Yeltsin’s Russia even as a distant possibility; while it was only in 1995 that Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev (as he recalls in his recently published memoir, The Firebird) finally received assurances from the Clinton Administration that the U.S. would be open to future Russian membership in NATO.5 By then, the democratic window of opportunity in Russia itself was rapidly closing for reasons of domestic politics and a botched post-communist transition that would warrant a separate discussion of its own.
It is well known that Russia’s foreign policy is closely linked to domestic political developments. Democratic aspirations at home translate into a more friendly and progressive international posturing; testimony to that are President Yeltsin’s efforts in support of the independence of the Baltic States in the waning says of the Soviet Union—efforts backed by Russian public opinion at the time. The reverse correlation was persuasively demonstrated after Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. Having begun his rule by silencing independent media voices, taming parliament and the judiciary, fixing elections, and going after opponents, he proceeded with a multitude of foreign entanglements, including actual wars in Georgia and eastern Ukraine and, with Crimea, the first state-to-state territorial annexation on European soil since the end of the Second World War. There is no reason to expect a regime that tramples on the rights of its own people and violates its own laws to respect international norms or the interests of other nations.
Just as the retreat from hope and cooperation of the 1990s to confrontation and what some analysts are terming the “new cold war” of today has resulted mainly from Russia’s domestic turn to authoritarianism, so another window of opportunity for East-West relations will likely come from a renewed demand for freedom in dignity in Russian society. The signs of what may be to come are already there, from the recent mass protests in Moscow and Khabarovsk to an increased participation of Russian youth in civic and political life to opposition successes in local elections to a marked decline in Putin’s popularity (however credible it was in the first place, given the inevitable slant in opinion polls under an authoritarian system). A post-Putin democratic Russia may seem as implausible today as the fall of the Soviet system did in the late 1980s. But it is never a bad idea to be prepared. The authors and editors of this volume deserve great credit for helping to lay the groundwork for such preparation.
Vladimir V. Kara-Murza is a Russian opposition politician, author and filmmaker. He serves as chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and vice-president of the Free Russia Foundation.
1 Friedman, Thomas. 1991. “Soviet disarray; Yeltsin Says Russia Seeks to Join NATO.” New York Times, December 21, 1991. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/21/world/soviet-disarray-yeltsin-says-russia-seeks-to-join-nato.html.
2 Ibidem.
3 Friedman, Thomas. 1991. “Soviet disarray; Yeltsin Says Russia Seeks to Join NATO.” New York Times, December 21, 1991. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/21/world/soviet-disarray-yeltsin-says-russia-seeks-to-join-nato.html.
4 C-SPAN. 1990. “Czechoslovakian President Address.” Accessed January 19, 2021. www.c-span.org/video/?10917-1/czechoslovakian-president-address.
5 European Union. 1992. “Treaty on European Union signed at Maastricht, February 7, 1992.” Official Journal of the European Communities 35: 1-67. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:1992:191:FULL&from=EN; Andrei Kozyrev. 2019. The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 269.
Note by the Series Editor
The present volume somewhat departs from the usual format of SPPS volumes in that most of the well-informed texts published in this collection constitute revealing individual testimonies rather than traditional research papers. Many of the authors assembled here by Oxana Schmies have themselves participated, to one degree or another, in the shaping of post-Soviet East European geopolitics. Some academics provide their policy reflections and opinion pieces on burning issues in Russian-Western relations instead of conventional hypothesis testing, process tracing, or theory building.
The volume is both, a unique documentary anthology on recent historical events and a significant intervention into an ongoing heated public debate in Europe and North America. The book was explicitly designed to reach a larger readership beyond the Ivory Tower. It should be of interest to an academic audience in view of the disputational or/and witness character of some of its statements. But its deliberations and recommendations should also be relevant to potential readers active in politics, diplomacy, journalism, as well as various governmental and non-governmental organizations.
A.U., Kyiv, March 2021
Introduction
Oxana Schmies
NATO’s eastward expansion partly addressed and partly exacerbated various unresolved European security problems that followed the end of the Cold War, making the Alliance’s enlargement one of the quintessential issues of contemporary international relations. This is premised on both NATO’s self-image as a political and military organization adhering to Western values, and the fact that Russia has never been integrated into it. NATO and the USSR/Russia have been interdependent since the alliance was formed, necessitating a continued search for mutually adequate security solutions by the West and Moscow. This will remain so at least until a more profound institutional change in or with NATO comes to pass.
A reassessment of NATO enlargement and the historical experience of NATO’s relationship with Russia since the 1990s can help develop a new strategy toward Russia. Since such a strategy is still evolving, now seems the right time for multi-layered policy recommendations. What does this book aim to be?
It is a look on NATO and Russia primarily from outside of perspective of a “Russian challenge and Western response.”
It is a look on NATO predominantly in its political dimension.
It is a look at the period before and after NATO’s eastward expansion.
It is also an attempt to unveil the thinking of the Russian leadership.
The authors of this volume have interdisciplinary backgrounds in politics, diplomacy, the military and academia. Among them are individuals who shaped the fundamental treaties between NATO (or “the West”) and Russia. The contributions provide a broad kaleidoscope of viewpoints, memories, surveys, interpretations, reflections and evaluations that are meant to stimulate thinking. The volume contains a number of implicit and explicit political recommendations and offers a broad variety of expertise to today’s policy planners and decision makers.
The Messages
The volume contains, at least, seven distinguishable messages:
First: Security issues are and will remain central in the relations between the West and Russia. “Security guarantees” as a regulating mechanism have not stood the test of history. We see that most vividly on the example of the 2014 Russian aggression against Ukraine which happened despite written promises that had been given by Moscow to Kyiv in, among others, the below analyzed 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.1 While the Alliance was not a part of this deal, today the basic treaties building trust between NATO and Russia are in danger.2
Second: History is essential for present and future policy. The origins of