THE NATO-RUSSIA PARTNERSHIP:

A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE 

OR A TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP?

Stephen J. Blank

November 2006

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This is an expanded, updated and revised version of a paper 

first presented to the “Intergovernmental Conference on Russia” 

in Paris, France, on December 7, 2005.

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iii

FOREWORD

Soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Russian 

President Vladimir Putin pledged Russian support to 

the U.S. campaign against terrorism. Putin’s actions 

triggered a process that also led to a Russo-North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) rapprochement 

and Russian membership in a newly formed NATORussia Council created by the Treaty of Rome in 

2002. However, since then this partnership has been a 

rocky and ambivalent one. And as East-West relations 

deteriorate, as they have over the last four years, 

the stresses in this partnership bid fair to outweigh 

the benefits to the players involved. Accordingly, 

this monograph focuses on the Russian side of this 

relationship and seeks to uncover, as well as analyze, 

the reasons for Russia’s growing ambivalence toward 

NATO and the growing sense of estrangement between 

these two key actors in Eurasian security.

Professor Stephen J. Blank’s monograph grew out 

of a paper prepared for a 2005 Paris conference of 

Franco-American diplomats. It was then updated and 

revised for a subsequent conference, which took place 

in Washington, DC, from April 24-26, 2006, and was 

jointly sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute 

(SSI); the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, 

and Central Asian Studies at the Jackson School of 

International Studies at the University of Washington; 

the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Pacific 

Northwest Center for Global Studies; and the Institute 

for Global and Regional Security Studies.

This monograph is the first in a series of studies 

on aspects of Russian defense and foreign policy 

that derived the Washington conference. As such, it 
iv

represents a fusion of SSI’s core mission of providing 

timely and informed analyses of current and topical 

issues in international security to governments, 

professional experts, and interested laymen, as well as 

SSI’s ongoing efforts to reach out to major academic 

centers and think tanks here and abroad.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
v

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

STEPHEN J. BLANK has served as the Strategic Studies 

Institute’s expert on the Soviet bloc and the postSoviet world since 1989. Prior to that he was Associate 

Professor of Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace 

Doctrine, Research, and Education, Maxwell Air 

Force Base, and taught at the University of Texas, San 

Antonio, and at the University of California, Riverside. 

Dr. Blank is the editor of Imperial Decline: Russia’s 

Changing Position in Asia, coeditor of Soviet Military 

and the Future, and author of The Sorcerer as Apprentice: 

Stalin’s Commissariat of Nationalities, 1917-1924. He has 

also written many articles and conference papers on 

Russian, Commonwealth of Independent States, and 

Eastern European security issues. Dr. Blank’s current 

research deals with proliferation and the revolution 

in military affairs, and energy and security in Eurasia. 

His two most recent books are Russo-Chinese Energy 

Relations: Politics in Command, London: Global Markets 

Briefing, 2006 and Natural Allies?: Regional Security in 

Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation, 

Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 

Army War College, 2005. He holds a B.A. in History 

from the University of Pennsylvania, and a M.A. and 

Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago.

vii

SUMMARY

Four years after the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO)-Russia Council came into being, 

it represents a picture in ambivalence and incomplete 

realization of partnership. This monograph focuses on 

the Russian side of this growing estrangement. It finds 

the Russian roots of this ambivalence in the increasingly 

visible manifestations of an autocratic and neo-imperial 

Russian state and foreign and defense policy. These 

strong trends in Russian policy inhibit the formation 

of a genuine security partnership that can provide for 

Eurasian security in the face of multiple contemporary 

threats.

It is debatable whether Russia really wants a 

comprehensive partnership with NATO. Its militarypolitical elite still views NATO and the United States 

in adversarial terms, even though its leadership 

speaks positively about the value of this partnership. 

Recent U.S. military initiatives like missile defense 

or the wars in Kosovo and Iraq are leading Russia 

to entertain thoughts of withdrawing from many of 

the existing European arms control treaties. Another 

cause of estrangement is to be found in that, as Russia 

regenerates its autocratic imperial model of state 

building, it aspires to the goal of a free hand in creating 

an exclusive Eurasian security bloc from the Baltic Sea 

to the Black Sea. This effort is incompatible, not only 

with the democratic choice of many of those peoples, 

but also with European security as a whole. We can see 

this, for example, in Moscow’s refusal to evacuate the 

Trans-Dniestrian territory it effectively has annexed 

from Moldova and its demands for a 20-year base 

there. Another example is Russia’s attempt to block 
viii

Ukrainian and Georgian efforts to join NATO at some 

point. Thus the tendency to demand a free hand in 

creating a kind of exclusive bloc in Eurasia, buttressed 

by an approach to security which still remains mired 

in zero-sum categories, precludes Russia’s effective 

integration with NATO and the maximum benefit that 

could accrue to it from partnership with NATO.

Russia’s ambition to form an exclusive militaryeconomic bloc with its Commonwealth of Independent 

States neighbors also inhibits it from fully using 

the possibilities for partnership with NATO in the 

economic sphere as it relates to defense industrial 

cooperation. Although NATO is actively pursuing 

Russian participation in many projects, Russian officials 

and firms either cannot or will not make the best use of 

such opportunities. These problems similarly appear 

in regard to military operations and exercises.

Even though numerous exercises involving NATO 

and Russian forces take place, the atmosphere remains 

one of mistrust. Plans for a joint theater missile 

defense remain just that—plans. Russian military 

and political leaders express growing concern about 

Washington’s desire to build missile defense bases 

in Eastern Europe. They dislike the possibilities 

often discussed in the United States of using nuclear 

weapons as warfighting weapons, or of using nonnuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, 

or of space-based weapons. Leading Russian military 

men have trouble understanding how it is that NATO 

still functions, and they are reluctant to participate 

in NATO peace operations either in Afghanistan or 

potentially in Iraq. Indeed, Russia is creating its own 

peacekeeping brigade for such operations. On the one 

hand, this brigade is supposed to be interoperable with 

NATO. On the other, it may be earmarked for use in 
ix

and around Russia’s borders. In either case, it is highly 

unlikely that Russia will acquiesce to its own forces 

being placed under NATO command and control.

If one adds to this geopolitical mistrust and rivalry 

for influence in and around the former borders 

of the Soviet Union the absence of either a strong 

economic basis for East-West cooperation or popular 

support for it, it becomes clear that the opportunities 

for partnership are limited intrinsically. Even naval 

operations to counter terrorism and proliferation on 

the high seas have now become an issue because NATO 

wants to conduct exercises in the Black Sea, and Russia 

is resolutely opposed to any exercise there. Although 

the naval dimension has been the most productive one 

for NATO-Russian joint exercises, this dimension of 

partnership also now is coming under increasing strain 

and mistrust.

Accordingly, we may observe that, in the 

ambivalent partnership between NATO and Russia, 

the inhibiting factors consist of both the so-called 

values gap and the continuing geopolitical rivalry 

that never fully went away. Russia’s demands for a 

sphere of influence based upon its autocratic form of 

rule are intrinsic challenges to the Eurasian security 

order, not just because the success of that project is 

predicated upon freezing instability in Moldova and 

the Caucasus. Rather, the real problem is that Russia 

has neither the resources nor the capacity to formulate 

adequate and enduring solutions to regional security 

issues, and its desires are resisted by key players in 

Ukraine and Georgia. Russia’s attempts to impose its 

preferences, absent genuine democratization, mean 

that it necessarily will add to the security burdens of 

the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eurasia in general, 

leaving those areas vulnerable to a series of potential 
x

threats that Europe and the United States ultimately 

cannot permit to flourish. As long as the political will 

to maximize the benefits of partnership—enhanced 

security, democracy, and prosperity for all of Eurasia—

is lacking, this ambivalence will remain and, with 

it, enduring stresses and tensions between East and 

West.
1

THE NATO-RUSSIA PARTNERSHIP:

A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE 

OR A TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP?

Introduction.

Ambivalence, if not tension, remains the key 

operating word in the Russo-North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) relationship. For example, on 

November 1, 2005, General Yuri Baluevsky, Chief of 

Staff of Russia’s armed forces, said that conflict with 

NATO is now impossible and that the two sides should 

cooperate to solve their common problems.1 One month 

later, Baluevsky further observed: “as the chief of the 

General Staff, I do not see a potential enemy as a specific 

country. We have long since stopped preparing for 

large-scale nuclear or conventional wars.”2 However, 

on November 7, 2005, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov 

stated that he saw no areas where Russo-NATO 

cooperation was possible.

Cooperating with Iraq is out of the question. Cooperating 

in Afghanistan is out of the question too, for historical 

reasons although we provide military assistance to the 

country. . . . The progress that we have reached seemed 

impossible five years ago. At the same time, I do not 

think our military potentials can be united.3

Ivanov was not just speaking for himself but instead 

clearly represented a composite view. Thus Lieutenant 

General Alexander Voronin wrote in the General Staff’s 

journal, Voyennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), that,

The question arises: Can Russia participate in a joint 

operation with NATO countries outside Europe? The 

answer is yes and no. Today, it is not easy to identify 
2

a geographic area beyond Europe where Russian and 

NATO interests and priorities would coincide to such 

a degree as to make it possible to talk not only about 

the possibility of conducting peacekeeping operations 

but also interaction between rapid response forces in the 

foreseeable future.4

Voronin’s strictures against cooperation applied 

specifically in a discussion of the possibilities of 

interoperability between Russian and NATO forces. 

