ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGY FORUM RUSSIA AND THE …The Future Role of Nuclear Weapons and the Search...

ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGY

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RUSSIA AND THE WESTHOW TO RESTART A CONSTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP


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The Aspen Institute Germany wishes sincerely to thank the Robert Bosch Foundation

for making the 2009 Aspen European Strategy Forum possible

The Aspen Institute Deutschland

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How to Restart a Constructive Relationship

CONTENT

Aspen European Strategy Forum 4

Executive Summary 6

Introduction 11Dealing with Different Psychologies and the Burden of History 12The Ambitions of This Report 14

PART I 161. The Strategic Environment 162. What Went Wrong? 18PART II 221. Towards a Better Euro-Atlantic Security Architecture 22

The Institutional Framework for Maintaining Peace 22Revitalizing Conventional Arms Control 24

2. Nuclear Arms Control, Non-Proliferation, and Ballistic Missile Defense 28Strategic Arms Reductions 29The Future Role of Nuclear Weapons and the Search for Strategic Stability 30Missile Defense 31Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy 32

3. Other Areas of Cooperation 36Fighting Islamist Extremism 36Maritime Security 37Arctic Security 38

PART III 40Integrating the Russian and Western Economies 40

The Energy Sector 40Trade Relations 45Foreign Direct Investment 47

Conclusions 49

Key to Acronyms Used 50

Appendix I: Workshop & Conference Participants and Agendas 53

Mission Statement 63How to Support Aspen 64

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Over its sixty year history, the Aspen Institute hasbeen devoted to advancing values-based leadership– to creating a safe, neutral space in a natural set-ting in which leaders can meet in order to discussthe complex challenges facing modern societiesconfidentially and in depth, with respect for dif-fering points of view, in a search for commonground. In 2009, The Aspen Institute is celebratingthirty-five years of continuing this tradition inGermany.

During the course of the Cold War, the Aspen In-stitute Germany periodically convened an“Euro-pean Strategy Group” in order to seek solutions topressing strategic imperatives. Today, Aspen Ger-many continues to convene leaders from academia,politics, business, the media and the arts once ayear at an Aspen European Strategy Forum (toseek solutions to key strategic challenges). Theforum is chaired by Prof. Dr. h.c. Horst Teltschik,former advisor to German Chancellor HelmutKohl, Dr. Günther Nonnenmacher, Co-Publisherof the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and KarstenD. Voigt, former Coordinator of German-AmericanCooperation in the German Federal Foreign Office.

The 2009 Aspen European Strategy Forum wasdedicated to the topic of integrating Russia into anew Euro-Atlantic security order. The 2009 forumwas organized in cooperation with Aspen Italiaunder the aegis of five additional, outstanding in-ternational statesmen or “principals”: AleksanderKwaśniewski, the former President of the Republicof Poland, Prof. Giuliano Amato, the former PrimeMinister of the Republic of Italy, Gary Hart formerU.S. Senator from the State of Colorado, Dr.Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin, Ambassador of theRussian Federation to the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization, and Eckart von Klaeden, ForeignPolicy Spokesman of the parliamentary party of

the German CDU/CSU. The goals of the exercisewere to answer three basic questions:

• What were the sources of friction that causedthe relationship between Russia and the “West”to go off track?

• What common national interests do Russia andthe West share?

• How can a new Euro-Atlantic security order bebuilt where Russia believes that it can advanceits interests by acting within the system andfrom which both Russia and its neighbors donot perceive a threat to their security or nationalinterests?

A first workshop was convened in Washington DCin June 2009 in cooperation with the American Institute for Contemporary Germany Studies andAspen Italia; it was designed to solicit U.S. inputon these issues and involved meetings with keyU.S. policy makers and strategists in the areas offoreign policy, security policy, energy policy, non-proliferation and arms control. A second workshopwas convened in Berlin in cooperation with AspenItalia in August 2009; it was designed to solicitRussian and Central and East European views onthe same questions and involved leading expertsfrom the Russian Federation and governmentalrepresentatives from Central and East Europe. Alist of participants and an agenda for each set ofmeetings is given in Appendix 1 to this document.

Under the guidance of the statesmen listed above,the following document was written by ProfessorJoachim Krause (University of Kiel, Academic Director of AESF), Andrew Kuchins, PhD (Centerfor Strategic and International Studies), AlexanderRahr (German Council on Foreign Relations), Dr.Benjamin Schreer (Deputy Director, Aspen Insti-tute Germany) and Charles King Mallory IV

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(Executive Director, Aspen Institute Germany) inan attempt to provide consensus answers to thethree questions outlined above and to identify enduring areas where views diverge and consensuscannot be reached.

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of thefall of the Berlin wall, this report was presented atan international conference held at the Branden-burg Gate on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 byProf. Mr. Giuliano Amato, former Prime Ministerof the Republic of Italy. The document was then discussed by a number of high-level internationalparticipants at the conference, and was subse-quently revised to reflect these deliberations before publication.

In this manner, The Aspen Institute Germany andAspen Institute Italia seek not just to commemo-rate the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the moremomentous events of contemporary European his-tory, but do so by holding a substantive discussionof perhaps the single most important unresolvedissue arising from the fall of the Berlin Wall andsubsequent events, namely: how to integrate theRussian Federation as a cooperative actor into anew, stable Euro-Atlantic economic and securityorder? The organizers, principals and authors hopethereby to make a small contribution to this prob-lem’s resolution.

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Good relations between Russia and the “West” areessential to addressing many of today’s more dif-ficult challenges to international peace and secu-rity. Both sides share far more than just commonhistory and geography; their interests also oftenoverlap to a significant degree. That said, since thebeginning of the 21st century mutual estrange-ment, misunderstandings, and divergent percep-tions and narratives have created a frameworkwithin which crises have divided Russia from the“West” – and have divided the “West” over thequestion of how to deal with Russia. Areas of con-flict include NATO enlargement, missile defense,conventional arms control, dependencies in thefield of oil and gas, the frozen conflicts in the Cau-casus and Transdnestria, human rights, press free-dom and free elections in Russia and otherpost-Soviet states, Kosovo, the Arctic Sea and re-gional conflicts.

This Aspen European Strategy Forum report looksat relations between Russia and the West. It asks:what can be done to direct this relationship to-wards a more cooperative mode? The main ambi-tion of this document is not to propose acomprehensive and radical new approach by whichevery problem can be solved. Rather, it suggestsdeemphasizing areas of conflict for the time beingand focusing on the positive instead. The docu-ment seeks to identify common ground in order tosee whether we can create a relationship, which ischaracterized by stable expectations of the strate-gic intentions of all of the parties involved. This,in turn, may help to integrate Russia more firmlyinto a new Euro-Atlantic security order and tosolve outstanding conflicts. For the time being,strategic competition and joint attempts at problemsolving will somehow have to coexist in relationsbetween Russia and the West.

A major challenge in finding a new stable archi-tecture and equilibrium for Euro-Atlantic securitylies in bridging the psychological gaps between thevarious sides, which are created by perceived dif-ferences in values and goals. What is needed is asense of realism on all sides involved. West Euro-peans should exercise caution in too easily projecting their cooperative and rules-based,interdependence approach to regional securityonto North Americans and Russians.

Russian decision-makers should reconcile them-selves with the idea that the era of Russia’s “greatpower primacy” is over and that Russia will not getfar by seeking a veto over developments in Europe.Central and East Europeans need to accept that themain focus of the United States is slowly, but irre-versibly, shifting towards other parts of the worldand that it is in their own interests not to empha-size what divides them from Russia, but ratherwhat brings them together. The United States hasto reconcile itself with the fact that the world is indeed moving towards a more multipolar orderand that new competing centers of power mayemerge. Fresh approaches towards coexisting withthese rivals will be required on the U.S. part.

While relations between Russia and the West arestill marked by conflicting interests and differinginterpretations of each other’s strategic aims, thereis also room for increased cooperation. This reportanalyses the areas of security, defense, economyand energy to derive concrete recommendationsfor improving relations between Russia and theWest.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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In the area of security and defense, a major task isto work towards an Euro-Atlantic security archi-tecture, which better incorporates Russia’s secu-rity needs without increasing concerns in Centraland East European countries. Specifically, all sidescould consider undertaking some or all of the fol-lowing measures:

• The OSCE member states should seriously con-sider establishing an “Euro-Atlantic SecurityCouncil” which would be entrusted with themain responsibility for the maintenance ofpeace and security in the region encompassingthe OSCE states. Such a step would give Russiaand others a greater opportunity to participatein international conflict prevention, manage-ment or resolution.

• The existing forums for cooperation betweenNATO and Russia could be extended and up-graded. While the NATO-Russia Council shouldbe maintained as a body for consultation overmany political and technical issues, other op-tions to upgrade cooperation and to give the re-lationship increased political and strategicweight should be considered. These options in-clude a formal agreement between Russia andNATO on mutual assistance in some securityand defense matters.

• Relations between Russia and the West wouldbenefit from efforts aimed at arriving at a com-mon threat assessment. A group of eminent per-sons could be tasked with preparing a first draft,after which a “Joint Strategic Review Panel”,co-chaired by NATO and Russia, could finalizethe work.

Conventional arms control, the backbone of Euro-pean security, should be put prominently back onthe international political agenda. Revitalizing theAdapted Conventional Forces in Europe (“ACFE”)treaty is crucial in this context. Possible steps in-clude:

• NATO members should ratify the ACFE treatywithout preconditions and should find a for-mula to compensate Russia for the increase inthe overall ceilings of NATO “treaty-limiteditems” (“TLI”). The six NATO member statesthat have not yet acceded to the CFE/ACFEtreaty should become signatories and Russiashould resume implementation of its obligationsunder CFE/ACFE regime.

• Russia should withdraw from Moldova, shouldput the disputed ammunition depot under inter-national control (United Nations or the OSCE),and should resume implementing its obligationsunder the ACFE – including the flank limita-tions.

• Ways should be found to arrange the withdrawalof Russian troops from South-Ossetia and Abk-hazia. This could take place as part of a largerpeace settlement under the supervision of theUN Security Council or of the prospectiveEuro-Atlantic Security Council. A generalrestoration of the CFE treaty regime that in-cludes Russian withdrawal from these flankareas would be involved.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Any attempt to restart a constructive relationshiprequires new approaches in the intertwined areasof strategic nuclear arms reductions, nuclear non-proliferation, and ballistic missile defense. Rec-ommendations to move forward in this areainclude:

• Negotiations between the United States andRussia on a follow-on treaty to the START Itreaty.

• Discussion of the role of nuclear weapons in re-spective military doctrines. Future deep cuts inU.S. and Russian strategic arsenals depend onfinding consensus on a new concept of strategicstability, which moves beyond the Cold Warlogic of mutually assured destruction. In thelonger-term, “virtual nuclear arsenals” couldform the basis for a new concept of deterrenceand strategic stability.

• Bilateral negotiations on further strategic armsreductions should be complemented by interna-tional initiatives involving the other nuclearweapons states. Possible initiatives include: afreeze on existing nuclear arsenals; a freeze onfurther production of weapons-grade fissile ma-terial, which should be followed by an interna-tional convention banning the production offissile material for weapons purposes; a globalINF-treaty, i.e. a treaty banning possession, pro-duction and employment of intermediate-rangenuclear forces; and a political process by whichthe Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (“CTBT”)gradually enters into full force.

• Ballistic missile defense will play a crucial rolein any new concept of strategic stability be-tween Russia and the West. Both sides shouldreach an agreement on the future mixture of of-

fensive and defensive systems (i.e. a new con-cept of strategic stability), which will becomeincreasingly intertwined as warhead levels de-crease. This, in turn, should redound to the ben-efit of Russia’s immediate Central and EastEuropean neighbors (“CEE”)who have strongreservations about Russia’s current levels of nu-clear armament.

• Without more extensive cooperation on theIranian nuclear program, efforts to restart therelationship between Russia and the West willbe hobbled. Moscow should revise its “relaxed”attitude to the Iranian nuclear program and jointhe West in applying the logic of collective se-curity to this case. Much could be gained if theRussian government were unequivocally to jointhe West in confronting the Iranian leadershipwith the threat of serious consequences (such asa ban on the sale of refined products and otherimportant items) if Iran is not ready to halt itsenrichment programs, disclose the full extent ofits nuclear program and resume implementationof the additional protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Confronting Islamic extremism and drug traffick-ing, particularly in Afghanistan, and increasing co-operation in maritime security and the Arctic Seaform additional fields of potential security coop-eration.

• Containing Islamist extremism constitutes avery promising area of cooperation betweenRussia and the West given their overlapping in-terests. This cooperation should be expanded soas to end Russia’s policy of ambivalence be-tween interest in avoiding NATO’s failure inAfghanistan and uneasiness about Westerntroop presence in Central Asia. Afghanistan will

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be the litmus test in this regard. Agreementsreached during the first half of 2009 includedU.S. rights for the overflight of lethal materialsover Russian territory; Russia was also veryforthcoming concerning overland ground trans-port of non-lethal goods to Afghanistan in thecontext of the emerging Northern DistributionNetwork (“NDN”).

• Cooperation in the struggle against drug trafficking in Afghanistan should be scaled up, particularly with regards to training Afghanpolicemen and law enforcement officers.

• Cooperation in the area of maritime securitycould be expanded to include joint exercises andtraining missions. A joint NATO-Russian initia-tive to establish an international court special-ized in dealing with cases of maritime piracycould also be envisaged. Beyond that, NATOand Russia might even ponder cooperating on along-term solution for Somalia, since the lackof functioning state structures in that countryfeeds not just piracy but also terrorism and mi-gration.

In the field of energy and economics a new startis urgently needed in the area of energy security.The following recommendations are made in thisreport:

• Further negotiations on the basic elements ofthe Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”) are unavoid-able. The treaty needs provisions that enable andprotect international commercial investments inboth the upstream and the downstream sectorand its existing dispute resolution mechanismshould be revised. The treaty should also estab-

lish more specific rules for the transit of naturalgas and crude oil through pipeline networks.

• The EU, Russia and the United States couldjointly develop a plan for the modernization ofSiberia as a practical tool by which to achievethe goals of an energy alliance and to achievethe diversification of the Russian economy – amatter of long-term, common, strategic interestto both Russia and the West.

• Europe and the United States could take part inRussia’s program to improve energy efficiency,with a particular emphasis on natural gas.

• The European Union could be tasked with de-vising a “European Energy Solidarity Pact”, bywhich Western European countries are able toassist Central and East European states, whichare heavily dependent upon Russian gas and oildeliveries, in times of crisis.

• Russia, the EU and the United States shouldconsider further expanding joint projects in-cluding: dismantling visa barriers; expandingacademic exchanges; and establishing a freetrade zone, short of full Russian EU member-ship.

• Russia, the European Union and the UnitedStates might also consider taking joint steps inthe area of climate control and environmentalprotection.

• Europe and the United States may want con-sider whether the opening of their end marketsto the Russian commercial aviation industrymight result in more efficient U.S. and Euro-

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pean aircraft industries, diversification of theRussian economy and a true incentive withwhich to keep Moscow interested in further co-operation.

• The European Union may want to consider cre-ating a mechanism for economic negotiationswith Russia that is not dependent upon achiev-ing consensus among all twenty-seven member-states.

• Investment in Russia could be advanced by aproject by the EU commission, the U.S. De-partment of Justice and Russian authorities toimplement a streamlined Russian commercialdispute resolution mechanism. Increased exchanges between senior- and mid-levelregulatory staff could also be helpful. Further,efforts to achieve minimum, mutually recog-nized listing standards, designed to reduce thecost of access to capital by Russian companiesand to promote Moscow as an internationalsource of capital could also be initiated.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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The crisis over Georgia in August 2008 and the re-sulting diplomatic row have demonstrated that re-lations between the Russian Federation (“Russia”)and the “West” (the states belonging either to theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”) orto the European Union (“EU”)) have deterioratedduring the past years. This relationship is still bet-ter than it was for many decades. But since the be-ginning of the 21st century a process has set in bywhich mutual estrangement, misunderstandings,and divergent perceptions and narratives have cre-ated a framework within which crises – such as theone over Georgia – have the potential of dividingRussia from the West – and of dividing the Westover the question of how to deal with Russia.

