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'[O]ur attitude to the expansion.. remains calmly negative', Andrei Kelin, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, December 31

'Article of Andrei Kelin, Deputy Director, European Cooperation Department, Russian MFA, "A Calmly Negative Attitude to NATO Expansion," for the Journal Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn', December 31, 2003.

Well known is the point of view that it would be possible to do without relations between Russia and NATO by developing bilateral military ties with the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty. The supporters of this idea usually use the thesis that NATO is uncalled for when particular crisis situations become exacerbated in the world. But this thesis corresponds little to the real state of affairs. In the understanding of the Europeans, let alone the Americans, the alliance was, is, and in the foreseeable future will remain a constant of Euro-Atlantic security policy. And that the European states themselves need it in the first place, practically arouses no doubts.

To Russia NATO is, above all, the largest geopolitical factor influencing security near our western borders. At the same time it is one of the main institutions of the European community of states, and if a line is to be pursued on building normal relations with each state of this community, which, strictly speaking, we have been striving to do in the last few years, it will be logical to build a civilized, working relationship with all the key European organizations, including NATO.

Our approaches to NATO and, accordingly, relations with the alliance were always a particularly difficult foreign policy line. It's no wonder considering the heavy burden of mutual distrust and suspicion that formed in the more than 40 years when we and NATO were political opponents, and militarily - adversaries. The attempts to strike a constructive relationship with the alliance at the beginning of the 1990s did not produce results. At that period, the North Atlantic Alliance was exhibiting slightly more military transparency, which had, of course, improved the state of European security, but there was no question of any substantive interaction with the alliance. As before, the perception of NATO in Russian society was conditioned chiefly by negative factors: the strengthening of its military machine through the incorporation of new members, its coming nearer the Russian borders and its basic reluctance to abide in full by the universally adopted rules of international law. All of this involved the notion "hostility" and was fed by the unwillingness of the conservative-minded part of the NATO leadership to build relations with Russia on a truly equal basis.

Nor did those negative accretions disappear automatically after the signing in May 1997 of a unique document - the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In accordance with its provisions the first permanent cooperation structure was established between Russia and the alliance. The Founding Act marked the beginning of the evolution of a dialogue with NATO on security problems in Europe. But the chief value of this document nevertheless lay and still lies in the fact that it recorded a set of political guarantees on the part of NATO not to create a threat for Russia with nuclear or conventional arms in the enlargement of the alliance. This became the indispensable platform on which the building of relations between Russia and NATO began.

However, the process turned out to be much more complex than could have been assumed at the original moment, when it seemed that all the main things had already been done. Relations failed to develop ongoingly. Dialogue virtually "limped" from one crisis to another. The 1999 NATO expansion brought a lot of problems for Russia, primarily in bilateral relations with the countries joining the alliance. Anti-Russian sentiments intensified in them. A part of the political elite was sort of appealing to NATO, openly claiming that now "it is all permissible." It took a lot of time and effort to normalize the not easy situation. But the Kosovo crisis followed shortly afterwards, as a consequence of which the ties with NATO were frozen altogether.

Dialogue with the alliance was then maintained through the Permanent Joint Council (PJC), established in accordance with the Founding Act. But that was an exhaustingly difficult job. Actually, that could have been called a dialogue only by stretching a point, because everything was limited by the statement first by us, and then by the member countries of NATO of rigidly definite positions. This left either us, or them no room for maneuver in the decision making process, let alone any joint actions in areas where there objectively could be some common interests. Nevertheless, even in such extremely complex conditions, the PJC made it possible to acquire the first skills of joint discussion and of joint work. Simultaneously in the alliance itself there was now less skepticism as to the possibilities of work with Russia, along with a firmer understanding that key security issues could be much more effectively solved together with us and not "against" the Russian point of view. But stability, the chief element that is necessary in international relations, never increased.

The Russia-NATO Rome Summit of May 28, 2002, started a new phase of mutual relations. The Heads of State and Government signed the Rome Declaration "Russia-NATO Relations: A New Quality." In accordance with its provisions the Russia-NATO Council (RNC) was established, replacing the PJC and becoming the principal structure for the development of Russian-NATO relations.

The cooperation format presupposes two meetings a year at Foreign Ministers' level, two meetings at Defense Ministers' level and two meetings at Chiefs of General Staffs' level. The meeting at Chiefs of General Staffs' level took place in November 2003. On December 1-2 in parallel with the meeting of the Council of the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE in Maastricht a session of the Russia-NATO Council at Defense Ministers' level was held in Brussels. On December 4 a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council at Foreign Ministers' level took place in Brussels with Igor Ivanov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in attendance. It discussed the progress in carrying out the 2003 program and a program of work for 2004. An exchange of views on pressing international security problems took place.