Yet 6 months earlier, in June 2005, Ivanov, clearly with 

President Vladimir Putin’s support, successfully called 

upon NATO to increase programs for interoperability 

of NATO and Russian forces.5 Since then, Baluevsky and 

Ivanov have confirmed that interoperability will refer 

exclusively to peacekeeping forces and antiterrorist 

operations, nothing else.6 In February 2006, for example, 

the Russian media reported on Moscow’s efforts to seek 

a Russian air base in Belarus, ostensibly against the 

threat of a NATO air offensive.7 Ivanov’s most recent 

remarks on interoperability show clearly that not only 

will Russia not be able to cooperate fully with NATO 

in a crisis, but also that he and his colleagues regard 

the NATO insistence on democratizing civil-military 

affairs as destabilizing, if not worse.8

Such contradictions are typical. Earlier in 2005 

Putin hailed Russia’s partnership with NATO as 

having justified its correctness and as forging a 

new relationship between the two sides. Yet he also 

indicated Russia’s opposition to NATO enlargement 

and said that Russia could not join NATO because 

doing so would threaten its sovereignty and restrict 

Russia’s freedom of action.9 Again, on October 31, 

2005, Putin stated, “. . . we do not perceive NATO as a 

hostile organization and develop cooperation with it.” 

Indeed, Putin called for greater activity to enhance the 
3

operational compatibility between Russian and NATO 

forces, yet Ivanov’s November 2005 statement seems 

to repudiate that cooperation, also undoubtedly with 

Putin’s authority.10

This ambivalence undercuts any NATO effort 

or opportunity to respond to Russian proposals for 

an agenda of cooperation. For example, Ivanov in 

2004 said that Russia and NATO could collaborate 

on exchanging technologies to help secure nuclear 

facilities.11 Similarly, Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated 

in April 2005 that Russia wanted greater cooperation 

with NATO, even though some elements of NATO 

policies (i.e., continuing enlargement and the so-called 

fabrication of reasons not to bring the Conventional 

Forces in Europe [CFE]) Treaty into force) concerned 

Moscow. Specifically, Foreign Ministry spokesman 

Alexander Yakovenko called for, 

A more advanced level of partnership with the alliance, 

through closer cooperation in reacting to the threats 

and challenges of general security [terrorism, drug 

trafficking, illegal migration, human trafficking], the 

development of military technological cooperation, and 

joint participation in handling the aftermath of manmade and natural disasters.12

Yakovenko also said that Russia wanted more effort 

put into creating, 

The optimal mechanism for exchanging intelligence 

information, into developing cooperation in the fight 

against terror by developing technology jointly and 

into holding joint exercises and training of subdivisions 

countering terrorism [i.e., probably special forces—

author].13
4

While Moscow has pushed this agenda, in fact its 

cooperation with NATO evidently has slowed, and 

there is no sign of major improvement in these areas.14

Indeed, as seen from more recent developments, 

tension with NATO, and East-West tension in 

general, seems to be growing, especially over the 

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. 

Recognizing this, some Russian commentors state that 

this cooperation has been “virtual” rather than actual, 

and that, increasingly, Russian interests either are 

ignored by NATO or are at risk due to this unequal 

cooperation.15 In light of the current rhetorical and 

political clashes between Moscow and the West, i.e., 

not just Washington, clearly the ambivalence might 

evolve into an end of the previous efforts to build a 

strategic partnership between East and West.16 Under 

those conditions, every issue on the current Eurasian 

security agenda will immediately become much 

harder to resolve, such as the current crisis over Iranian 

nuclearization suggests. Thus Russian ties to NATO 

are not only important by themselves, but also as a 

barometer of the broader Eurasian security agenda.

Arms Control Treaties.

From the barrage of Russian attacks upon one or 

another aspect of NATO policy, we can see that this 

continuing ambivalence relates particularly strongly 

to the following issues: NATO enlargement, which in 

the current CIS context means not only the potential 

membership of states like Ukraine and Georgia, but 

also out-of-area cooperation with NATO, such as 

cooperation beyond the established borders of alliance 

members; issues of defense interoperability and 

reform beyond a carefully restricted limit of possible 
5

cooperation on antiterrorist measures and possibly 

peacekeeping; and continuation of the arms control 

treaties in Europe that ended the Cold War such as 

the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) in Europe 

Treaty and the 1990 CFE Treaty. 

The Russian debate over these treaties is closely 

linked to the issue of NATO’s enlargement, and 

the treaties’ impact and continuation are seen in the 

context of that expansion. This debate also reveals 

the persistence of Cold War thinking in Moscow. 

Much evidence suggests that various political forces 

in Russia, particularly in the military community, 

are urging withdrawal from those treaties, not least 

because of NATO enlargement towards the CIS and 

U.S. foreign and military policy in those areas. In March 

2005, Ivanov raised the question with the Pentagon of 

withdrawal from the INF Treaty.17 Since then, Russian 

general Vladimir Vasilenko has raised it again more 

recently, though it is difficult to see what Russia gains 

from withdrawal from that treaty.18 Withdrawal from 

the treaty makes no sense unless one believes that 

Russia is threatened by NATO and especially U.S. 

superior conventional military power and cannot meet 

that threat except by returning to the classical Cold 

War strategy of holding Europe hostage to nuclear 

attack to deter Washington and NATO. At least some 

of the interest in withdrawing from the INF Treaty is 

connected to Vasilenko’s statement that the nature and 

composition of any future U.S./NATO missile defense 

would determine the nature and number of future 

Russian missile forces and systems, even though any 

such missile defense system could only defend against 

a few missiles at a time. Thus he said:

Russia should give priority to high-survivable mobile 

ground and naval missile systems when planning the 
6

development of the force in the near and far future. . . . 

The quality of the strategic nuclear forces of Russia will 

have to be significantly improved in terms of adding to 

their capability of penetrating [missile defense] barriers 

and increasing the survivability of combat elements and 

enhancing the properties of surveillance and control 

systems.19 

In that case, Russia’s government and military are 

postulating an inherent East-West enmity buttressed 

by mutual deterrence that makes no sense in today’s 

strategic climate, especially when nearly every Russian 

military leader proclaims, as did Baluevsky above, that 

no plan for war with NATO is under consideration and 

that the main threat to Russia is terrorism, not NATO 

and not America.20 Nonetheless, Russian generals do 

not raise the issue of withdrawal from the INF Treaty 

unless directed to do so. These facts suggest that a 

fundamental problem in the Russo-NATO relationship 

is the unyielding opposition of the Ministry of Defense 

(MOD) to genuine defense reform and strategic 

cooperation. 

As of 2003, the General Staff stated its opposition 

to joint Russian-NATO exercises allegedly on the 

grounds of NATO enlargement and the improvement 

of missiles.21 At the same time, both Ivanov and 

Baluyevsky made it clear that if NATO remained a 

military organization, this could force Russia to make 

changes in its overall military doctrine and nuclear 

policies.22 Baluyevsky further stated that, “If the antiterrorist direction of NATO continues, the threshold 

for using nuclear weapons will become lower and 

this will require a change of the principle for military 

planning of the Russian armed forces, including a 

change of military strategy.”23 In fact, the military’s 

enmity to NATO is due to the alliance’s very existence. 
7

As the Ministry stated in the so-called Ivanov doctrine 

or White Paper of October 2003, 

Russia . . . expects NATO member states to put a 

complete end to direct and indirect elements of its antiRussian policy, both from military planning and from 

the political declarations of NATO member states. . . . 

Should NATO remain a military alliance with its current 

offensive military doctrine, a fundamental reassessment 

of Russia’s military planning and arms procurement 

is needed, including a change in Russia’s nuclear 

strategy.24 

Alexander Golts, one of Russia’s most prominent 

defense commentators observes that the military must 

continue to have NATO as a “primordial enemy” for 

otherwise its ability to mobilize millions of men and 

huge amounts of Russian material resources would be 

exposed as unjustified.25 Similarly, Western observers, 

including this author, have noted the resistance of the 

military to a genuine reform, even though the forces 

are being reorganized.26 The problem here, and the 

Russian military knows it well, is that genuine reform 

is a precondition for effective partnership with NATO. 

More precisely, genuine cooperation with NATO entails 

pressures for internal reform and democratization 

within the Russian defense structure that are unacceptable to the military-political leadership. Correspondingly, the resistance to reform, in particular the 

democratization of defense policy, inhibits cooperation 

with NATO and is deliberately created within the 

military and political system.27 Evidently Russian 

leaders no longer perceive democratization as a mere 

ritual for the White House as they once did, but as a 

threat to the foundations of Russian statehood.28 That 

includes a threat to the structure of the armed forces 

and its top command organizations. Therefore, in spite 
8

of the Russian claims about NATO’s inherently antiRussian essence, questions about why Russia, and 

especially its national security apparatus, sees the same 

organization with which it wants partnership as an 

inherent enemy might better be directed at Moscow.29 

Opposition to NATO also is evident in the growing 

resistance to continuing to observe the CFE Treaty. 

From the start of the bilateral partnership with NATO, 

Russian officials made clear their belief that if the Baltic 

States remained outside the treaty, its future would be 

at issue along with Europe’s overall security, of which 

it is a key part.30 For example, Ivanov frequently has 

written that Russia has fundamental differences with 

NATO over the treaty and that NATO’s insistence upon 

Russia withdrawing from Moldovan and Georgian 

bases as promised in 1999 at the Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Istanbul 

summit is a “farfetched” pretext for not ratifying the 

treaty or for forcing the Baltic States to sign it. As a 

result, the Baltic States form “a gray zone” with regard 

to arms control agreements that could in the future 

serve as a basis for first-strikes, mainly by air, upon 

nearby Russian targets.31 This sums up many of the 

military arguments used by Moscow against the CFE 

Treaty.

Ivanov and other officials, like Deputy Foreign 

Minister Vladimir Chizhov, linked the CFE to the 

realignment of U.S. forces and bases in Europe.32

Likewise, speaking of the connection between the 

CFE Treaty and enlargement, Voronin writes that 

Russia’s opposition to CIS members’ joining NATO is 

immutable and that NATO’s failure to take Russia’s 

interests into account is very troubling.

