდა დაიმკვიდროს, ხანგრძლივი დროის განმავლობაში, სანდო აქტორის რეპუტაცია, რომელიც საკუთარი უსაფრთხოების გაუმჯობესების უკეთეს საშუალებად ოპორტუნისტულ ექსპანსიას არ განიხილავს.

საკვანძო სიტყვები: ევროპის უსაფრთხოების წესრიგი, რუსული ინიციატივები ევროპის უსაფრთხოების წესრიგთან დაკავშირებით, რეჟიმების თეორია, ევროპული უსაფრთხოების განმტკიცება.

Abstract

The 2008 Russia-Georgian war, as well as the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 and its military participation in the Donbas region represent clear cases of shortcomings of the European security order. However, there is a complete disagreement between European security actors over the reasons behind lack of cooperation and coordination on security issues. The Western countries maintain that the main problem is the lack of political will from Russia to comply with the exist-ing principles and norms enshrined in the fundamental security documents, while Russia believes that the problem lies with the Western security policy and mainly the decision to enlarge NATO after the Cold War. In response to conflicts with Geor-gia, Ukraine and other security crises situations, Russia retorts that the problem lies with imperfect security order in Europe and the West missed an opportunity, on numerous occasions, to implement Russian proposals in this regard. Russia backs up its argument with a specific historical discourse. Hence, the aim of this article is to provide for a historical description and analysis of the chosen case (Russian proposals regarding the European security order after the Cold War) and interpreta-tion of the failure to cooperate with the use of regime theories.

Article finds that these Russian initiatives have not been plausible especially since the accompanying Russian actions did not create necessary goodwill to condition cooperation among European states on creating a new security regime in exchange for the existing security institutions. Article concludes that a major breakthrough in improving European security lies with Russia’s capacity to acknowledge its own misgivings in relations with its European and Euro-Atlantic partners, first and fore-most with its neighbors. Second, the Russian governing elites need to concede that a desired security regime cannot be imposed over by a treaty but it takes a gradual integration for which Russia has to establish the reputation of a trustworthy security actor, which does not consider opportunistic expansionism as a better way to increase its own security.

Key words: European security order, Russian proposals on European security order, regime theories, Improvement of European security.

Introduction

The 2008 Russia-Georgia war shook the European security order to its core as one OSCE member state invaded another with subsequent military occupation and then the unilateral recognition of parts of its territory as sovereign states. A shock of even greater magnitude emerged when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in March 2014 and continued to be involved militarily in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Russia’s ongo-ing role in the crisis in Ukraine has become the new watershed in European politics, bringing about tec-tonic shifts in Russian-Western relations, denoted by the imposition of sanctions on Russia and disruption of existing institutional ties.

Russian involvement in Georgia and Ukraine reveals the shortcomings of the existing European security order. Moreover, arising disagreements between Russia and the rest of the Euro-Atlantic states affects their overall effectiveness in terms of tackling global threats such as the war in Syria, the rise of extrem-ism, radicalization and sectarian violence and the resulting problems, such as the flow of refugees from the war-affected territories.

However, there is a great divide between Russia and the West over identifying the causes behind such malfunctions. The US and European countries maintain that the main fault lies with Russian incompliance with the existing norms and principles enshrined in the basic and fundamental agreements in Europe in-cluding the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris such as respect for the rights inherent in sovereign-ty, territorial integrity, inviolability of frontiers, refraining from the threat or use of force, as well as fulfill-ment in good faith of obligations under international law.

In opposition, Russia’s reading has traditionally been that “everything is the fault of the West” most im-portantly because they have failed to build single and inclusive security architecture after the Cold War. In his March 3, 2016 article - “Russia’s Foreign Policy: Historical Background” Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov lamented that European countries failed to create “a new foundation for European security by strengthening the military and political components of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe” (Lavrov, 2016). Instead, Lavrov claimed that the Euro-Atlantic partners have opted for NATO expansion, which caused “the systemic problems that have soured Russia’s relations with the United States and the European Union” (Lavrov, 2016). At the 2016 Munich Security Conference, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev argued the same (Medvedev, 2016), while Russia’s President Vladimir Putin repeatedly discusses the need to remodel the European security order (For example see Putin, Valdai Conference, 2014).

