Individual Democratic Institutions Research Fellowships 1994-1996

The research reports reproduced here are the responsibility of the individual authors. Their reproduction does not imply any form of official or unofficial endorsement by NATO. The reports are offered in unedited form, as presented by their authors, with a view to make their findings available to a wide audience. The role of international regimes in promoting democratic institutions: the case of NATO and Russia Sergei Medvedev [Back to Index] Chapter III. Russian Approaches to NATO 3. Damage Limitation Limited domestic resources of both approaches - anti-Western isolationism and Western internationalism - call for a third policy, a middle road between two extremes. Damage limitation has emerged in 1994-1995 as exactly this kind of policy: a compromise between political ambitions of the new regime and economic environment in which it exists and on which it is vitally dependent. Advocates of this approach base their discourse on two assumptions which have gained currency in the political debate of the last two years: Russia does not need NATO for its own security (i.e., no positive NATO impact) NATO, even an enlarged one, cannot pose a threat to the security of Russia (i.e., no negative NATO impact) These two arguments create a totally different context, free of illusions and fears, a basis for a pragmatic course. In the meanwhile, decisionmakers in Russia figure out that a quick NATO enlargement (before 1998) will take place only in two cases: a firm Russian "yes", or a firm Russian "no" (spelled in the language of neo-containment). Excluding these two options, the majority of politicians and experts in Moscow come to the conclusion that Russia should opt for a strategy of delaying NATO enlargement, thus limiting assumed damage of NATO policies. This approach was clearly articulated by Irina Kobrinskaya in the Spring of 1995: "Although a quick NATO enlargement does not pose an immediate threat to Russia, it will not improve its national security. Therefore the goal of the Russian policy should be to delay enlargement".(109) Underlying this argument is a long-term strategic consideration, aiming at the new European balance of the 21st century. Russia, that is currently in the phase of geopolitical and economic decline, tries to prevent the fixation of this unfavorable status-quo in any kind of treaty, agreement or security system. The matter is, it is objectively interested in maintaining the current uncertain and unstructured security arrangement that took shape in Europe in the wake of the Cold War as long as possible - preferably until the economic upsurge in Russia expected by 2004-2005. Russia is therefore instinctively opposed to any institutional upgrading of European security, NATO enlargement included; it would prefer to see European security not as an institution, but as an open-ended process (much like the former CSCE: hence the current impact of Moscow on the OSCE), to dissolve it in various pan-European collective security proposals, resounding old Soviet designs of 1930s. Another Russian consideration related to timing concerns a consensus on NATO enlargement among CEE states and in the West. Despite a seeming unanimity, at least in CEE, this consensus is rather fragile. As pointed out by NAA report in May 1995, as situation in Europe develops, Central European candidates, as well as NATO members may reconsider their current views on the necessity of enlargement, especially if this process takes much longer than initially expected.(110) Therefore the Russian impact on timing is also based on hope that in about five years much of the momentum in the enlargement issue will be lost.(111) Such approach, based on delays, tactics and timing, was defined by Yeltsin's national security aid Yuri Baturin in terms of games theory as a "game of incomplete information", when a player on the opposite side does not have a clear idea of your strategy.(112) Mikhail Karpov recalls on this occasion the Gromyko-style diplomacy of "blockages" and "delays without quitting negotiations".(113) However, Gromyko was still a "Mr. No" for the West, while Kozyrev managed to play a more difficult and unpredictable role of "Mr. Maybe". An instructive example is his blunt refusal to sign Russia's Partnership Program with NATO in Brussels in December 1994, followed by six months of delays and postponements, and a final signing of IPP in Nordwijk in May 1995. During these six months, virtually no changes occurred in positions of both sides,(114) but the prevailing uncertainty in some way played into the hands of Russia.