The areas of conflict can be easily named: NATOenlargement, missile defense, conventional armscontrol, dependencies in the field of oil and gas,the frozen conflicts in the Caucasus and Trans-dnestria, human rights, press freedom and freeelections in Russia and other post-Soviet states,Kosovo, the Arctic Sea and regional conflicts.

Some already have called the new situation a“Cold Peace” or even the beginning of a new“Cold War”. While it certainly is too early to drawsuch far-reaching conclusions, there is a risk thatrelations between Russia and the West may furtherdeteriorate and that a structural, if not strategic,conflict is emerging with possible significant consequences.

It is time to reconsider the relationship betweenRussia and the West in a way that allows a newpage to be turned in bilateral relations. The suc-cessful integration of the Russian Federation as acooperative actor in a new, stable Euro-Atlanticeconomic and security order has been one of thelargest outstanding political challenges facing theworld since 1990; without it, long-term stability inthe Euro-Atlantic space (the territory encom-passed by the member states of the Organizationfor Security and Cooperation in Europe(“OSCE”)) cannot be achieved. Despite repeatedstatements of intent on the part of Western powersand the Russian Federation, this goal still remainsdistant and elusive. Furthermore, at the dawn ofthe new millennium, we were closer to achievingthis goal than we are right now.

The task has become more difficult than it was adecade ago, because the “West” no longer is a uni-fied entity. With respect to Russia, it is probablymore appropriate to talk about the West as havingat least three components:

INTRODUCTION

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(1) The United States, for whom Russia mainlycounts as a partner in preventing the prolifera-tion of nuclear weapons, in strengthening armscontrol and in counter-terrorism;

(2) The traditional West European powers, whoconsider friendly and cooperative relationswith Russia to be an important element ofpeace and security in Europe; and

(3) The new members of the Western communityfrom Central and Eastern Europe, and manysmaller states, who fear a Russia that might in-fringe on their sovereignty and for whom mili-tary security from Russia, and questions ofjustice and human rights are the top priority.

The world has also had two different Russias todeal with of late. The first was post-communistRussia – that of the 1990s – which was largely de-pendent on the West. The West possessed someleverage over Moscow’s policy at the time. Thesecond is today’s post-Soviet Russia, governed byPresident Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev andPrime Minister Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Thelatter Russia believes that it has emancipated itselfin many ways from “junior partnership” with theWest and that it has restored its lost influence onthe global stage, due to energy alliances with a va-riety of countries. This Russia has also decided notto integrate with the West but rather to return tothe concept of a multipolar world or a world orderbased upon the concept of a “concert of nations”.

Dealing with Different Psychologies and the

Burden of History

International politics often is about different nar-ratives, different perceptions of reality and aboutthe persistence of historical experience – particu-larly experience having to do with war and oppres-sion. The European continent is replete with bitterhistorical memories – and many of them can befelt in contemporary diplomacy. Different psy-chologies and the burden of history are too oftendisregarded when discussing Russia’s relationshipwith the West.

The states of the European Union, in particular thecore states of the EU, have a long journey behindthem. After centuries of conflict and two debilitat-ing global wars Western Europe’s trajectory sincethe 1950s has been one of increasing union. Inte-gration of sovereign nation states into a multilat-eral set of institutions took place and nationalsovereignty was successively yielded in pursuit ofgreater economic welfare and collective security.This journey has resulted in a period of unprece-dented stability, growth and social welfare. Today,Western Europe consists of a polity that valuescollective decision-making, prefers non-violentapproaches to problem solving and takes umbrageat overbearing, coercive, unilateral approaches toworking out international problems.

The world looks different from the Russian per-spective. Having lost the global competition withthe United States and its allies during the ColdWar, significant parts of Russian elites continue toperceive the world through the prism of “greatpower” politics. The major goal is to restore andextend Russia’s primacy. Their worldview is basically geo-strategic in nature and they conceive

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of multilateral institutions through this lens aswell. At the same time, Russia also wants to bepart of an Euro-Atlantic order, but with expecta-tions and under conditions, which are hard to accept from a Western point of view. As oneRussian observed, “Russia today is … a brew ofWesternized society and traditional and nationalistforeign policy. This is a paradox it is struggling tocommunicate to its partners in the West, who ontheir own struggle to grasp what Russia is about[and] often continue to perceive it through the lensof Cold War stereotypes”.1

There is also an economic side to the Russian psy-chology. While the economic primacy underlyingU.S. global power projection may be in relative de-cline from a high starting point, the sharp declineof the Russian economy relative to its immediatepost-war Soviet state is clear. Increased prices foroil, natural gas and other raw materials havehelped to mitigate the Russian economic crisis, buttoday’s Russia’s GDP is less than three percent oftotal world GDP and it is forecast to remain at thatlevel for the foreseeable future.2 In its own long-term projections, Russia aspires to become theworld’s fifth largest economy. The differences be-tween Russia and the United States in economicterms, however, are striking and will remain so.While the United States may be relatively weakerthan it was before, it still has the largest economyand is still the most powerful state in the world.

Another group of European states whose psychol-ogy has to be taken into account is the group ofCentral and East European states. Bitter historicalexperience, in which individual countries havebeen repeatedly carved up or made to disappear byEuropean “great powers”, has both sensitized andto some extent traumatized Central and East Eu-ropean elites. The dire consequences for the con-

cept of the nation itself, of potential revanchismon the part of either their immediate, big, Easternor Western neighbors, remains an ever presentmemory and a perceived threat. These states areall too well aware of the manner in which seem-ingly insignificant small regional conflicts canserve as tinder.

Central and East European elites are leery of Russ-ian intentions and believe they know the Russianmindset much better than their West Europeanneighbors. These perceptions of Russia are in-creasingly shared by small- and medium-sizedWest European states – particularly by the Scan-dinavian countries. Central and East Europeanelites seek guarantees for their security from a col-lective security institution organized around theUnited States. They want access to the markets andwelfare offered by the European Union, and alsohope for membership in the decision-making clubthe EU is perceived as forming with the UnitedStates.

The challenge in finding a stable architecture andequilibrium for the Euro-Atlantic security orderlies in large part in bridging the psychological gapsbetween the various sides, which are created byperceived differences in values and goals. What isneeded is a sense of realism on all sides involved.West Europeans may need to exercise caution inprojecting their cooperative and rules-based, inter-dependence approach to regional security ontoNorth Americans and Russians. The Russian Fed-eration may need to reconcile itself with the idea

1) Pavel Andreev: “The Cold War is Over. This Has Been Certified by the Members of theValdai Discussion Club,” RIA Novosti News Agency, 9 September 2009.

2) According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Russia will in 2030 represent less than 3 % of worldwide GDP, China will then be at 23 %, the U.S. at 17 % and the EU-27 at16%; see Charles Grant: How to Handle Russia. CER Bulletin, issue 62 (October/ November 2008), p. 1. According to more optimistic Russian estimates, by 2020 Russia’sGDP might rise to a little bit less than 4 %.

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that the era of Russia’s “great power primacy” isover and that Russia will not get far by seeking aveto over developments in Europe. Central andEast Europeans may need to accept that the mainfocus of the United States is slowly, but irre-versibly, shifting towards other parts of the worldand that it is in their own interest not to emphasizewhat divides them from Russia, but rather whatbrings them together. The United States may haveto reconcile itself with the idea that the world isindeed moving towards a more multipolar orderand that new competing centers of power willemerge. This may require fresh approaches to-wards coexisting with these rivals on the U.S. part.

The Ambitions of This Report

This report looks at relations between Russia andthe West. It asks what can be done to direct this relationship towards a more cooperative mode. Themain ambition of this document is not to proposea comprehensive and radical new approach bywhich every problem can be solved. Rather, the report suggests deemphasizing areas of conflict forthe time being and focusing on the positive insteadby identifying common ground in order to seewhether we can create a relationship which is char-acterized by stable expectations of the strategic intentions of all of the parties involved. This, inturn, may help to integrate Russia more firmly intoa new Euro-Atlantic security order and to solveoutstanding conflicts.

In a first, step the report looks at the broaderstrategic perspective: the factors that are shapingthe international system of the 21st century; howthese broader factors impact the relationship be-tween Russia and the West; and how dividing issues have emerged.

In a second step, the institutional structure of security relations in the Euro-Atlantic space isexamined with a view towards identifying meas-ures that could help to integrate Russia into a net-work of cooperative institutions. Nuclear armscontrol and non-proliferation are examined, as important instruments by which to create stabilityin the field of weapons systems and force postures,with a view towards proposing new ideas thatmight lead us out of the current deadlock. Otherareas of cooperation will also be looked at, suchas: common approaches to Afghanistan; the fightagainst terrorism and organized crime; and maritime security.

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In a third step, particular attention is given to theissue of whether relations in the economic fieldand in the area of energy supply can be trans-formed in a manner that increases stability in mu-tual expectations.

This report concludes that relations between Rus-sia and the West are still marked by conflicting interests and different interpretations of eachother’s strategic aims, but that there is room forimprovement. Diplomatic developments betweenRussia and the West are currently marked by ef-forts from all sides to deal with the consequencesof the August 2008 crisis:

• The resumption of activities of the NATO-Rus-sia Council in July 2009 on the occasion of theCorfu NATO Council meeting. This permittedcooperation to continue in a couple of importantsecurity-related fields.

• The U.S.-Russian summit of July 2009, whichsignaled that both Presidents seek to cooperatein significant areas.

• The announcement by U.S. President Barack H.Obama in September 2009 that he will nolonger pursue the option of stationing compo-nents of a planned limited U.S. national missiledefense system in Poland and the Czech Repub-lic.

• The September 2009 speech by NATO Secre-tary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in whichhe outlined elements of a renewed cooperativerelationship with Russia.

What is needed is carefully crafted diplomacy, bywhich differences are contained and commonali-ties are accentuated – a diplomacy that might

become as important as the policy of détente wasin the 1970s. The recommendations made in thisreport are intended to contribute to this end and tostimulate international debate.

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1. The Strategic Environment

The relationship between Russia and the West isdeveloping within a complex international strate-gic environment, which, in principle, points moretowards cooperation than towards conflict. Any re-vival of the Cold War or even a Cold Peace wouldbe anachronistic. Conditions similar to those underwhich severe East-West tensions arose in the1940s no longer exist. Russia shares common in-terests with the West in different fields. There is adanger, however, that relations will deteriorate because governments become too wrapped up in“great power”, zero-sum, geopolitical thinking,and allow careless rhetoric and emotions to precipitate flawed strategic decisions.

We live in a time of a changing balance of strategicpower. The predominant shift is characterized byeconomic power moving to Asia and other emerg-ing market economies. At the founding of the G7,its member states accounted for more than sixtypercent of global Gross National Product(“GNP”), today their share is a little more thanforty percent. As a consequence, a more multipolarinternational system is likely to emerge in whichChina, India, Brazil and others will influenceworld affairs to a growing extent. China has thebiggest potential to challenge the United States’global position. However, in light of China’s inter-nal weaknesses and the fact that China profitshandsomely from the existing global economicorder, based on free trade and open markets (andin particular access to the U.S. market), it remainsto be seen whether the Chinese leadership will se-riously embark on a head to head competition withthe United States.

The relative power of non-state actors will increaseand will make the business of global governanceeven more complex. Moreover, continuing eco-nomic and population growth will put pressure onenergy, food, water and other resources. The chal-lenge to international peace and security posed byyoung populations in numerous countries in theMiddle Eastern ‘arc of crisis’ will remain. Climatechange will aggravate resource problems and willresult in increasing migration.

Radical Islam may be the largest imponderable forthe foreseeable future. So long as the Muslimworld remains separated into many medium-sized,small (and often weak) states, the challenge to theWest from radical Islam will remain limited. How-ever, radical Islam in its different variations mayfurther destabilize the Middle East, North Africaand South and East Asia. Limited wars, such as inAfghanistan, against militias and other irregularforces (often using terrorist tactics) may thereforebecome more frequent. In the event that a major,nuclear-armed power in control of significant energy resources emerges in the Middle East (orthat a coalition of radical Islamic states emerges),the West would be confronted with a strategic chal-lenge unparalleled since the 1930s and 1940s.

Fossil fuel resources may be available in quantitiessufficient to meet growing demand from emergingeconomies in Asia and Latin America for the nextfifteen years. However, the growing relevance ofthe Middle East for global supply both of oil andof natural gas will mean that the world economywill become increasingly dependent on stability inthat part of the world. Major energy crises cannotbe excluded as a consequence of instability, desta-bilization and conflict in the Middle East. The out-look for secure fossil fuel supplies looks quiteuncertain after 2025. It is still unclear whether the

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ongoing substitution of renewable energy sourcesfor oil and gas will compensate for the expectedgap between demand and supply from 2025 on-wards.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destructionand their delivery vehicles (missiles) may continuein coming years. The current crisis over the Iraniannuclear program has the potential for destroyingthe nuclear non-proliferation regime. The conse-quences may be extremely serious in the MiddleEast — a nuclear-armed Iran could destabilize thewhole region. Not just Israel and the Arab statesare threatened by the specter of Iranian nuclear-armed missiles. Russia, Europe and India wouldhave to rearrange their security postures funda-mentally, should this scenario materialize.

All of these problems are mentioned in the respec-tive security strategies of the United States, theEU, and Russia. The 2006 National Security Strat-egy of the United States, the 2003 European Se-curity Strategy and the 2009 Russian NationalSecurity Strategy share concerns that these newchallenges may become more important in the fu-ture than traditional security concerns. However,there is still a long way to go in transferring thisawareness into strategic imperatives and politicalcooperation. For the meantime, strategic competi-tion and joint attempts at problem solving willsomehow have to coexist in relations between Rus-sia and the West.

While the United States may no longer enjoy thedominance it held during the past twenty years, itwill remain the single most powerful country inthe world. It will remain the backbone of any in-ternational order designed to avoid or manage in-ternational and regional conflicts, and to deal withthe consequences of globalization. The big impon-

derable is whether the great powers will choose towork within the framework of multilateral institu-tions and, if they do so, within which ones? It isconceivable that established institutions, such asthe United Nations, may lose their relevance, whilenew and more informal arrangements, such as theG20, become important tools of multilateral coop-eration.

While the United States may be able to cope withthis uncertain world on its own for the foreseeablefuture given it’s political, military and economicresources, Europe and Russia may have difficultiesin coping with the new challenges. The EU mightcatch up economically with the United States orChina, but will most likely remain an internally di-vided and weak international actor, dependentupon external support in security affairs. Russiahas a more centralized foreign policy establish-ment and, hence, may be better equipped than theEU to act in the international arena in the pursuitof its interests, but it lacks the human and eco-nomic resources needed to become a great powerand to sustain this status. To mitigate these weak-nesses both the EU member states and Russia willhave to rethink their approaches to internationalaffairs. The EU may have to recognize that its rule-based approach is becoming less effective and thatsome sense for geopolitical realities is needed. Toincrease their leverage in world affairs, Russianpolitical elites may need to recognize that adoptinga zero-sum, geopolitical approach alone to dealingwith Europe and the U.S. will not suffice; particu-larly since the major challenges to Russian secu-rity no longer come from the West but from theSouth (the Islamic world) and from the East(China).

