Putin’s Challenge to NATO and to the Global EnterpriseBy Thomas E. McNamara - May 2022
The
Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most powerful and destructive
example in generations of a nation-state attempting to recreate its lost
imperial history. This is not a defense of empire. It is Russia’s
rejection of nationhood as a legitimate basis for sovereign existence in
the world order. That this is being done by a major power with a long
history of imperial ambition, expansion, and domination makes it a
serious global issue. Putin’s actions are his rejection of the 20th
century decline and extinction of empires and a challenge to the
international order founded on and by nation-states.
Putin’s Real ProblemsVladimir
Putin is living in the past. He has many vital problems that he is not
handling well: the out-of-control pandemic; the burning tundra and
taiga; the melting Arctic; the kleptocracy dragging down the economy;
the domestic oppression alienating yet another generation; the growing
unrest in his hinterlands; the sharply declining population; the
uncertain future of fossil fuels; and the undependable Chinese
relationship.
Despite these real problems, Putin is focused on
muscling Belarus into submission and conquering Ukraine, as if
dominating them were truly vital to the Russian Federation. He is a
traditional Russian imperialist. The world has changed; Putin has not.
He has a KGB mentality and a grudge to settle. While Russia’s political,
economic, and social decline steepens, its military grows, thanks to
increased funding. Those same priority distortions hollowed out the
Soviet empire and contributed to its downfall.
The USSR lost the
Cold War because of third-rate technology, over militarization, a weak
economic-social base, unreliable satellites that were never allies or
partners, and foreign policies that repelled others. In a separate
process only partly related to the Cold War, the USSR collapsed from
domestic failures due to accumulated internal contradictions of
governance, ideology, economics, ethnicity, and empire. The similarities
with Putin’s regime cannot be ignored. Yet, Putin blames the West for
the fall of the USSR, calling it the “greatest catastrophe of the 20th
century.” Putin is on the same imperialist course as the Tsars and
Soviets.
NATO’s Real ProblemsThe West, however,
must deal with Putin as he is. He has legitimate complaints about
short-sighted Western policies. For years the U.S. has devalued
diplomacy out of ignorance and hubris, which undermines national
security and NATO. NATO and EU expansions were good ideas, but were
uncoordinated, and poorly developed and executed. Abandoning most arms
control, which benefited American-Russian mutual security, was a major
mistake, leaving our European allies to face Putin’s missile threats.
None of those, however, justifies Putin’s war in Ukraine. Putin’s
unilateral, military threats fundamentally challenges the post-Cold War
order, not just in Ukraine.
The West’s biggest mistake,
however, was failure to maintain a credible NATO deterrent posture in
Europe. European nations allowed their military capabilities to
deteriorate; some became impotent. The Alliance was blind and
unresponsive to leadership and policy changes in Moscow over two
decades. Putin is not Gorbachev or Yeltsin; yet NATO acted as though he
were. NATO ignored U.S. urgings to strengthen itself, and the warnings
of its East Central European members, even after the 2014 annexation of
Crimea and take-over of part of the Donbas. These errors make NATO
partly responsible for the invasion of Ukraine – a sin of omission. The
immediate reaction of NATO to the invasion is a plus, provided it is a
first step of a new era in European security thinking and NATO policies.
East Central Europe in TurmoilEast
Central Europe (ECE) designates the countries between Western Europe
and Russia. It is an area of diverse, well-rooted cultures (i.e.
ethnicities, religions, languages, customs, histories, hero-myths, art,
literatures, and aspirations). It has historically shifting political
structures buffeted by the power of empires. In the modern period, seven
empires competed for control. The 20th century was the graveyard of
empires. By its end those seven, and others, had disappeared. The last
one to die, the USSR, is the one Putin seeks to revive.
Historians
have long defined ECE peoples as “nationalities” even when they are not
“states.” When empires ruled, nationalities did not disappear or lose
self-consciousness. Nationalities still contribute to the region’s
political instability. Some empires contracted into nation-states (e.g.
Sweden, Poland, Lithuania). After 1919, nation-states supplanted empires
as sovereign rulers – the Wilsonian transformation. Putin deliberately
distorts history by saying Ukraine was an artificial state, never a
nation. It has long been a nation, but only recently a state.
He
wishes to resurrect the last of those empires, reversing the
“catastrophe”. That endangers vital national interests of ECE nations.
The ECE and Europe are in grave danger if they accept changes of agreed
European borders by military aggression. Whatever complaints Putin may
have about the post-Cold War borders, they were neither arbitrary nor
created by force. The borders of the former Soviet Union (FSU) conform
to those of the USSR republics. They were recognized and accepted by
Russia, inter alia, in the Belovezh and Alma Ata Accords in 1991, and
other agreements. Moreover, in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, Russia
guaranteed Ukraine’s borders and independence in return for Ukraine
becoming a non-nuclear weapon state.
Putin is a classic Russian
Slavophile. His goal is to increase Russian security by pushing Russian
borders outward. Ukraine is just his first step. That he not succeed is
critical to NATO and the Atlantic Community.
The Challenge to the Global “Enterprise”For
the last century, the West, led by the United States, built, not an
“Empire,” but an “Enterprise.” Empires have one capital in one “mother
country,” where sovereignty resides. In contrast, the new enterprise
created after World War II is a system whose global operations foster
international power centers distributed among independent nations. U.S.
interests require it to support what it built with European and other
regional assistance. Abandoning it will lead to the end of the
enterprise and its rule-based order and open the way for a return to
empires – Putin’s objective. The Atlantic Community in the 20th century
was a foundation stone of contemporary international order, as the U.S.
led it out of “realpolitik” into “American realism.” The new order,
grounded in international institutions, embraces multiple national
interests and sovereignties. This new, flexible approach firmly rejects
empire and imperial controls in favor of an enterprise of countervailing
power in a liberal, rule-based order, anchored by international
institutions.
Putin may not realize that the international
community fears empire and favors this enterprise, where sovereign
nations take part in and benefit from multiple institutions dedicated to
agreed projects of the enterprise. Each institution requires its
members to have at least minimal commitments to that institution’s
goals. Most participants are, like Russia and China, dictatorships and
oligarchies; a minority are Western and non-Western democracies.
Nonetheless, each, to varying degrees, can influence the enterprise,
which is loosely held together by rule-based institutions. No member has
control of the enterprise or its institutions. Apart from playing by
the rules, the enterprise demands no loyalty or submission. And members
give neither. Russia and China participate in and benefit from this
enterprise while retaining sovereignty, independence, and power, as do
all others.
China is more astute than Russia, despite strong,
deep traditions of Empire. Like Russia, its imperial claims (e.g. Tibet,
the South China Sea) have not disappeared. But China has been less
impetuous that Putin. Under Deng Xiaoping, China was ambivalent about
the enterprise, citing China’s weakness as the reason. His successors
remain skeptical, but they participate. They want rule changes that give
China a leading role – if possible, the lead role. That is a long-term
matter that needs to be sorted out. It will be complicated but can be
done without resorting to armed conflict.
Putin should get fully
on board the enterprise. Unfortunately rigid nationalism, fear of losing
power, and Russian history, traditions, and culture cause him to
embrace empire. That is a strategic mistake.
Ambassador
McNamara is Adjunct Professor at GWU’s Elliott School of International
Affairs. A career diplomat, he served as a deputy to the Director of
National Intelligence; Assistant Secretary of State; Special Assistant
to the President; Ambassador to Colombia; Ambassador-at-Large for
Counterterrorism; and other senior positions.