While it is unquestionable that Russia represents a major and an important actor in European politics, a fuller and more inclusive picture of the European security requires the study of the Russian discourse on the issues of European security order both through historical and theoretical perspective. This article will aim to show more clearly what where Russian preferences for the security order in the post-Cold War era and why she failed to garner necessary support to realize stated goals.

The article will rely on the historical descriptive method, which allows a researcher to focus on past events and conditions in order to “explain or evaluate phenomena that others have not fully described” (Van Evera, 1997, p. 95). The article will hence focus on the historical description and then the analysis of a single historical phenomenon: Russian preferences for the European security order in post Cold War era and the following outcomes. The explanatory work is important, since one of the key actors in Euro-pean politics – Russia, puts forward exclusive reading of history that implies concrete faults with the exist-ing European security order which is different from the interpretation of the absolute majority of other par-ticipating states in this order. It is important to review the Russian view and reveal what needs to be re-evaluated for a better understanding of the European security. According to Levy, a single case study can be descriptive but also interpretive one structured by a theoretical framework and aimed at explanation. This is analytic history as it explains particular historical episode rather than aim to develop or test theo-retical generalizations (2002, p. 435). In that respect this article will use regime theories to explain the subsequent outcome as well as failures of Russian initiatives across the identified historical period. The article will then identify analytical evidence for policy relevant recommendations.

Yeltsin and Putin Policies – a quest for veto rights in European Security

In the wake of the disintegration of the USSR, NATO almost immediately proposed a new framework of ‘interlocking institutions’ that would take up complementary roles to prevent instability and division in Europe. The Rome Declaration stated - “NATO, the CSCE, the European Community, the WEU and the Council of Europe complement each other” (Rome Declaration, 1991). The following December the Alli-ance launched a new format – the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), which proposed to in-clude the Allies and former adversaries in a single forum to discuss security matters.

Initial Russian efforts to dictate the rules for the new post-Cold War European security order date back to the origins of the new Russian state. When Boris Yeltsin came to head the new Russian state, born out of the rubles of the Soviet Union, he based his political platform on complete jettisoning of the Communist ideology and building a democratic and economically viable state. He was showing full interest in jointly building a new security system in Europe. In his letter to US President George Bush, Yeltsin declared that he “positively assesses the outcome of the session of the NATO Council in Rome. We are in support of the NATO efforts to build a new system of security from Vancouver to Vladivostok… We welcome the de-cision by the NATO Council to establish the Atlantic council on cooperation and intend to get involved in the work of this body” (1991, p. 2- 4).

However, Yeltsin’s vision of a democratic and economically viable Russia soon became overburdened by difficulty of the tasks ahead as well as his government’s failures in executing the needed reforms effec-tively. The situation Yeltsin inherited was extremely dire: exhausted foreign reserves, hyperinflation and budget deficit that totaled to about 20 % of the GDP. A reform known as “shock therapy” failed to achieve desired results. According to Talbot, instead of economic recovery, a new class of ‘robber barons’ emerged and crime and corruption became widespread. The most incapacitating flaw of the reform was the absence of cooperation between the government and the Parliament (2002, p. 30). For this reason, “notions of convergence and integration with the West lost their appeal, and Russia’s leaders began shift-ing back onto a more Westphalian Great Power course” (Mankoff, 2009, p. 37). That also meant that the military class and their ideas became more prominent in Russian politics. Already in 1993 the Russian Foreign Intelligence (FIS) report and a new military doctrine took an openly antagonistic stand against NATO and perceived its continued existence acceptable only under the condition of its complete trans-formation into a more political institution (Smith, 2006, p. 55-57).

