Europe needs Security Horticulture not Security Architecture
Oksana Antonenko, Senior Fellow (IISS)
When a year ago in Berlin President Medvedev proposed a New European Security Treaty to enshrine ‘legally binding’ assurances that Europe’s security is indivisible and that Russia is part of it, the reaction of many Europeans was sceptical at best. Many believed that Medvedev’s proposals, which at that stage did not mention the US or NATO, have been designed not to strengthen, but to undermine the European security – to divide Europe from the US, to weaken NATO and to re-impose Russian sphere of influence over the Eastern Europe. Although this negativism has been partially dissuaded by further clarifications from Moscow, that all key players and institutions within the Transatlantic community should be included in discussions and decision-making on the new Treaty, scepticism remained.
Europeans are asking a number of legitimate questions. Firstly, why do we need a new European security system, if the absolute majority of Europeans – except for Russia and maybe Belarus - are happy with what they already have.
Secondly, how could we negotiate - let alone ratify in ALL European parliaments - a new Treaty with Russia, if Europe remains divided and many European states continue to view Russia as a threat. Thirdly, why should we negotiate with Russia when it, Russia, has not practiced what it wants to preach – namely support for sovereignty and territorial integrity of states – think Georgia - or for Conventional Arms Control in Europe – think Russia’s suspension of CFE implementation. And finally, even well-wishes who are ready to give Moscow the benefit of the doubt and to support the discussions of the new Treaty, have been puzzled by the fact that a year after Medvedev’s speech in Berlin we are no nearer to understanding what the Russian President actually meant in detail, because none of these detail s - no drafts or reports – have been provided, distributed and publicized.
I suspect, and our discussions in Valdai Club meetings have reassured me, that the Russian experts and decision-makers are fully aware that there are no easy answers to these questions. At the same time, President Medvedev at the meeting with us asserted clearly that he believes not only that he has not received any negative responses to his proposals, but that such responses cannot be given in principle, because as Dmitry Anatolievich noted “European cannot refuse to discuss European security with Russia”, implicitly stating, I assume, that Russia was, is and will remain the key player in Europe’s regional security agenda.
This optimism seems to me more humanist, than political. However, it is also correct in identifying what the real value of his proposals is. It is not in trying to draft a text of a new Treaty acceptable to all Europeans – e.g. Russia, Germany, UK, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, etc – such text cannot be written in this particular historic reality - but in developing a platform at which an honest and productive dialogue can take place on how we all Europeans – including of course Russia as a member of the European family – understand contemporary security, why we continue to fear each other and why 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall we cannot find a formula, a Motus Vivendi, or an Institution under which auspices we can engage in solving even those security challenges which we agree represent a common concern.
Such dialogue is always timely and necessary and indeed it cannot be rejected because it represents the only possible way for building trust and inter-dependency – not in terms of energy or military balance , but in terms of developing a comprehensive, objective and more realistic understanding on what European security means to all its members, how do we distinguish security in Europe from security of Europe and focus on the latter, and what role do we all want to see Europe and the Transatlantic community as a whole playing in the 21st century.
Focusing on the European Security Architecture is a dead end for such dialogue. Architecture is always divisive – you are either in it or out of it – and since there is currently no appetite on both sides to think about Russian membership in NATO or in the EU, any discussions about architecture will end up discussing the new role of OSCE. This is an important issue, of course, but not perhaps central for the European Security agenda of tomorrow.
Instead of Security Architecture, Europe needs Security Horticulture. It needs a long term process of cultivating trust, and shared understanding not only of history, but also of the current and future problems we face. It needs to cultivate decision-makers of a new generation on all sides who can listen and think in terms of cooperative security, not in terms of a zero-sum thinking or Cold war stereotypes. There are many such decision-makers in Russia and in other parts of Europe. And finally we need to cultivate the problem-solving mentality among both experts and decision-makers to replace the current problem-generating one, at least as far as Russian-Western relations are concerned.
If Medvedev’s proposals are about such Security Horticulture, I am sure they have real prospects to be listened to very carefully.