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With a multipolar international system emerging,the international order (i.e. the rules that the majorpowers apply among themselves for keeping peaceand regulating a growingly interdependent econ-omy) will have to change. The coming interna-tional order will not resemble that of the precedingdecades, but it will not necessarily look like Eu-rope in the 19th century either. Big power conflictsmay occur, but given the huge geographical dis-tances between them, great powers may, instead,compete over distant places or access to resources.New alliances might be formed or may already bedeveloping, e.g. between the United States andIndia, but they will not necessarily constitute ex-istential problems for other major powers and,hence, might be less dangerous and destabilizingthan they were in the late 19th century.

2. What Went Wrong?

The deterioration of the relationship between Rus-sia and the West has developed over more than adecade; it originated in a number of pivotal policyissues:

• The enlargement of the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (“NATO”) has to be named first.While accession to NATO by former Commu-nist states was seen in the West as contributingto peace and stability in Europe, Russia viewedthis process as infringing upon its national se-curity interests. Russian elites consider theircountry to be confronted with an increasinglyunfavorable “correlation of forces” and to beencircled by the Western alliance. The RussianFederation seeks a form of droit de regard overfuture NATO enlargement. Western powers, par-ticularly in Central and Eastern Europe, con-sider this to be an unacceptable attempt toreestablish regional hegemony; they insist thatthe decision to join NATO is a sovereign right,which cannot be denied by any outside power.

• Originally of less strategic relevance, Russianelites now also view the enlargement of the Eu-ropean Union (EU) with growing concern.From their perspective, the EU is extending itsregional influence through instruments such asthe enlargement process or the “neighborhoodpolicy”. Moscow assumes that the EU regardsthe Western states of the Commonwealth of In-dependent States (“CIS”) and the South Cauca-sus as its own “near abroad”. For Russia, the EUis engaging in a potentially threatening geopo-litical strategy that focuses on promotingdemocracy and economic reform in regions,which are located in Russia’s claimed sphere of

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influence. The prospect of EU membership forcountries like Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia and Be-larus is seen as an indication of an EU quest forstrategic dominance at Russia’s expense. Russiais fearful that the EU is becoming another com-petitor despite its apparent military weakness.For the EU and CEE, the interest of states for-merly belonging to the Soviet Union, the War-saw Pact, or Yugoslavia in joining the EUunderscores the attractiveness of its liberalmodel, providing an opportunity to bring peace,stability and prosperity to hitherto conflict-prone areas. Russia’s mistrust of the EU’s in-tentions is viewed as a relic of 19th century“great power” thinking.

• The handling of regional conflicts in the Euro-Atlantic area has revealed deep-seated differ-ences in approach between Russia and mostWestern states. The conflicts in the former Yu-goslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo), inthe Caucasus (Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh)and in Transdnestria have had the severest im-pact.

• While all governments concerned agree on theneed to maintain the principle of non-violencein the search for compromise solutions medi-ated by the international community and/ormandated by the United Nations Security Council (“UNSC”), in practice major deviationsfrom this principle have occurred. In the casesof Bosnia-Herzegovina and of Kosovo, the Westcriticized Russia in the 1990s for supportingSerbia even after it became clear that the unre-strained use of force by regular and irregularSerbian military units was the main obstacle toany negotiated solution. Russia, for its part,blamed the West for being unbalanced and forunleashing a NATO-led war against Serbia,

which ended in Kosovo’s secession from Serbia.

• In the case of the conflicts in Georgia andTransdnestria, the West again termed Russianpolicy biased and seemingly oriented towardsextracting maximum unilateral advantage at theexpense of all others rather than towards reach-ing a genuine compromise solution. The Russ-ian government, for its part, reproached Westerngovernments, in particular the United States,with failing to prevent Georgian presidentSaakashvili from using military force in theconflicts over Abkhazia and South Ossetia in2008 and with supporting the secessionistmovement in Kosovo. Kosovo’s unilateral se-cession and declaration of independence in2008 (with tacit approval of the U.S. and a ma-jority of Western states) and that of Abkhaziaand South Ossetia in August 2008 (with mili-tary assistance from the Russian armed forces)demonstrated how different Russian and West-ern views are. There were, however, also majordisagreements between Western states aboutKosovo’s secession.

• The institutional framework that was created inthe 1990s with a view to managing conflictwithin the Euro-Atlantic space has turned outto be far less effective than expected. The con-cept of interlocking institutions (mainly theUnited Nations, the Conference on Security andCooperation in Europe (“CSCE”), later re-named OSCE, NATO, and the EU CommonForeign and Security Policy (“CFSP”), in whichthe UNSC and OSCE play the leading role withNATO and the EU implementing decisionsmade by UNSC or the OSCE, has turned out tobe a failure. In too many cases, the UN SecurityCouncil turned out to be ineffective. Western

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states attribute the UNSC’s failure to the lackof unity among its permanent five members, inparticular to a distinct Russian tendency to putits own geo-strategic imperatives ahead of thecommon need to uphold the rule of law (princi-ple of non-violence) and/or to prevent genocideand ethnic cleansing. As a consequence of Rus-sia’s reluctance to permit the UNSC to mandatemilitary action against Serbia (which Russiaconsidered a strategic ally), NATO, under U.S.leadership, intervened unilaterally in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999without clear mandates from the UNSC. Fur-thermore, in 2002-2003 the U.S. and a group ofallied states formed a “coalition of the willing”that removed Saddam Hussein from power inIraq after he had defied the authority of the Se-curity Council for more than a decade. Thistook place without explicit authorization fromthe UNSC either.

• In both Kosovo and Iraq, Russian governmentsfelt excluded from major decisions of geo-strategic importance and acted to thwart thesemoves. From a Russian perspective, the OSCEhas lost its relevance as a central institution ofthe Euro-Atlantic security order. Originally es-tablished as a collective mechanism to deal withsecurity problems, to further economic cooper-ation and to support human rights, there hasbeen a shift on the part of the OSCE towardshuman rights problems and away from securityand economic issues. While Russia sees this asfurther proof of its being excluded from inter-national, strategic decision-making processes.Many Western governments (particularly inCentral and Eastern Europe) attribute theOSCE’s loss of relevance to Russia’s intransi-gence in matters relating both to “frozen con-flicts” and to the consensus voting rule within

the organization, which has allowed the Russiangovernment to block decisions within the OSCEon many occasions.

• Problems also emerged in the area of arms con-trol, which is an important means by which toestablish and maintain international security.During the past decade, two major arms controlagreements have been abrogated. In December2001 the United States withdrew from the 1972Anti Ballistic Missile (“ABM”) treaty. In De-cember 2007 the Russian Federation suspendedimplementation of the 1990/1992 ConventionalForces in Europe (“CFE”) treaty. The renuncia-tion of the ABM treaty was accompanied byU.S. assurances that it did not intend to build afull-scope national missile defense directedagainst Russia, but that the goal was, rather, todevelop a limited capability to fend off futureNorth Korean or Iranian missiles. For its part,the Russian Federation stated that the CFEtreaty was outmoded, but that it was interestedin seeing the 1999 Adapted CFE treaty, whoseratification was still pending in all NATO states,enter into force. Political dialogue over armscontrol issues was complicated by Moscow’sinsistence that it was not prepared to accept U.S.Ballistic Missile Defense (“BMD”) installationsin Poland and the Czech Republic. The RussianFederation warned that the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (“INF”) treaty might beat risk should the U.S., Poland and the CzechRepublic pursue such an option. On the otherhand, the Russian government was criticized fordeploying a new intercontinental ballistic mis-sile, which can be converted into an intermedi-ate range nuclear weapons system, thus possiblycircumventing the INF treaty. Both the UnitedStates and Russia were criticized for failing tolive up to their commitments under Article VI

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of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,whereby they committed to undertake negotia-tions towards reducing and finally dismantlingtheir respective nuclear weapon stockpiles. Adialogue between Washington and Moscow onmissile defense started in 2006 but has notyielded tangible results.

• Energy relations between Russia and Europepresented another field of conflict that is bothkey to European security and to Russian hopesfor future economic prosperity and strategic pri-macy. As a matter of principle, Europe – as amajor importer of gas and oil – and Russia – asa major exporter nation of these commodities –should fit together well. However, Russian ef-forts to create major, state-controlled and verti-cally integrated energy companies have metwith differing reactions in Europe. While somegovernments and companies are eager to strikedeals with Russia, others feel uncomfortablewith such an approach. Their concern is thatRussia is seeking not just to boost domestic eco-nomic growth, but to restore its “great power”dominance by using energy supplies as a lever– a goal that has been explicitly voiced as astrategic aim by leading Russian politicians.Central and East European and other states,which to date have been highly dependent uponRussian energy supplies, have voiced particularconcern about over-dependence on Russia. Thecrisis over gas supplies to Ukraine during thewinter of 2008-2009 seems to have confirmedstates’ worst fears as to Russian modes of be-havior and future intentions. Millions of peoplein Central and Eastern Europe had to live fordays without adequate, if any, heating becauseof conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Given the series of frictions outlined above, it ishigh time to think about how to reorder the rela-tionship between Russia and the West. Arriving atconclusions and recommendations that will recon-cile the interests of all parties involved representsquite a challenge however. All parties concernedwill have to make compromises and a good dealof diplomatic skill will be required.

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1. Towards a Better Euro-Atlantic Security

Architecture

A fresh look at the institutional structure (“archi-tecture”) of security in the Euro-Atlantic space isrequired. The international architecture formed inthe early 1990s was based on an agreement onbasic principles and rules of behavior, concerningconventional arms control as well as concepts ofinterlocking global and regional security institu-tions. Since that time, the relative importance ofinstitutions has shifted, with NATO becoming themost important actor and the OSCE becoming al-most irrelevant. The UN Security Council hasoften proven unable to act because of divisionsamong its permanent member states. The conven-tional arms control regime in Europe is in theprocess of unraveling. Finally, Russia does not feelits security interests in Europe are adequately re-flected by a structure centered on a strong NATO.Consequently, in 2008 the Russian governmentproposed a new Euro-Atlantic security order.3

In reconsidering the Euro-Atlantic security archi-tecture two political and security components needto be looked at in particular: (a) the principles,rules and mechanisms, by which peace and secu-rity can be maintained (interstate as well as intra-state); and (b) conventional arms control. Theeconomic elements of a future Euro-Atlantic se-curity order will be dealt with in detail later in thisdocument.

The Institutional Framework for Maintaining

Peace

The 2008 proposal by Russian President DmitryMedvedev for a New European Security Treaty(“NEST”) was thought to form a basis for debatingsecurity architecture issues. His plan has met withreservations, so far. While some Western leaders,such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, statedthat there was a general need to restructure theEuro-Atlantic security architecture, without endorsing the proposals made by PresidentMedvedev, others reacted with open or muted crit-icism. Most parts of the proposal are uncontrover-sial – such as the inadmissibility of the use offorce, respect for sovereignty, and the principle ofequal security. However, other elements in the pro-posal were criticized for being vague and mislead-ing – such as the prohibition of “acts by militaryalliances or coalitions that undermine the unity ofthe common space” – or for serving to undermin-ing NATO. Some voiced concern that the well-bal-anced language of the Paris Charter of November1990 (“Paris Charter”) as well as of the Joint Dec-laration of all NATO states and members of theWarsaw Pact of 19 November 1990 (“Joint Decla-ration”) might get lost in the process. This is par-ticularly true of the Joint Declaration, which statedthat “every State has the right to be or not to be aparty to a treaty of alliance”. The new memberstates of NATO and/or the EU are particularly con-cerned that the thrust of the Russian proposal is tohamstring NATO.

One way to overcome these concerns is to look atways to make the OSCE more effective. The ParisCharter states that “we will not only seek effectiveways of preventing, through political means, con-flicts which may yet emerge, but also define, in

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3) President Medvedev made a proposal for a European Security Treaty in June 2008. Helater spelled out more details in his speech at the World Policy Conference in Evian,France, on the 8th of October 2008. The text of his speech can be downloaded from thewebsite of the Russian President (www.kremlin.ru).

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conformity with international law, appropriatemechanisms for the peaceful resolution of any dis-putes which may arise.” For reasons mentionedabove, the resulting efforts to create institutionsand mechanisms by which conflicts can be pre-vented, managed or even resolved turned out to berather ineffective. One way to improve the OSCE’seffectiveness and to give Russia and others agreater chance to participate in international con-flict prevention, conflict management or conflictresolution, is to strengthen the organization by es-tablishing a Security Council of the OSCE, whichwould be composed of a limited number of mem-ber states (fifteen). This “Euro-Atlantic SecurityCouncil” could be entrusted with the main respon-sibility for the maintenance of peace and securityin the region encompassing the OSCE states. De-cision-making would be based on a simple or aqualified majority. There might be permanentmemberships (e.g. for the U.S., the EU and Rus-sia), but there should also be fair opportunities forall member states of OSCE to take part in thecouncil on a rotating basis. The OSCE establisheditself as a regional arrangement under the UNCharter in 1994; it could therefore continue alongthis path by assuming additional competencies.These competencies should, however, be assumedunder an explicit mandate from the UN SecurityCouncil.

Making the OSCE a truly effective regional secu-rity arrangement under the UN charter cannot sim-ply be achieved by creating new institutions or byreforming existing ones. More needs to be done.As a matter of priority, an agreement has to bereached on how to deal with cases where, underconditions of regional or intra-state conflict, atleast one side starts engaging in ethnic cleansingor even genocide. In these cases, immediate, ex-ternal military intervention is imperative. As a

rule, however, conflict management decisions bymultilateral institutions take a very long time. Thisdilemma became obvious in the 1990s during thewar in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It took almost threeyears to end the violence and to use military forceagainst the aggressor. Thus, firm criteria areneeded that permit institutions such as the UN Se-curity Council (or eventually the Euro-Atlantic Se-curity Council) to act swiftly and effectively incases of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The case of the former Yugoslavia also pointed outanother problem. Some states made attempts tomanage or to solve problems in a traditional,“great power”, geopolitical fashion. While geo-strategic approaches certainly may play a role inthe thinking of many governments, they are detri-mental to effective, multinational peacekeeping orconflict resolution if governments allow them-selves to get too caught up in their logic. Any newsecurity architecture in the Euro-Atlantic area thatis supposed to change the situation, wherebyNATO and the EU by default act as the main insti-tutions, has to be based on an agreement amongthe players that they will refrain from primarilypursuing “great power”, geo-strategically oriented,beggar-thy-neighbor policies.

Another frequently suggested way to satisfy Russ-ian security interests is to invite Russia to join theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization. While this no-tion should not be dismissed out of hand, no con-sensus currently seems possible. For NATOmembers, democracy and human rights are essen-tial preconditions for joining the alliance. TheRussian government and the majority of Russia’sruling elite regard external demands for greater de-mocratization in Russia as infringing upon na-tional sovereignty. So long as Russia sticks to thispoint of view, NATO membership will be difficult.

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But there is also another reason for being realisticabout the prospect of Russia joining the alliance.The key to NATO’s success lies in the fact that itsmembers accept U.S. leadership (which providesfor security among the member states as well asagainst outside threats), while a decision-makingrule based on consensus restrains U.S. dominance.The acceptance of at least some form of U.S. hege-mony has thus been the key element in the func-tioning of the Atlantic alliance. Russia, however,is hardly ready to subordinate itself to any form ofU.S. hegemony. Full membership of Russia inNATO thus seems rather unlikely for the foresee-able future.

The issue is therefore one of how to improve andextend cooperation between NATO and Russia. Sofar, the central institution for cooperation betweenRussia and NATO has been the NATO-Russia-Council (“NRC”). One might ask whether theNRC should remain the sole forum for coopera-tion. Since its inception in 2002, the NRC has be-come a relatively technical body. This has furthercorroborated Moscow’s view that it is excludedfrom strategic decision-making in Euro-Atlanticsecurity affairs. While the NRC should be main-tained as a body for consultation over many polit-ical and technical issues, other options to upgradecooperation and to give the relationship increasedpolitical and strategic weight should be consid-ered. Any such effort should start at a point wherethe interests of Russia and NATO converge.

