European Security Between Russia and America

1. European SecurityBetween Russia and America

2. Basic questions about European security Framing the problem

3. Definition of security • Degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. • Structures and processes improving security as a condition.

4. Institute for Security and Open Methodologies • defines security as "a form of protection where a separation is created between the assets and the threat". This includes but is not limited to the elimination of either the asset or the threat.

5. Forms of political security • Homeland security • Human security • International security • National security • Public security

6. National security • Defined in a United Nations study (1986), so that countries can develop and progress safely. • Security has to be compared to related concepts: safety, continuity, reliability. • Security must take into account the actions of people attempting to cause destruction. Wikipedia

7. Questions needing clarification • Is security the supreme value? • State security versus regime security. • Is state security or European security identical to the security of the inhabitants? • Is European security always identical to the security of the United States? • Is “European Security” always identical to the security of EU member states?

8. Why situation more complex since end of Cold War (STRATFOR) • Cold War dangerous but simple era. • Soviet threat and the devastation of Europe after World War II left NATO allies dependent on US for defense. • Any hope of of deterring USSR resided in Washington and its nuclear arsenal. • Not affinity or cultural values and shared histories.

9. Logic of Cold War European Security (STRATFOR) • Little choice for Western Europeans in face of potential Soviet invasion. • Created strong bond between the alliance’s European and North American allies and coherent mission. • NATO provided security with little financial commitment. • Small price for US to pay to contain USSR

10. Changing situation, frozen perceptions and habits • Generals and Admirals always fighting last war. Why? • Policy makers not blind to changes. Modify views without changing basic framework. • Already during Cold War, relations of America and Europe with USSR friendly and stable in many ways.

11. Invasion of Czechoslovakia demonstrates ambivalence • Perceived as comparable to Nazi occupation in World War II. • Friendliness and restrained behavior of Soviet military conflicted with this image. • US and Western Europe overwhelming condemned invasion in Cold War terms. • Yet readiness status of US forces in Bavaria not changed. Ambassador Dobrynin and President Johnson.

12. Ambivalent relations • Soviet threat, Fascist threat. • Good working relations in many areas, e.g. space program—strange for enemies. • Nixon and Brezhnev like good friends. • Relations stable in Europe after Cuban Missile Crisis. Competition in wars and proxy wars in peripheral areas. • Relations never reconceptualized. Strong reaction against Kissinger’s “détente.”

13. Change and stability in perception and behavior • Initial skepticism regarding Gorbachev and Perestroika. • Slow but happy realization Gorbachev serious. • Let them prove they are genuine democracy and true friends. • Collapse of Soviet state, Warsaw Pact and Communist ideology results in Russia being ignored as weak and irrelevant.

14. Expansion of NATO • “We never thought of Article 5.” “The more the merrier.” (General Charles Wald). • Russian Ambassador to Czechia, Lebedev: “If you were sitting in the Kremlin watching this alliance coming closer and closer, would you not begin to ask against whom it is directed? • “Russia is a new country. It is not the Russian Empire, not the USSR. Because no one knows anything about it, anyone can say anything.”

15. Perception of Russia • Loser of Cold War. • Friend, free, and democratic insofar as it acquiesced to US and NATO policies and actions, “Soviet Union lite” if it deviated from expectations.

16. Russia must accommodate the West on Western terms (Brzezinski) • A growing sense of geopolitical reality should help Russia to understand that it must accommodate the West on Western terms or else suffer isolation and be condemned to increasing difficulties. • … if the Russian elite does not wake up, if it does not shed its nostalgic delusions, we may end up, geopolitically, with what General de Gaulle once grandly described as “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals”—but this time quite literally.

17. Established perceptions at end of the Cold War • Russia is the enemy. Is it? • United States is friend and protector. Is it? • Europe is the center of the Universe in international politics. • Territory and military power central variables. • Bipolarity (two Superpowers) • Total War, ideological war

18. War of ideologies • Two competing modern ideologies of “rule by the people”—Rousseau-Marx-Lenin against Locke-Montesquieu-Madison. • Competing visions of freedom, democracy, justice, economics—similar end values. • Mix of ideology and military power—often mixed and confused. • Stalin’s use of ideology as instrument of state.

19. Ideological war new phenomenon • Ideology presupposes “The People” • Appeared in American and French Revolutions. • Weren’t “The People” always there? • Yes, but they had no collective consciousness, and politics was none of their business. • Some were soldiers in wars, but these were not THEIR wars.

20. Conquest in Feudal Europe. • The “thugs," as Ernest Gellnercalled them (usually thought of as knights in shining armor), fought and killed each other. • Loser performed act of homage and took oath of fealty--Established contractual relationship, although loser didn't have much choice. • Victors, (the thugs) emerged cleansed and sanctified as the feudal aristocracy.