But what kind of nations are our partners today as represented by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established more than half a century ago, and how useful can work with this largest military-political alliance be for Russia?

The member countries of NATO have been talking about the alliance being out of date and in need of a radical change ever since the early 1990s. Already then the leaders of the member countries of the alliance kept on saying and even taking decisions to the effect that it needed being transformed and that its basic documents should be altered. However all those sensible ideas then got drowned in internal differences while actually very little was being done. An outside observer noted that at the headquarters itself there generally were no changes - all the same structures with the same people, performing just slightly readjusted missions. But most important - extremely slowly the alliance's military structures, more suited for contention in the Cold War, were being reformed.

The revelation for NATO came after the terrorist attack on the US on September 11, 2001, when for the first time in all of its existence the alliance decided to invoke the provisions of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty (an armed attack against one or more of the NATO countries shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently each Party to the Treaty, individually or collectively, will assist their ally so attacked).

Acting in retaliation, including in the antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan, the Americans decided to dispense with NATO. Which, in fact, is understandable, as the big NATO military potential had continued to be very static. There were not enough means to transfer and deploy troop contingents at a considerable distance, and the chances of effectively using the capability of the alliance were few. In addition, there were the political reasons for the crisis. The experience in Kosovo, more specifically, had shown that in the consensus-based NATO decision making virtually each step required to be agreed with the allies. Besides that, the Europeans had the still-lingering disagreements around the expediency of using NATO outside its traditional zone of responsibility (that is, the totality of the national territories of member countries). These factors had worked in favor of the choice made by the United States, which preferred independent, and then coalition actions, without looking to a possible contribution by the allies.

A debate began in NATO. The Europeans were now seriously worried and anxious about the Americans definitively breaking away, and this would mean a weakening of the military guarantees on the part of Washington. As before, the Europeans themselves have neither desire, nor ability to secure for them a self-sufficient and full-fledged defense potential (they continue to spend on defense a half of the military appropriations of the United States). In the wake of the fears came an understanding that restoring the trans-Atlantic coupling would have to be done through a profound readjustment of the mechanisms of NATO. And this means that all the potentials of NATO, as the Americans had sought, ought to be so converted as to counter the new threats and challenges, of which the sources lie outside NATO's customary zone of activity. That, of course, did not dawn all at once. In particular, the French initially had stubbornly resisted the expansion of the functions of NATO. And yet the uncertainty around the future of NATO in the final count did not suit anyone. It was a question of the loss of trust in the very future of the alliance, which served as an impetus for correcting the approaches of even the French.

It should be noted that Washington chose the NATO Prague Summit of 2002 as the final line where to press home to the allies the need for the alliance's practical adaptation to the present-day realities. In an appropriate manner the Americans undertook work with each European member country of NATO, exerting serious pressure on the leadership and political circles. The work with the allies was being conducted under the slogan "now or never." And the Europeans gave in. In essence, the adaptation began in three dimensions. A series of confidential decisions on structural change in the armed forces and defense complexes of the European countries were taken. Implementing those decisions of the last Prague Summit now constitutes the essence of NATO activities.

First of all, taking into account the inability of the European countries individually to carry out any serious modernization in the armed forces, the concept of a "division of labor" has been introduced. The modernization is being carried out in several sectors, for which purpose in each of them a kind of "consortiums" of states have been established, into which they have united with one of the allies playing the leading role. Thus, the potential for strategic air transfers (involving nine countries) is being built up as well as capabilities for strategic transfers across the ocean (eight countries) and refueling from air tankers (ten countries); there also goes the buying and equipment of aircraft with high-precision means of destruction (five countries), and the development and equipment of the armed forces with battlefield-surveillance devices, which will be supplied from the US (five European states).

A second major thrust is the establishment of a NATO Response Force. This involves getting ready and making use of elite European units and formations of enhanced mobility, to be provided with extra state-of-the-art equipment and weapons, so as to make them deployable practically in any region within seven to thirty days and capable of autonomously, without additional support, performing combat missions for a certain period of time. The first contingent of those forces consisting of 5,000 troops was trained even this past autumn (it will presumably be sent to Kabul for "breaking-in").