One way to proceed may be to seek a formalagreement between Russia and NATO on mutualassistance in security and defense matters and incoping with new security threats. Such an agree-ment could come close to a mutual defense treaty,but it would be different in nature, focusing notonly on military assistance, but also on coopera-

tion in coping with the plethora of new securitythreats. There is no point in forcing such an agree-ment. It might be reasonable to start with an effortto arrive at a joint strategic threat assessment,which could then be used as the basis for develop-ing a joint strategic concept. A NATO-Russiasummit could mandate such a long-term process.A group of eminent persons could be tasked withpreparing a first draft, after which a “Joint Strate-gic Review Panel”, co-chaired by NATO and Rus-sia, could finalize the work.

Closer forms of institutionalized cooperation onthe military level can also be envisaged, such as animproved system of liaison at various levels or attempts to establish interoperability betweenmilitary forces.

Revitalizing Conventional Arms Control

Any attempt to revamp the relationship betweenRussia and the West should aim to reinstate theConventional Forces in Europe (“CFE”) treatyregime. An effective CFE treaty regime is essentialto reducing the threat that Baltic, Central and EastEuropean and other Western political elites andgeneral publics perceive as emanating from Russiain the aftermath of the 2008 conflict over Georgia.

The CFE treaty, which was concluded in Novem-ber 1990, adapted and supplemented in 1992,1995, 1997, and eventually revised in 1999, formsthe backbone of the European security order in theconventional weapons area. It served as a viableand effective way to strengthen European securityin the early 1990s. It created a balance between theconventional forces of the Warsaw Pact and theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization by limiting

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their armaments in five critical categories (tanks,armored combat vehicles, artillery, attack helicop-ters and combat aircraft), the so-called “treaty-lim-ited items” (“TLI”). The treaty also provided forlimits preventing both alliances from deployingconventional weapons in areas of potential con-flict. The treaty’s objectives included: establishinga secure and stable balance of conventional armedforces in Europe at lower levels than theretofore,eliminating disparities prejudicial to stability andsecurity, and, most importantly, eliminating the ca-pability to launch surprise attacks and to initiatelarge-scale offensive conventional military actionin Europe. The area of applicability encompassesEurope from the Atlantic to the Urals (includingparts of Turkey). For these reasons, the CFE treatybecame a cornerstone of the European securityorder.

During the 1990s the treaty was amended in orderto adapt to the dissolution of the Soviet Union andthe Warsaw Pact; it was amended again in 1999 inorder to adapt to the enlargement of NATO by theinclusion of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Re-public. This process included amendments to thetreaty, the drafting of common understandings andof unilateral measures as well as declaratory state-ments. In 1999, successful efforts were made tocomplement the first round of NATO enlargementby measures that would make this development ac-ceptable to Russia. For instance, NATO declaredthat it did not intend to base foreign troops on theterritory of the new member states permanently.Additionally, alliance members reduced their in-ventories of TLIs to a level such that the old al-liance totals of TLIs were not increased.

Most importantly, the November 1999 agreementon the Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe(“ACFE”) treaty introduced a number of signifi-cant changes:

• A new system of ceilings for TLIs was devisedaccording to which every state was allocated national ceilings for tanks, armored combatvehicles (“ACVs”), artillery pieces, attack helicopters and combat aircraft. Territorialceilings, encompassing national inventories aswell as inventories of foreign troops based in agiven territory, were also agreed upon. This sys-tem of national and territorial ceilings made itvery difficult for states to amass enough troopsfor major invasions – either on the Baltic littoralor in the Southern Caucusus.

• The “flank regime” of the CFE was partially relaxed. The old “flank regime” had beenapplicable to a couple of countries, but it posedserious problems for Russia, since it providedfor common TLI ceilings for the Northern andthe Southern military districts as a combinedunit (“the flank” according to the logic of theCFE treaty). As Russia faced major militarychallenges in the Caucasus (c.f. Chechnya), itasked for more flexibility. The ACFE treaty ac-counted for these concerns and allowed Russiato station substantially larger inventories ofTLIs in the overall flank region. To meet con-cerns of the Baltic states, Russia declared thatit would not increase its TLI inventories in theNorthern military district. At the OSCE summitin Istanbul in November 1999 the Russian gov-ernment also committed to withdraw its troopsfrom Moldova by 2002, and from Georgia aspart of an agreement between the governmentsof Russia and Georgia.

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• As a matter of principle, it was agreed thattroops could only be based in foreign countrieswith the consent of the respective host country.

• Troops that are sent as part of an UN-mandatedpeacekeeping operation were exempted fromnational and territorial ceilings.

• An extended system of information and decla-ration obligations and an improved system ofverification measures were agreed upon. Thesesystems allow for far more confidence as to theintentions of other states parties than the previ-ous regime.

• An accession clause was introduced whichmade it possible for other states to join theACFE treaty.

This treaty regime has, however, since unraveled.NATO member states have refused to ratify theACFE treaty on the grounds that Russia has notfully lived up to the Istanbul commitments con-cerning the withdrawal of troops from Georgia andMoldova. While it is true that Moscow still keepstroops in Moldova (allegedly to safeguard a dan-gerous ammunition depot) and while Russia hasslowed down its withdrawal from Georgia, it isdoubtful whether these shortcomings justified de-laying the ratification of the ACFE treaty for tenyears. The entering into force of the whole treatyregime is too important for the West – and in par-ticular for the new members of the Western al-liance – to allow things to get bogged down bymatters of relatively limited strategic relevance.Russia ratified the ACFE treaty in 2004 and calledfor NATO member states to ratify the treaty assoon as possible – without success.

Much more consequential, however, was the factthat the next round of NATO enlargement in early2004 was carried out with practically no regard forthe security interests of Russia. There was no com-pensation for the added number of TLIs in the en-larged NATO, i.e. no reduction of the overallNATO TLIs to the limits before enlargement. Fourof the seven new member states (Estonia, Latvia,Lithuania and Slovenia) were neither parties to theCFE treaty nor parties to the ACFE treaty either.The Russian government pointed out that underthese conditions NATO could, in theory, deployunlimited foreign troops on the territory of theBaltic states, while Russia continued to be boundby the restrictions of the old CFE treaty and itsflank regulations in the adjacent, Northern,Leningrad military district. Given the fact thatNATO had changed into a more political allianceby the 1990s and given the fact that an alliance ofdemocratic states is arguably less able to prepare,let alone launch, an armed attack against Russiafrom the Baltic states, Russia’s concerns seemsomewhat exaggerated. But within the logic of theCFE treaty and the ACFE treaty the Russian gov-ernment’s complaints were justified. NATO defi-nitely did not show the same degree of concernand respect for Russian security interests as it hadin 1998 and 1999, and this change in attitude wasreceived with alarm in Moscow.

Political developments took a much more negativeturn in 2007 and 2008. In 2007, Russia asked fora special conference of the CFE treaty memberstates. This meeting did not result in an agreementthat satisfied Russian interests. Russia thereforesuspended implementation of its obligations underthe CFE treaty in December 2007. Since that time,Russia no longer adheres to the flank regulationsof the CFE treaty and does not take part in mostof the treaty’s information exchange and verifica-

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tion activities. Essentially, this amounts to an ab-rogation of the CFE treaty. The Russian govern-ment has declared that it is ready to return to theCFE treaty regime under the conditions that NATOmember states ratify the ACFE, that all new mem-ber states of NATO accede to the ACFE treaty andthat NATO’s overall holdings of TLIs are reducedas a matter of compensation for NATO’s enlarge-ment. Russia has also asked for “new arrange-ments concerning the parameters for restraint inthe stationing of forces on foreign territories”, aformulation many NATO states took issue with.The August 2008 events in Georgia contributed toa further serious complication of the situation.

To date, NATO has been ready to negotiate withRussia under the socalled “parallel action pack-age” (“PAP”) framework. The basic idea is to ad-dress all outstanding problems in parallel and,thus, to arrive at a consolidated agreement. Thesetalks have not yielded any tangible results. In orderto achieve positive results, the spirit of cooperationthat prevailed during the first round of NATO’s en-largement in 1999 needs to be revived. NATOstates will have to ratify the ACFE treaty withoutconditions; they will have to find a formula tocompensate Russia for the increase in the overallceilings of NATO TLIs, and the six new memberstates that have not yet acceded to the CFE/ACFEtreaty4 will have to become signatories of thetreaty. Russia, on the other hand, should withdrawfrom Moldova, should put the disputed ammuni-tion depot under international control (United Na-tions or the OSCE) and should resumeimplementation of its obligations under the ACFEtreaty – including the flank limitations.

The most intricate problem, however, will be solv-ing the issue of how to deal with the Russian pres-

ence in the Georgian breakaway provinces ofSouth-Ossetia and Abkhazia. While Russia con-siders these troops to be stationed there at the in-vitation (and hence with the consent) of thelegitimate governments of South-Ossetia and Abk-hazia, the rest of the OSCE-member states do notrecognize these governments as legitimate. Theyconsider the presence of Russian troops to be bothan infringement of Georgian sovereignty and thefirst step along a path that could end in Russia’sannexation of these provinces. One can only hopethat the withdrawal of Russian troops from theseterritories can be arranged as part of a larger peacesettlement under the supervision of the UN Secu-rity Council or of the prospective Euro-AtlanticSecurity Council; it would involve a generalrestoration of the CFE treaty regime that includesRussian withdrawal from South Ossetia and Abk-hazia.

In summary, the Aspen European Strategy

Forum recommends:

• OSCE member states should seriously considerestablishing an “Euro-Atlantic Security Coun-cil” which would be entrusted with the main re-sponsibility for the maintenance of peace andsecurity in the region encompassing the OSCEstates. Such a step would give Russia and othersa greater chance to participate in internationalconflict prevention, conflict management orconflict resolution.

• The existing fora for cooperation betweenNATO and Russia should be extended and up-graded. While the NATO-Russia Council shouldbe maintained as a body for consultation over4) Beside the Baltic states, these aera: Slovenia, Croatia and Albania

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many political and technical issues, other options to upgrade cooperation and to give therelationship increased political and strategicweight should be considered. These options in-clude a formal agreement between Russia andNATO on mutual assistance in security and defense matters.

• Relations between Russia and the West wouldbenefit from efforts towards arriving at a sharedthreat assessment. A group of eminent personscould be tasked with preparing a first draft,after which a “Joint Strategic Review Panel”,co-chaired by NATO and Russia, could finalizethe work.

• NATO members should move to ratify theAdapted Conventional Forces in Europe(“ACFE”) treaty without preconditions andshould find a formula to compensate Russia forthe increase in the overall ceilings of NATO“treaty-limited items” (“TLI”). The six NATOmember states that have not yet acceded to theACFE treaty should become signatories.

• Russia should withdraw from Moldova, shouldput the disputed ammunition depot under inter-national control (United Nations or the OSCE)and should resume implementation of its obli-gations under the ACFE treaty – including theflank limitations.

• The withdrawal of Russian troops from South-Ossetia and Abkhazia has to be arranged aspart of a larger peace settlement under the su-pervision of the UN Security Council or of theprospective Euro-Atlantic Security Council.

2. Nuclear Arms Control, Non-Proliferation,

and Ballistic Missile Defense

Any attempt to restart the relationship betweenRussia and the West has to address the interrelatedissues of nuclear arms control, non-proliferationpolicy and ballistic missile defense. This is essen-tial. The nuclear situations in Iran and North Koreanow confront the international community with thereal prospect of a breakdown of the internationalnuclear non-proliferation regime on the eve of the2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review con-ference. Major differences, particularly in U.S.-Russian strategic relations, need to be settled:

• There is a need to define the future role ofstrategic and short-range nuclear weapons in thearsenals of both Russia and the United Stateswith a view to their commitments under ArticleVI of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty(NPT).

• Russia and the United States need to agree on anew concept of strategic stability, if further re-ductions in both countries’ nuclear weaponholdings than those already contemplated are totake place.

• Disputes over U.S. missile defense plans needto be addressed.

• The cooperation (or lack thereof) between bothstates in dealing with problem states such asIran or North Korea also needs to be addressed.

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Strategic Arms Reductions

Since the end of the Cold War considerableprogress has been made in reducing the number ofstrategic offensive delivery systems. In 1985, thetotal combined nuclear weapons inventory of theU.S. and the Soviet Union stood at 65,000 war-heads. Today these holdings have been reduced toa combined total of no more than 5,000 strategicwarheads available to both sides.

The United States and Russia need to decide onwhether and how to proceed with regard to reduc-tions in strategic armaments. The START I treatyof 1991, which limited the strategic inventories ofRussia and the U.S. to 1,600 Strategic Nuclear De-livery Vehicles (“SNDVs”), 6,000 accountablewarheads, 4,900 ballistic missile warheads and1,540 warheads on 154 heavy intercontinental bal-listic missiles (“ICBMs”) will expire in December2009. The START II treaty, which would have fur-ther cut the number of nuclear delivery vehiclesnever entered into force since the Russian Dumarefused to ratify it. The Moscow Strategic Offen-sive Reductions Treaty (“SORT”) of 2002 stipu-lated that both sides would reduce their inventoriesof strategic nuclear warheads to the level of 1,700to 2,200 warheads by December 2012. Yet, unlikeSTART II, this treaty had no provisions prohibitingmultiple warheads and it had no stipulations deal-ing with verification. Even so, both sides haveabided by the treaty’s provisions and are nearingcompletion of the implementation of the agree-ment.

Against this backdrop, Presidents Obama andMedvedev laid the basis for the prolongation andadaptation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty(START follow-on treaty) during their summit

meeting in Moscow in July 2009. Both sidesagreed to negotiate ceilings, which would reducethe number of strategic nuclear warheads to 1,500and 1,675, and the number of delivery systems to500 and 1,000, respectively. The prolonged andadapted START treaty would thus be a hybridtreaty, combining provisions on delivery vehicleswith limits on inventories of operational nuclearwarheads. It will most likely supersede the SORT.It will again have provisions on data exchange,verification, and forms of cooperation regardingimplementation. Some problems remain to besolved, however – such as the admissibility con-ventional, sea-based ballistic missiles, the numberof launch vehicles, the admissibility of multipleindependently-targeted reentry vehicles (“MIRV”)and the role of missile defense. But it is an encour-aging sign that both sides have re-started theprocess of strategic nuclear arms control.

With the adapted START treaty, the time of bilat-eral negotiations over strategic offensive nuclearweapons systems may be coming to a close. Afterthe reductions agreed upon by Presidents Obamaand Medvedev have been implemented, there maybe some possibility for further cuts, but since thenuclear weapons arsenals of Russia and of theUnited States would then stand at the same levelas the nuclear weapons inventories of the other nu-clear weapons states taken together, further reduc-tions would have to be agreed upon in negotiationswith this larger group of states, including the Peo-ple’s Republic of China, Great Britain, France,India and Pakistan.

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The Future Role of Nuclear Weapons and the

Search for Strategic Stability

Real progress in the U.S.-Russian nuclear relation-ship depends on both sides’ ability to find a newdoctrine of strategic stability in order to escapetheir dependence on the Cold War doctrine of“mutually assured destruction” (“MAD”). This, inturn, has implications for the future of ballisticmissile defense.

Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Russiaand the United States are still trapped in a nuclearstandoff, with more than two thousand nuclearweapons directed at each other, some on hair-trig-ger alert or at least on short notice readiness.Strategic stability continues to be perceived as astate of affairs whereby neither side is able tolaunch a disarming first strike against the other.The levels of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicleinventories envisaged by the U.S.-Russian summitdeclaration of 2009 constitute the lowest numberof strategic nuclear weapons possible while main-taining a concept of strategic stability based onconditions of mutual assured destruction. Underthe Cold War concept of “mutually assured de-struction”, the more nuclear weapons that exist,the greater the strategic stability. Hence, eachcountry directed tens of thousands of strategic nu-clear weapons at the other and this guaranteed thatno one would contemplate a disarming first strike.Strategic ballistic missile defense was perceived asa destabilizing element within this equilibrium of“nuclear terror.” Significant further progress in thearea of nuclear arms control, and – because of Arti-cle VI of the NPT – in the field of non-proliferation,depends on the ability of both sides to agree on anew concept of strategic stability that would permitfurther deep reductions in nuclear weapon holdings.

Both President Barack Obama and PresidentDmitri Medvedev have subscribed to the long-term goal of abolishing nuclear weapons (“GlobalZero”). Implementing this vision will critically de-pend on both sides’ ability to reach consensus ona new concept of strategic stability. Any new ne-gotiations on further cuts in the number of nuclearsystems should therefore start with a discussionabout the role of nuclear weapons in respectivemilitary doctrines. Concepts developed during the1990s on how to move beyond the MAD doctrine,such as “de-alerting” and “virtual nuclear arse-nals” could be included in these discussions. De-alerting means that nuclear weapons are taken offof alert status and are stored (together with deliv-ery vehicles) at safe sites (safe against disarmingnuclear strikes) from where they can be recoveredafter a certain time (measured in days or weeks)has elapsed. These “virtual nuclear arsenals”would then form the basis for a new concept of de-terrence and strategic stability.

Under conditions of MAD, ballistic missile de-fense is detrimental to strategic stability. With vir-tual nuclear arsenals, ballistic missile defensebecomes a critical hedge against any attempt at cir-cumventing the de-alerting regime. In such a con-text, deploying defensive systems backed bysurvivable inventories of delivery systems andwarheads would deter first strikes with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.

The path to “virtual” nuclear inventories is fraughtwith difficulties, however. There are technical andsecurity-related reasons that lead many to be skep-tical of the feasibility of de-alerting and of con-templating a world consisting of “virtual nucleararsenals” at all. A couple of almost insurmountableproblems would have to be solved, such as how tomake de-alerting symmetrical and how to prevent

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clandestine re-alerting or circumvention of the de-alerting regime. These are questions that might bestudied by U.S. negotiators and their Russiancounterparts. They should rank high on the agendaof future negotiations between both governmentson strategic arms control, in addition and as a prel-ude to the discussion about further cuts in nuclearweapon inventories.

Another major problem for nuclear arms controlis posed by the fact that nuclear weapons still playan important role in Russian military doctrine.While the U.S. military increasingly relies on con-ventional strategic weapons as the primary meansby which to achieve its military goals, the impor-tance of nuclear forces in Russian strategy has ac-tually increased. For Russia, nuclear weaponscompensate for conventional inferiority with re-gard to Western forces and serve as a hedgeagainst a nuclear build-up by China, India and oth-ers. This approach applies even more to tacticalnuclear weapon systems. Whereas Russia sees tac-tical systems as central to its military strategy, forthe United States these weapons have taken on analmost exclusively political utility as part of a con-cept of extended nuclear deterrence in Europe.This asymmetry between the U.S. and Russianeeds to be addressed. A case can be made forlinking nuclear and conventional arms control. Ifthe CFE-related recommendations made earlier inthis report were agreed upon and were imple-mented, Russia should be able to reduce its re-liance on nuclear weapons and scrap its holdingsof tactical and theater nuclear weapons systems.

The other nuclear weapons states (China, UnitedKingdom, France, India, and Pakistan – amongstothers) can be integrated into this nuclear disar-mament process only once Russia and the UnitedStates have found a new form of agreement on

doctrine, strategic stability and a concomitant re-duction and virtualization of their offensiveweapons, including non-strategic weapons.Nonetheless, a number of steps can already betaken in order to boost confidence in the nuclearnon-proliferation regime and to prepare for furthernuclear arms reductions:

• A freeze on existing nuclear arsenals as part ofa joint declaration by all other nuclear weaponsstates to be made after a START follow-onagreement has been concluded;

• A freeze on further production of weapons-grade, fissile material which could be followedby an international convention banning the pro-duction of fissile material for weapons pur-poses;

• A global INF treaty, i.e. a treaty banning pos-session, production and employment of inter-mediate-range nuclear forces;

• A political process by which the Comprehen-sive Test Ban Treaty (“CTBT”) gradually entersinto full force.

Missile Defense

Ballistic missile defense (“BMD”) will become anintegral part of any future debate about strategicstability and arms control. U.S. plans to install a‘third site’ in Poland and the Czech Republic tohelp defend against future Iranian nuclear-armedmissiles were met with open criticism by Russianauthorities and with muted criticism by many Eu-ropean governments. The Russian government ar-gued that this site might forebode a shift in U.S.

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strategic doctrine away from mutually assured de-struction towards nuclear superiority. Some Euro-pean governments argued that BMD should bedealt with within NATO’s consensus decision-making process and not through bilateral negotia-tions between Washington and individualEuropean capitols. For them, the focus on meas-ures to counter a still remote threat (nuclear-armed, Iranian, intercontinental, ballistic missiles)instead of the more imminent danger of Iranian,nuclear-armed, intermediate-range missiles alsoset the wrong priority.

In September 2009, U.S. President Obama decidedto partially reverse the BMD plans of the admin-istration of President G. W. Bush. The new U.S.policy now aims to establish an effective systemto protect European and U.S. installations againstthe possibility of attack by Iranian intermediate-range missiles. Proven technologies such as theSM-3 interceptor and the forward-based ArmyNavy/Transportable Radar Surveillance systemcould be deployed within the next two years as partof this effort. The new BMD architecture no longerrequires a single, large, fixed European radar suchas the one planned in the Czech Republic and re-moves the need for ground-based interceptors inPoland.

The change in U.S. policy was an important recon-firmation of the absence of any intent on the partof the U.S. government to change the strategic nu-clear equation in its favor in a unilateral fashion;it thereby paves the way for more constructiveU.S.-Russian discussions about BMD. Attentioncan be directed to other issues such as the potentialfuture common threat posed to the U.S., Russiaand Europe by Iranian and North Korean nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. In August 2009 Russiaannounced that it would deploy the S-400

“Triumf” air defense system close to the NorthKorean border in reaction to North Korea’s missiletests. To move forward in this field, PresidentsObama and Medvedev issued a “Joint Statementon Missile Defense Issues” at their July 2009meeting and agreed to conduct a joint assessmentof ballistic missile challenges in the 21st century.The NATO-Russia Council was also set to restartits discussion of missile defense cooperation.

The Obama administration’s reconfirmation of theabsence of any U.S. intent unilaterally to changethe strategic nuclear equation in its favor may haveremoved an important psychological hurdle inU.S.-Russian strategic relations. If so, this devel-opment may help both sides reach agreement onthe future mixture of offensive and defensive sys-tems (i.e. a new concept of strategic stability),which will become increasingly intertwined aswarhead levels decrease. This, in turn, should re-dound to the benefit of Russia’s immediate Cen-tral and East European neighbors who have strongreservations about Russia’s current levels of nu-clear armament.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy

Increased cooperation between Russia and theUnited States is urgently needed in order to keepthe global consensus on nuclear non-proliferationalive. Article VI of the nuclear non-proliferationtreaty obliges the two superpowers to reduce andultimately eliminate their nuclear weapons hold-ings. In light of the acquisition of nuclear weaponsby Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea and theimminent acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran,Russian and U.S. implementation of the obliga-tions undertaken under article VI has become more

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important in order to stem the further erosion ofthe international nuclear non-proliferation regime.The progress both governments have made in thefield of strategic arms control should ease the con-siderable task of making the next review confer-ence of the NPT in 2010 a success.

But going ahead with arms control and disarma-ment proposals won’t be enough to secure the sur-vival of the NPT. Iran’s nuclear program and theproblems posed by North Korea are perhaps thesingle most important challenges to the post-ColdWar international security order that have emergedand they need to be addressed. Because of theseprograms’ wide-reaching implications for strategicstability in the Middle Eastern and East Asian the-aters, deeper cooperation between Russia, theUnited States and Europe in the area of nonprolif-eration is imperative. How the three sides work to-gether on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program willbe defining for the future of the nuclear non-pro-liferation regime. Iranian possession of nuclearweapons or even Iranian possession of a “break-out capability” would deal the nuclear Non-Prolif-eration Treaty a serious blow and would changethe strategic balance in the Middle East region fun-damentally.

The international community and the majority ofIran’s regional neighbors have repeatedly voicedtheir serious concern over Iran’s nuclear program.Since March 2006, the United Nations SecurityCouncil, acting under its authority under chapter VIIof the UN Charter, has demanded that Iran cease allof its enrichment and reprocessing related work, allheavy water-related projects, and the relevant re-search and development activities until internationaldoubts concerning the peaceful character of Iran’snuclear program have been clarified.While Western states have been extremely alarmed

by the Iranian nuclear program and have repeat-edly urged tough sanctions if Iran continues withits policy of ignoring the relevant resolutions ofthe UN Security Council, Russia so far has showna rather relaxed attitude towards Iran’s nuclear andmissile programs. While the Russian governmentseems not to be interested in Iran becoming a nu-clear weapons state, Moscow is not very worriedabout this prospect either. The negative conse-quences of Iran’s nuclear program for the NPTregime so far have not been an issue of relevancein the Russian debate. The role of Iran as a strate-gic partner of Russia in the field of trade and en-ergy has been stressed instead. Hence, Russia’sreadiness to impose stringent and effective sanc-tions against Iran, or even to apply military pres-sure, has been extremely low.

This Russian attitude has encouraged the Iranianleadership in their determination to defy the reso-lutions of the UN Security Council and to continuewith their nuclear weapons and missile acquisitionprograms. Once again, as in other, similar cases(Iraq, North Korea, or Bosnia-Herzegovina), theauthority of the United Nations is at stake and theRussian penchant to view these cases primarilyfrom the perspective of geopolitics and pure na-tional interest rather than from the standpoint ofcollective security and international order has aggravated the crisis and is undermining theauthority of the UN.

During September and October 2009, Russian de-claratory policy with regards to Iran underwentsome change. Russian military authorities seemedto regard the Iranian missile threat with growingsuspicion. Russian politicians also seemed to rec-ognize that the Iranian nuclear program is of ut-most concern for states in the Middle East as wellas the wider international community. The UN Se-

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curity Council Summit of 24 September 2009 alsoconfirmed that the Security Council has primaryresponsibility in addressing the threats posed bythe Iranian nuclear weapons acquisition programand its concomitant delivery system developmentprogram.

To restart relations between Russia and the Westin the nuclear nonproliferation area, Moscow willneed to revise its “relaxed” attitude to the Iraniannuclear program and join the West in applying thelogic of collective security to this case. Muchcould be gained if the Russian government wereunequivocally to join the Western states in con-fronting the Iranian leadership with the threat ofserious consequences (such as a ban on the sale ofrefined products and other important items) if Iranis not ready to halt its enrichment programs, dis-close the full extent of its nuclear program and re-sume implementation of the additional protocol ofthe nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Without sucha shift in Russia’s policy towards the Iranian nu-clear program, any effort towards restarting Rus-sia’s relationship with the West will be hobbled.Russian cooperation in preventing Iran from ac-quiring nuclear weapons is indispensable.

The picture with regard to North Korea is similar,although in this case China comes in as an impor-tant, additional actor, if not the most importantone. North Korea has been defying the interna-tional nuclear order since the early 1990s. In thiscase, Russia has often sided with China in prevent-ing the imposition of sanctions that could becometoo burdensome for North Korea’s leadership. Fearof a collapse of North Korea and of a resulting re-unification of Korea has been the guiding line ofChinese and Russian policy. Inadequate attentionappears to have been paid to the possibility that theNorth Korean nuclear weapons program may lead

to nuclear armament in some form on the part ofSouth Korea and Japan. This, in turn, would havesignificant negative strategic implications for bothRussia and China in their East Asian border areas.Much could be gained if Russia could be con-vinced that it might be useful to relinquish its cur-rent geopolitical line and side with the Westernpowers by taking a more collective approach to se-curity in this area as well.

If they chose to act together, Russia and the Westcould improve the effectiveness of the global nu-clear non-proliferation regime considerably. Oneplace to start might be to embrace NATO SecretaryGeneral Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s proposal that ajoint assessment of global proliferation trends,risks and challenges take place within the NATO-Russia Council.


Forum recommends:

• The United States and Russia conclude a fol-low-on treaty to the START I treaty.

• Any new negotiations on further cuts in thenumber of nuclear systems should start with adiscussion about the role of nuclear weapons inrespective military doctrines. Future deep cutsin U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals dependon finding consensus on a new concept ofstrategic stability, which moves beyond the ColdWar logic of mutually assured destruction. Inthe longer-term, “virtual nuclear arsenals”could form the basis for a new concept of deter-rence and strategic stability.

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• Bilateral negotiations on further strategic armsreductions should be complemented by interna-tional initiatives involving the other nuclearweapons states such as: a freeze on existing nu-clear arsenals; a freeze on further productionof weapons-grade fissile material, which couldbe followed by an international convention ban-ning the production of fissile material forweapons purposes; a global INF treaty, i.e. atreaty banning possession, production and em-ployment of intermediate-range nuclear forces;and a political process by which the Compre-hensive Test Ban Treaty (“CTBT”) graduallyenters into full force.

• Both sides should reach an agreement on the fu-ture mixture of offensive and defensive systems(i.e. a new concept of strategic stability), whichwill become increasingly intertwined as war-head levels decrease. This, in turn, should redound to the benefit of Russia’s immediateCentral and East European neighbors who havestrong reservations about Russia’s current levels of nuclear armament.

• Without more extensive cooperation on the Iran-ian nuclear program, efforts to restart the rela-tionship between Russia and the West will behobbled. To achieve this Moscow should reviseits “relaxed” attitude to the Iranian nuclearprogram and join the West in applying the logicof collective security to this case. Much couldbe gained if the Russian government were un-equivocally to join the Western states in con-fronting the Iranian leadership with the threatof serious consequences (such as a ban on thesale of refined products and other importantitems) if Iran is not ready to halt its enrichmentprograms, disclose the full extent of its nuclearprogram and resume implementation of the

additional protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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3. Other Areas of Cooperation

Apart from strategic arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, there are a couple of areas whereRussia and the West as a whole have broad com-mon interests and where existing cooperationcould be expanded. These include joint approachesin confronting Islamic extremism and the field ofmaritime security. A common approach towardsdealing with the Arctic Sea is also needed.

Confronting Islamist Extremism

The struggle against terrorism, more specifically Islamist extremism, has been an area of intensecooperation between Russia and NATO. In 2004 aNATO-Russia “Action Plan on Terrorism” com-mitted to do everything needed to fight all formsof terrorism. Both sides announced that they “willspare no efforts in the NRC and other appropriatefora to protect our citizens, to pursue our sharedobjective of bringing to justice the perpetrators, or-ganizers, instigators and sponsors of terrorist acts,to cut off the channels of financing terrorist activ-ities, and to defeat the scourge of terrorism”. Thiscooperation has been very successful to date. It in-volves intelligence sharing, cooperation on arma-ments and technology aimed at responding toterrorist threats, common efforts towards air secu-rity, cooperation in the destruction of excess mu-nitions, small arms and light weapons, cooperationin developing effective control over transfers ofman-portable air defense systems and, last but notleast, combined efforts to promote stability in andaround Afghanistan. Given the fact that the threatof terrorism is constantly changing, the NATO-Russia “Action Plan on Terrorism” needs to be up-dated.