Russia should fully take into account the alliance’s strategy of spreading its influence to countries neighboring 
9

Russia in the west, south, and southeast, uphold its 

interests, show strong will, make no concessions, and 

pursue a pragmatic and effective foreign policy. This 

raises a number of questions: First, why do we have 

to cooperate with NATO at all? Second, what could be the 

practical payoff from this interaction? And finally in what 

areas is it expedient to develop military cooperation with the 

alliance?33 (Italics in the original)

Voronin’s answer to these rhetorical questions is that 

it all depends on how soon NATO overcomes Cold 

War inertia to meet new challenges and threats. In this 

respect, his approach merely confirms earlier military 

arguments against the CFE Treaty. Voronin’s attitude 

toward NATO evidently now has become the official 

line; at a cabinet meeting on May 2, 2006, Foreign 

Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin that he informed the 

NATO-Russia Council the previous week that Russia 

would build its relations with NATO, 

Depending on where and how the process of NATO 

transformation and expansion will go as well as how 

principles of international law will be observed. Relations 

will be built, taking into account Russia’s interests in the 

context of a change in the geopolitical situation in the 

world.34

Those interests to which Lavrov referred are, inter 

alia, no NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, 

no NATO military bases in the vicinity of Russia 

even where intended for antiterrorist operations in 

Afghanistan or the Middle East, and the subordination 

of NATO’s capacity for military action to the United 

Nations (UN), something it refuses to accept for itself. 

In short, Russia wants to be able to dominate the former 

Soviet Union, except for the Baltic States, and have 

a free hand in doing so militarily as well as in other 
10

domains. That this imperial demand contradicts the 

interests and openly expressed policies of sovereign 

states like Georgia and Ukraine seems not to have 

resonated in Moscow. Neither does Moscow seem to 

understand that its own fits of petulance, including 

sanctions and repeated economic blackmail directed 

against these states, are what drives them to the West 

because Russian policies give them very good reason 

to fear for their security. Indeed Russia’s zero-sum and 

archaic, even imperial, view of world politics is almost 

an ingrained reflex. For example, a newspaper account 

of recent ties with NATO complained that “NATO 

plans to absorb post-Soviet countries,” as if it is taking 

away their independence.35

We see the disagreement over NATO enlargement 

and its linkage to arms control issues very clearly in 

the struggle over the CFE Treaty. In 2004, Baluevsky 

stated that the Baltic States’ membership in NATO 

would doom the treaty.36 In 2005, Colonel-General 

Anatoly Mazurkevich, Chief of the Main Directorate 

of International Military Cooperation in the Russian 

Ministry of Defense, complained that the CFE Treaty 

has been ignored since it was revised in 1999 and that 

it is slowly “expiring.” Allegedly the treaty can no 

longer uphold the interests of the parties or stability in 

Europe and now in a strategic region adjacent to Russia 

and under NATO’s full responsibility—the Baltic—the 

region is absolutely free of all treaty restrictions. This 

creates the gray zone where no restrictions apply.37

Thus Mazurkevich threatened that, 

As things stand, observance of provisions of the treaty 

have for years been restricted to fulfillment of only one 

parameter (ground force—author), and not exactly the 

most important one from the point of view of the whole 

treaty. It has been restricted to fulfillment of its flanking 
11

commitments by Russia alone. All of that is happening 

when the international community is fighting terror, 

the danger that originates—among other areas—in the 

Caucasus and therefore requires substantial military 

presence in the region. We are convinced that the second 

wave of NATO expansion that disrupts the flanking 

limitations altogether is making observance of its pledges 

by Russia an absurdity. Even worse, it is making it an 

unprecedented episode of discrimination in the history 

of international arms control. And that’s how we end up 

in a situation where NATO expands eastward and the 

Accord on Adaptation is not working. A situation, in 

other words, that makes the treaty absolutely unviable. 

The Russian Federation is not going to pretend that the 

treaty is working fine and dandy. Unless progress is 

made, we will initiate a serious discussion of the future 

of the Treaty at the 3rd Conference scheduled to take 

place in Vienna in May 2006.38

On January 24, 2006, Ivanov similarly raised the 

possibility of withdrawing from the CFE Treaty as 

had Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a month earlier.39

Russian spokesmen appear to regard this treaty as an 

obstacle to Western redeployment around its borders, 

but they fear that NATO is not taking Russian interests 

seriously by putting airplanes in the Baltic, discussion 

about setting up missile defense bases in Poland, thus 

expanding to the Black Sea and towards the CIS.40

The General Staff also sees a rising threat to Russia 

in Washington’s and Brussels’ interest in emplacing 

these missile defense bases in Eastern Europe against 

what they perceive as a rising missile threat, allegedly 

from North Korea, Iran, or China. Instead, Russian 

spokesmen, civilian and military alike, view those 

arguments as pretexts for bases designed against 

Russian forces.41 Therefore they view these new bases 

and missions as a threat to Russian interests, especially 

as NATO makes clear that it takes issues like pipeline 

security in the Caucasus very seriously.42
12

Those projected missile defenses will preclude the 

use of Russia’s tactical or other nuclear missiles in a firststrike mode, as required by current Russian doctrine 

and strategy against conventional threats. Given 

Moscow’s conventional inferiority vis-à-vis NATO, 

those missiles are essentially Moscow’s sole deterrent 

and its most effective instrument for controlling 

intrawar escalation.43 Assuming NATO builds missile 

defenses to counter those tactical nuclear weapons 

(TNW), NATO could then threaten a military action 

to impose political concessions upon Moscow, e.g., 

democratization somewhere in the CIS, if not Russia 

itself. 

This is hardly a “farfetched” scenario for Moscow. 

After all, Ivanov recently stated that Russia regards 

threats to the constitutional order of CIS regimes as the 

main threat to its security.44 In July 2005, Konstantin 

Sivkov of the General Staff’s Center of Military Strategic 

Studies stated that, 

The Alliance has achieved strategic depth of operations 

in Russia, U.S. tactical aircraft operating from NATO 

airfields may now reach Moscow, Tula, Kursk, and other 

cities of Central European Russia. This is an important 

factor from a geostrategic point of view. . . . It means that 

there are no more strategic barriers between Russia and 

NATO. What may it lead to? It may lead to escalation of 

border disputes with NATO countries (say because of 

certain territorial claims, or problems with oil production 

at sea, and fishing matters) into armed conflicts. Dangers 

of this sort exist in the Baltic region (Estonia claims the 

Pyatlov District of the Pskov Region) and in North 

Europe. . . . The situation is such that a local conflict 

may promptly become international. When it happens, 

it will be the alliance as such or the United States that 

will be putting forth demands, not the initiator of the 

conflict. Weapons may be used if Russia refuses to make 

concessions—space weapons first and foremost.45
13

Alternatively informational weapons (weapons 

used to disorient enemy decisionmakers and forces 

psychologically and even physiologically) that were 

once thought of as science fiction but are now usable, 

might be deployed.46 In any case Russia must be prepared 

because it sees the threats to overturn the constitutional 

order in CIS states as its biggest threat, and those 

efforts, as Sivkov warned, could then escalate.47 Not 

surprisingly, Ivanov demands full transparency from 

NATO about its actions and plans and raises the issue, 

or has his subordinates raise the issue, of withdrawal 

from these arms control treaties.48

Russian leaders insist that the Baltic States sign 

the CFE Treaty; otherwise NATO risks Russia’s withdrawal from it, if not the INF Treaty, and the subsequent overturning of the current strategic status quo.49

NATO insists that Russia first fulfill its agreement made 

at the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul to withdraw its 

forces from bases in Georgia and Moldova. Although it 

appears the Georgian bases will be vacated by 2008-09, 

Moscow still refuses to leave Moldova. High-ranking 

officials like Lavrov and Chizhov still deny that Russia 

has any legal obligation to withdraw its troops despite 

those agreements;50 or, like Ivanov, they call such 

demands “farfetched”;51 or, like Voronin, they falsely 

claim that neither Georgia nor Moldova has raised 

the issue of these bases!52 Moscow not only invokes 

the unsettled situation due to the original conflict that 

led to military intervention in Moldova in 1992, it also 

says that Igor Smirnov’s rump government in TransDniestria must approve their withdrawal, thus giving 

it a “veto” over Russian troop movements.53 Moscow 

claims that the Smirnov “government” and the citizenry 

of Trans-Dniestria, the rump region occupied by its 

troops, will resort to civil disobedience which prevents 
14

them from withdrawing from Moldova.54 Therefore it 

will not withdraw its forces, ammunition, and supplies 

from Moldova until there is an agreement in place, an 

agreement which it deliberately prevents from coming 

into being.

Moscow also raises the following preposterous 

arguments: Moldova’s changing relations with NATO 

(its request for an Individual Partnership Action Plan 

[IPAP] from NATO that should be finalized in 2006); 

Moldova’s role in the GUAM organization comprising 

it, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine, which it now 

chairs and is helping to revive; and its attitude towards 

the OSCE (Moldova’s lack of support for Russia’s plans 

for reforming the OSCE and weakening its democracy 

building capability).55 However, the real reason may 

be found in Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin’s 

declaration to NATO upon presenting the request for 

an IPAP where he said that Moldova seeks to “join 

a European and Euro-Atlantic security space, never 

to be part of a post-Soviet security space.”56 Even if 

one argues that Russian policy is defensive, striving 

to fight off a transformation that began in 1989 and 

which has not yet run its course, that defensive stance 

still employs the tactics and rhetoric of autocracy and 

empire.57 Thus Moscow tried to implement the 2003 

Kozak plan as a basis for a settlement there.