21. German Kingdom ca. 1000

22. Holy Roman Empire 1273–1378, and principal royal dynasties

23. Holy Roman Empire ca. 1600, over today's state borders

25. Empires and Ukraine

27. Government none of the people’s business • States and empires established by conquest: Feudal Europe and colonies. • Feudal System gradually replaced by modern states--Kings and emperors allied with rising middle classes against Feudal nobility. • Government used to be none of the people’s business. • Why did people accept conquest? Why weren’t there terrorists and partisans?

28. Charles I of England--on the scaffold (1649) • “Truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever, but I must tell you their liberty and freedom consists in having of government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government, Sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clearly different things.'

29. Democracy: Worse than the worst of princes? • Democracy very recent phenomenon. • “Today there is no prince so bad that it would not be better to live tinder him than in a democracy.” (Leibnitz in private letter about best and most Christian form of government) • No prince so bad!!! Today, we would simply reverse the values- no prince so good that to live under him would be better than to live in a democracy.

30. Democracy as threat to security? • Henry Kissenger to Chinese Premier Chou En Lai: “What do you think was the impact of the French Revolution on Western Civilization?” • Many terrorist organizations enjoy great popular support. • Are the color revolutions in the former USSR, and the overthrows of authoritarian Arab governments manifestations of democracy? • Can democracy be a threat to security?

31. French Revolution • “La Nation” “le peuple” seizes power. • Napoleon’s armies carry the Revolution across Europe. • Opposed by changing sets of European allies. • Revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription.

32. Holy Alliance/Grand Alliance • Coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia initiative of Czar Alexander I • 1815 Congress of Vienna after defeat of Napoleon to instill the Christian values of charity and peace in European political life. • “European security,” stability in Europe.

33. Holy Alliance--2 • Prince Metternich made it bastion against revolution. • Monarchs of the three countries used it to combat revolutionary influence. • Against democracy, revolution, and secularism. • Preservation of existing order. • Doomed by rise of the people.

34. Rise of popular ideologies and mass movements • Nationalism: Liberation, undermining all empires, creating explosive tinderboxes everywhere. • Prime cause of two World Wars. • Socialism: Happy ending in Social Democracy; no happy ending in Bolshevism. • Fascism, Nazism, Communism all ideological mass movements—quasi-religious.

35. Total war • Wars used to be between armies—from World War I, wars are between whole peoples. • Modern technology and organizational structures and techniques of the 20th century. • Unparalleled destruction in 2 World Wars. • No fun anymore—risk of total annihilation. • “National security” as prime cause of war. Is this security?

36. Is russiastill an enemy?

37. Summary of main characteristics of post-Soviet Russia • No longer driven by ideology—claims to share European, Enlightenment values. • Voluntarily renounced Empire—nearly bloodless collapse. In fact, much bloodshed and danger of instability BECAUSE OF demise of USSR. • Pursues its interests, which sometimes conflict with interests of other states. Normal.

38. A Real Debate On USA/Russian Relations 0808 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NgiUpDhDgU&feature=related

39. 09-26-08 Debate on Russia • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFIpIoVF5vI&feature=related

40. Russia wants a safer Europe 1008 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLErJrEDitw&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL2CE4FCE20C35AAFB

41. Conflicts between authoritarian and democratic economies 0908 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POzL4f6Dxk&feature=related

42. Russia-U.S. Relations: Creating new attitude of trust 0309 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EKZSh5uE7w&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL086F25D7E6797606

43. Russia and US should raise relations to "quality new level" 0509 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzaBQW4rx3g&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL086F25D7E6797606

44. Obama and the World: Relations between U.S. and Russia 0110 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUTGDmUUU9o&feature=related

45. Russian MPs warn Lithuania not to strain relations 0708 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN9QdFA3idg

46. Every new NATO Secretary commits to relations with Russia expert 0809 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvg8PkZNMZMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN9QdFA3idg

47. Does Russia have legitimate interests? • What does the World look like from the vantage point of the Kremlin? • Frozen conflicts left over from collapse of SU. • Potential for collapse of Russian Federation. Would collapse be good for Europe? For America? For the World? • Sphere of interest (Trenin), not spheres of influence.

48. Thought experiment • Putin and Medvedev decide to turn over responsibility for Russia’s security to NATO. • Would Russia be secure? If not, why not? • Would breakup of Russian Federation promote world security? • What would a fundamentalist caliphate from the Black Sea to the Caspian mean for Russia? For the world?

49. Obama and Medvedev "Reset" U.S.-Russian Relations - Bloomberg 0709 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cQA73b5VGA

50. Russia's strained relations with Georgia - 31 Oct 07 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZtIjN78T4A