Simultaneously, Russia continued to push for its special status within European security institutions (first and foremost in NATO) at the same time Russia started to claim its special rights in ‘its near abroad’. In 1993 Yeltsin declared - “the time has come for distinguished international organizations, including the UN, to grant Russia special powers as a guarantor of peace and stability in the former regions of the USSR” (cited in Hill et al., 1994, p. 1). However, in reality, Russia was usurping its regional leadership and despite the peacemaking rhetoric, massive evidence was accumulating that Russia was not acting as an honest broker in the conflicts situations that have followed the breakup of the USSR. A 1994 study concluded: “An analysis of the conflicts in the republics of the former Soviet Union since 1992, reveals a disturbing pattern. In each of the conflicts, there is evidence to suggest that Russia has intervened in such a way as to promote their escalation and/or continuation instead of their cessation…in a manner that would seem consistent with stated Russian policy, the sovereignty of each of the republics of the former Soviet Union has been compromised, forcing them into an increasingly dependent relationship with Moscow” (Hill et al., 1994, pp. 1-2).

Despite the growing apprehension about Russia’s actions, in 1994 NATO continued to think of ways on how to accommodate Russian demands for a privileged relationship. On June 22, 1994, once Russia signed up for the PfP, the Alliance issued “summary conclusions” creating a more exclusive 16+1 format for Russia (Summary Conclusions, 1994). Instead of seeking closer cooperation with NATO and integra-tion with Europe, throughout 1994 Russia concentrated on promoting the idea of a ‘security council’ for Europe made up by the leading CSCE members and empowered to take executive decisions on behalf of the member states as a whole (Smith, 2006, p.12). Simultaneously, Russia was promoting the CSCE as the lead institution in European security affairs calling for a ‘hierarchical’ organisational structure and a ‘co-ordinating role’ for the CSCE over NATO, the European Union and other international institutions (Ibid.,).

Meanwhile, as Central and Eastern European sovereign states sought further institutional integration with Euro-Atlantic space, the push for the NATO enlargement picked up momentum, supported by prominent individuals in Western countries (Goldgeier, 2010, pp. 47-48). After complex policy considerations, by January 1994, the idea had ripened within the Clinton administration that the question of NATO enlarge-ment was no longer about “whether” but about when and how (Asmus, 2010). The disagreement over the NATO’s imminent enlargement resulted in a bitter exchange at the 1994 Budapest CSCE Summit. While Clinton pledged continued cooperation and assistance to Russia, he also firmly declared that no third country would be allowed to veto the NATO expansion. In response, Yeltsin retorted that Europe was in danger of plunging into a cold peace…” Instead, he called for the “establishment of a full-fledged all-European organization with a solid legal basis…” (Church et al., 1994).

Accompanying Russian actions made these proposals sound nonrealistic. Indeed, from the early 90’s Russia’s conduct in its ‘near abroad’ had all the hallmarks of the policy of divide et empera, aimed at en-suring that the side that favored Russia would win. Such behavior had quickly raised the fears of Russian neo-imperialism among European states, especially the newly independent ones. Furthermore, with the degeneration of the first Chechen war into a bloodbath and impasse coupled with Russia’s tarnished im-age from its ongoing interventions in the neighboring States made Russia a very difficult partner. Due to this background Russian initiatives were deemed elusive while the campaign for NATO’s enlargement on behalf of Central and Easter European states picked up full speed.

However, overall the Budapest summit did endorse a Russian proposal to launch a discussion on a “Common and Comprehensive Security Model for the 21st century” (CCSM). The Budapest Document reconfirmed the necessity for further enhancement of the CSCE’s role and capabilities in early warning, conflict prevention and crisis management, including peacekeeping operations and missions as well as post-conflict rehabilitation and assisting with reconstruction (Velitchkova, 2002).

In pursuing its proposed CCSM objectives, in December 1995 Russia called for the formulation of a Char-ter, the creation of a European Security Council and coordination of activities between the OSCE, the CIS and NATO. The Russian idea was to promote a hierarchical security structure, which would be cen-tered around one institution (the Council) in which Russia would have an equal position and a decision-making power similar to other Allied powers. This was ambitious but hardly realistic. Basically, Russia offered to dilute the existing institutions for a new collective security order in an environment where the CSCE states were utterly unwilling to become part of any Council with Russia as a dominant actor in it (n. a. Institute for Public Policy Research, 1996, p. 146). Moreover, a 1996 survey about the Lisbon Summit agenda, based on 87 reports from 15 countries, concluded that most editorials were of the opinion that through the years the OSCE had been paralyzed by the need for consensus among its 54 members and that Europe would continue to need NATO (Neely, 1996). Hence, member states went on strengthening the OSCE capacity in many respects but not in terms proposed by Russia. On the contrary, the 1996 Lis-bon OSCE document rejected the principle of hierarchy asserting “no State, organization or grouping can have any superior responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the OSCE region” (The Lisbon Declaration, 1996).