A profound readjustment of the command structure of the armed forces of the alliance is being carried out. The former Command Atlantic (Norfolk, USA) has been called "transformational," new functional tasks are assigned to it - reforming and ensuring the operational compatibility of the forces of the NATO member states. The obsolete four-tier scheme of command for the NATO forces, which had been set up chiefly for the conduct of a wide-scale war against the Warsaw Treaty countries, has been lightened. In its place there remain only two regional commands, as well as more mobile sub-regional structures being created for specific operations. They are under the strategic authority of the NATO supreme allied commander, whose headquarters is still located at Mons, Belgium.

Pursuant to the decisions of the Prague Summit, work is also being conducted on how to use the armed forces in the fight against terrorism. In this context NATO may support counter-terrorist coalitions with any manpower and resources at its disposal. Characteristically, preventive strikes against terrorists, whoever they might be, are also allowed with this approach. Other functions of the armed forces in this context: protection of the population and infrastructure facilities, measures to reduce the damage by terrorist acts and removal of their consequences, the enhancement of protection against WMD.

On this last - in greater detail. With regard to protection against the use of WMD five programs are being carried out; more specifically, a reserve of protective means against biological and chemical weapons is being created; there is already an experimental mobile laboratory in place for analysis of radiation, chemical and biological (RCB) substances. There are special groups for response to the use of RCB substances and even a virtual Center for Improvement of Protection against such weapons. Medical surveillance and assistance systems are being refined. In addition, under the slogan of protection against the use of WMD by terrorists there has been launched new research on missile defense which would protect military targets and large population centers of the NATO countries from a possible missile attack.

A second component of the adaptation of NATO is the expansion of its cooperation with other countries, mostly European, as well as international institutions. This first of all is the direct expansion of the alliance with the integration of the armed forces of other countries into the NATO systems and structures. To avoid mistakes of the previous expansion wave and to bring up the seven countries joining NATO to its requirements as much as possible, the NATO Council has set Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia very tough requirements. They have already passed and continue to pass through a series of cycles of work under the "NATO membership action plan." In the process, they are being subjected to a variety of tests and examinations for conformance to NATO requirements in the following areas: reforming the legislation (up to and including the introduction of constitutional amendments), reforming the economy and civil institutions, and, finally, reforming the armed forces. Now all this, let us say bluntly, not simple and high-cost process of multipronged reform is on the home straight. Simultaneously in the national parliaments of the NATO countries the process of the ratification of a package of documents on the accession of the Seven to the alliance is nearing completion. Work on formalizing the membership of the "recruits" is expected to be completed by May 2004, that is by the next summit of NATO in Istanbul.

As far as our attitude to the expansion is concerned, it remains calmly negative. There are many arguments why we are not sympathetic to this process, and they are sufficiently well known. To put it briefly, there is nothing good in the NATO expansion for Russia. And we have both military and political objections. There is no point in describing them. We shall underline only what's most important to us: joining NATO will mean the growing dependence of our neighbor European states on NATO's system of decision making, both in the political and in the military fields. Moreover, in practice this dependence will arise on a considerably wider range of issues than defense from external aggression, which is referred to in the Washington Treaty of 1949.

It is necessary, however, to bear in mind that Russia's lingering concerns over NATO enlargement do not relate to NATO as an organization, but to the process being pursued by the political leaderships of its member countries of mechanically enlarging its ranks without due consideration for the interests of Russia. However, if a large group of states (in addition our partners in many spheres of international ties) makes a crucial decision to admit new members to NATO, then Russia's foreign policy tasks boil down to minimizing the likely damage for the country.

On this point, one has to consider that NATO's interaction with other states is not only enlargement, but also a whole system of various-level partner relationships that are developing under the general headline of the Partnership for Peace program. For all the diversity of lines of activity under these projects, their objectives are discernibly similar: it's the very same bringing up to NATO standards, the expansion of the range of states whose armed forces the member countries of NATO could include in their operations.

One more foreign policy line of NATO is the attempt to foster relations with the European Union in the field of military security. Discussions on this theme, including between the two institutions, has now been going on for many years. Initiatives are being put forward and disappearing. But in principle the lineup of forces, as well as the content of the deliberations, has changed little. France and Belgium with the not-too-active support of the FRG are seeking full autonomy from NATO in a possible conduct of European operations. The majority of the other Europeans seem to be supportive of the idea of independence, but will nevertheless feel calmer if such operations are backed by the alliance and its potentials. Generally, both agree that NATO should carry out combat operations whereas for the Europeans' part would be left the calmer, post-conflict peacekeeping and the management of local crisis situations. So that the debate goes on, including the discussion of options for building an independent European headquarters.

