Президент РСМД И.С. Иванов выступил на заседании Европейского сообщества лидеров за многостороннее ядерное разоружение и нераспространение

4-5 июня с.г. в Варшаве прошло заседание Европейского сообщества лидеров за многостороннее ядерное разоружение и нераспространение (European Leadership Network for Multilaterial Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation).

На заседании выступил президент Российского совета по международным делам И.С. Иванов, являющийся членом Совета директоров ELN.

4-5 июня с.г. в Варшаве прошло заседание Европейского сообщества лидеров за многостороннее ядерное разоружение и нераспространение (European Leadership Network for Multilaterial Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation.

На заседании выступил президент Российского совета по международным делам И.С. Иванов, являющийся членом Совета директоров ELN.

Выступление И.С. Иванова:

«I would like to start my short remarks with the question: “Have we ever had real trust between NATO and Russia?” Of course, twenty years ago, after the end of the Cold War there were many elevated expectations about the future of Russia – NATO relations. Some politicians and experts on both sides went as far as to propose a NATO membership for Russia. But this idea has remained a pipe-dream; it has never been considered in a serious way either in Moscow or in Brussels. Furthermore, we have to confess that mistrust, mutual suspicions, misperceptions and fears have survived through the best years of our relationship.

No doubt, it would be wrong to say that in twenty years we accomplished absolutely nothing. It is not fair to many politicians, uniformed men and academics on both sides, who desperately tried to build a common Euro-Atlantic security space. In late May of 2002 – ten years ago - we formed the NATO-Russia Council. Over time, the Council has become an important interface between the two sides, helping us to compare notes, to exchange views on international and security matters and, sometimes, to discuss possible cooperation in various fields. However, the Council could not change the fundamentals of the relationship; it does not have either authority or resources to make strategic decisions and its meetings are quite often reduced to mostly formal procedures.

Sometimes, the relationship between Russia and NATO looks like a pre-arranged marriage. The parties are supposed to form a happy couple, in theory they should make a perfect fit. But in reality the chemistry simply does not work and both sides are striving against the pre-arranged marriage. If so, do we really need to insist on this marriage? Do we need a closer cooperation between Russia and NATO? Is there anything wrong about both sides minding their own business?

The answer to these questions depends on how we assess the current security situation in Europe in general. Are we happy with the current state of the Euro Atlantic security? Is it something that we would like to preserve in the future? My answer to all these questions is definite “No”. The current state of affairs is not acceptable and has to be changed. The change depends largely on positions taken by NATO and Russia vis-à-vis each other.

The initial step in building trust between Russia and NATO, in my view, is to take a sober and unbiased look at the current security situation in Europe. If we do not try to hide problems behind nice words and diplomatic protocol, we should recognize that today, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, we do not have an integrated Euro Atlantic security system. We still have the West and the East; the borderline between the two has moved eastward, but has not disappeared. Mistrust and mutual suspicions are still with us; our attempts to create a common Euro Atlantic security space have failed in the most spectacular and unambiguous way.

Russia and NATO failed because neither side has considered a strategic partnership in a serious way. We never really learned the lessons of 9/11. Neither had we made proper conclusions from subsequent terrorist attacks in Spain and in the United Kingdom. The United States continued to pursue its unilateral world domination strategy having missed a chance to lead the international community to a new world order. Russia initially fought for is mere survival and later on enjoyed an unprecedented energy based wealth. Europe was too busy managing its geographical expansion and then had to confront a chain of constitutional, political and economic difficulties. In sum, everyone was busy minding his own business, and the concept of the Euro-Atlantic security system remained a concept shared by few idealists.

The paradox of the NATO – Russia relations today is that unlike in the past, we do not have any significant disputes in how we define regional or global security challenges and needs. We can disagree on specific questions, on how particular institutions should work or what issues should get our immediate attention. But when you talk to responsible politicians in Moscow or in Brussels, in Washington or here in Warsaw you are likely to get mostly the same assessments and the same conclusions on the majority of security matters. However, the common NATO - Russian security system remains probably as far away from us as it was in late 1980s.

In 2009 the unique process was created, called the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (EASI). This project brought together former policymakers, diplomats, generals, and business leaders from Russia, North America, and Europe to look at options to address the region’s faltering security system and to chart a roadmap of practical action that would lead to a more secure future.

As a result of our discussions and study, we concluded that the only means to assure the long-term security of our peoples lies in building an inclusive, undivided, functioning Euro-Atlantic Security Community – a community without barriers, in which all would expect resolution of disputes exclusively by diplomatic, legal, or other nonviolent means, without recourse to military force or the threat of its use. We believe, in short, that our security problems can only be solved by working together and that we can no longer afford the divisions of the past that stand in the way of that cooperation.

That target is ambitious and will be the work of decades. But unless we begin to move in this direction now, the risk that the Euro-Atlantic community may retreat to old patterns of suspicion, confrontation, and distrust is all too real.

If it is so, then I ask myself concrete questions: what should be done, what we should begin with, who should take a leading role in this process.

Frankly speaking I am not too optimistic about any “magic solution” that could solve our problems with one strike. There is no “institutional deficit” in the Euro-Atlantic Zone. I’m not sure that we really need new security agreements to cover all the security problems of the region. In fact there are many signed already.