On the Russia-NATO front the relations were still centered, at Russia’s behest, on elevating participatory status for Russia. After six rounds of talks between Secretary General Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeni Primakov ,a Founding Act was drafted and later signed on May 27, 1997 in Paris, creat-ing NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC). The document conceded to Russia a great deal of goals it aspired to: it promised to revise NATO’s core strategic Concept, and pledged to continue to “ex-pand political functions”. Most importantly, the document stated that ‘NATO has decided that it has no intention, no plan, and no reason” to deploy or store nuclear weapons on the territory of new members (Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian Federa-tion, 1997). In practice, the PJC meetings had negligible success while the Russian side completely sus-pended its participation on March 24, 1999 in response to NATO’s operation “Allied Force” (Smith, 2006 p. 80). In spite of this, marginal relations still continued but never recovered to their fullest degree during the Yeltsin’s remaining time in office (Lynch, 1999, p. 76).

In August 1999, embattled President Yeltsin appointed a virtually unknown person – Vladimir Putin as his fifth Prime Minister, later declared him as his successor who then went on to win the March 2000 Russian Presidential elections (Truscott, 2004, pp. 94-95). During his tenure as acting-president of Russia, Putin gave a famous interview to BBC’s Sir David Frost, saying “we believe we can talk about more profound integration with NATO, but only if Russia is regarded as an equal partner” (Truscott, p. 135). From the Mili-tary point of view that was an overstatement of Russia’s aims hence, General Leonid Ivashov ‘clarified’ that the integration was ‘hypothetically’ possible but prior NATO would need to transform itself into a Eu-ropean security institution and Russia given veto rights (Truscott, p. 135-136).

With Putin’s ascent to power, his main concern was the diminishing role of Russia hence focusing on asserting its lost supremacy (for example, see Russia on the Brink of the Third Millennium, 1999). Along-side the economic and political underdevelopment, instability in the Caucasus presented an immediate challenge to the newly appointed Prime Minister. The September bombings in Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk served as a casus belli for the second Chechnya War, with 800,000 Russian troops given the task to subjugate Chechnya (Truscott, p. 102).

Just as Russian conduct in the first Chechen war was a major factor for criticizing Russia under Yeltsin, so was the Russian conduct in the second Chechen war a topic of discontent between the West and Russia. While Russian officials tried to pass Chechnya military campaign as a fight against terrorism, the Western politicians underlined the difference between fighting terrorism and obliterating whole cities to the ground (For example, in 2000, Human Rights Watch detailed the massacre of at least sixty Chechen civilians in the Grozny suburb of Aldi).

Putin’s steadfast show of backing to the US administration in the face of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States provided a good momentum for improving relations and touch basing on issues of common concern, however, once that momentum waned, old disagreements resurfaced. Di-vergence heightened especially in the face of talks of further NATO enlargement to include the Baltic States while Russia was nowhere near to deep integration with European security institutions. Prominent policy-makers highlighted the prevalent hesitation that it was not easy to make friends with Putin’s Russia, which did not deliver on its promises to reform. Former Secretary of State, James A. Baker, who back in the early 1990’s argued for NATO’s Eastward expansion to also include democratic Russia in 2002 noted that “the idea that Russia could even be eligible for membership has been met with opposition and indif-ference, mainly because Russia has never been ripe for membership ¬– because it has embraced democ-racy and free markets only rhetorically, without creating the institutions or exercising the political will necessary to commit itself fully” (Baker, 2001, p. 95).