Moldova in many ways represents the most 

pristine example of the abiding continuities of Russian 

imperial policy. Not only is this because of the original 

military intervention but also because, in its attempts 

to effectuate conflict resolution by leaving Moldova 

a permanently divided state subject at all times to 

secession backed by Russian arms, as in Kozak’s plan 

of 2003 for ending the conflict there, Moscow openly 

replicates Tsarist and Soviet imperial precedents. As 

one assessment of the Kozak plan observed, its: 
15

. . . [I]nstitutional features were designed to provide TransDniestria a veto over any legislation that would threaten 

the leadership. Ultimately these multiple loci of vetoes 

would make it impossible for the federal government to 

operate. In addition, the Kozak Memorandum included 

clauses that could be interpreted to easily dissolve the 

federation. For example, the Kozak Memorandum 

allowed for subjects of the federation to have the right 

“to leave the federation in case a decision is taken to unite 

the federation with another state and (or) in connection 

with the federation’s full loss of sovereignty. . . . [thus] 

Moldovan integration with international organizations 

such as the EU [European Union] could be used as a basis 

for the dissolution of the federation under this clause.58

Here Moscow has followed the same pattern as did 

Tsarist statesmen who also favored divided states subject at all time to Russian military force and corroded 

from within by internal divisions promoted by Moscow 

and its local agents.59 Indeed, Russia’s justifications 

for its policies in Moldova hearken back to those 

of Catherine the Great and her “solicitude” for the 

Polish Christian minorities in 1768-74. For example, in 

Moldova, as well as in Ukraine, the Baltic, and even 

in the Middle East, Putin has invoked the Russian 

diaspora to justify efforts to obtain more influence. 

Unfortunately, these tactics evoke Hitler and the 

Sudeten Deutsche, or Catherine the Great and Polish 

minorities. Thus Putin told Moldova that, 

Russia is interested in Moldova being a territorially 

whole, independent state. But this cannot be achieved 

unless the interests of all population groups, including 

the Transdniester population, are observed. Russia is 

prepared to participate in creating the conditions in 

which all residents will feel secure in Moldova. The 

political treaty must firmly ensure the rights of all those 

who reside on the territory of Moldova and who consider 

that Russia can be a guarantor of their rights.60
16

These remarks also betray Putin’s intention to 

employ vigorously all the instruments of power, 

including the army, allegedly to defend Russians in CIS 

member countries. Stalin justified his conquests in the 

same way. Meanwhile, Putin constantly threatens the 

Baltic states with retaliation for essentially imaginary 

“repressions” against Russians. And, just as in earlier 

imperial periods, Moscow has sought a 20-year lease 

on a base in Moldova.61 Obviously not only NATO 

seeks Eurasian military bases.

So rather than observe the 1999 Istanbul accords, 

Russia repeatedly issues warnings, namely from the 

military-political elite, about the future of the CFE 

Treaty. Its opposition to withdrawal from Moldova 

due to the Voronin government’s flirtation with NATO 

suggests the prominence of the NATO enlargement 

issue in Moscow’s calculations. On December 2, 2005, 

Baluevsky noted that the NATO refusal to sign the 

treaty or get the Baltic States to do so is connected 

directly not with the failure to observe the 1999 Istanbul 

agreements, but rather with the projected changes in 

U.S. military presence on the European continent.62

Four days later, on December 6, 2005, Lavrov opposed 

the OSCE’s participation in the Moldova issue and 

insisted that it be resolved bilaterally, i.e., between 

Smirnov’s and Voronin’s governments, a clear effort to 

legitimate forcible annexation and invasion of TransDniestria.63 The Foreign Ministry also rejected the 

linkage of the Istanbul agreements to those bases and 

the adoption of the adapted version of the CFE Treaty 

that would incorporate the Baltic states, claiming that 

the issue of agreements of withdrawal from Moldova 

and Georgia “are of a bilateral nature and do not crate 

any obligations on the part of Russia in relation to third 

countries.”64
17

And on December 7, 2005, Lavrov raised the issue 

of how the U.S.-Romanian agreement on bases for 

deployment of U.S. forces there affected the adapted 

CFE Treaty.65 Ivanov also stated that this treaty might 

be threatened by U.S. bases in Romania and warned 

that unless other states signed the adapted CFE Treaty, 

Moscow would raise the issue of withdrawing from it. 

Specifically he said that, 

The advancement of the U.S. and NATO infrastructure 

towards Russian borders raises the question of the future 

of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. 

Everyone has signed it, but only four states, including 

Russia, have ratified it. If the treaty is not ratified by 

all the other signatories, the question arises of whether 

such a mechanism, which envisages the transparency 

of military activities within greater Europe, is needed 

at all. Russia has to date been fully observing all the 

restrictions imposed on it by the treaty, but if we see 

that other countries are ignoring the treaty, we will, of 

course, draw the relevant conclusions.66

These examples show how closely and consistently 

entangled the arms control treaties are with the issues 

of NATO expansion, interoperability of Russian and 

NATO forces, and Russia’s belief that it is entitled to 

maintain an exclusive sphere of influence in the CIS. 

Those three issues—arms control treaties, NATO 

enlargement, and military transformation—as a basis 

for cooperation define the parameters of this ambivalent relationship. For example, Russian military 

analysts and officials regard the expansion of the 

American network of bases along side of NATO’s 

expansion as representing twin or linked processes 

to encircle and threaten Russia directly if necessary. 

Already in 2003, if not earlier, they also professed 

to regard the U.S. and/or expansion processes as a 
18

direct violation of international law as embodied in 

the NATO-Russia treaty signed in Paris in 1997 which 

stipulated no major bases in the territories of the new 

NATO members at that time: Hungary, the Czech 

Republic, and Poland.67

This is still a vital issue for Russia. Lavrov recently 

told the Bulgarian authorities that, 

It is for Bulgaria to decide under what conditions foreign 

bases may be present on its territory. But it is certainly 

the case that this whole process must take full account of 

the international legal obligations of the North Atlantic 

alliance, which, among other things, imply the necessity 

of holding back the establishment of significant armed 

forces on the territory of new NATO members.68

This continuing and rising ambivalence, if not 

tension, caused by the reaction to NATO expansion, 

confirms two key Russian military-political perceptions. First, NATO still refuses to accept the legitimacy 

of Russia’s definition of its interests, and, second, 

that it remains essentially an anti-Russian military 

alliance whose capabilities, the facts to the contrary, 

are growing. Thus, regardless of intentions and of the 

drawdown of NATO and U.S. forces in Europe since 

1991, the Russian military and much of the political 

class still sees Western capabilities as an inherent or 

existential threat, defines NATO as an inherently 

adversarial organization, and perceives it, even as its 

analysts admit that NATO does not look very effective, 

as posing a growing threat due to its expansion.69

Naturally at no point in this perception of capabilities 

over intentions and of multiplying threats do any of 

the Russian protagonists ever consider that Moscow’s 

visibly neo-imperial and unilateral rhetoric and 

behavior continues to justify this expansion, even as 

Moscow complains about it.
19

So along with multiplying threats of withdrawal 

from existing treaties and demands for a free Russian 

hand in Eurasia, the tensions over these issues 

arguably are growing and worsening. Leading 

Russian spokesmen: Sergei Ivanov; Igor Ivanov, 

Secretary of the Security Council (no relation); Lavrov; 

Sergei Lebedev, Director of the SVR, Russian Foreign 

Intelligence; and Nikolai Bordyuzha, Secretary of The 

Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)—

Moscow’s effort to organize a CIS-wide defense and 

security organization under its auspices—all state or 

have stated that U.S. and NATO advancement, bases, 

and meddling on behalf of democratization constitute 

threats to stability, security, and Russian interests in 

the North Caucasus, and to the Russian federation and 

the CIS as a whole, as well as in its component regions, 

the Caucasus, Ukraine, Black Sea, and Central Asia.70

Naturally the Russo-Ukrainian energy crisis of 2006 

has heightened further mutual suspicions of all sides, 

including Ukraine and other CIS regimes. 

Consequently, in contemporary East-West relations 

insofar as they pertain to NATO (but the same can 

be demonstrated for Russo-EU relations), there is a 

continuing, and possibly even strengthening, strategicmilitary rivalry, as well as a normative or ideological 

rivalry over political values in contemporary world 

politics, the so-called values gap. And both of these 

trends impede genuine cooperation either among 

states like the United States and Russia or between 

organizations like NATO and the EU on the one hand 

and Russia on the other.71
20

The Values Gap and Its Sources.

The following Chinese normative critique of U.S. 

policy also is shared by Russians. Shaolei Fang of the 

East China Normal University recently wrote that, 

The problem with U.S. unilateralism lies in its ideological 

character. Put simply, the Bush Administration’s 

unilateralism is an “ideologized” form of power politics. 

United States unilateralism asserts that government’s 

actions are designed to promote the principles of 

democracy and freedom. Of course, democracy and 

freedom are highly desirable. However, what is left 

unsaid is that the national interest of the United States 

informs its pro-democracy and pro-freedom rhetoric. 

Indeed, Western notions of liberalism are inseparable 

from nationalism.72

Putin gave rise to exactly the same sentiments in his 

recent address of May 10, 2006, to the Russian Federal 

Assembly where he sarcastically observed:

We see, after all, what is going on in the world. The wolf 

knows who to eat, as the saying goes. It knows who to 

eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems. How 

quickly all the pathos of the need to fight for human 

rights and democracy is laid aside the moment the need 

to realize one’s own interests comes to the fore. In the 

name of one’s own interests everything is possible, it 

turns out, and there are no limits.73

Undoubtedly perceptions of American unilateralism and the linked evangelisms of democratization, 

intervention, and coercive diplomacy have created 

numerous global tensions on key strategic issues. 

Furthermore, the United States certainly is not above 

sustained criticism of its conduct abroad, as any 

student of contemporary international relations knows 
21

well. Nevertheless, this critique omits the fact that the 

concepts or values under attack are equally inseparable 

from NATO members’ interests and values, as well as 

from the interests of those who wish to join NATO and 

the EU. 

In other words, the normative and strategic issues 

under dispute in Eurasia are not uniquely American. 

