The West and Russia

The West’s relationship with Russia has for a long time been and will continue to be a crucial determinant of global politics and stability regardless of internal divisions within the West that have always existed but which have increased in the wake of growing populism everywhere and the Trump Administration’s challenges to multilateral agreements. Nevertheless, reacting to Russian violations of international norms in recent years Western countries have repeatedly acted in unison imposing severe sanctions on Russia or stepping up their defense through NATO.  

Today relations between the West and Russia have reached their lowest point since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In some respects relations are worse than during the Cold War when a broad spectrum of contacts and dialogue between administrations, agreements on arms control, contacts among military, academic institutions, business and societal groups provided a stabilizing backdrop to a potentially dangerous nuclear rivalry. Today such contacts have been reduced to almost zero. Arms control is stalling, the Agreement on Intermediate Nuclear Forces  is on the verge of being abandoned; since Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and its intervention in East Ukraine no substantial progress has been made on the Minsk Agreement that would have provided some degree of stabilization. On the Syria conflict the West opposes Russia’s support of the regime that uses chemical weapons against its people, all the while Western military action is taking place dangerously close to where Russian military forces are deployed.

To be sure, both the US,  her allies and Russia make quite an effort to avoid any direct confrontation of their military, but accidents can happen; missiles can be misdirected, or close flying Russian fighter jets can collide with Western units. The danger of a conflict escalating to the nuclear level is more remote than during the Cold War, but nuclear weapons are still very much a reality; in fact they play an even stronger role in Russian military strategy than during the Cold War.

At a time of growing enmity in perception and a notable lack of diplomacy and other contacts , catalytic events could unleash a conflict escalating to a confrontation involving the West and Russia. For example, the destructive consequences of a US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, an Iranian-Israeli conflict, or an attack on Israel by Hezbollah would extend way beyond the region.

In today’s dangerous situation, which some have compared with 1914, it is useful to remember what was done during the Cold War. At a time of growing frustration with the status quo at the time, the West revised its strategy and NATO decided in 1967 to complement its policy of defense and deterrence through   efforts towards cooperation and detente with the adversary.

 A similar strategy is called for today. To be sure, the West will have to strengthen   its deterrence by including cyber defense and action against interference in domestic politics, but at the same time a broader effort must be made to revitalize diplomacy on the central conflicts between the West and Russia. It   should cover three areas of intergovernmental action: first and most urgent, a serious attempt to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, preferably involving the UN; second a revival of negotiations on Ukraine building on and further developing the Minsk Agreement, and, third, an attempt to reopen the arms control dialogue to cover both the INF Agreement and conventional forces in Europe. Moreover, both sides should make an effort to encourage what has been strikingly absent: communication and contact between the military, academic institutions and societal institutions.