Instead of focusing on practical integration, throughout early 2002, Putin continued to argue for a new joint body of cooperation with NATO. He maintained that the council linking Russia and the 19 NATO members “will only be effective if all countries taking part in the process are cooperating on an equal ba-sis” (cited in Kulhanek, 2010, p. 151). The year 2002 was marked by negotiations over the new body, final-ly creating NATO-Russia Council in which Russia and NATO member states meet as equals “at 20” – in-stead of in the bilateral “NATO+1” format under the PJC (See Final Communiqué, 2002).

It can be assumed that Putin’s demands towards the European security architecture at that time were largely met and no requests for changing it were issued throughout his tenure. The Prague 2002 Summit, which declared the ‘big bang’ enlargement to 7 European States, including the Baltics was met with “calmly negative” attitude from Putin (Kelin, 2004) and the NRC continued to work and expand coopera-tion until the Alliance declared “no business as usual with Russia” over its military invasion and occupa-tion of Georgia in August, 2008 (Belton et al., 2008).

Medvedev Proposal – The Treaty on European Security (TES)

A second major post-Cold War era Russian campaign to promote a new security order in Europe com-menced during the Medvedev Presidency. Within a month of being elected in 2008, Medvedev started a campaign for the new Treaty on European Security (TES), which was initially voiced during his first official visit abroad. On 5 June, 2008 at the meeting with nearly 1000 German political, parliamentary and civic leaders, the president of the Russian Federation, championed the idea of “drafting and signing a legally binding treaty on European security in which the organisations currently working in the Euro-Atlantic area could become parties...” (Medvedev, 2008). It was stated implicitly that this pact would be a “regional pact” based on UN principles, which would “clearly define the role of force as factor in relations within the Euro-Atlantic community” (Ibid.,). According to prevalent scholarly opinion, with that Russia was openly campaigning to curtail the US influence and obtain an outside veto on NATO decision-making through this pact (Van Harpen, 2008 and lo, 2009). Later, in July, 2008 Medvedev adopted the initiative as part of Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept (FPC). The document made a bit more public impact than the pro-nouncement in Berlin, however the initiative was still dismissed by European officials as something re-dundant, since all of the principles were already enshrined in the existing documents while the only ulti-mate outcome would seem to be the weakening of NATO, OSCE and other European security institutions in exchange for a broader collective security type conference.

In the meanwhile, Russian policies have toughened in its supposed sphere of influence, especially to-wards Georgia, which was displaying firm willingness and readiness to be qualified for NATO and EU inte-gration. Russia’s destabilizing moves have particularly accelerated from the beginning of 2008 resulting in an all-out military invasion of Georgia in August 2008. As Ronald Asmus points out, the main reason for the war was that Georgia chose pro-Western course over pro-Russian alternative. “The Kremlin openly told Tbilisi it had to decide whether they were on the side of Moscow or the West and that Moscow’s atti-tude on resolving the frozen conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be driven by Georgia’s answer to that central question” (Asmus, 2010). On that account Russia maintained a narrative that the war was a result of bad security architecture in Europe and first and foremost continued existence and enlarge-ment of NATO (OSCE Panel of Eminent Persons, 2015, p. 25).(1)

Russia’s military invasion and then occupation of two Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali re-gion/South Ossetia further widened the existing value gap between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic commu-nity of states (for detailed account of the war see Asmus, 2010; Cornell and Starr, 2009). The occurrence evoked a wide range of criticism towards Russia with most Western States supporting restrictive measures such as suspension of NRC and Russia’s place in the G8 in parallel to providing political and humanitarian support to Georgia (Larsen, 2013). Most notably, the EU member states held the Extraordi-nary European Council on 1 September 2008 and among other measures postponed the negotiation of the Partnership Agreement “until troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to 7 August” (Council of the European Union, 2008). In the eyes of European partners, from that war Russia emerged with a new reputation of an unpredictable and irresponsible partner.