Joint approaches to Afghanistan are the mostpromising and most important area for cooperationbetween Russia and the West when it comes toconfronting Islamist extremism. The history ofRussian cooperation with the West, however, hasproven to be quite mixed over time. It was onAfghanistan, in the Fall of 2001, that U.S.-Russiansecurity and intelligence cooperation probablyreached its high point in the post-Soviet period.The Russian government at that time fully sup-ported the U.S.-led international coalition’s effortsto defeat the Taliban. U.S.-Russia cooperation inAfghanistan in 2001 even sparked unprecedenteddiscussions in Russia about a much broader anddeeper security relationship between Moscow andWashington. The international coalition succeededtoo quickly in unseating the Taliban to allow for amore institutionalized security relationship to de-velop. The Bush administration’s decisions in theFall of 2001 to go through with the second roundof NATO enlargement, including the Baltic States,as well as to withdraw from the ABM treaty werereceived by the Kremlin as signaling that, despiteRussian cooperation on this key security chal-lenge, the United States would continue on policypaths in other areas that Moscow had long held tobe against its interests. Political and security elitesin Moscow were deeply disappointed that the Bushadministration did not appreciate their cooperationand failed to take Russian interests into account.

Since that time, the attitude of Russia vis-à-visU.S. military involvement in fighting Al-Qaida andthe Taliban in Afghanistan has been marked bycontradictory elements. On the one hand, the Russ-ian government has been concerned about thespread of militant and violent Islamic extremism,be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or Chechnya and,hence, has no interest in seeing the U.S. forces suf-fer a defeat. On the other hand, Russia sees the

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presence of U.S. forces in Central Asia as a threatto its security interests, and as a development thatconstitutes a kind of Western encirclement of Russia.

This ambiguity still persists. During the first halfof 2009, a couple of positive trends emerged in thearea of cooperation with Russia on Afghanistan.There were indications that the agreement withBishkek of June 2009, whereby the U.S. regainedaccess to the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan, wassupported by the Russian government. Moreover,an agreement reached at the July 2009 U.S.-Russiasummit now allows for the overflight of U.S. lethalmaterials over Russian territory. In the firstmonths of 2009, agreements with relevant coun-tries, including Russia, for overland ground trans-port of non-lethal goods were also reached. TheNorthern Distribution Network (“NDN”) coverstwo routes to Afghanistan – the North throughLatvia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, andthe South through Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kaza-khstan and Uzbekistan. By the end of September2009, about three hundred containers per weekwere moving along these main supply routes(“MSR”) , and the Pentagon expects this traffic togrow to five hundred containers per week by theend of the year. About forty percent of the trans-port of non-lethal goods to U.S. forces will passvia these main supply routes. This is an importantsuccess story, and Russia’s cooperation has beenessential.

Afghanistan is also important for cooperation inthe fight against drug trafficking. Afghanistan isthe world’s largest producer of heroin and aboutone fifth of the output is smuggled to Russia andelsewhere in Europe through the Central Asian re-publics. The illicit drugs that are smuggled throughthe rugged and porous borders of Central Asia

pose a serious threat to the internal stability ofRussia and Europe. In Russia, for instance, up tosix million persons take drugs on a regular basisand ten thousand people die annually because ofdrug consumption. NATO and Russia have alreadyagreed on a couple of measures to fight drug traf-ficking within the framework of the Action Planon Terrorism, among them are: an enhanced infor-mation exchange among NRC member states onthe threats posed by the Afghan narcotics industryand trade; national and multilateral efforts aimedat addressing those threats; and joint training ini-tiatives in NRC member states, aimed at strength-ening the capabilities of Afghan and transit routestates’ border guard and counter narcotics units.In 2005, the NRC reached an agreement with theUnited Nations Office on Drugs and Crime(“UNODC”) on cooperation in training law en-forcement officers in Central Asia andAfghanistan.

This kind of cooperation should be scaled up, inparticular with regard to training for Afghan po-licemen and law enforcement officers. In July2009, Presidents Medvedev and Obama agreed toincrease joint efforts to stem the export of opiatesfrom Afghanistan. Victor Ivanov, head of the Russ-ian Counter-Narcotics Agency traveled to Wash-ington in September 2009 to meet with hiscolleagues in the U.S. government in order to ad-vance this cooperation.

Maritime Security

In July 2009, diplomats from NATO and Russiamet to discuss ways of cooperating in the battleagainst pirates off the coast of Somalia. Since thatmeeting, a debate has set in which demonstrates

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that NATO and Russia can cooperate within theframework of NRC on such important issues. BothRussia and NATO member states have an interestin providing security for commercial vessels to theIndian Ocean and have dispatched naval ships tothe region. While Russia was not ready to operateunder NATO leadership, it was ready to coordinateits activities in the region with NATO and the EU.It would be useful to expand on this cooperationand even to conduct joint exercises and trainingmissions, possibly under Russian leadership. Sincethere is no international legal framework for deal-ing with maritime piracy, it also might be expedi-ent to think about a joint NATO-Russian initiativeto create a specific international court for dealingwith cases of maritime piracy. A broader effort toimprove maritime security in the Gulf of Aden,which is an international waterway that providesthe key link between the Mediterranean Sea andthe Indian Ocean, is also needed.

Beyond these suggestions, NATO and Russiamight ponder a long-term solution for Somalia,since the lack of functioning state structures in thatcountry feeds not just piracy but also terrorism andmigration. While this might imply intervening on-shore militarily in order to destroy pirate and ter-rorist networks, it would also entail efforts aimedat state building and reconstruction in one of themost difficult areas of Africa, where one failed at-tempt at intervention already took place in 1992.Whether NATO member states and Russia will(and should) be willing to shoulder this Herculeantask remains questionable. At the same time, theEuropean Union would be well advised to examinecarefully the role European fishing fleets haveplayed in undermining regional stability throughillegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing in thewaters off the Somali shores.

Arctic Security

The Arctic Sea is an area with the potential forconflict between Russia and the Western nations,but it could also be turned into an area where co-operation is sought in order to solve disputedclaims by legal means. Russia opened the compe-tition over Arctic resources through two expedi-tions, which were meant to underpin its territorialclaims. These steps have created concerns amongNorthern littoral states, particularly Norway, butalso Canada and the USA. It is of some comfortthat Russia is seeking to go the legal route in orderto make its claims by submitting documentary ev-idence to the United Nations. Western govern-ments should communicate to Russia that anyconflicts in the Arctic Sea area must be addressedby resorting to legal means under the United Na-tions Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNC-LOS”). Since the UNCLOS does not present waysand means to settle every conflicting claim to mar-itime areas, it might be advisable to launch a mul-tilateral negotiation forum leading to a treatywhich would settle the status of the Arctic in acomprehensive way similar to the Antarctic Treatyof 1959.

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Forum recommends:

• Expanding cooperation between Russia and theWest on Afghanistan so as to end Russia’s pol-icy of ambivalence between avoiding NATO’sfailure in Afghanistan and uneasiness aboutWestern troop presence in Central Asia.

• Scaling up cooperation in fighting drug traffick-ing in Afghanistan, in particular with regards totraining for Afghan policemen and law enforce-ment officers.

• Expanding cooperation in the area of maritimesecurity to include joint exercises and trainingmissions. Further, a joint NATO-Russian initia-tive to establish a specific international courtfor dealing with cases of maritime piracy couldbe launched.

• NATO and Russia might even ponder a long-term solution for Somalia, since the lack offunctioning state structures in that country feedsnot just piracy but also terrorism and migration.

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Integrating the Russian and Western

Economies

Given the increasingly inter-connected nature ofthe global economy, any attempt to reset the rela-tionship between Russia and the West has to in-clude economic relations. In this area, one mightexpect more win-win outcomes to emerge than inthe field of security policy. However, as recentyears have shown, economic relations in the fieldof energy supply have held more potential for stir-ring up discontent than they have for peaceful co-operation. It is here, that another opportunityexists to “push the reset-button”.

Economic cooperation between Russia and Europeis particularly important. Russia’s ambitious eco-nomic goals can only be achieved in close coop-eration with Europe. In September 2007 theRussian Ministry of Economic Development andTrade published the “Concept of Long-term Socioeconomic Development of the RussianFederation” (the “Concept”). The ultimate goals ofthe Concept are for Russia to become one of theworld’s top five economies; to establish Russia asa leader in technological innovation and global energy infrastructure; and to establish Russia as amajor international financial centre as well. Whilethese goals were always ambitious and look lessrealistic in the wake of the global economic down-turn, their thrust and means of implementation il-luminate the pivotal role that Europe will play forRussia’s further modernization. Europe, on theother hand, needs Russia as a supplier of naturalgas and oil as well as a market for its manufacturedgoods and services; it also needs Russia as a placeto make foreign direct investments. Conversely,there is a strong interest in Europe to attract Russ-ian investment as well.

A powerful complementarity already exists be-tween Russia and Europe in economic relations.In 2007, the European Union comprised fifty-threepercent of Russia’s export market, and fifty-twopercent of Russia’s imports came from EU coun-tries. Russia is the European Union’s third-largesttrade partner. Economic cooperation between theEU and Russia is built on converging interests.Western Europe needs markets for high-value-added products to boost its own stagnating eco-nomic growth, while Central and Eastern Europealso sees Russia as an end market for finished in-dustrial goods and relies on Russia for the greatmajority of its energy supplies. In order to exploitits comparative advantage in raw material and en-ergy supplies, Russia – for its part – needs unfet-tered access to European and North American endmarkets. Russia also requires access to Westerntechnology and capital in order to modernize thecountry’s resource extraction infrastructure and todiversify the country’s economy away from over-dependence on oil and gas.

The Energy Sector

In principle, the EU and Russia fit very well to-gether in the field of energy relations. Looking atthe crude oil and the natural gas sector they couldform an ideal partnership, even if their interests asexporters and importers do not always coincide.Russia is interested in security of demand whileEurope is interested in security of supply. Hence asymbiotic relationship built upon Europe’s interestin secure energy supply and Russia’s interest inrevenues from sales to Europe is a real possibility.However, due to political factors, this partnershiphas eroded over the past ten years and has turnedinto a rather adversarial relationship. In order to

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avoid further damage, a new start is overdue in thisfield. It may be necessary to rethink the basic ele-ments of the energy relationship, including eventhe possibility of negotiating a new energy charterbetween Russia and the EU or revising the existingone.

According to the International Energy Agency(“IEA”) World Energy Outlook, global primaryenergy consumption will grow by fifty per centduring the period until 2030. By 2015, it will in-crease by twenty-five percent. Developing coun-tries will contribute more than seventy per cent tothe increase in consumption; China alone will beresponsible for thirty percent. This will meanstronger pressure on markets both for crude oil andnatural gas and it will entail greater risks for buy-ers as well as for suppliers of fossil fuel resources.Due to geographic proximity, Russia and Europehave complementary features:

• Russia is (after Saudi Arabia) the second largestproducer of oil; it produces almost ten millionbarrels per day (or almost five hundred milliontons per year), of which it exports two-thirds. Ithas large untapped reserves of oil, most of themin Siberia. Hitherto, however, only a tenth ofthis region has been explored geologically.Moreover, oil production in the Russian part ofthe Caspian Sea has not even started yet.

• Europe consumes almost fifteen million barrelsof crude oil per day, of which almost fourteenmillion barrels have to be imported. Currently,Russia is the largest source of imported oil forthe EU (almost thirty percent), followed by Nor-way. While the level of European consumptionwill increase only incrementally during the nextten to fifteen years, the EU will have to shift itssources of crude oil imports because the Nor-

wegian oil fields will become exhausted. In-creasing the share of Russian oil is the most rea-sonable approach, because alternative sourceswill continue to be located in politically unsta-ble areas.

• Russia currently produces about six hundredbillion cubic meters of natural gas per year, ofwhich it is currently able to export one third.Russia has estimated natural gas reserves of almost fifty-eight trillion cubic meters, whichamounts to almost one third of known global reserves. Most of these reserves have not beentapped so far.

• The EU consumes around five hundred billioncubic meters of natural gas per year and thisconsumption will rise by at least fifty per centby the year 2020. While imports make up sixtyper cent of today’s consumption, this share willincrease to almost eighty-five percent by theyear 2020. Imports from Russia today make upalmost thirty per cent of the EU’s total imports;this share could increase due to geographicalproximity.

• Russia and the EU are already connectedthrough a network of pipelines for both crudeoil and natural gas. These networks need majormaintenance capital expenditure investmentsand, hence, create incentives on both sides tocooperate and to create an environment of stablemutual expectations. Of Russian oil exports tothe West, fifty-eight per cent pass throughpipelines. All of Russia’s gas exports are trans-ported through pipeline systems.

Europe is currently and will remain central to Rus-sia’s energy market. The probability of major en-ergy trade between the United States and Russia

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for at least the next decade remains low, asGazprom has not been very active in developingliquefied natural gas (“LNG”) supplies. It is alsohard to imagine Russia diverting significant en-ergy supplies towards China in the next decade.

While energy relations between Russia and the EUwere looked upon with great optimism at the startof this decade, a rather sober assessment has sincecome to prevail. Instead of deeper cooperation,disputes over investment projects, transit rightsand pipeline projects have grown. Many observersare already talking about a new geopolitical com-petition over energy resources in Central and East-ern Europe and Central Asia. This developmenthas to be seen against the backdrop of majorstrategic decisions that have been taken and theconsequences that have flown from them.

The most important strategic decision in this regard was the Russian state take-over of thelargest companies in the Russian energy sector -namely in the field of natural gas and oil produc-tion, starting in 2003. The most well-known casewas the takeover of YUKOS, the largest companyin this field, by the Russian state. By assertingcontrol over companies in the energy sector, theRussian government not only succeeded in makinghuge windfall profits from the recent surge in oilprices, it also established itself as a major playerin the field of energy supply. In 1998, Russia’s in-ternational foreign currency reserves amounted toonly USD 8 billion. Today, Moscow disposes ofapproximately USD 400 billion. Moscow has alsorepaid all of its international debt ahead of sched-ule. The energy sector is responsible for twenty-five percent of GDP. Oil and gas make up twothirds of Russian exports.

Another important event was the Kremlin’s deci-sion to end its subsidies to the CIS countries viacheap natural gas and crude oil. This decision wastaken after the Orange Revolution took place inUkraine at the end of 2004. The decision led to arow between Russia on the one side and theUkraine and Belarus on the other. The latter triedto use their leverage as transit countries in orderto negotiate the most profitable solution for them-selves. Ukraine thought itself to be in a good po-sition: it is the transit country for forty-two percentof all Russian crude oil exports and for sixty-eightpercent of Russia’s exports of natural gas. The re-sulting disputes over transfers of gas and oil hasbrought about two major supply crises, so far. Thecrises led to major interruptions in supply in Cen-tral and Eastern European states in the Winter of2005-2006 and in the Winter of 2008-2009. Bothsides acted in a manner that seriously shattered EUconfidence in their reliability. Russia has been try-ing to avoid Ukraine and Belarus as transit coun-tries since 2005 by striking deals for gas pipelineroutes that take a Northern or a Southern detour(North Stream and South Stream). Russia struck adeal with then German Chancellor GerhardSchröder in 2005 on a North Stream pipelinethrough the Baltic Sea that would circumventUkraine, Belarus and Poland; it caused a majordisagreement between Germany on the one handand Poland, the Baltic States and Sweden on theother.