Nor do we need compromises grounded in the same Cold war logic – involving the archaic notions of “deterrence potential”, “unacceptable damage”, “mutual assured destruction” and so on. I’m convinced that the concept of deterrence does not have to constitute the foundation of modern Trans-Atlantic relations. I’m also sure that all the attempts to “modernize”, “reform”, “update” deterrence are doomed to fail. We have to move on away from this legacy of the XX century, if we want the Trans-Atlantic zone to remain a vibrant and innovative region in the world.

We should think in very bold, strategic terms, but our thinking should be converted into very practical incremental steps.

In my point of view this very approach is the best for today. As Winston Churchill once put it, “the difference between a pessimist and an optimist is that the pessimist looks for problems in every opportunity, while the optimist can see opportunities in every problem”.

Time has come to think about very specific, incremental steps that can help us to deal with limited, but not unimportant areas of the Euro-Atlantic security. I would like to emphasize the significance of promoting security regimes in Europe. These regimes might cover various security dimensions – like cyber security, or drugs traffic, or migrations, or energy. They can also focus on sub regional problems (the Arctic, the Black sea zone, the Balkans). We will be able to take one issue after another, or to handle them in a parallel way.

The advantages of the regime approach, in my view, are evident. First of all, regimes are more flexible than institutions; we do not need to negotiate very complex and ambiguous decision making processes and feed multiple layers of bureaucracies. Second, regimes are more democratic – they can embrace any party, which is interested in joining the regime (maybe, in certain cases we can even accept non-state participants). Third, regimes can first be launched where the conditions are ripe and the cooperation is already on; we can reach out for low hanging fruits and later on build on our initial success.

Let me give you one example of how this approach can work. As all of us know, Russia and NATO are successfully cooperating on the issue of the Afghan transit. However, this cooperation so far does not reach out beyond specific, tactical matters. Could we expand it by launching serious Russia-NATO consultations on the future of Afghanistan after the NATO troops withdrawal in 2014? If we agree on common perceptions and common interests in Afghanistan, then it would be much easier to discuss the future of the Middle East. If we have a common denominator on the Middle East, we have high chances on reaching an agreement on Iran and so on.

This is something that can be applied to our current debates about the missile defense.

Despite the current diplomatic impasse, cooperative missile defense offers an avenue to the larger goal of transforming the very nature of security relations between the Russian Federation and the United States/NATO. In other words, it can be a game changer.

U.S.-NATO-Russia missile defense cooperation is not only insurance against a potential intrinsic threat but also a critical component in building a larger security community.

Of course, it would be great to have an integrated all-European or even a global system protecting all of us. But if it is not yet feasible, why not trying something more modest, but still meaningful? Without sacrificing their principles on the European missile defense Russia and the USA/NATO could start working on very concrete matters. This may be the collecting and sharing of information and data satellites and radars operating in real time to provide a common notification of missile attack; resumption of joint command-stuff exercises on ballistic missile defense; continuation of threat discussions and so on. Maybe these forms of cooperation look trivial and not imaginative, but this is exactly what creates trust, eradicates mutual suspicions and ultimately paves the way for more ambitions and for reaching agreements.

One of the essential preconditions for building trust in relations between Russia and NATO is a common vision of our preferred future relations. Can we agree on an ideal model of this relationship? What such a model might look like? To be a visionary does not mean to be an idle dreamer; vision does not exclude realism and pragmatism. For instance, a realist should recognize that a full Russia’s membership to NATO, as I have mentioned earlier, is not the goal that we could pursue in the foreseeable future. However, why do not we consider the Russian engagement to political institutions of the Atlantic Alliance? After all, this was the long term goal of the NATO-Russia Council when the Council was incepted.

Likewise, today it is essential to link Russia to political institutions of NATO wherever it is possible. The engagement at the political level will help to gradually move toward a common political culture, to eliminate misunderstandings mutual suspicions. It will also allow us to increase radically the scale of communications between Russia and NATO by engaging into this communications leading politicians, experts, journalists, educators and other opinion makers. I would venture to say that Russia should infiltrate key NATO institutions to learn more about the Alliance – its basic principles, values, procedures, and aspirations. From its side, NATO should provide more opportunities for the Russian participation. We must make sure that our communications are not limited to a small group of top level bureaucrats or generals – only very broad and diverse contacts can really change public attitudes and bring us to a new level of trust and mutual understanding. That was the case of the German – French reconciliation after the end of the Second World war, that was the case of the German – Polish reconciliation later and I see no reason why it should be any different in case of the Russia – NATO relations.

You may ask me: “Is this a realistic proposition with Vladimir Putin back to the Kremlin?” I am convinced that the answer is “Yes”. One can like the Russian President elect or dislike him, but nobody would deny that Vladimir Putin is a realist above all. The last thing he would like to see is a new arms race between Russia and the US, or Russia and NATO. Such an arms race would be definitely detrimental to Russia’s interests, especially keeping in mind the huge modernization challenge that the country faces. It does not mean, of course, that Vladimir Putin is ready to go for unilateral concessions or that he would yield under the pressure. But the West can always count on his readiness to go for a reasonable compromise».