However, after the initial furry, it emerged that the strategy on EU’s behalf tilted towards engagement with Russia as a way to manage other problems and that there was the need for cooperation with Russia on Afghanistan, the Middle East, energy policies or nuclear weapons proliferation” (Hasselbach, 2008). Alt-hough the EU maintained that it “does not accept status quo in Georgia” and that full implementation of the 12 August ceasefire agreement and 8 September implementing measures were essential from Octo-ber onwards contacts resumed. The first ice broke at the World Policy Conference, in Evian, France, on 6-8 October, 2008. Medvedev used the conference to officially declare the withdrawal of Russian troops from two “buffer zones” inside Georgia, two days before the set deadline (n. a. DW, 2008) and then went on to unveil the five underlining principles for the proposed Treaty (Medvedev, 2008b). Medvedev urged for the convening of a “special forum”. Sarkozy was a very responsive host, himself calling for a total re-construction of the European security structure and proposing for an OSCE Summit in 2009 “to discuss (Russian) proposals and those of the European Union for new concepts of a pan-European defence” (n. a. DW, 2008). Calls were repeated at the 14 November EU-Russia Summit in Nice as well.

To that affect, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tried to gather all around support for the initiative at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Helsinki, on December 4-5, 2008. However, OSCE member states did not display willingness to accept the proposal. The major problem was the renewed mistrust and fear to-wards Russian intentions. Overall, instead of organizing an exclusive summit, it was maintained by all Eu-ropean states as well as the US and Canada that any further talk on the pan-European security had to be contained within the OSCE, tasking the upcoming Greek Chairmanship to continue the dialogue on Euro-Atlantic security and clarify the questions that remained (n.a. OSCE News, 2008). Hence, a course of ac-tion known as the Corfu process emerged that tried to address all the open issues on European security. As part of the Corfu process more than 50 food-for-thought papers have been distributed by the OSCE Participating States regarding the ways to improve the European security architecture in all three dimen-sions - politico-military, economic, environmental and human. These discussions were marked with the attempts by Russia to focus the attention of the OSCE on the hard security issues and the counter-attempts of the West to bring the issues of human dimension, such as fair elections, democracy and hu-man rights to the forefront of the proposed agenda.

Even though Russia engaged in the discussions within the OSCE, it has also maintained that the Europe-an Security Treaty was supposed to be discussed outside of the OSCE. In that spirit Medvedev took up the issue yet again calling anew for a new architecture, this time nick named the ‘Helsinki Plus’ during his speech at the Helsinki University on 20 April 2009. Still failing to attract the needed attention and en-gagement, Russia unveiled a draft text of the so-called treaty on European security on November 29, 2009 (Draft Treaty on European Security, 2009) just prior to the December OSCE Ministerial in Athens and the planned ministerial meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). The draft treaty was carefully timed and was aimed at attracting the maximum interest (n. a. Stratfor, 2009).

The proposed Draft consisted of l14 articles and used a similar language to that of the NATO and the UN Charter. Pursuant to the concept of indivisible security no nation or international organization operating in the Euro-Atlantic region would be entitled to strengthen its own security at the cost of other nations or organizations (Article 1, Draft text of the TES). If and when a threat to security would occur the treaty would provide mechanisms of consultations and conferences to counter this. The conferences would arrive at unanimous and binding decisions, which would need to be carried out by the signatory states. Furthermore, the draft treaty provided for the possibility for the signatories to give military assistance if another signatory state was attacked. The Draft provided for the three levels of conferences: Consulta-tions among the Parties; Conference of the Parties and Extraordinary Conference of the Parties.

Notably, the draft did not envision the unanimous attendance for the Consultations, which would be by invitation. The Conference was not to be mandatory either and the proposed sufficient attendance num-ber was specified at two thirds. However, the Treaty proposed that the decisions of the Conference would be taken by consensus and would be mandatory! The draft clearly showed Russian preference for exclu-sivity. It can be easily inferred that the Treaty was proposing re-establishment of a big power Concert in Europe, with big powers making decisions, which then would be mandatory for all.

Article 7 proposed that the attacked Party or any other Party is tasked to convene an extraordinary Con-ference, which shall be effective if it is attended by at least four fifths of the Parties to the Treaty to decide on necessary collective measures (Para. 1 and 2, Article 8). Notably, the only intricacy that was ad-dressed in this regards was the fact that the vote of an offending Party would not be included in the total number of votes of the Parties in adopting a decision (Article 8, para. 4). Other than that there was no specification of possible collective punishment mechanisms under the proposed collective security ar-rangement. Most importantly, the treaty would in practice mean the dilution of all the existing security institutions in Europe in exchange for the proposed loose system of Conferences.

