... Annual Conference
in Washington on 5/6 October. The conference embraced academics, policy experts and “institutniks”, and some former politicians and diplomats from the USA, Russia and Europe, with guest appearances by Dr. Henry Kissinger and Senator Sam Nunn.
It is common ground that we are living through a very dangerous period, with “world order” under threat or illusory; that relations between Russia and the USA, and between Russia and leading European members of NATO, have reached a ...
... reflection, we are doomed to further deterioration of the relationship.
In a recent Valdai Club report, I proposed a combination of seven factors for a Euro-Atlantic security formula: the balance of power, the structural peculiarities of Russia and NATO, arms control regimes and institutions, political identity, new areas of competition and vulnerability (the digital and information environments), peripheral conflicts in Europe, and the role of rising external actors.
Ivan Timofeev:
The Euro-Atlantic ...
... RIAC expert,
Andrey Zagorsky
, Ph.D. in History, Head of the Department of Disarmament and Confl ict
Resolution, Center for International Security, Primakov National Research
Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of
... ... at long-
established views.
This report
proceeds from the understanding that the major gap in capabilities between
Russia and NATO has produced an asymmetric and unbalanced system of security in
the Euro-Atlantic region. Although that asymmetry was not ...
... problems in relations. But no one could have predicted that they would grow to such dimensions within so short a period. The Euro-Atlantic security system was plunged into a real disaster – sudden, brief and all-embracing.
After the Cold War, Russia and NATO largely demilitarized and significantly curtailed their military capacity. The likelihood of a military conflict in Europe was reduced to a minimum. Moscow was aggrieved by NATO enlargement, but its formal expansion was accompanied by reductions ...
... issues and disputes.
A number of key issues and disputes are already proving difficult to resolve, not even considering the added problem caused by accusations of mutual election interference. These include security concerns and disputes revolving around NATO and European Union enlargement, Russian actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, as well as the nature of the conventional and nuclear arms race that has been escalating at least since the turn of the 21st century.
In June 2017, Moscow canceled talks ...
... clear again that leaders recognize their responsibility to work together to prevent nuclear catastrophe, and would be positively received by global leaders and publics.
A second step could be to
increase military-to-military communication through a new NATO–Russia Military Crisis Management Group
. Restarting bilateral military-to-military dialogue between the United States and Russia, essential throughout the Cold War, should be an immediate and urgent priority. The focus of these initiatives should ...
... the European Union on a number of fundamental issues
The new Global EU Strategy is a landmark event. It formalizes an attempt to transform the European Union into the independent center of world politics and further growth of its responsibility in international security matters. In case of its successful implementation, the EU will attain a greater potential and political weight. The EU will become a new qualitative political player, cooperating closely with NATO and solving a wide range of security issues - from conventional deterrence to new challenges and threats. Among them are migration, cyber security, energy, sustainability of states in transition, etc. The EU's role in the formation of a new security ...
... body responsible for maintaining international peace and security.
We also note that the developments around Syria confirm and reinforce the case made in our previous Position Paper regarding the need to work on a Memorandum of Understanding between NATO and the Russian Federation on the Rules of Behaviour for the Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters. [
4
]
Finally, we believe that lessening of tensions between Turkey and Russia, paving a way for the resumption of bilateral cooperation, would have ...
... practically impossible to consider a comprehensive and long term common strategy in such a sensitive and politically loaded sphere as international security.
Second
, there is no common vision about the future of the international system at large or about the ... ... op-ed piece that my friend Lord Malcolm Rifkind and me published in International New York Times on August 3rd of 2015. "If NATO partners and Russia do not act to steer events in the way we set out, our fear is that the future course of this crisis will ...
... confrontation, re-energized national interest-based rivalries and re-emerging blocs, OSCE remains the only organization that is trusted – more or less – by all participating states. Merely because other security organizations, be it the US-led NATO or Russia-led CSTO, are deemed as representative of the political aspirations of a narrow group at best and serving national interests of the leading states at worst. In other words, regardless of criticisms,
trust
is the capital the organization ...