They do not translate merely into a U.S. versus the rest 

framework. Rather, these issues are the consolidated, 

legally validated, and institutionalized manifestations 

of what has come to be called the “good governance” 

paradigm as it applies to issues of national defense 

as well as internal politics. In any case, Russia fully 

subscribed to the treaties, insisting on more democratic 

standards of conduct in domestic and foreign policies, 

including defense policies. These treaties, starting with 

the Helsinki Treaty of 1975 and continuing with the 

Moscow Accords of 1991 and subsequent agreements, 

make it clear that the domestic practices of the signatory 

governments can be subjected legally to the scrutiny 

and justified criticism of their international treaty 

partners.74 Thus Russian complaints that criticism of 

Russian deficiencies with regard to democracy are 

somehow unacceptable because they allegedly are 

intended to threaten the regime are not only rehashes 

of old and stale Soviet lines, they have no legal ground 

to stand on.75

But it is precisely because those issues are at the 

center of disputes that we can see that the tense NATORusso relationship stems from both sides’ preexisting 

ambivalence to each other. To the extent that Russia 

is regressing on democracy and on cooperation with 

Europe and the United States and that cooperation 

with the West is in some danger, this ambivalence will 

persist and even grow.76 Therefore this mutual mixed 
22

feeling relates not just to contrasting policies of both 

parties, but also to fundamental differences in values. 

NATO and the EU represent and uphold a normative posture and community that fundamentally clashes 

with Russia’s vision and values—hence the so-called 

values gap between Moscow and most of Europe and 

North America. Russia’s relationships with European 

security organizations—the EU, OSCE, and NATO—

embody that gap both in terms of politics and in terms 

of values and norms. Indeed, Russia’s ambivalence 

about being both a part of Europe and about being 

subjected to its institutional and normative consensus 

is quite obvious. Russian scholars admit that Russia 

remains a “risk factor” in European security.77 This 

is not just because Russia’s regression to autocracy 

revives Europe’s political-ideological division or 

because this regression also leads Moscow to espouse a 

retrogressive and archaic foreign policy outlook based 

on an agenda of spheres of influence and zero-sum 

games.

Rather, this regression also endangers European 

security because of Russian autocracy’s inherent 

foreign policy implications. Autocracy in Russian 

history logically entails empire, an autarchic and 

patrimonial concept of the Russian state that is owned 

by the Tsar, controlled by his servitors, and which can 

only survive by expansion.78 Analysts of Russia know 

this well. Russian political scientist Egor Kholmogorov 

more recently has observed: 

“Empire” is the main category of any strategic political 

analysis in the Russian language. Whenever we start 

to ponder a full-scale, long-term construction of the 

Russian state, we begin to think of empire and in terms 

of empire. Russians are inherently imperialists.79
23

Similarly, Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace recently observed that “Russia’s 

leaders have given up on becoming part of the West 

and have started creating their own Moscow-centered 

system.”80

But beyond this fact, just as autocracy means that 

the autocrat is not bound by or answerable to any 

institution or principle at home, it also means that, 

in foreign policy, as often happened under the Tsars, 

Russia feels free not to be bound by its own prior treaties 

and agreements.81 The struggle to obtain Moscow’s 

adherence to the 1999 OSCE Summit Accords it signed 

as well as the Russo-Ukrainian energy crisis of 2006 

fully confirm that point for, whatever else happened in 

both cases, Moscow has broken its own contract with 

the OSCE since 1999 and with Kyiv in 2006. Similarly, 

Lavrov recently said that Russia refuses to be bound 

by foreign standards or conform to them.82 Lavrov 

also insists that the West respect Russian interests in 

the CIS but makes no reciprocal statement of respect 

for the treaties Russia has signed and violated.83 Thus 

he confirms the warnings of analysts like Trenin that 

Russia does not want to belong to a larger institutional 

grouping.84

Lavrov here speaks for a consolidated elite mentality 

that sees Russia as an independent, revisionist, even 

autarchic actor in world affairs that merits recognition 

as a self-sufficient pole, even empire, in Eurasia. Other 

analysts, too, have discerned the ideational elements 

of this stance in the “peculiar conviction” that Russia 

is a separate civilization, neither wholly Western nor 

Eastern, and therefore merits a special role in Eurasia 

as a great power. This concept also insists that neither 

Ukraine nor Belarus, not to mention the other former 

Soviet republics, genuinely are capable of being self-
24

standing, truly independent states. While the Slavic 

states are tied to Moscow particularly, the others also 

should be because otherwise they cannot stand on their 

own and inevitably will become objects of interest from 

externally threatening powers—a classically Soviet 

formulation. 

Finally, any bloc including those states is a threat 

to Russia and a stalking horse for NATO and the EU 

and their supposedly openly anti-Russian policy.85 The 

idea that these states might choose NATO of their own 

volition is never even considered. Not surprisingly, 

Russian spokesmen decry the formation of any such 

blocs and state that without Russia, they inevitably 

will fail. Alternatively, they look forward to the 

reunification of the former Soviet republics of the CIS 

under Moscow’s auspices.86 Thus Chizhov and Putin’s 

aide, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, have stated publicly that 

Russia is economically, politically, and militarily selfsufficient.87 Chizhov argued further that: 

Russia has full rights and counts on participation in 

European affairs as an equal partner. It should not be 

isolated from the remaining part of the continent by new 

dividing lines and should not be the object of “civilizing 

influence” on the part of other countries or their unions 

but should be equal among equals.88

But obviously Russia cannot be recognized 

simultaneously as both a state equal to other states 

and an equal of the EU or NATO without elevating its 

status and interests above those of other states. This 

Russian objective is incompatible fundamentally with 

European security. Thus it is not surprising that key 

figures like ex-Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, 

former Security Council Secretary Andrei Kokoshin, 

and other less well-known figures frequently and 
25

publicly have espoused a revisionist foreign policy 

that aims to “augment” Russia’s borders and undo the 

post-1989 status quo.89 These statements are only part 

of a unified elite opinion that has “found it impossible 

to accept the Russian Federation, in its present form as 

a fait accompli.”90

The implications of Russia’s unilateralist and 

imperial attitude are discernible in ongoing demands 

for bases throughout the CIS, obstruction in CIS frozen 

conflicts, and the energy crisis with Ukraine. All these 

episodes are unmistakably imperial in consequence, 

and betoken a belief that Russia is an empire 

sufficient unto itself and thus above all of the other 

rules of international life, precisely what it criticizes 

Washington for being.91 Certainly, Russian scholars 

know that Russia’s elite and political class have long 

continued to see the Russian state in imperial terms. 

As Alexei Malashenko observed in 2000, Russia’s 

war in Chechnya is logical only if Russia continues to 

regard itself as an empire.92 Along with that insight, we 

have the aforementioned citations by Kholomogorov, 

Trenin, and Ivan Ivanov to confirm this point.93

And if Russia is an empire of this sort, then it 

becomes clear why membership in NATO or the EU 

becomes a threat to Russian sovereignty. As Deputy 

Foreign Minister Ivan Ivanov stated 1999:

Our country is not in need of affiliation with the EU. This 

would entail loss of its unique Euro-Asian specifics, the 

role of the center of attraction of the re-integration of 

the CIS, independence in foreign economic and defense 

policies, and complete restructuring (once more) of all 

Russian statehood based on the requirements of the 

European Union. Finally great powers (and it is too 

soon to abandon calling ourselves such) do not dissolve 

in international unions—they create them around 

themselves.94
26

Similarly, in Russia’s presentation to the EU in 1999, 

then Prime Minister Putin stated:

As a world power situated on two continents, Russia 

should retain its freedom to determine and implement its 

foreign and domestic policies, its status and advantages 

of a Euro-Asian state and largest country of the CIS. 

[The] development of partnership with the EU should 

contribute to consolidating Russia’s role as the leading 

power in shaping a new system of interstate political 

and economic relations in the CIS area. . . . Russia would 

oppose any attempts to hamper economic integration in 

the CIS [that may be made by the EU], including through 

“special relations” with individual CIS member states to 

the detriment of Russia’s interests.95

One cannot imagine a more forthright statement of 

the classical imperial doctrine of a protectorate and 

closed sphere of influence over states whose economic 

sovereignty would therefore be compromised and 

limited from outside.

It is noteworthy that, in Ivanov’s list of reasons 

for not joining the EU and in Putin’s submission, the 

aspiration for empire preceded integration with or into 

Europe and is regarded as a necessary conditoon for the 

independence and great power status of Russia, two 

things that are linked inextricably in elite perspectives. 

This order of preferences suggests the deeply-rooted 

belief among Russian elites that if Russia is not an 

empire, it is not a state. Indeed, in pursuit of this mirage 

of being a great power that can act unconstrainedly 

in world affairs, the Putin regime has sought to copy 

the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemption or 

preventive war to justify its unlimited right to military 

intervention in the CIS. Putin has rather less justification 

than did President Bush because there have been no 

foreign-based attacks upon Russia.96
27

Many reasons exist for this trend towards 

autocracy and neo-imperialism, but, in Russia’s case, 

the reassertion of empire is very much at the heart 

of the opposition to reform. As often has happened, 

Russian reform foundered on the rock of empire and 

the demand of elites for the role of a great power—

empire in Eurasia. 