Overall, Medvedev’s draft took up the negative attitude: instead of describing what could be done it pro-scribed things that could not be done (De Haas, 2010). The major purpose of the proposal was to pre-clude any hard security decision by the Western countries without Russian veto oversight. It also blatantly left out the existing institutions such as NATO, OSCE and EU from the decision-making process. Most importantly, such a complex treaty with all of its shortcomings and legal redundancies was prepared and unveiled unilaterally, unlike the established practice of making such treaties collectively, based on shared common interest from the participating states.

The draft was discussed at the OSCE Ministerial in Athens from December 1-2, 2009, as intended, howev-er, received little direct support. While both the German government and other EU states welcomed the Russian proposal, they spoke of crucial reservations: on the one hand, the Russian initiative may not call into question existing alliances, such as NATO or the OSCE; while on the other hand, Moscow would have to present more concrete proposals on how such a common security space would come to life. The discussions also highlighted the fact that the Russian proposal lacked and in fact omitted those is-sues that were truly central to the European Security. For example, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the Russian proposal omitted the issues of arms control, human rights, and the Georgian-Russian conflict. French comments were seconded by head of the British delegation, which also stressed the need for “a resolution of the crisis” of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, imple-mentation of which Russia suspended in December 2007. The Central and Eastern European countries in particular were openly antagonistic about the Russian proposal. They pointed to the war in Georgia and warned against an attempt to undermine solidarity in the Western defense alliance. Georgia’s then foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze strongly challenged the necessity of the draft as a representative of the country, which had suffered from Russian disregard to the already existing fundamental principles and norms of international law (Charnysh, 2010). All in all, at Athens skepticism prevailed concerning the need for a new binding treaty exclusively on hard security matters.

The prevailing sentiment was also conveyed by the NATO Secretary General saying “We have already a lot of documents, so my point of departure is: ‘I don’t see a need for new treaties.’ But let me reiterate, we are of course prepared to discuss the ideas in the right forum” (Sweeney, 2009). Although the proposal continued to be discussed it did not find any direct utility. In January 2010 the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in her speech on the Future of the European Security, stated: “...the Russian Government under President Medvedev has put forth proposals for new security treaties in Europe. Indivisibility of security is a key feature of those proposals. And that is a goal we share, along with other ideas in the Russian pro-posals, which reaffirm principles of the Helsinki Final Act and the NATO-Russia Founding Act. However, we believe that these common goals are best pursued in the context of existing institutions, such as the OSCE and the NATO-Russia Council, rather than by negotiating new treaties, as Russia has suggested – a very long and cumbersome process (Clinton, 2010).”

The Russian initiative was met with prevalent criticism from the representatives of academic circles as well (for example, see GMF report, 2010). Eventually, discussions over the TES have subsided in 2011 and were not discussed seriously since then by either the Russian Federation, or the West.

Explaining the case – reasons for failure to amalgamate European security institutions

Although currently no proposal is on the table, from time to time Russia reverts to the reproachful rheto-ric, claiming that the West missed an opportunity to form a new, better security order in Europe. Essential-ly, what the Russian Federation has been proposing - a pan-European collective security system that fully regulates the hard security area - is basically a security regime regulating the involved states’ behaviour in the specific issue area. The historical overview above showed that there was hardly a moment in the post-Cold War era history when a specific Russian proposal on reforming the European security order was via-ble and plausible enough beyond magniloquence of the voiced speech.

Beyond the facts discussed above, it would be analytically useful to attempt theoretical explanations why it had not been possible to impose a collective security regime in Europe with a Treaty, as Russia desired. According to Jervis, a security regime “implies not only norms and expectations that facilitate coopera-tion, but a form of cooperation that is more than the following of short-run self-interest” (1982, p. 357). It is difficult to put a security regime to work because the Prisoners’ Dilemma is far greater in the security realm because of primacy, competitive and unforgiving nature and uncertainty over how much security the states need and have (Ibid., p. 359).

