NATO expansion and the Future of European Security
NATO expansion and the Future of European SecurityA more assertive Foreign Minister and a more nationalist Duma are now in power in Moscow. Both face serious challenges in pursuit of two principal foreign policy goals articulated by the new Foreign Minister, Yevgeni Primakov: Defending Russia’s national interests and developing ties with the United States.
One of Russia’s primary challenges comes from Washington’s drive to expand NATO into Eastern Europe. With good reason, Moscow strongly opposes expansion of the Atlantic alliance. In principle, it would enable western troops to deploy, exercise and patrol on the borders of the former Soviet Union and permit Eastern Europe to become a potential staging area for NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons. In practice, it would dramatically change the strategic calculus in Europe to Moscow’s disadvantage.
Western proponents of expansion argue that NATO has always been a defensive alliance, that its enlargement will “stabilize” Eastern Europe, and that stabilization will enhance rather than degrade Russia’s security. NATO’s disingenuous dismissal of Russian national security concerns fails to address the key political problem: Moscow considers NATO expansion as an effort to isolate rather than integrate Russia into Europe’s post-Cold war security architecture. Fear of isolation has been an underlying–if not explicit–concern of Russia since at least the time of German reunification. Thus, in Moscow’s eyes, NATO expansion is part of an effort to deny Russia an appropriate role in the new Europe’s security arrangements.
While it is unclear what a truly “European” security architecture might actually look like, and how Russia might best be integrated into it, there are several obvious components of this structure. The first and most basic element is the continued successful implementation of a host of arms control arrangements, most importantly the conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. This arrangement, under which nearly 50,000 items of military equipment have been destroyed, places the overall limits on the armor, artillery and aircraft of 30 countries, including Russia.
But to Moscow, the CFE treaty is already a double challenge to Russian national interests: it limits the size of Russian forces at a time when the West is seeking to
expand NATO and it constrains Russia’s freedom to deploy forces in its own country as NATO is seeking the right to station its forces in other countries. NATO expansion would make it difficult, if not impossible, for any government in Moscow to continue to abide by the CFE treaty.
Moreover, NATO expansion would make it likely, if not certain, that the Russian military will seek to increase its reliance on tactical nuclear weapons to counter NATO’s conventional superiority. This, in turn, could jeopardize the INF treaty and the Bush/Gorbachev/Yelsin unilateral withdrawals of tactical nuclear weapons. In short, if Europe loses the CFE treaty, there will be no chance of creating a cooperative security structure from the Atlantic to the Urals.
A second element of the post-Soviet European security architecture is an enhanced Partnership for Peace (PFP) program. PFP is a military-to-military bridge between...
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