The author is a researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research of the University of Montreal (CERIUM). He was political adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2016-2017. He recently published Canada in search of an international identity.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken a new step in his conflict with Westerners. On Monday evening, he recognized the two pro-Russian separatist republics in Ukraine and ordered his army to ensure “peace” there. He was sentenced. He will be punished. Almost twenty years ago to the day in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq in defiance of all international rules, killed 200,000 Iraqis and plunged the entire region into chaos from which it is still struggling to extricate itself today. today, without suffering the slightest sanction. The example coming from above, Putin thinks that he too is above the law.
If diplomacy is going to experience a temporary halt, it will soon be necessary to return to it. By recognizing the two pro-Russian republics, Putin laid the third stone, after his intervention in Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, to the establishment of the Russian zone of influence on the continent. He thus hopes to force Westerners to discuss his proposals for a new security architecture in Europe. The method is brutal, but the objective of redefining the European security system is shared by several countries, including France.
No room for Russia
The current security system, based on the centrality of NATO and the American commitment as factors of security and stability in Europe, no longer works. It is contested from the outside by Russia, which sees it as a permanent threat to its security, and from the inside by illiberal states such as Hungary and Croatia, which do not agree to isolate Moscow, by Turkey , whose desire to establish a sphere of influence in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean comes up against the great traditional powers, and even by France, whose president recently felt that NATO was no longer able to think intelligently about their strategic goals.
The system was built in 1989-1991, the day after the collapse of the Eastern bloc. This resulted in a security vacuum quickly filled by the Atlantic Alliance. Russia, weakened, allowed NATO to expand in the East while raising protest after protest without being listened to.
While the European security architecture has until recently served American and European interests well, it has never made room for those of Russia, writes American diplomat William H. Hill in No Place for Russia, published in 2018. This voluminous research traces the evolution of the European security order over the last thirty years and helps to explain current tensions. For the author, the most important decision-makers in the West have never seriously considered integrating Russia into Western political, economic and security structures. At most, the United States offered Russia a seat, among others, and on Western terms. From then on, the author maintains, the order thus created still remains undefined.
Create a new order
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger thinks no less. In an interview published three years ago, he called on Westerners to stop demonizing the Russian president and stressed the need to create a new world order. According to him, all States should not only participate in this creation, but they should also have the conviction to find their place in this new order.
Prior to Monday’s events, Putin’s demands of the United States and NATO last December had the effect of giving Westerners pause. In their responses, the West rejected Moscow’s main demand to ban Ukraine’s NATO membership, but opened up a new perspective on European security. NATO and the United States have shown themselves “ready to explore arrangements or agreements” with Russia, including written and signed documents, to “address our respective security concerns”, they wrote.
To make these commitments more concrete, the Allies called on Russia to “sincere discussions on arms control” and a dialogue based on “mutual transparency and confidence-building measures”. In particular, the West was willing to revive the treaty banning intermediate nuclear missiles signed thirty years ago and rendered null and void by the recent withdrawal of Washington and Moscow.
Western responses to Russian demands provide a good basis for negotiation, but the West must go beyond mere technical changes, important as they are. A few years ago, a NATO Secretary General said that the security of NATO and Russia is indivisible. Well, let’s give this evidence real content. It is fundamental to integrate Russia into decision-making mechanisms where all participants will have the certainty of being stakeholders in the security of the European continent. The process leading to the creation of this new order is likely to take time due to the mistrust between the West and Russia. However, we must commit ourselves to it, because the risk is great that the current crisis will be perpetuated.