Finally, the third component of the adaptation of NATO is associated with anti-crisis activities in which the alliance has been engaged since the early 1990s. The first operations were very limited. The member countries of NATO had no consensus on the question of their possible conduct outside the territory of the alliance's states. The French and a number of "small" allies were emphatically against. At that period the UN-mandated actions were being carried out in support of the sanctions regime in the Adriatic, as well as to ensure the regime prohibiting flights in the air space of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the middle of the 1990s NATO began to develop a fundamentally new concept of "NATO-led" operations. Going beyond the traditional zone of responsibility is now to be legitimized by the enlistment under NATO command of a broad coalition of partner countries. The alliance declares that it is ready to carry out peacekeeping operations on the instruction of the United Nations Security Council. The first experiment was the fulfillment of the military aspects of the Dayton Agreement in accordance with UNSCR 1031.

The ideological substantiation of present-day NATO anti-crisis activities is set forth in the new Strategic Concept of the alliance, which was approved at the Washington Summit in April 1999. This document assigns the tasks of crisis prevention and management, including with the use of force, to the category of key tasks. However the question of the obligatoriness for this purpose of a United Nations mandate is bypassed in the concept, which enabled the member countries of NATO to substantiate and justify, in particular, the bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999.

The NATO 2002 Prague Summit actually legalized the carrying out by the alliance of any operations outside the totality of the territories of its member countries and at a considerable geographical distance. A thesis is confirmed in the summit's documents by which NATO should be able and ready to carry out operations "wherever necessary." No one recalls the former objections of France any longer. Also legalized is the provision by which anti-crisis and peacekeeping operations will be carried out under the political control and leadership of the NATO Council. Even though the UN Security Council is mentioned in the documents, there is no reference to the need for its mandate for the sanctioning of military action any more.

The first new-generation anti-crisis operation of NATO began in Afghanistan on August 11 of this year. The alliance transformed the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) into what is essentially a NATO-led operation. For this purpose a full-fledged staff structure was established in Kabul that is operationally linked to the supreme allied commander's headquarters in Mons. Operational plans are being prepared in the headquarters of the supreme allied commander. Also from there the organization of logistics, reconnaissance, force assembly, etc. is being accomplished. Political control is left in the hands of the NATO Council. Initially the operation was limited to the area of Kabul and the nearby airport. But after the adoption by UN Security Council of resolution 1510 sanctioning the expansion of the ISAF's mandate beyond Kabul, the NATO Council began considering the possibility of bringing ISAF troops into a number of other Afghan cities (a German contingent has been sent into the Kunduz province).

In development of the decisions of the Prague Summit with regard to Iraq, the NATO Council agreed to comply with Poland and Spain's request for support of their troop contingents within the framework of an international stabilization force in Iraq. NATO is rendering necessary assistance, including inter alia "force assembly," operational manning, reconnaissance, communications, logistics and transport. A number of NATO countries have assigned their servicemen to the Polish sector under Polish command.

At the same time Iraq is being regarded in NATO as a growth area. Military structures are exploring the possibility of wider involvement in Iraq. Influential forces in the US, Britain and Turkey and NATO Secretary General George Robertson are openly advocating that. It may spell the conduct, at a more distant phase, of a stabilization operation modeled on that which the member countries of NATO are building in the ISAF in Afghanistan. But a number of countries, primarily the FRG, set as a condition of their possible joining in that operation that it should be placed under the leadership of the United Nations.

As to the participation of Russia in NATO peacekeeping, we have more than once, including publicly, confirmed that the Russian military will no longer join any NATO-led operations. Under the aegis of the Russia-NATO Council there has been drafted and agreed upon a document, Political Aspects of the Basic Concept of Russia-NATO Joint Peacekeeping Operations. Set into it is the principle of a truly equal partnership, including in the exercise of political control and strategic guidance of peacekeeping operations that may be jointly carried out. At the present time the preparation is being conducted for the first Russia-NATO military-political procedural exercises in which the military and operational components of this concept will be tested and improved.

Here, it seems, making certain generalizations will be relevant. In the last several years we've witnessed unprecedented changes that have occurred in the international arena. The world has radically changed. The Cold War era has receded into the past, and along with it there also have begun to die out the stereotypes of thinking of the times of confrontation - the enemy image, suspiciousness, distrust. There have changed the approaches of the leaders of the member countries of NATO formulating the common policy within this organization. They now better realize that we are all living in a complex and interdependent world, and that common new-generation challenges threaten us and especially the threat of international terrorism. An understanding has also come that global risks demand adequate answers, in the first place by combining the efforts of the entire world community, without which it is perhaps impossible to effectively ensure our common security, which, as time has shown, is indivisible. In essence, that is exactly what provides a constructive basis for developing interaction with NATO in the framework of multivector cooperation, on which the foreign policy of present-day Russia is based.