The best example of a security regime is the Concert of Europe that prevailed from 1815 to 1823 and, in attenuated form, until the Crimean War (Ibid., p. 362). Another possible type of security regime is the bal-ance of power, in the environment when the restraints on state action it involves are norms internalized by the actors or arise from the blocking actions of others and the anticipation of such counteractions (Ibid., p. 369). Jervis believed that a security regime was not possible between the two superpowers dur-ing the Cold War because they saw mutual security as a myth and their beliefs that individual security re-quired making others insecure was all too apparent (Ibid., p. 375).

However, theoretically, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and bridging of the ideological gap should have provided a wide window of opportunity for a new functioning security regime, which still did not ma-terialize for a number of reasons. In the first episode of the chosen case study, the stance the Russian Federation took across security issues in Europe, including the conflicts in the former Soviet expanse as well as failures in democratic development and its handling of the wars in Chechnya contributed to Rus-sia’s image as an unpredictable and unreliable security partner, hence exacerbating the relative gains considerations and putting the prospects for comprehensive security cooperation back in the stage of low probability area for regime formation (see Hasenclever et. al, 2000).

In the second episode as well the Russian side undertook the campaign for new security order in Europe in a situation of damaged image of a security partner due to its internal development shortcomings as well as its military invasion of Georgia in August 2008. Besides, during the discussion, the Russian side failed to show sensitivity to soft security requirements by Euro-Atlantic states and continued to concen-trate heavily on hard security area (during the Corfu process, for example). Russia maintained that the collectivization of hard security area would do away with Europe’s security problems while the Euro-Atlantic states unanimously maintained that the problem was the lack of political will to abide by the exist-ing rules of the game enshrined in the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris. 

Conclusion

The developments in Ukraine and the subsequent severing of cooperation with Russia as well as the dete-rioration of disarmament and arms control regimes in Europe show that the campaign to improve securi-ty order in Europe is still an unfinished business. Clearly, there is the need to bridge the security outlook among its actors. Major part of that breakthrough lies with Russia’s capacity to acknowledge its own misgivings in relations with its European and Euro-Atlantic partners, first and foremost those who are its neighbors.

Second, the Russian governing elites need to concede that a desired security regime cannot be imposed over by a treaty. The security regime, like any other regime is a principles, rules and norms based institu-tion, around which actors expectations converge (Haas, 1982, p. 211). Euro-Atlantic states regard univer-sal commitment to the rule of law, democratic governance, human rights, including the minority rights, as integral parts of what constitutes a modern security. That necessarily means that any overarching security regime in Europe would need to be based on states’ common commitment to the soft security consider-ations and a clearly discernible pattern of behavior from its participants corresponding to these existing rules of the game.

Moreover, according to the regime theories, it makes a difference whether cooperation partner is a long-time ally or a long-time foe; whether the states in question are at the brink of war or are members of a Deutschean pluralistic security community (Hasenclever et. al, 2000, p. 17). Hence, in order for all fifty-six states in the area from Vancouver to Vladivostok to form an overarching security regime, the Russian Federation has to establish the reputation of a trustworthy actor, which does not consider opportunistic expansionism a better way to increase its own security. That reputation needs to be tested over a consid-erable time period. Without such moves on Russia’s behalf, Europe’s security architecture will remain vulnerable because disregarding the agreed principles and norms diminishes institutional effectiveness putting the world back into a zero sum game mode.

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(1) The Panel of eminent persons was launched on the initiative of the 2014 Swiss OSCE Chairmanship at the OSCE Ministerial Council 2014 in Basel on 4 December. The panel was tasked to prepare the basis for an inclusive and constructive security dialogue across the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions, reflecting on how to re-build trust among OSCE participating States, and examine perceived threats in the OSCE area and potential common solutions.  Notably, the OSCE report of the Eminent Persons in 2015 gave two narratives of the 2008 war. According to the Russian narrative “Before the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, the West did not even pretend to consult Russia, although the promise of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine was, as President Putin later said “a direct threat” to Russian security. Therefore Russia stopped the NATO enlargement by attacking Georgia (According to the Western and Georgian narratives, “The intervention by Russia was a response to the active pro-NATO and pro-EU policy of Georgia”.