Much of the general rejection of the MFA’s [Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs—author] foreign policy direction on the 

former Soviet Union was caused by the general difficulty 

in accepting the collapse of empire by the imperialists 

and even some liberal-democrats.97

By placing the priority on empire, Russia is prepared 

to renounce in advance the advantages it gains from 

partnership with NATO and/or the EU. As Yuri Borko 

writes:

It is widely believed among Russia’s political, business, 

and intellectual circles that a policy toward integration 

with other members of the Commonwealth of 

Independent States (CIS) is incompatible with a policy 

toward a strategic partnership with the EU, toward 

integration into the Common European Economic Space 

and close coordination of foreign-policy and security 

activities. These circles will hardly cause the Russian 

president to give up his European policy, yet their efforts 

may prove enough for sinking the idea of concluding a 

new PCA (Partnership and Cooperation Agreement).98

Similarly, a recent article published in the General Staff’s 

journal, Military Thought, states: “Russia’s geopolitical 

situation enables it not only to effectively develop 

its own national economy but also to form a kind of 

geo-economic region comprising the world’s largest 

nations—Japan, China, India, and other countries.99
28

Likewise, Alexei Pushkov wrote in 2000 that Russian 

independence as a great power is tied to its rejection of 

Europe, the West, America, and thus of democracy in 

both economics and politics.100 Empire and unreformed 

autocracy, with all that it entails, are necessary to 

stabilize Russia internally and to realize its destiny as 

a great power—an empire and an independent actor in 

world politics.101 Neither is this opinion about Russian 

policy confined to analysts in or out of Russia. We saw 

Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan Ivanov’s 1999 standpoint 

above. In 2002 he told an American-European-Russian 

forum:

At the same time, Russia is a global and Eurasian 

power and obviously cannot concentrate its attention 

exclusively on Europe. Therefore, while stressing our 

European identity, we prefer to have a free hand in 

our policy towards and cooperation with all regions, 

including Asia, the United States, and, above all the CIS. 

Thus our relations with the EU can be expected to be 

only contractual, and not institutional, i.e., involving 

membership or association. This is not a limitation, 

however, as a recent treaty such as the PCA [Partnership 

Cooperation Agreement—Author] still offers many 

untapped opportunities for cooperation—at least 64 of 

its norms still await implementation.102

Moreover, Russia officially insists that Europe 

recognize this imperial primacy in the CIS as a 

condition of doing business with it, a doctrine that 

helps explain the concurrent and parallel stagnation 

of Russo-EU relations. Thus we have seen above that 

Putin’s submission to the EU in 1999 insisted on a 

special and exclusive role for Russia in the CIS in order 

that the EU recognize Russia as a great power. Empire 

and great power, as well as a free hand in Eurasia, are 

linked extricably in Russian thinking and policy.103
29

In other words, hegemony in the CIS is essential 

to the system of internal Russian governance even if it 

endangers Russia’s relations with Europe and future 

integration into a European system. Although many 

Russian elites believe that without empire Russia 

would fall apart into medieval appanage princedoms or 

become the subject of rival powers’ territorial demands, 

if the conditions of Russia’s survival are autocracy and 

empire, then conditions such as those outlined above 

that would give rise to withdrawal from the INF Treaty 

would return. In other words, the price of empire is not 

just perpetual autocracy, but also perpetual insecurity 

and the militarization of Russia’s foreign relations. 

Whether such militarization originates with the state 

or with the armed forces who captured the state 

(and among them we may count the intelligence and 

Ministry of Interior “Siloviki,” which are now ruling 

Russia), the outcome is the same—autocracy, empire, 

insecurity, and economic stagnation under the best of 

circumstances. Then Russia and its people would have 

neither security, prosperity, nor freedom. 

Yuri Borko’s analysis of the clash between demands 

for a free hand in the CIS and for cooperation with 

Europe, cited above, is obviously even starker than 

Ivanov’s.104 However, it shows the foreign policy 

price paid for chasing the mirage of what Tsarist 

Minister of Interior Count P. A. Valuev called, “the 

lure of something erotic in the borderlands.” A clash 

with NATO over both interests and values is inherent 

in Russia’s present self-determination, hence the 

continuing tension and ambivalence in the RussoNATO relationship from which nobody benefits.

Being the stronger partner, NATO can afford to 

be uncertain of its overall direction in a new strategic 

environment or ambivalent about Russia. But NATO 
30

is not confused about what it represents. Indeed, the 

overwhelming European support for and consensus 

about its norms legitimizes the extension of its 

influence and membership. Russia’s case is different. 

Precisely because its imperial policies in the CIS are not 

legitimized by anything but force, if its commitment to 

partnership with NATO basically is instrumental and 

not strategic or principled, it will fail to gain all the 

potential benefits that reside in this partnership, i.e., full 

integration with Europe. Instead, it will be perpetually 

on guard against NATO and the other members of 

the CIS, a condition that it simply cannot afford. It 

generally is acknowledged that only on the basis of 

full integration with Europe will Russia be treated as 

a full partner with it.105 Absent a genuine reconciliation 

on both sides, mutual suspicion will remain. For now, 

however, there is good reason to suspect that this 

purely instrumental or tactical outlook is what drives 

Russia’s partnership.

Russia and NATO.

As Dmitry Polikanov observes, Russia has learned 

four lessons from NATO. The first is that NATO contains inherent anti-Russian and aggressive predilections, even if this is not by any means the whole 

story. The second is that Russia still is afflicted with a 

superpower syndrome and constantly tries “to punch 

above its weight.” Thus Russia opposes any notion of 

a NATO-centric Europe which comprises NATO as the 

main security provider and manager of Europe and 

which entails the irreversible march of democracy and 

free markets, including in defense policy.106 At the same 

time, Russia steadily has sought to subordinate the 

European alliance systems to an undivided European 
31

security structure where its voice would equal that of 

NATO or it with the United States (which it regards 

as NATO’s leader). Then either the OSCE or some sort 

of bipolar structure led by the two superpowers, the 

United States and Russia, would “crown the edifice.”107

However, since more recently Russia has perceived 

the OSCE as an organization seeking to challenge its 

legitimacy and interests in the name of democracy, it 

now demands reform, i.e., the weakening of the OSCE 

and its exclusion from key issues like Moldova.108 In 

that case, all that remains is a superpower duopoly, 

which is hardly a viable strategy for enhancing EastWest ties.

Polikanov’s third lesson is that Russia simultaneously sought to use this partnership to get inside 

NATO, preserve Russia’s special status, and pursue 

what he calls a “Trojan horse strategy”, exploiting 

NATO to strengthen Russia’s overall global position.109

Finally, a fourth, post-September 11, 2001 (9/11), lesson 

that he discerns in Russia’s policy community is that 

NATO’s current failure to find its way has made it in 

some sense irrelevant to Russia, even though NATO’s 

failure to define new missions fuels apprehensions that 

it still retains its anti-Russian purpose.110

Obviously cooperation on such a basis will be 

strained at best. Partnership with NATO cannot have 

as its purpose merely keeping restraints on that major 

geopolitical factor so that Russia can entertain better 

relations with its key members than with the EU or 

NATO. Yet this is what A. Kelin, Deputy Director of 

the Department of General European Cooperation in 

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, openly postulates as 

Russia’s purposes. And he did so in the ministry’s 

journal, International Affairs.

111 Thus, as Kelin writes, 

Russia’s fundamental objection to NATO’s enlargement 

or expansion is:
32

That our European neighbors will be increasingly 

dependent, both politically and militarily, on NATO’s 

decision-making mechanism. In practice, the dependence 

will be in force on a much broader range of issues then 

defense against outside aggression, as recorded in the 

1949 Washington Treaty.112

In other words, NATO expansion really does not 

threaten invasion but rather the further enlargement 

of the sphere of Eurasian democracy which Russian 

leaders regard as an intrinsic threat to their security, 

stability, sovereignty, and status. This confirms the 

observations of many Western scholars that what is at 

stake in NATO enlargement is not a military or political 

threat to Russian security. Instead, “the fundamental 

issues involve status and perception, rather than 

structure and power.”113

But if expansion takes place (as it did after 

publication of Kelin’s article), “Russian foreign policy 

tasks come to minimizing the likely damage.”114 It is 

hard to imagine how the expansion of a zone of democracy, peace, and free markets buttressed by years of 

a major international consensus on supra-national 

restrictions on the use of force beyond the cause of selfdefense constitutes damage to anyone’s interests unless 

that party is a priori hostile to those principles and their 

embodiment in NATO. But Kelin’s argument clearly 

suggests that what is at stake for Russia is continuation 

of its autocratic form of state power which can only 

be maintained as an empire. NATO enlargement 

based on democratic principles, not least among them 

being democratic and civilian control of the military, 

represents a mortal threat to both the imperial and 

autocratic systems. Consequently, Russian strategy 

aims to limit the damage to Russia from those actions 

and principles, suggesting that Moscow views them as 

a priori threats or at least as challenges to its security. 
33

This damage limitation posture is inherently 

revisionist and ultimately opposes the pacification of 

Europe that is the greatest product and triumph of our 

times.

Damage limitation is a strategy that postpones Russia’s 

European engagement. Underlying this argument is 

a long-term strategic consideration aimed at the new 

European balance of the twenty-first century. Russia, 

currently in a phase of geopolitical and economic decline, 

must prevent the fixation of this unfavorable status quo 

by any treaty, agreement or security system. Russia 

is objectively interested in maintaining the current 

uncertain and unstructured security arrangement that 

took shape in Europe in the wake of the Cold War as long 

as possible—preferably until the economic upsurge in 

Russia expected by the middle of the next decade. Russia 

is therefore instinctively opposed to any institutional 

upgrade of European security, NATO enlargement 

included; it would prefer to see European security not as 

an institution, but as an open-ended process (much like 

the former CSCE; hence the current impact of Moscow 

on the OSCE) and would like to dissolve it in various 

pan-European collective security proposals, reminiscent 

of old Soviet designs of the 1930s.115

This is ultimately unacceptable to Europe, not to 

mention Washington, and is incompatible with any 

enduring notion of European security. It also means 

that Russia sees itself as perpetually at risk and under 

siege—as would be the case for and justification for 

withdrawing from the INF Treaty—because it will 

not conform to the good governance paradigm, or 

because it has no faith in it. Adhesion to this posture 

betrays Russia’s inability to escape from old thinking 

and notions of imperial blocs and precludes genuine 

security cooperation beyond a very limited range of 

issues. Even its vaunted concept of multipolarity, which 
34

its foreign policy is intended to serve, is ultimately a 

recipe for conflict, not for peace. As Secretary of State 

Condoleezza Rice has said, 

Multipolarity was never a unifying idea. It represented 

a necessary evil and supported a condition without 

war, but it never contributed to the victory of peace. 