The controversies surrounding the interruption ofgas supplies through Ukraine in 2005-2006 and2008-2009 and concerning the North Stream proj-ect have obscured an underlying structural prob-lem: the growing strain between supply of anddemand for Russian gas. Gazprom’s productionhas been stagnant for years, while demand forRussian gas both abroad and at home is steadily

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rising. All production increases after 2000 havecome from independent Russian gas companies,and they are increasingly constrained or national-ized. Russia obviously has a business strategy thatcalls for reliance on Central Asian reserves in thenear- and mid-term in order to maintain supplyrather than making massive investments in devel-oping new gas fields.

In the oil sector a similar trend has set in. The pro-duction of crude oil has grown since 1999, but therate of growth has declined since 2004. In 2008the upstream production of crude oil fell slightly,mainly due to lack of investment in the explorationof new fields. Western analysts and experts seethis as another example of the detrimental conse-quences of nationalizing energy production inRussia.

The consequence of stagnating production in Rus-sia has been a growing competition over the en-ergy resources of the Central Asian states(Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbai-jan), which have increased their upstream activitiesat rates of ten to twenty per cent per year duringthis decade. These states want to enter Europeanmarkets, and have been confronted with Russianattempts to buy up all of their production, becauseRussia wants to be the sole provider of oil and gasto Europe. While this might make business sense,Russia’s policy has created deep mistrust both inEU capitols as well as in the Central Asian states.The building of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline (thatavoids Russian territory) by a U.S.-led interna-tional consortium was an early reaction. But Eu-ropean firms are also increasingly looking forcooperation opportunities in upstream activities inCentral Asia – where they face growing interest onthe part of China in these same resources. The EUis planning to construct a pipeline skirting Russia

that would allow the transfer of natural gas fromKazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Europe(Nabucco). Russia, for its part, has reacted bystriking a USD 3.5 billion deal with China that in-volves planned deliveries of natural gas to China.This deal, however, puts additional stress on Rus-sia’s ability actually to produce all the gas it wantsto export.

A geopolitical competition over the control of en-ergy supplies to Europe has been unleashed, whichmight have detrimental consequences for all sidesinvolved. The issue is whether Russia will controlthe oil and gas pipelines running from all of thestates of the former Soviet Union to Europe. Be-sides building the Northstream and the South-stream pipelines, the Kremlin is trying to thwartalternative pipeline routes that bypass Russia. Inessence the competition is whether Europeancountries will build the Nabucco and Transcaspianpipelines to supply Europe with gas from theCaspian Basin or whether Gazprom’s SouthStream pipeline project through the Black Sea toItaly will out-compete Nabucco in transfering thesame energy resources to the same European mar-kets. The stakes are high on all sides involved andthe risk that major investments in pipelines and in-frastructure might turn out to be economic failuresis considerable. In July 2009 European statessigned an agreement to build the Nabucco pipelineby 2014. In August 2009, Russia and Turkeysigned an agreement that would clear the way forconstruction of the South Stream pipeline.

The Energy Charter of 1991 and the related En-ergy Charter Treaty (“ECT”) of 1994 were the firstvictims of this geopolitical competition. The En-ergy Charter seeks a balanced framework for co-operation in the energy sector; it addresses theconcerns of countries endowed with natural re-

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sources as well as those of energy-importing coun-tries. The provisions of the Energy Charter Treatyfocus on protecting foreign investments, on ensur-ing non-discriminatory conditions for trade in en-ergy resources, on reliable cross-border energytransit, on dispute resolution procedures betweenparticipating states and/or investors and states, aswell as on promoting energy efficiency. The ECTwill help energy producing states protect their in-terests downstream, and help energy-importingcountries gain protection for their outward energyinvestments; it also contains mechanisms to pro-mote security of supply. The ECT will also ensurereliable transportation of energy exports to con-sumers. Russia signed the ECT in 1994 but has re-fused to ratify it so far, although Russia did saythat it was prepared to accept provisional imple-mentation of the ECT. On 30 July 2009 RussianPrime Minister Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s abrogation of the ECT and terminatedRussia’s provisional implementation of the treaty.There are four main reasons behind Russia’s actions:

• Russia considers the ECT unbalanced and bi-ased towards the interests of energy consumingcountries.

• Russia is reluctant to cede control over its tran-sit network to international supervision, as stip-ulated in the Energy Charter.

• Russia requires Western consumer markets beopened for Russian companies (downstream), ifRussia, in turn, is to be required by the West toallow stronger investments by EU companies inthe upstream sector in Russia.

• Russia requires a more effective monitoring andearly warning mechanism to prevent export in-

terruptions such as those that occurred in early2006 and early 2009.

It is thus high time to turn a new page in this im-portant area as well. In recent years talks betweenRussia and the EU on the subject of the EnergyCharter have focused on Moscow’s demand to in-corporate the interests of producer states morefirmly in the revised charter. Meanwhile the EUhas also arrived at an internal understanding thatan altered Energy Charter should seek a compro-mise between the interests and tasks of the produc-ers and consumers and should also include transitstates.

Any durable solution has to be based on the En-ergy Charter Treaty; however, negotiations thatwill reopen basic elements of the ECT are un-avoidable. The ECT has to become more balancedand it has to become more specific in many in-stances. The treaty needs provisions that enableand protect international commercial investmentsin both the upstream and the downstream sectorsand its existing dispute resolution mechanismshould be revised. The treaty should also establishmore specific rules for the transit of natural gasand crude oil through pipeline networks. The mainproblem here is that Russia is unwilling to acceptthe same rules for itself as a transit state as it isasking Ukraine and Belarus to accept. These andother problems can only be solved as part of amajor compromise. A number of possible politicalinitiatives could advance the negotiating processby helping to change the overall strategic land-scape in the energy sector:

• The EU, Russia and the United States couldjointly develop a plan for the modernization ofSiberia as a practical tool both for achieving thegoals of an energy alliance, but also for achiev-

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ing the diversification of the Russian economy– a matter of long-term, common strategic in-terest to both Russia and the West.

• Europe and the United States could take part inRussia’s energy efficiency program, with par-ticular emphasis on natural gas. Today, Russiaconsumes more gas than seven of the world’sbiggest economies combined: China, India,Japan, Britain, Germany, France and Brazil. Justa ten percent savings would set free enough nat-ural gas to satisfy the demands of France, atwenty per cent savings would satisfy the de-mands of Germany. Such cooperation couldalso be extremely helpful in meeting the goalsof the UN Framework Convention on ClimateChange (“UNFCCC”) and the Kyoto Protocol.

• The EU could be tasked to devise a EuropeanEnergy Solidarity Pact, by which Western Eu-ropean countries can to assist Central and EastEuropean states, which are heavily dependentupon Russian gas and oil deliveries, in times ofcrisis. Such a pact must be underpinned by in-vesting in pipelines and by enlarging existinggas and crude oil reserve capacities.

Trade Relations

Oil and gas trade is simply a special case of thebroader topic of trade relations between Russiaand the West. Both sides have a strong interest inbuilding vital trade links. Some form of integra-tion of the Russian Federation into the EuropeanUnion, for example, would provide Russia with re-assurance when it comes to Moscow’s access toenergy end-markets and to vertical integration op-portunities. Conversely, it would also provide the

West with the prospect of secure end markets forfinished goods and leverage by which to bringRussia into a rules-based regime.

“Increasing global competitiveness” is a frequentphrase in the Concept referred to above, which ac-knowledges the fact that, as an integral part of theglobal economy, Russia’s industry faces competi-tion on a global scale. Unfortunately, Russian“competitiveness” has always been relativelyweak, and despite Russia’s announced ambitionsit continues to weaken. Deeper economic integra-tion between the European Union and Russia is thebest means to reverse negative trends in Russiancompetitiveness. The highest level of integrationbetween the European Union and Russia would bea Free Trade Area (“FTA”), an idea that was con-ceived and incorporated into the Partnership andCooperation Agreement (“PCA”) in 1997. The Eu-ropeans continue to view an FTA as a means tolink rewards to performance, but Russia has notbeen so enthusiastic.

The precondition for the commencement of FTAtalks is Russia’s accession to the World Trade Or-ganization (“WTO”). This has not been an easystep for Russia, requiring implementation of nu-merous commitments made in bilateral negotia-tions which will have very real effects on itseconomy and be especially painful in the shortterm as many industries face increased foreigncompetition. Russian leaders have criticized theU.S. for constantly erecting new political hurdles toRussia’s accession to the WTO. Judging from thenegotiating record, this criticism is not without jus-tification. However, it is regrettable that Russia didnot conclude its WTO negotiations before the onsetof the current economic crisis; free trade agree-ments are always more difficult to sell politicallywhen domestic industries are already suffering.

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This is not to imply that there will be no adverseconsequences or that the pains that Russian indus-try will experience in the short term should be un-derestimated. The heart of any FTA between theEU and Russia would be a reduction of tariffs onmanufactured goods. Taking into consideration thefact that EU-Russia trade is based on each side’scomparative advantages (commodities for Russiaand manufactured goods for the European Union),this would benefit the EU and to some extent dis-advantage Russia. But over time these short-termlosses will be compensated by increased effi-ciency, competitiveness and diversification ofRussian industry.

To further integration with the European Union,Russia’s second-best option to an FTA is joiningthe WTO and continuing to be a beneficiary of theEU’s Generalized System of Preferences (“GSP”)– its present course. In addition, continued nego-tiations of Russia’s membership in the Organiza-tion of Economic Cooperation and Development(“OECD”) will entail further liberalization includ-ing concessions by Russia, but, again, increasingcompetitiveness is the critical condition for suc-cessful Russian development.

While integration with the West is and has beenRussia’s primary goal, the projected breakdown ofRussia’s trade by major partners (EU, CIS, andAsia) suggests a modest shift away from the Westtowards Asia and the Commonwealth of Independ-ent States. In 2006, fifty-nine percent of Russianexports were destined for the EU, sixteen percentwent to Asia, and fourteen percent went to the CIS.In contrast, the EU share of total exports in 2020is expected to decline to forty-six percent of totalexports, while the share of both Asia and the CISis to increase to about twenty percent each. CISand Asian countries are seen as potentially large

and increasing markets for Russian exports, espe-cially high technology “innovation goods”. How-ever, as the composition of Russia’s imports isheavily tilted towards machinery, the EU will con-tinue to be the primary supplier of such goods andthe key to Russian economic modernization.

Four concrete steps might be considered as part ofan effort to improve trade relations between Rus-sia, the United States and Europe and to accelerateeventual closer Russian integration with the EU:

• Russia, the EU and the United States might con-sider further expanding joint projects including:dismantling visa barriers, allowing skilledRussian workers to move more readily to Europe or the United States; expandingacademic exchanges, allowing Russia to buildhuman capital that has had access to the tech-nologies that the country will need to modernizeand diversify its economy; and establishing afree trade zone, short of full EU membership,similar to the arrangements entered into bySweden and other countries, before their full accession to the European Union.

• Russia, the European Union and the UnitedStates might also consider taking joint steps inthe area of climate control and environmentalprotection. An “ecological compact” mightallow the parties to tackle and meet joint chal-lenges and develop joint policy options withinthe framework of the Kyoto process.

• Europe and the United States may want con-sider whether their countries and economies arereally best served by having an effective globalduopoly in the area of large commercial aircraftproduction. Russia has a deep reservoir of ex-perience and expertise. Opening Western end

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markets to the Russian commercial aviation in-dustry might result in more efficient U.S. andEuropean aircraft industries, diversification ofthe Russian economy and a true incentive withwhich to keep Moscow interested in further co-operation.

• Finally, the European Union may want to con-sider creating a mechanism for economic nego-tiations with Russia that is not dependent uponachieving consensus among all twenty-sevenmember-states. In order to expedite moves to in-tegrate Russia into the West economically, theEuropean Union might decide to delegate re-sponsibility for negotiating with Russia to a“core group” of states in which Central andEastern Europe and the Baltic states were ade-quately represented.

Foreign Direct Investment

Because legal redress for foreign investors actingwithin the Russian legal system is not fully as-sured, and the capital requirements are so huge,Russia is likely to need access to foreign capital inorder to modernize and diversify its economy forthe foreseeable future. On the other hand, Russiaaspires to become a financial center in its ownright, and certainly has amassed significant cur-rency reserves during the recent upswing in oilprices. Targeted action in the foreign direct invest-ment area may be another means by which to pro-vide inducements to Moscow to move to a morecooperative mode of behavior with the West.

The West will also continue to play the key role asa source of Russia’s foreign investment in generaland Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) in particu-lar. Europe will continue to increase its share,while there may be a drop in investment fromcountries with taxation policies that are currentlyfavorable, such as Cyprus and Luxembourg. Thefuture role of Japan is less clear. According to theaforementioned long-term Concept, Russia prefersinvestment from the rest of Asia, North America,and Western Europe instead. As Russia’s currentaccount is expected to continue to deteriorate, it isEurope and the United States that will most likelymeet Russia’s growing needs for investment.

The following concrete steps might be consideredin order to improve the investment regime in Rus-sia and assist Moscow in its efforts to develop aninternational financial center:

• A coordinated and intensified effort by the EUcommission, the U.S. Department of Justice andRussian authorities aimed at implementing astreamlined Russian commercial dispute reso-lution mechanism.

• An intensified series of exchanges between sen-ior- and mid-level regulatory staff (e.g. from theFSA, BaFin, the SEC and the FKTsB) designedto ensure training, the transfer of knowledgeand the construction of lasting institutional tiesamong regulators in Russia and the chief West-ern markets.

• A joint FSA, BaFin, and SEC task force on min-imum, mutually recognized listing standards,designed to reduce the cost of access to capitalby Russian companies and to promote Moscowas an international source of capital.

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• A parallel joint task force designed to agree onminimally acceptable mutually recognized ac-counting standards, intended to facilitate Russ-ian companies’ access to international capital.


Forum recommends

• The Energy Charter Treaty needs provisionsthat enable and protect international commer-cial investments in both the upstream and thedownstream sector and the treaty’s existing dis-pute settling mechanism should be revised. TheECT should also establish more specific rulesfor the transit of natural gas and crude oilthrough pipelines.

• The EU, Russia and the United States couldjointly develop a plan for the modernization ofSiberia as a practical tool both for achievingthe goals of an energy alliance, but also forachieving the diversification of the Russianeconomy – a matter of long-term, commonstrategic interest to both Russia and the West.

• Europe and the United States could take part inRussia’s energy efficiency program, with a par-ticular emphasis on natural gas.

• The European Union could be tasked with de-vising a European Energy Solidarity Pact, bywhich West European countries can assist Central and East European states, which areheavily dependent upon Russian gas and oil de-liveries, in times of crisis.

• Russia, the EU and the United States shouldconsider further expanding joint projects in-cluding: dismantling visa barriers; expandingacademic exchanges; and establishing a freetrade zone, short of full Russian EU member-ship.

• Russia, the European Union and the UnitedStates might also consider taking joint steps inthe area of climate control and environmentalprotection.

• Europe and the United States may want con-sider whether the opening of their end marketsto the Russian commercial aviation industrymight result in more efficient U.S. and Europeanaircraft industries, diversification of the Russ-ian economy and a true incentive with which tokeep Moscow interested in further cooperation.

• The European Union may want to consider cre-ating a mechanism for economic negotiationswith Russia that is not dependent upon achievingconsensus among all 27 member-states.

• Investment might be supported by a couple ofsteps such as efforts by the EU commission, theU.S. Department of Justice and Russian author-ities aimed at implementing a streamlined Russ-ian commercial dispute resolution mechanism.Increased exchanges between senior- and mid-level regulatory staff might also be helpful. Fur-ther, efforts towards arriving at minimal,mutually recognized listing standards, designedto reduce the cost of access to capital by Russ-ian companies and to promote Moscow as aninternational financial center might also beconsidered. Measures to facilitate Russian com-panies’ access to international capital couldalso be envisaged.

