NATO Must Decide European Security Beyond the Ukraine WarBy W. Robert Pearson - April 17, 2022
Largely
unnoticed in the New York Times report of Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s separate phone calls on March 17 with Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a
notably pregnant statement by Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and
spokesman for Erdogan. “Even though we fully reject the Russian war on
Ukraine, the Russian case must be heard,” Kalin said, “because after
this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established
between Russia and the Western bloc.”
What
would the “new security architecture” be? The implication is that some
credit must be accorded to a larger Russian sphere of influence. This is
not the view of the United States, and it is not the view of NATO. The
Alliance has no intention of rewarding Putin, in language or action, for
his brutal attempt to drag Ukraine into the Russian embrace.
However,
NATO now must do more than focus on how it is helping the Ukrainians
and defending every inch of NATO territory. Now it must say what it
requires for European security beyond the end of the current war. Not to
do so invites further Russian efforts to intimidate and threaten all
the NATO frontline states plus Moldova. Thomas Bagger, a senior German
diplomat, summed this up on March 27 in the New York Times: “We did not
realize that Putin had spun himself into a historical mythology and was
thinking in categories of a 1,000-year empire. You cannot deter someone
like that with sanctions.”
The NATO frontline states
form a concave arc across the heart of Europe from the Baltic approaches
to St. Petersburg to the mouth of the Danube. This is the territory
Putin intends to claw back for his imperial Russia: Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, with Moldova
leaning West, non-NATO and yet on Putin’s list.
We
know that Putin, should he survive being stripped naked of his aura over
Ukraine, will do his utmost to bolster Russia’s military presence as
far west as he can. He will bully Minsk into greater subservience to
Moscow and make the Russian troop presence semi-permanent, as it is in
Syria and Kazakhstan. He will increase activities in Kaliningrad and
along Russia’s Baltic borders as a weapon of intimidation against Baltic
NATO, Poland and Germany.
While NATO and the U.S.
ignored his threat, in December 2021 Putin insisted on not only a
guarantee that neither Ukraine nor other former Soviet states would join
NATO, but also that the Alliance remove its military presence in
Eastern European member countries such as Poland, Romania and the Baltic
states, and forgo any deployment outside Western Europe that Russia
deemed a threat to its security.
One of the clearest
lessons of modern European history is that leaders of democracies should
believe what dictators and autocrats say they plan to do.
NATO’s
task is to address what the security architecture of Europe must be
once the war ends. Until then, Putin has more cards to play. By
remaining on the defensive and continuing to bomb and shell Ukrainian
cities, he is creating another frozen conflict. He has prepared the
circumstances to declare a victory by “protecting” the two newly
recognized “independent republics.” His diplomatic victory could come
from Ukrainian willingness ultimately to accept Russian terms to avoid
an endless war.
Sanctions have captured headlines,
but if they do not achieve a Russian retreat from Ukraine, they are not a
victory for the U.S. or NATO. Moreover, Putin might add to his agenda
for a settlement the very confidence-building items the U.S. offered on
Jan. 26 to address Russian security concerns on the continent. Putin’s
argument would be that he agreed to discuss these measures. In
conjunction with ending the war in Ukraine, he might say, now would be
the right time to take up the trust-building measures again. He would
try to freeze the diplomatic lines as clearly as he freezes the military
lines and blame the West for the never-ending war.
So,
it is not enough for the West to play defense. The task of NATO and the
European Union is to re-energize the promise that motivated our
diplomacy to end the Cold War — to build a Europe whole and free. Now is
the inflection point to reverse the arrow of history to point against
the new wave of imperial colonization. NATO’s next summit should plainly
state that a democratic and economically prosperous future for Europe
is indispensable for the security of its member states.
All
measures intended to undermine, intimidate or threaten that commitment
politically, militarily or otherwise will be a threat to the Alliance.
Let us recognize that we have a new objective — and also recognize the
impact globally of succeeding with the better vision of a brighter
future.