NATO and Russia Broach Alliance Talks

NATO will announce its new global vision at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, next week, which will guide the post-Cold War military alliance into the coming decades. Part of the agenda will be a NATO-Russia side summit, where participants will discuss the possibility of admitting Russia—NATO’s traditional foe—into the fold.

The summit, Nov. 19-20, is likely to show whether NATO’s strategic conceptualization of the world continues to consider its former Cold War foe the Russian Federation, as an adversary or a partner in global peace. 

The key issues in the discussions joined by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will be the war in Afghanistan and the U.S.-led anti-missile shield in Europe that’s been an ongoing worry for the Kremlin. 

However, there are differences of opinion within the alliance about welcoming Russia as some Central and East European members remain suspicious of Russia’s agenda in the region, especially after the short Russian-Georgian war in 2008 and Russia cutting off gas supplies to Europe in the winter of 2009. 

Russian Ambitions in Europe

Russia has traditionally been wary of NATO summits, where it knows it would be the poor cousin at the 28-nation meeting.

Instead, the federation has preferred to exert its influence in the region through other tactics, such as its ambitious gas pipeline projects—Nord Stream and South Stream—designed make the EU dependent on Russian supplied gas. The projects are seen as a direct rival to the American and EU-backed Nabucco pipeline.

Meanwhile, some European leaders, especially French President Nicolas Sarcozy and German Chancellor Angel Merkel, have supported talking to Russia about joining NATO in order to tackle what they describe as urgent security issues. 
 

NATO officials have said that the deepening cooperation with Russia is important to address global challenges, including countering terrorism, nuclear security, piracy, and narcotics.

“There is some softening of NATO’s attitude toward Russia. It wants to engage Russia on security issues but it will not go as far as giving Russia a free run of the region,” comments Arvind Gupta, an expert with Indian-basedInstitute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

“Russia is of course open to this relationship because it would like to exert more control on any future NATO enlargement, and also certainly wants to have a voice in shaping the newly proposed NATO missile defense shield,” wrote Ryan Hendrickson, a political science expert with Eastern Illinois University, in an e-mail.

The first official statements regarding offering Russia full membership in NATO began emerging from European soil early this year when Russian Envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin and former German Defense Minister Volker Rühe explained the issue to German media. 

Russia has shown that it wants to participate and play a leading role in every global security and trade alliance, from the United Nations Security Council to the World Trade Organization.

However, the Kremlin has failed as a leader in practice. For example, it wasn’t able to help calm violent clashes in Kyrgyzstan in June, a country that Russia considers to be part of its influence.

Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Russian-lead military alliance called the Collective Security Treaty Organization(CSTO). CSTO also includes former Soviet republics of Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and is seen as being a post-Soviet Warsaw pact, standing in opposition to NATO.

“Russia’s interests can be envied as it wants to be everywhere, but perhaps without any clear strategy,” the director of Kyiv-based Institute of Foreign Policy, Alyona Getmanchuk wrote in her blog.

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