Multipolarity is a theory of competition, a theory of 

competing interests—and worse still—competing 

values.116

In fact, studies of Russia’s leading concept of its 

foreign policy objectives—multipolarity—dating back 

to the inception of the term nearly a decade ago, demonstrate that it presumes an exclusive Russian sphere 

of influence or neo-imperial hegemony in the former 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) which is 

neither sustainable nor acceptable to those states and 

their peoples, or to Europe. Thus it represents the 

antithesis of partnership, namely rival and competing 

blocs, as Secretary Rice suggests.117

Russo-NATO Cooperation.

Paradoxically, and at the same time, one of the 

most innovative trends in world politics since 9/11 

continues to be the NATO-Russian partnership as 

embodied in the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). The 

NRC replaced the Permanent Joint Council (PJC) that 

was established when NATO enlarged in 1997, but 

which failed to perform as a viable mechanism for 

partnership. NATO and the NRC generally bypassed 

Russia which, to be sure, had little constructive to offer 

to it, and especially with regard to Kosovo. So the entire 

history of the PJC left a bitter taste in Moscow’s mouth, 

leading it to withdraw from partnership in 1999.118 In 
35

contrary fashion to this unhappy experience, every 

observer, foreign or Russian, recognizes that the NRC 

functions as a real working partnership and that this 

partnership has actually been established.119 Therefore 

a mechanism exists both for continuous consultation 

and resolution of problems, as well as for regular highlevel consultations between the Russian government 

and NATO’s leadership. Russia has a voice like 

other NATO members, and the Council operates by 

consensus, giving each member a veto. 

While tensions remain in this relationship, Putin, 

Ivanov, and Baluevsky generally profess satisfaction 

with what has been achieved as their quotes above 

show.120 Indeed, Putin stated in January 2005 that 

experience had proven that it was the right choice 

to enter into partnership and dialogue with NATO 

and, despite Russia’s opposition to NATO expansion, 

wanted to deepen its defense and defense industry 

collaboration with NATO. Moreover, this partnership 

had become a major force for global stability.121

Numerous working groups and organizations have 

been set up, regular dialogues occur, and lead to 

agreements covering 12 major areas. The particularly 

important issues covered by these discussions and/or 

agreements are antiterrorism, antiproliferation, crisis 

management, intelligence-sharing against those threats, 

naval search and rescue, theater missile defense, and 

efforts to hammer out key documents that will govern 

future Russo-NATO activities which foster greater 

cooperation and interoperability among them; in 2005 

some 50 cooperative military activities took place.122

Russia also has joined the provisional weapons 

standardization agreement of NATO, making it easier 

for Russia to gain access to new foreign weapons 

markets.123 Indeed, this action suggests that key sectors 
36

of the Russian economy, in this case the defense 

industry, benefit from having an active, working 

connection to NATO. NATO’s eastward expansion 

that bypassed Russia led former Soviet customers to 

opt for European and U.S. weapons systems to meet 

those standardization requirements and gain political 

favor in Western capitals and with influential lobbyists 

who now had contracts with these states to defend. 

This expansion also coincided with the consolidation 

of the Euro-Atlantic arms market around transnational 

mega-alliances and internal liberalization, again 

processes that largely excluded Russia and meant lost 

profits for it. 

For example, Israel, not Russia, upgraded 

Romania’s Mig-21s to make them compatible with 

NATO requirements. More recently, thanks to the ties 

to NATO, Russia was able to upgrade Slovakia’s Mig29s to NATO standards, so such opportunities can 

be a lucrative source of income for Russia’s defense 

sector.124 As the following 2001 essay indicated, the 

consequences of Russia’s continued estrangement from 

the Western arms market by staying aloof from Western 

agreements soon would have made themselves felt to 

Russia’s lasting disadvantage.

Geopolitically, this means a shift of Russia’s most 

advanced technological sector toward the Third World. 

Since the Russian military industrial complex does not 

have an opportunity to realize its material interests in 

the West, it has become NATO’s normative adversary. 

Moreover, Russia’s isolation from military-technological 

integration within the Euro-Atlantic alliance is fraught 

with the growth of technological backwardness in 

advanced sectors of Russian industry. This may result 

in marginalization of Russia’s great-power status. 

Therefore, the most rational means to preserve Russia’s 

top international ranking may be found in cohesion with 
37

NATO and integration into the Euro-Atlantic space both 

politically and militarily-economically.125

Clearly Russia has compelling material and strategic 

interests at stake which can only be secured through 

practical and principled interaction with NATO. For 

example, Russia has been involved in a variety of 

programs with NATO’s Research and Technology 

Organization (RTO), attending the Research and 

Technology Board (RTB) meetings that are open to 

Partnership for Peace (PfP) members. Approximately 

60 percent of RTO activities are open to Russia, but 

Russian participation only has been significant when 

these activities are held in Russia; otherwise it has been 

notably less significant. Moreover, those activities that 

are growing and open to Russia like Task Groups have 

not been the scene of major Russian participation. 

Instead, Russia evidently limits its participation mainly 

to symposia and educational activities.126

Given the self-evident benefits to both sides from 

robust military-technical collaboration, Russia’s failure 

to exploit the opportunities open to it may be due to 

the following reasons:

Russia still does not trust NATO and member nations, 

and the eastward expansion of NATO exacerbated 

Russian concerns. Conversely, the newest members do 

not trust Russia and show little interest in being more 

involved with it under an RTO umbrella. The Russian 

economic situation also continues to be an obstacle to 

increased cooperation; the costs associated with almost 

all RTO activities are funded directly by member nations, 

which presents a particular problem for Russia. Finally, 

Russian concerns over intellectual property rights and 

NATO’s lack of understanding of complex Russian 

laws, rules, and regulations in regard to exchanging 

pre-competitive scientific information can be stumbling 

blocks that require education of, and by, all parties 

involved.127
38

Other dangers to the Russian defense industry exist 

if it does not work more closely with NATO: one is that it 

will not be able to compete with NATO as CIS states start 

to buy their own weapons systems. By 2001, it was clear 

that two of Putin’s most critical policy initiatives were 

to reintegrate the CIS around Russia and to reorganize 

the defense industry. Russia pursues a decisive sphere 

of influence within CIS economies through defenseeconomic integration as in Ukraine’s, Belarus’, and 

Kyrgyzstan’s cases. By reintegrating the former Soviet 

defense industrial network’s conventional and nuclear 

capabilities, Moscow regains access to skills that had 

been lost, e.g., the aerial leg of its strategic nuclear triad 

through the TU-95s and TU-160s that it obtained from 

Ukraine in return for energy supplies. Moscow pursues 

this reintegration because the lack of an integrated 

system within the CIS means that it cannot strike deals 

that would otherwise have benefitted its militaryindustrial complex industries that are on the verge of 

bankruptcy, i.e., those that cannot compete. It also is 

true that Moscow cannot produce crucial weapons 

systems like nuclear powered submarines, and 

submarine-launched ballistic missiles cannot be 

produced without the participation of a host of 

contractors spread out across the CIS.128 To the extent 

that CIS members deal with NATO in buying systems, 

they deprive Russia of markets and of further 

opportunities to restore the “All-Union” defense 

industrial plant. And such trends already are underway 

and noticed in Moscow.129 Thus both Putin and Ivanov 

have observed that if Ukraine joined NATO, it would 

have to end defense industrial collaboration with 

Moscow. This would be a burden to both Moscow and 

to Ukraine’s defense industry.130 So there is a veiled 

threat here to Ukraine as well as a realization that 
39

to compete in the CIS, Russia must keep pace with 

NATO.

Nevertheless, the real issue is whether Russia 

truly wants to be involved intimately with NATO. As 

the authors of the study on Russo-NATO scientifictechnological cooperation observe, “It is clearly 

fundamental that NATO wants to cooperate with 

Russia across a broad front. One only has to consider 

the Alliance’s near-continuous outreach.”131 Otherwise, 

if Russia’s defense industry and its state masters believe 

NATO is an enemy as stated above, that attitude will 

dominate military policy even more strongly than is 

now the case. But until now, for many reasons: historical 

legacies, differing economic structures, financing, and 

interoperability issues, military-technical cooperation 

with Russia has “basically been limited to the conceptual 

level.”132 

This particular failure reinforces one of the 

main problems underlying East-West relations and 

particularly Russo-American relations, namely that no 

sound economic basis exists for cooperation or interest 

groups to champion. Nevertheless Russian figures 

like Vladimir Rubanov, Vice-President of the League 

of Assistance for Defense Enterprises, maintain that 

Russian defense industry is ready, and more importantly able to cooperate with NATO to implement joint 

projects on the basis of Russian technologies to create 

technological tools for combatting terrorism.133 Given 

the state of the Russian defense industry, which does 

not satisfy Moscow, this may be wishful thinking.134

Other figures argue that the real place for cooperation 

is in information technologies.135 Be that as it may, 

in view of the regression of the Russian economy, 

particularly in sectors like energy, to ever more statism 

and attacks upon foreign investment, such cooperation 

becomes even less likely.136
40

Such interaction is or could be equally valuable in 

the purely military arena, as well. Based on the original 

Russo-NATO agreement of 2002, the NRC serves as 

the principal structure and venue for cooperation of 

both sides. Its work focuses on the following six areas 

to strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation: 

