The Russian Challenge

The Russian Challenge
Russia’s Changed Outlook on the West: From Convergence to Confrontation
interests in ‘strategic stability, disarmament, NATO
expansion and forming the foundations of the world order
in the twenty-first century’. NATO should uphold the terms
of the 1997 Founding Act and should not ignore the opinion
of the international community.
By 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United
States, and with Russia’s economy improving, Putin was
optimistic in his annual address that the international
attitude towards Russia was changing:
the period of confrontation has ended. We are building constructive,
normal relations with all the world’s nations … in the world today, no
one intends to be hostile towards us … After 11 September last year,
many, many people in the world realized that the ‘cold war’ was over
… a different war is on – the war with international terrorism. …
Our major goal in foreign policy is to ensure strategic stability in the
world. To do this, we are participating in the creation of a new system
of security, we maintain constant dialogue with the United States,
and work on changing the quality of our relations with NATO. …
Russia is being actively integrated into the international community.
Russia’s active support for the United States after 9/11 was
rewarded by full membership of the G8 and the upgrading
of the NATO–Russia Council at a specially convened summit
in 2002. In 2003 Putin became the first Russian leader since
the Victorian era to be invited to the UK on a state visit.
Putin’s 2003 annual address followed the US-led invasion
of Iraq. He referred obliquely to this, but refrained from
attacking the United States by name: ‘Terrorism threatens
the world and endangers the security of our citizens.
Certain countries sometimes use their strong and wellarmed
national armies to increase their zones of strategic
influence rather than fighting these evils we all face.’
In 2003 he reiterated his optimism of the previous year
that Russia had taken ‘some big steps forward on the road
to international integration’. It had become a full member
of the G8 and was taking part in the global partnership on
non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, making
progress towards joining the WTO and improving its credit
rating. Russia valued the anti-terrorist coalition. The policy
of developing a strategic partnership with the European
Union was gradually being realized.
Throughout his first term, Putin avoided clashing with
the West over the ‘near abroad’. He placed a benign
interpretation on the enlargement of the European Union
up to the borders of Russia. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
– all former Soviet republics – and five countries formerly
within the Warsaw Pact joined the EU on 1 May 2004. In
his annual address three weeks later, Putin declared: ‘The
expansion of the European Union should not just bring us
closer geographically, but also economically and spiritually.
… This means new markets and new investment. Generally
it means new possibilities for the future of Greater Europe.’ 11
Most strikingly, Putin chose not to make a big issue of the
enlargement of NATO. He had put down a marker that ‘we
see the CIS area as the sphere of our strategic interests’ and
‘tens of millions of Russians live in these countries’. 12 The
NATO applicants came from outside the CIS, and the subject
of NATO’s expansion was conspicuously absent (bar his
one glancing reference in 2001) from the set-piece annual
addresses of Putin’s first term.
Russian officials and generals made clear privately that the
applications, in particular, of the three Baltic states to join
NATO, together with those of yet more former members of
the Warsaw Pact (Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia), were
deeply unwelcome. However, in the wider context of closer
integration with Europe and the United States and of a
strengthened Russia–NATO relationship, the Kremlin chose
not to make strong public objections or by other means to
obstruct the process.
Ten days before NATO’s Prague summit of November
2002 was to approve the accessions, Putin met NATO
Secretary-General George Robertson in Brussels. He
expressed satisfaction with the work of the NATO–Russia
Council and confirmed that Russia would be represented
at the Council’s meeting in Prague by Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov. He hoped that the enlargement would not
‘undermine the military stability and security in the
common European space, or damage or prejudice the
national security interests of Russia’. He appreciated the
existing cooperation, but ‘Russian military organizations
take their own view of this situation and they make
assessments of the possible deployment of forces to the
territory that is affected by enlargement’.
Putin was asked by a journalist whether Russia might
possibly join the Alliance. He replied that the matter had
never been raised, but added that, if cooperation continued
to develop and NATO continued to transform in a way that
corresponded with Russia’s security interests, Russia could
consider ‘a broader participation in that work’. 13
In sum, during its first term the Putin administration’s
perspective of Russia’s relationship with the West broadly
reflected the obverse view from West to East. There were
some sharp points of disagreement, but the across-theboard
hostility of the Cold War appeared to be a thing of
the past. Extensive contacts had developed between nonstate
actors of every kind. Integration was the leitmotif.
Strategic partnership was the goal.
11
Annual address to the Federal Assembly, 26 May 2004.
12
Annual address to the Federal Assembly, 16 May 2003.
13
Joint press conference of President Putin and NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, Brussels, 11 November 2002.
4 | Chatham House