Who’s Hanging Tough in NATO?
by Vladimir Socor
The Moscow Times
June 3, 2004 Thursday
For all the problems and challenges it now faces, NATO can celebrate
a triumph in Istanbul at its upcoming summit. Seven countries from
the Baltic to the Black Sea have completed the accession procedures
and will for the first time attend NATO’s summit as members. This —
along with the previous accession round by three Central European
countries — represents the alliance’s greatest strategic, political
and moral victory in its 55-year history. It is, moreover, the right
basis for building NATO’s future — because its essential missions
will henceforth focus on theaters to the east of its new perimeter,
beyond the Black Sea.
Predictions that the enlargement would turn NATO into an ineffective
political body akin to the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe have been laid to rest by the performance of the new member
countries. Their entry contributes significantly to the alliance’s
political cohesion even as this asset shows signs of fraying on the
older, western flank.
If anything, the OSCE’s culture of compromise and consensus with
those opposed to Western values seems right now to be seeping in
via older allies. How else to explain the suggestion from several
Western European governments that NATO needs to make a special
effort and invite President Vladimir Putin in order to ensure a
“successful summit”?
In truth, the alliance’s seven-country enlargement, and the about as
many countries that will confirm their membership aspirations at the
summit, give the real measure of the alliance’s permanent viability
and appeal. Can anyone argue that NATO really needs a photo op with
the restorer of Russian autocracy as a demonstration of its success?
Some, apparently, argue that it does, as seen from NATO
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s efforts to secure Putin’s
presence at the Istanbul summit. The NATO leader made that invitation
publicly in Moscow on April 8 and has repeated it several times
since then; most recently in his May 17 speech in Brussels, saying:
“I hope that the conditions will be right for him to come to Istanbul.”
We don’t know what these conditions would be; but we do know that
Putin is playing hard to get. He says he’s considering the invitation,
but that his advisers tell him he shouldn’t go. Translation: The
conditions are not right and should be improved.
Putin’s conditions include: continuing tolerance of Russia’s breaches
of the 1999-adapted Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and
associated commitments on the alliance’s southern flank; and —
those breaches notwithstanding — an allied move toward ratification
of that same treaty so as to place the three Baltic states under
its restrictions.
Approved at the OSCE’s 1999 Istanbul summit, the adapted CFE treaty
and the documents known as the Istanbul Commitments form twin parts
of a single package. From Istanbul 1999 to Istanbul 2004, what is the
balance sheet on implementation? To make a long, technical story short,
the following stipulations remain unimplemented to date:
Setting a firm and realistic date (three years would amply suffice)
on the closure of Russia’s Batumi and Akhalkalaki military bases
in Georgia.
Closing the Gudauta base in Georgia, which Russia was required to close
back in 2001. Since then, Russia has been offered the alternative
option of handing Gudauta to a UN observer mission in Georgia’s
secessionist region of Abkhazia.
Withdrawing all Russian troops from Moldova’s Transdnestr region —
a move that Russia was required unconditionally to complete in 2002.
Liquidating the stocks of Russian-supplied combat hardware
(“unaccounted-for treaty-limited equipment”) deployed with Abkhazian
and Transdnestr forces, as well as with Armenian forces beyond Nagorny
Karabakh, inside Azerbaijan proper.
The verification provisions in both the CFE treaty and the Istanbul
Commitments are also being breached, and the treaty’s hallowed
principle of host-country consent (no country may station its forces
on another country’s territory without freely given consent) is simply
being flouted here on the southern flank.
The treaty is meant to be legally binding once it enters into force;
the commitments are defined as “politically binding,” whatever
that means. To Moscow, by all evidence, neither set of documents is
binding — unless the West makes clear that commitments are binding
by definition.
Russian diplomacy wants NATO to:
Give up the linkage between ratification of the CFE treaty and
fulfillment of the Istanbul Commitments.
Accept Russian promises to fulfill some of those outstanding
commitments some time in the future, in lieu of actual fulfillment,
and even give up on implementation in some cases.
Several Western European governments have signaled an inclination to
go along with such a scenario. Some have asked Georgia and Moldova
to consent to Russian retention of Gudauta and of the “peacekeeping
troops” in Transdnestr (this would bestow host-country consent on
those foreign forces).
When NATO’s secretary-general and the OSCE’s chairman-in-office state
publicly that Russia should remove its arsenals from Moldova without
mentioning the commitment to withdraw its troops, Moscow reads this
as a message that it can keep troops in place.
Whether at the summit or in some other NATO forum, the alliance cannot
avoid addressing the issue of peacekeeping and conflict resolution on
its own vital strategic perimeter. Thirteen years after the end of
the Soviet Union, peacekeeping in this region remains, in practice,
Moscow’s monopoly, which only serves to freeze the political
settlements of the conflicts.
Two years ago, NATO and the United States seemed set to engage jointly
with Russia in peace-support operations and conflict-resolution
efforts in Moldova, Georgia and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. These
intentions figured prominently in the joint communiques in May 2002
of the U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia summits. However, nothing further
has been heard about these intentions since those summits.
To be sure, U.S. forces and resources are now overextended worldwide.
But there is a strong case to be made for European allies taking the
lead in peace-support operations and conflict settlement in the Black
Sea-South Caucasus region, Europe’s doorstep.
European NATO allies complain of a shortfall in deployable forces
against a vast backdrop of static forces in the homelands. In any case,
peacekeeping and conflict resolution in this region need be neither
large-scale, nor predominantly military. On the contrary, they should
be compact and should emphasize the civilian aspect of peace support.
The United States, NATO and the European Union have strategic
and democratic motivation, as well as the means, to initiate a
transformation of peacekeeping and conflict resolution at this
crossroads, where the access routes to the greater Middle East and
the energy transit routes to Europe intersect. This must become a
Euro-Atlantic priority. The NATO summit agenda would be incomplete
if it did not address, or at least set the stage for addressing soon,
this imperative.
Vladimir Socor is a senior fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown
Foundation, publishers of the Eurasia Daily Monitor. This comment is
reprinted from Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.