The open, rules-based system that respects international borders, and the right of states to choose their own future, has been undermined. And yet Russia also signed up to these rules – and even helped write them – many times: in OSCE documents such as the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris, in the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and in many other international agreements. In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, Russia explicitly guaranteed Ukraine’s international frontiers in exchange for the transfer of nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia.
Our first reaction at NATO to Russia’s actions has been one of bitter disappointment. For over 20 years, we have tried actively and consistently to make Russia a strategic partner. We made it clear that our vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace included a prominent place for Russia. In the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997 we pledged not to regard each other as adversaries but to work together to create a “lasting and inclusive peace”.
For a while our cooperation seemed to be working. In Afghanistan, Russia helped our ISAF mission by providing training to counter-narcotics experts and the Afghan National Security Forces, and helping to maintain the fledgling Afghan Air Force’s helicopter fleet. And let’s not forget that our troops deployed together for several years under the NATO flag in Bosnia and Kosovo, after combining our diplomatic efforts to end those conflicts. After 9/11, Russia supported our Active Endeavour counter-terrorism mission in the Mediterranean, and we have cooperated in the Gulf of Aden on counter-piracy as well.
Russia’s narrative – a false narrative, let me stress – is one of a country humiliated by a West that has tried to take advantage of its weakness since the end of the Cold War. NATO enlargement has been invoked by numerous Russian and some Western commentators. But when the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe sought to join the Alliance, we made a special effort to demonstrate that NATO enlargement would contribute to European stability, and that it was not directed against Russia. This included a series of unilateral commitments to refrain from deploying substantial combat forces or nuclear weapons in new member states. Indeed, despite Russia’s aggression, we have held to these commitments.
Russia was not a passive partner. It too brought initiatives to the table: for instance, in countering terrorism and interdicting explosives; in cooperating on airspace management over Eastern Europe; and in maritime search and rescue – to name but a few.
These examples demonstrate that NATO-Russia cooperation was seen by Moscow to be in its interests as well. It was not a zero-sum game; but a “win-win.” We were helping Russia to be more secure – not less, as Moscow now claims. And that cooperation could work again in the future – if Russia wants to be a real partner and to abide by the rules.
Yet what we have seen, especially since Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012, is a Russia determined to go in the opposite direction: to detach itself from Europe, to assert itself in its own neighborhood, and to seek to build alternative mechanisms – such as the Eurasian Union and the BRICS group – whose raison d’être, at least in Moscow’s view, is defined by opposition to the West.
Even before the Ukraine crisis, Russia was backing away from the commitment it made at our Lisbon Summit in 2010 to develop a true strategic partnership with NATO and to cooperate in potentially important areas such as missile defense. Russia became less transparent about its own military activities, especially major exercises. It based these exercises on absurd scenarios of a direct threat, or even an attack from a NATO country. It stopped implementing the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, and other transparency initiatives such as the Open Skies Treaty. It showed no interest in our overtures to re-engage on nuclear and conventional arms control. Instead of more predictability and trust we now have less, even compared to the Soviet period.
Indeed, with its frequent “snap exercises,” like the one now underway in the Kaliningrad region, Moscow seems determined to surprise, shock and intimidate rather than to build confidence and predictability as it pledged to do under the Vienna Document of 1999.
And just a few weeks ago, Russia issued the latest revision of its Military Doctrine. It explicitly refers to NATO as destabilizing and a “danger” to Russia – without, I might add, giving any convincing rationale as to why or how NATO threatens Russia, or providing any justification for Russia’s aggressive behavior.
Russia’s narrative – a false narrative, let me stress – is one of a country humiliated by a West that has tried to take advantage of its weakness since the end of the Cold War. NATO enlargement has been invoked by numerous Russian and some Western commentators. But when the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe sought to join the Alliance, we made a special effort to demonstrate that NATO enlargement would contribute to European stability, and that it was not directed against Russia. This included a series of unilateral commitments to refrain from deploying substantial combat forces or nuclear weapons in new member states. Indeed, despite Russia’s aggression, we have held to these commitments.