(115) Largely of the same nature was the Russian refusal to participate in Cooperative Challenge exercises in October 1995 in the Czech Republic, and a number of other steps. Kozyrev's diplomacy of indecisiveness fit well in this scheme (although there hardly was, or is, an elaborate strategic design; rather, Russian foreign policy instinctively declines to make choices or take any kind of responsibility, and the lack of strategy turns out to be a strategy in itself), and probably that was one of the reasons why he survived three years of unprecedented domestic criticism both from the right and the left, until finally giving way to an apparently hard-line Primakov. The same inclination results in a highly ambivalent general Russian attitude, or, as put by Vladimir Frolov, in "Moscow's hypocrisy in approach to NATO".(116) On the one hand, Russia speaks of the need to preserve "the effectiveness of NATO and the U.S. military presence in Europe, also in its role of counterbalancing the power of Germany", and on the other hand proposes to transform NATO from a defense alliance to a political organization, the military component of the OSCE".(117) In an effort to "dissolve" NATO's political and military capacity in wider European structures, some experts, like Maj.-Gen. Pavel Zolotarev of MOD Information and Analysis Center (apparently not a hard-liner), propose to make NATO inferior not only to the OSCE but even to the idealistic Pact on Stability in Europe ("The Balladur Plan"), signed by European states in May 1995.(118) This unrealistic pan-European (in fact, anti-NATO-enlargement) thrust of Russian proposals is quite evident from what is offered to countries of CEE instead of joining NATO; mutual guarantees by Russia and the West (an idea strongly rejected by Central Europeans themselves as resembling Yalta); Central European subregional organization (in fact, multiple attempts of the kind, including Central European initiative, have failed in the last five years), or, once again strengthening of common European institutions.(119) The tactics of damage limitation in Russia's policies towards NATO are more or less completely set out in the cited Theses of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP), although the term "damage limitation", whatever its popularity in academic circles, is omitted. CFDP experts headed by Sergei Karaganov, who has recently emerged as one of the principal speakers for this kind of "geopolitical realism",(120) proceed from the fact that NATO as a collective organization operates on a consensus principle, and therefore Russia could interact with opponents of enlargement in the West (most notably in military establishments, but also in political circles of a centrist and moderately conservative kind) in order to influence NATO decisionmaking and at least to prevent "a premature political decision on enlargement".(121) More specifically, it is advised that Russia interacts with opponents of enlargement in such countries as Portugal, Spain, possibly Italy, and definitely in Greece, where they fear either the drain of resources, or the decline of NATO's strategic attention to problems, which are most imminent for them, such as the threat of spill of instability from ex-Yugoslavia, migration from the countries of North Africa, etc. It is particularly stressed that Russia has an option of interacting not with an opposition (or even a marginal opposition, as was often the case with the Soviet Union), but with leading groups of the ruling classes in Western countries, that consider the decision to enlarge NATO too risky and/or too costly.(122) Advocates of this approach, like First deputy minister of defense Andrei Kokoshin, also point out that Russia could pursue a dialogue on this issue with Germany, since, as it is generally believed in Moscow, the "internal Western" aim of enlargement is to contain the growing power and political influence of Germany, first of all in CEE, and with France, capitalizing on the neo-Gaullist trends in the new French foreign policy, and on good personal relationship of Boris Yeltsin and Jacques Chirac.(123) Finally, as argued by CFDP experts, NATO enlargement is going to be a long process divided at least in three stages: before the decision on enlargement is taken, after the decision is taken, during the talks on the conditions of joining NATO, during the preparation of treaties, and their subsequent ratification, after ratification. Consequently, "in each of these stages, Russia will have an opportunity to "join" in the emerging problems, partaking in discussions, provoking debates, assisting in policy changes, and increasing potential political costs of enlargement."(124) Summing up, damage limitation emerged as exactly the kind of strategy sought by the new Russian regime. It appeared not so much of foreign policy necessity, as of domestic conditions and of a specific configuration of elites and interests during the period of stabilization in 1994-1995. An ideology of derzhavnost', with the accompanying geopolitical ambitions on the one hand, and an economic and strategic necessity to keep trade, financial and other lines with the West open, on the other, gave birth to this ambivalent approach - one of the faces of the emerging national capitalism in Russia.