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This report has tried to set out the problems thathave caused the relationship between Russia andthe West to deteriorate in a systematic way; it hasalso outlined possible ways by which to overcomedifferences in many areas. Whether efforts towardsrapprochement between Washington and Moscowas well as between the West and Russia will besuccessful depends on domestic developments andon success or failure in dealing with critical policyissues. Iran, Afghanistan, nuclear disarmamentand missile defense, conventional arms controland institutional arrangements are among the mostimportant policy issues. The most fundamentalproblem is that Moscow and Western capitols donot view their interests as fully aligned on thesekey issues.

It is doubtful whether the metaphor of pushing the“reset” button is very helpful. So far, most of thedebate is taking place in the West; it rests on theassumption that one has to be ready to reconsiderpast policies in a self-critical way. While this kindof debate has been launched in Washington as wellas in European capitols, no comparable debate istaking place in Moscow. In Russia the debate stillfocuses on geo-political approaches to policymak-ing, on failures the West is responsible for and onthe need of others to take Russian security inter-ests seriously. The current consensus amongMoscow’s incumbent political elite is one of deepskepticism that the United States and the Westernstates as a whole are indeed really ready seriouslyto review their foreign and security policies to takegreater account of Russian interests. However, itshould be noted that the political leadership inMoscow has sent signals of late that indicate thata shift may be underway. Russia has alreadymoved on the Iranian and the Afghanistan issues.Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech in Westerplatte on 1 September 2009 was an

important step forward for further reconciliationwith the Central and East European states. President Dmitry Medvedev’s article on all theweaknesses in Russian political and economic lifewas a crucial wake-up call for all of Russian society. The President firmly stated that Russiacannot modernize itself outside the internationalcommunity.

The authors hope that this report will contribute toa more enlightened and self-critical debate in allstates, including Russia, and that, in the end, someof the proposals made in this paper will help torestart a constructive relationship between Russiaand the West.

CONCLUSIONS

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ABM Anti-Ballistic Missile [Treaty]ACFE Adjusted Conventional Forces in Europe [Treaty]ACV Armored Combat Vehicles

BAFIN Bundesanstalt für FinanzdienstleistungsaufsichtBMD Ballistic Missile Defense

CFE Conventional Forces in EuropeCIS Commonwealth of Independent StatesCSCE Council on Security and Cooperation in EuropeCSFP (EU) Common Security and Foreign PolicyCSTO Collective Security Treaty OrganizationCTBT Comprehensive Test Ban TreatyCTR Cooperative Threat ReductionCWC Chemical Weapons Convention

ECT Energy Charter TreatyEU European UnionEU-27 The 27 member states of the European Union

FDI Foreign Direct InvestmentFKTsB Federal’naya Kommissiya po Tsennym BumagamFSA Financial Services AuthorityFTA Free Trade Area

G7 Group of Seven industrialized nationsG20 Group of Twenty nationsGSP Generalized System of PreferencesGDP Gross Domestic Product

ICBM Inter-Continental Ballistic MissileIAEA International Atomic Energy AgencyIEA International Energy AggencyINF Intermediate-Range Nuclear ForcesISAF International Security Assistance Force [in Afghanistan]

LEU Low-Enriched UraniumLNG Liquified Natural Gas

KEY TO ACRONYMS USED

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MAD Mutually-Assured DestructionMDR Missile Defense ReviewMSR Main Supply RouteMIRV Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles

NATO North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationNDN Northern Distribution NetworkNEST New European Security TreatyNPR Nuclear Policy ReviewNRC NATO-Russia Council

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and DevelopmentOEF Operation Enduring Freedom [in Afghanistan]OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

P5+1 The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus GermanyPAP Parallel Action PackagePCA Partnership and Cooperation Agreement

QDR Quadrennial Defense Review

SCO Shanghai Cooperation OrganizationSEC Securities and Exchange CommissionSNDV Strategic Nuclear-Weapons Delivery VehicleSORT Strategic Offensive Reductions TreatySTART Strategic Arms Reduction TreatySPR Space Policy Review

TLI Treaty-Limited Items

UN United NationsUNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the SeaUNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeUNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and CrimeUNSC United Nations Security Council

WTO Warsaw Treaty Organization


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How to Restart a Constructive Relationship52

The agenda and list of participants for the two preparatory workshops and final conference of the AspenEuropean Strategy Forum 2009 are given below. Participation in an event by any given individual doesnot imply endorsement of the contents of this report, which remain the sole responsibility of the authors.

WORKSHOP & CONFERENCEPARTICIPANTS AND AGENDAS


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ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGY FORUM 2009“Russia and the West: Resetting the Relationship”First Preparatory WorkshopJune 9 - 12, Washington D.C.

organized by the Aspen Institute Deutschland in cooperation with the American Institute for Contem-porary German Studies and the Aspen Institute Italia

Members of the Delegation

Senator Gary Hart University of Colorado, Denver

Eckart von Klaeden Member of the German Bundestag; Foreign Policy Spokesman of the Parliamentary Party of CDU/CSU

Prof. Dr. Joachim Krause Academic Director of the Aspen European Strategy Forum; Institute for Social Science, University of Kiel

Dr. Andrew Kuchins Director and Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Charles King Mallory IV Executive Director, Aspen Institute Deutschland

Roberto Menotti Senior Research Fellow – International Programs and Aspenia Editorial Consultant, Aspen Institute Italia

Alexander Rahr Program Director Russia/Eurasia, German Council on Foreign Relations

Dr. Benjamin Schreer Deputy Director, Aspen Institute Deutschland

Prof. Dr.h.c. Horst M. Teltschik Former Advisor to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl

Dr. Jackson Janes Executive Director, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies

Dr. Gudula Gutmann Office of MP von Klaeden, German Bundestag


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Program

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 12:15pm Meeting of the Principals, Chairmen, and Experts

1:00pm Meeting with Dr. Ann-Marie SlaughterDirector, Policy Planning Staff U.S. Department of State

4:00pm Meeting of the Principals, Chairmen, and Experts

7:30pm Welcome DinnerMetropolitan Club

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:30am Meeting with Lt. Gen. (ret.) Brent ScowcroftPresident and Founder, The Scowcroft Group

10:30am Meeting with Mr. Gary Samore (NSC)Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism

11:30am Meeting with Senator Richard LugarU.S. Capitol

2pm-2:30pm Meeting with Ambassador Wendy Sherman and Mr. James O’BrienAlbright Group

3:30pm-4pm Meeting with Ms. Rose GottemoellerAssistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, U.S. Department of State

4:30-5:30pm Meeting with Ms. Julianne SmithPrincipal Director (Europe and NATO), Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy)



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Thursday, June 11, 2009 9am – 6pm Conference at AICGS

9:00 OpeningWelcome remarks by Charles King Mallory IV, Lily Gardner Feldman, and Joachim Krause

9:15 Session 1: Strategic Shifts and Global Balances: How to Rearrange the Relationship Between Russia and the West?Chair: Prof. Dr. h.c. Horst Teltschik; panelists: Dimitri K. Simes (The Nixon Center), Robert Lieber (Georgetown University), Eckart vonKlaeden (Member of the German Bundestag)

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Session 2: Arms Control, Nuclear Proliferation, Missile Defense: How to Find New Common Ground? Chair: Prof. Joachim Krause (University of Kiel); panelists: Henry D. Sokolski (Nonproliferation Policy Education Center), Kenneth Luongo (Partnership for Global Security), Christopher A. Ford (Hudson Institute), Dr. Benjamin Schreer

(Aspen Institute Deutschland)

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Session 3: Dealing with Security Challenges in Europe: Do We Need a New Euro-Atlantic Security Architecture?Chair: Andrew Kuchins (CSIS); panelists: Charles Kupchan (Council of Foreign Relations), Kim R. Holmes (Heritage Foundation), Stephen Larrabee (RAND Corporation), Craig Dunkerley (National Defense University), Roberto Menotti (Aspen Institute Italia)

15:45 Coffee break


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16:00 Session 4: Energy Security and Climate Change: How to Develop Common Interests?Chair: Charles King Mallory IV (Aspen Institute Deutschland); panelists: Charles K. Ebinger (Brookings Institu-tion), Taiya Smith (Carnegie Endowment), Paul J. Saunders (The Nixon Center), Alexander Rahr (German Council of Foreign Relations)

18:00 End of session

Friday, June 12, 2009 9am – 2pm Conference at AICGS

9:00 Session 5: Dealing with Radical Islam and Islamist Terrorism: Joining ForcesChair: Dr. Benjamin Schreer (Aspen Institute Deutschland);panelists: Frank Cilluffo (Homeland Security Policy Institute), Yonah Alexander (The Potomac Institute), Michele Dunne (Carnegie Endowment), Robert S. Leiken (Nixon Center)

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Session 6: Managing International Relations in the Larger Middle East: How can we Cooperate?Chair: Michael O’Hanlon (Brookings Institution); panelists: Stephen B. Cohen (Brookings Institution),Martin S. Indyk (Brookings Institution), Geoffrey Kemp (The Nixon Center), Keith Crane (RAND Corporation)

13:00 Lunch

14:00 End of conference


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ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGY FORUM 2009“Resetting the Relationship Between Russia and the West”Second Preparatory WorkshopAugust 27-28, Berlin

List of Participants

Amb. Anatoly Adamishin President Euro-Atlantic Association, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Jüri Arusoo Counsellor, Embassy of the Republic of Estonia (Observer)

Prof. Dr. Hüseyin Bağcı Middle East Technical University, Department of International Relations, Ankara

Rakhamim Emanuilov Advisor to the Chairman of Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation

Prof. Mark L. Entin Head of Jean Monnet Chair, Director, European Studies Institute, Moscow State Institute of International Relations

Dr. Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger Editor in Chief, Foreign Policy, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Weronika Frydryszek Political Section, Embassy of the Republic of Poland (Observer)

Dr. Gudula Gutmann Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, CDU-CSU Parliamentary Group, German Bundestag

Dr. Petri Hakkarainen Second Secretary, Embassy of Finland (Observer)

Prof. Dr. Peter van Ham Director of Global Governance Research, at Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations, The Hague, and Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges

Prof. Dr. Václav Hubinger Director, Strategy, Analysis & Project Management Office, Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Prof. Dr. Vladislav Inozemtsev Professor of Economics, Director, Centre for Post-Industrial Studies (Moscow), Publisher and Editor, Svobodnaya Mysl' monthly

Eckart von Klaeden Member of the German Bundestag; Foreign Policy Spokesman of the Parliamentary Party of the CDU-CSU

Prof. Dr. Alexander Konovalov Moscow State Institute of International Relations, President of the Institute for Strategic Assessments

Dr. Michal Kořan Head of Research, Institute for International Relations, Prague

Prof. Dr. Joachim Krause Professor of Political Science at the University of Kiel, Academic Director of AESF


Russia and the West



Dr. Heinrich Kreft Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, CDU-CSU Parliamentary Group, German Bundestag

Dr. Andrew Kuchins Director and Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC

Charles King Mallory IV Executive Director, The Aspen Institute Germany

Dana Marca Political Counsellor, Embassy of Romania

Andrew Noble Political Counsellor, Embassy of the United Kingdom (Observer)

Amb. René Nyberg CEO East Office of Finish Industries

Graham Paul Counsellor, Embassy of the Republic of France (Observer)

Dr. Marek Prawda Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the Federal Republic of Germany (Observer)

Alexander Rahr Program Director Russia/Eurasia, German Council on Foreign Relations

Prof. Dr. Lothar Rühl apl. Professor of Political Science at the University of Cologne, former State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Defense

Claudia von Salzen Policy Editor, Der Tagesspiegel

Dr. Evgeny Savostiyanov Head, Stolichnaya (Metropolitan) Oil Company, Moscow, Former Director of the Federal Security Service (Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti)

Dr. Benjamin Schreer Deputy Director, The Aspen Institute Germany

Dr. Christoph Schwegmann Political Advisor, NATO International Staff, Political Affairs and Security Policy (PASP), Russia & Ukraine Relations

Prof. Dr. h.c. Horst M. Teltschik Former Coordinator, Munich Security Conference, former Advisor to Chancellor Helmut Kohl

Dr. Oliver Thränert Senior Fellow, German Institute for International and Security Affairs – SWP, Research Division International Security


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Russia and the West


Program

Thursday, August 27 9:00 OpeningWelcome remarks by Charles King Mallory IV

9:15 Session 1: Strategic Shifts and Global Balances: How to Rearrange the Relationship between Russia and the West?Chair: Prof. Dr. Joachim Krause; panelists: Prof. Dr. h.c. Horst Teltschik (former Coordinator Munich Security Conference); Prof. Dr. Vladislav Inozemtsev (Director, Centre for Post-Industrial Studies, Moscow / Publisher and Editor, Svobodnaya Mysl' monthly); Prof. Dr. Peter van Ham (Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations)

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Session 2: Dealing with Security Challenges in Europe: Do We Need a New Euro-Atlantic Security Architecture? Chair: Alexander Rahr; panelists: Amb. Anatoli Adamishin (President Euro-Atlantic Association, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation), Prof. Dr. Lothar Rühl (University of Cologne, former State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Defense)

13:00 Lunch at the Aspen Institute

14:00 Session 3: Arms Control, Nuclear Proliferation, Missile Defense: How to Find New Common Ground?Chair: Dr. Benjamin Schreer; panelists: Prof. Alexander Konovalov (Moscow StateInstitute of International Relations); Dr. Oliver Thränert (German Institute for International and Security Affairs - SWP)

15:45 Coffee break


Russia and the West


16:00 Session 4: Energy Security and Economic Relations: How to Develop Common Interests?Chair: Eckart von Klaeden (Member of the German Bundestag); panelists: Dr. Evgeny Savostiyanov (Head, Stolich-naya (Metropolitan) Oil Company, Moscow); Amb. René Nyberg (CEO East Office of Finish Industries)

18:00 End of session

19:00 Dinner

Friday, August 28 9:00 Session 5: Afghanistan: How to Join Forcesin Dealing with Radical Islam and Islamist TerrorismChair: Dr. Andrew Kuchins; panelists: Rakhamim Emanuilov (Advisor to the Chairman of Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation) Dr. Christoph Schwegmann (Political Advisor, NATO International Staff)

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Session 6: Summing Up: Where Do We Stand, Where Do We Go?Chair: Charles King Mallory; panelists: Prof. Joachim Krause (Kiel University), Dr. Andrew Kuchins (CSIS), Alexander Rahr (DGAP)

13:00 Lunch at the Aspen Institute

14:00 End of conference



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Russia and the West


The Aspen Institute Germany in cooperation with the Aspen Institute Italia and the Aspen Institute RomaniaVenue: “Haus der Commerzbank” | Pariser Platz 1, 10117 Berlin

Program

12:00 Buffet Lunch

12:30 Welcoming RemarksHeiner Herkenhoff, Representative “Haus der Commerzbank”Charles King Mallory IV, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Germany

12:45 Russia and the West – How to Restart a Constructive RelationshipPresentation of the Concluding Report byProf. Giuliano Amato, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Italy

13:15 Panel DiscussionAmbassador Jerzy M. Nowak, President of the Euro-Atlantic Association and Commissioner of the Minister of Foreign Affairs forthe Security Policy ReviewDr. Dmitry O. Rogozin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to NATOBogdan Mazuru, State Secretary on European Affairs, Romanian Ministry of Foreign AffairsProf. Dr. h.c. Horst M. Teltschik, former Coordinator, Munich Security Conference, former Advisor to Chancellor Helmut KohlKarsten D. Voigt, former Coordinator of German-American Cooperation, Federal Foreign Office

Moderator: Joachim Krause, Professor of Political Sciences, University of Kiel

14:30 End of Discussion

ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGY FORUM 2009“Russia and the West: How to Restart a Constructive Relationship”Presentation of the Concluding ReportNovember 5, Berlin

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