Against this background, one cannot fail to notice that the North Atlantic Alliance is already moving along the road of a serious transformation, gradually becoming a kind of mechanism of force-based counteraction against the threats that may arise to the security of its member countries. It is important to see clearly that this involves precisely a mechanism in which the approaches of member countries are being agreed on and not an independent political force living according to its own rules. The alliance does not have a policy of its own, or, more precisely, it is implementing a course that is composed on the basis of the not-always-coinciding approaches of the European and North American states. Accordingly, the course of NATO is what all of its member countries agree upon among themselves.

Those circumstances give Russia considerable possibilities to develop useful cooperation with NATO in a number of areas and to maintain the special character of relations without formal membership in the alliance. In this regard, the Council at 20 that was set up at the Russia-NATO Rome Summit, the Russia-NATO Council, is a truly innovative construct.

The member states of the Council work as equal partners. The basic principles for such a collaborative effort are as follows: work in the national capacity on the basis of consensus in the format of the Council at 20, the conduct of a regular and various-level political dialogue, joint elaboration and adoption of decisions, equal (individual and joint) responsibility for their implementation, the observance in good faith of obligations under international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, and the provisions and principles contained in the Helsinki Final Act and the OSCE Charter for European Security.

An elegant structure of bodies has been established, ranging from the RNC, which is convened twice a year at the Foreign Ministers and Defense Ministers level and at least once a month - at ambassadorial level - to the working groups functioning on a regular basis at experts' level on a whole series of concrete issues. Cooperation is now developing most productively in the fields of peacekeeping and counteraction against terrorism, and dialogue is being built up on the issues of the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, theater missile defense, and nuclear security, as well as in the military field. Several important position documents have already been prepared or are being elaborated in a number of working groups of the RNC.

In the year and a half since the Rome Summit the Russia-NATO Council has become a useful mechanism for consultations, cooperation, joint decisions and joint actions on the full range of tasks set by the Rome Declaration. In the RNC program for the current year the main emphasis is on practical cooperation in the military sphere. The aim: to promptly enough arrive at concrete measures for improving the military compatibility of Russia and NATO, which must enhance our capabilities to act jointly.

But in order to move to joint actions one more fundamental task needs to be solved: to learn to dovetail the political approaches of Russia and the member countries of NATO. This isn't all that simple because we still have quite a few differences, some of which are very serious: the enlargement of the alliance, the accession of the Baltic states to the adapted CFE Treaty and its entry into force, and finally, some elements of the thrust in NATO military planning.

The first step which apparently will have to be taken for this purpose will consist of deepening the political dialogue on a broad spectrum of security issues and placing it on a systemic basis with the inclusion in the RNC agenda of exactly those issues which really worry Russia and the states of the alliance. It seems that, based on the amassed experience, the Russia-NATO Council may accomplish this task, even though not at once. Anyway, all the necessary technical prerequisites exist for this. The chief thing now is the political will. Russia has it. However some of our partners, notably from among the most influential states in NATO, still hesitate because of their illusory fears that the North Atlantic Alliance might lose its original distinctiveness if it works too closely with Russia. It is good, however, that supporters of such views are not many in the alliance.

Vladimir Putin, in an interview connected with his state visit to Italy in November 2003, where the President of Russia also took part in the work of the EU-Russia summit, called the establishment of the Russia-NATO Council at 20 a historic event. This, in his words, provides the groundwork for the development of new relations generally between our country and the entire western community.

At the end of October 2003, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen visited Moscow, evidently for the last time as the NATO Secretary General.

When assuming office in autumn 1999, George Robertson declared the development of relations between Russia and NATO a personal priority. It should be noted that all these years he energetically pursued his line and built on working contacts. In the course of the October visit to Moscow the ninth meeting between him and President Putin took place. This by itself indicates the rich character of the dialogue at the highest level and underlines the importance for both sides of Russian-NATO cooperation.

During the conversation, Putin noted the very significant role of the NATO Secretary General in the formation and strengthening of the new relations between Russia and the alliance and expressed gratitude to Robertson for the substantial contribution which he had personally made to the establishment of the Russia-NATO Council and the formation of the new quality of relations between us in the format of 20.

Source: Russian Embassy to the United States, http://www.russianembassy.org.

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