Calls to treat as legitimate the ‘security concerns’ raised by Russia, and to account for these in a future settlement of the war in Ukraine, disregard the fact that Moscow’s requirements are fundamentally incompatible with European security.
Fallacy
Proponents of a settlement in the war on Ukraine often put forward the idea that Russian ‘security concerns’ must be taken into account in any such settlement, but also in broader revisions to the European security system.
These proposals echo the Russian information campaign over the past 30 years to persuade European publics that there can be ‘no security in Europe without Russia’. They provide false support to the argument that Western security policy after the collapse of the USSR unnecessarily encroached on core Russian interests by expanding NATO and forcing Moscow to militarize its foreign policy. In this telling, Russia was merely challenging what it viewed as an unjust European security order.
Analysis
The main problem with the idea of accommodating Russian ‘security concerns’ is that Russia’s requirements in their currently stated form do not provide a reasonable basis for discussion with Ukraine and its Western allies. Nor can such requirements be satisfied without compromising the security of Ukraine and other countries in the region. Moscow’s agenda in this area in large measure reflects the paranoia of a leadership that, through its efforts to increase its own security, has paradoxically made itself increasingly insecure by intimidating its neighbours, its Western partners and its own citizens.
Despite its claim to respect the principle of equal and indivisible security, the Kremlin fully subscribes to the traditional view held by imperial centres that their security needs trump those of neighbouring countries. A logical consequence of this is that efforts by Russia’s neighbours to integrate with NATO and the EU are viewed as a direct threat to Moscow’s definition of national security interests.
Russian military thinking is not exceptional in believing that a country is best defended by ensuring that conflict takes place beyond its borders. Indeed, Russia developed as an empire because of rapid territorial expansion in search of natural defences. This required maintaining over centuries what Moscow today calls a ‘zone of privileged interests’, based on an instrumentalized definition of ‘good-neighbourly’ and ‘friendly’ relations with adjacent peoples.
This imperial policy continues. It requires the former Soviet republics to accept that, despite now being independent countries, they must demonstrate loyalty to Russia by not joining alliances or organizations that Moscow regards as having hostile intentions towards Russia. ‘Hostile’, in this definition, includes the ability of an alliance or organization – the EU, for example, or NATO – to change the geopolitical orientation of such countries. In the view of today’s Russian leadership, there is also a cultural dimension to this definition of security interests that compels it to defend the rights of Russians in neighbouring countries, and to prevent those states from becoming ‘anti-Russian’.
Taking Russia’s security concerns at face value also disregards the fact that the Russian military’s general staff, the nerve centre of the armed forces, does not believe in the concept of mutual security beyond strategic nuclear weapons. The way in which NATO seeks to build security based on member states using cooperation as a tool to narrow differences and increase trust contrasts with the Russian approach, which emphasizes the military benefits of seeking positions of advantage in preparation for possible conflict. This deep conceptual difference explains why NATO’s model of cooperative security based on wide-ranging partnership initiatives has never genuinely appealed to Russia’s political and military leadership class.
Prioritizing Russia’s security concerns distracts attention from the steps that NATO countries must take to rebuild their collective defence and deterrence capabilities and ensure that Russia can never again start a war in the heart of Europe.
Prioritizing Russia’s security concerns distracts attention from the steps that NATO countries must take to rebuild their collective defence and deterrence capabilities and ensure that Russia can never again start a war in the heart of Europe. The West did not win the Cold War by worrying about the USSR’s security concerns. Instead, it did so by defending itself and demonstrating the superiority of its political and economic model.
The way forward
The West’s challenge on this occasion is not dissimilar. It must demonstrate to the Kremlin that it will devote the necessary resources to preserving Ukraine’s independence and ensuring that the country can be rebuilt in peace. The precondition for Ukraine’s reconstruction is guaranteed security. Without it, the hundreds of billions of dollars of investment necessary will not arrive.
The West’s immediate strategic goal must be to change Moscow’s calculus of its security needs, as it did in the 1980s. Containment worked because it persuaded the Soviet leadership that confrontation was too costly, and that the way forward instead lay in reducing tensions and pursuing radical economic reform.
The longer-term ambition for Western policymakers should be to make a compelling case to a post-Putin leadership that Russia must de-imperialize its approach to security to feel secure. This opportunity was missed in the early 1990s when a small group of Russian reformers looked to the West to help them consolidate Russia’s democratic gains by tying the country to NATO and offering the prospect of membership.
The end of the Putin era – whenever that occurs – is likely to create new possibilities to align Russian and Western security interests, but only if a future Russian leader concludes that Russia must build cooperative security relations with the West to manage relations with China and prevent Moscow from becoming dangerously dependent on Beijing. The West must ensure that the tools of cooperation are available if Moscow wishes to use them.