The struggle against terrorism, including intelligencesharing; crisis management and peacekeeping; nonproliferation; arms control and confidence-building 

with reference to arms control treaties; theater missile 

defense; search and rescue at sea; military-to-military 

cooperation and defense reform; civil emergencies 

and consequence management; and new threats and 

challenges.137

Consequently, an increasing number of exercises 

and activities embrace both sides. These can give 

the armed forces of all the participants valuable 

experiences on which to build genuine cooperation 

in future operations. Thus, in 2005 and 2006, some 50 

Russo-NATO exercises are being planned on an annual 

basis.138 At the same time, NATO is working with Russia 

to draft plans for reforming Russia’s armed forces.139

This last point probably refers to Putin’s earlier request 

for such help. That assistance, if realized and accepted 

as a basis for genuine defense reform of Russia’s armed 

forces, ultimately may result in the most productive, 

consequential, and enduring aspect of this relationship 

given the failure of Russian defense reform to date.140

Putin also has replaced defense cadres, placing 

men with greater willingness to cooperate with NATO 

in key positions and appointing an ambassador 

with a staff to NATO. A Russian branch office now 

functions at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers 

Europe (SHAPE), and parts of the Russian mission 

to NATO have moved into NATO headquarters, 
41

enhancing daily cooperation among the parties.141 

Indeed, Western writers openly discuss a possible 

NATO-Russia contingency command.142 Some Western 

writers believe that the culture of interaction that now 

reigns at the NRC has had positive effects on Russian 

decisionmaking to the point where they consider the 

mission to NATO “a veritable model of interagency 

decisionmaking” (something that would surprise 

most Russians). Thus, “if anything, then, the Russian 

representatives in Brussels have improved upon NATO 

Headquarters’ civil-military model,” and at least one 

member expressed envy at the Russians’ “close-knit 

cooperation.”143

There is great scope for cooperation but the ongoing 

ambivalence threatens it. For instance, Russia strongly 

has pushed the idea of cooperation on theater missile 

defenses, but if Washington installs its own systems 

in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, that will negate 

any chance for Russia to gain a hearing for its defenses, 

regardless of issues of quality of these differing systems. 

First, such deployments suggest to Moscow that Russian 

missiles are regarded as a threat to Europe.144 Second, 

Russia also would be discomfited by rejection of its 

systems even though NATO’s defense systems have 

worked together and become quite integrated among 

themselves, making the question of compatibility with 

Russian systems an issue that is difficult to resolve in 

practical terms. This is because Russia eagerly wants 

NATO to buy its s-300 and forthcoming s-400 antiair missiles which it claims are among the best in the 

world.145

Third, Baluevsky has warned that the new U.S. 

military doctrine, “provides for the probable use of 

nuclear arms for political purposes and also lowers the 

threshold for the use of nuclear arms.”146 Therefore, 
42

failure to achieve progress on missile defense suggests 

to Russian leaders that this is an accurate reflection of 

American and thus NATO strategy. Fortunately, at 

least as of March 2005, Baluevsky was satisfied with the 

progress attained on this issue. As he then observed:

Cooperation in this area has the ultimate goal of creating 

future Russian and NATO mobile air/missile defense 

force elements which could be employed in the course 

of peacekeeping or antiterrroist operations and other 

crisis response operations. The present priorities are 

to study the compatibility of air defense assets having 

a missile defense potential and prepare and hold joint 

command and staff exercises and drills. On the whole, 

we assess positively the progress and results of Russian 

and NATO cooperation in the theater missile defense 

area. In particular, rules have been worked out for 

organizing coordination between Russian and NATO 

theater missile defense groupings in conducting a crisis 

response operation. Experts are discussing the procedure 

and the goals of joint command and staff exercises and 

are assessing the possibility of compatibility of specific 

types of arms.147

Yet by June 2005, new Russian anxieties arose 

regarding this issue.

What puts us on our guard is that the Americans are 

keen to deploy missile interceptors in space. Russia 

has already opposed such steps of the United States as 

undermining the foundations of global security. Were 

the NATO members to support the Pentagon’s steps 

involving the deployment of components of missile 

defense arms in space, this would manifestly pose a threat 

to the security not only of Russia but of all countries also. 

The deployment of a European theater missile defense 

thus has to do with problems of global security, and the 

alienation from the process of Russia points to a policy 

of double standards that the NATO counties and the 

United States are continuing to attempt to pursue.148
43

Even so, reflecting the progress to date, in April 

2005 NATO and Russia signed a status of forces 

agreement for NATO forces that may be operating in 

Russia.149 At that time, Russia and NATO also were 

pointing regularly to significant and greater mutual 

cooperation between them, not least with regard to 

antiterrorist operations.150 Russian leaders consistently 

and repeatedly were espousing military cooperation 

with NATO along these and other lines.151 Both sides 

also have reached agreement on a document containing 

political understandings that should govern future 

joint peace operations.152 This last point might prove 

to be particularly meaningful, given the existence of 

so many “frozen conflicts” in and around Russia’s 

territories and the Chechen war’s spread into the North 

Caucasus.

On the other hand, Russian officials visibly 

cannot understand how or why NATO continues 

to function.153 Consequently,they often openly say 

that it should or will soon disappear, and that its 

effectiveness already has been greatly diminished. Yet 

they also still fear its military-political potential. These 

contradictory impulses indicate their own unresolved 

ambivalence. For example, Baluevsky has stated that 

NATO’s command and control structure intrinsically 

is inefficient, and NATO is no longer necessary as 

a military-political body.154 Of course, in that case, 

enlargement is unjustified and senseless. He made this 

statement despite his open recognition of the successes 

in the partnership to date and support for enhanced 

cooperation. Other commentators seem to gloat that 

due to the Iraq invasion—with which NATO had 

nothing to do—it is “coming apart at the seams.”155 This 

ambivalence colors every aspect of this “zebra-like” 

relationship with alternating light and dark stripes 
44

despite the universal recognition of the NRC’s advance 

over previous efforts at Russo-NATO partnership.156

Many factors make for this zebra-like quality. 

For example, as one might suspect, given Russian 

reluctance to expand its scope, the “deliverables” 

from this new found interoperability actually are quite 

thin when assessed in substantive terms. Most of the 

NRC’s work has been on agenda-setting, feasibility 

studies, and preliminary consultations.157 Little actual 

joint action has occurred. In the Balkans, joint activity 

actually has diminished as Russia has withdrawn 

its forces. Neither will Russia send either regular or 

peacekeeping forces into Iraq or Afghanistan.158 Nor is 

progress on conventional arms control likely anytime 

soon, as we have seen.159 Worse, the Russian military 

continues to sabotage cooperation.160

Similar problems can be seen with regard to 

tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe. Despite 

the progress in reducing the number of deployed 

TNW in Europe since 1991, NATO analysts still want 

Moscow to consider bringing those weapons into 

the Combined Threat Reduction program (CTR). 

Congress also has urged the U.S. Government to make 

a greater effort to secure these weapons, whose small 

size, dispersion, mobility, and weaker security and 

safety features continue to cause concern.161 However, 

Russian officials show little desire to discuss this issue, 

leading Washington to claim that they are stalling.162

As a recent analysis of this issue observes, 

Russian officials have resisted extending threat-reduction 

activities to their TNW because they believe that their 

opacity contributes to deterring a preemptive NATO 

attack. Uncertainties regarding the number and location 

of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons mean that NATO 

planners cannot be sure of destroying them in a first 
45

strike. Such considerations weigh against proposals to 

consolidate Russia’s TNW, even if dispersal makes them 

more vulnerable to terrorists. Russian analysts also note 

that TNW represent one of the few areas where Russia 

enjoys military superiority over NATO.163

Russian leaders also claim that the remaining 

U.S. air-delivered TNW in Europe could be used in a 

first-strike attack of a strategic nature against Russia, 

targeting command and control or strategic nuclear 

centers. Therefore Ivanov stated in 2005 that Russia 

was prepared to start talks on TNW only when all 

countries having them would keep them on their own 

territory. This led to the U.S. complaints about Russian 

stalling since both Russia and America could quickly 

redeploy their missiles or use them immediately in 

the Russian case.164 Obviously this suggests Moscow’s 

concern that Washington does not want to discuss this 

issue seriously so that it can threaten Russia with its 

own TNW or conventional missiles. Thus, as a result 

of NATO enlargement, Russia is now strengthening 

Moscow’s air defenses as well as those in Central Asia 

and the Caucasus.165 But this issue also suggests that 

Russia, if not NATO and Washington, still see each 

other through a deterrence prism—one of potential 

threat, not a lens of cooperation and cooperative 

security.

Beyond that, as Polikanov noted, there is little 

constituency in Russia for further cooperation with 

NATO or public interest in it. Russian policy depends 

upon personalities and is driven by changes in internal 

politics, such as the growing state nationalism of the 

Putin period. Russian military quality has declined 

steadily since 1990, and no interest exists in genuine 

large-scale cooperation, as there is in such cooperation 

with China and India such as occurred in 2005. Instead, 
46

the army would be happy to confine itself to staff games 

on maps or small scale compatibility of specialized 

forces for example, peacekeeping forces which are only 

now getting off the ground. And, of course, NATO 

expansion fuels all the preexisting Russian resentments 

and fears.166 Neither do these factors encompass all the 

observed shortcomings of the relationship.167

Peace Operations and Peacekeeping Forces.

Russia stood up a peacekeeping brigade in 2005 

whose missions would take place, first of all, in the 

CIS.168 This decision may have grown out of NATORussian discussions in the NRC.169 Ivanov also observed 

that Russian forces must be trained so that they can 

conduct peacetime operations to defend Russian 

economic, political, and security interests, including 

UN or CIS sanctioned peace operations.170 The Russian 

Ministry of Defense also is reportedly,

Working on the issue of setting up a new force—the 

Special Designation Forces, which will be formed from 

Spetsnaz brigades; each military district and the navy 

has one Spetsnaz brigade. They are expected to have air, 

ground, and marine components, and be involved in 

peacekeeping and counterterrorist operations. The new 

force would be immediately subordinate to the Defense 

Minister.171

This peacekeeping brigade also will be interoperable 

with NATO, i.e., English-speaking, and perform 

missions within Russia and/or adjacent hot spots or 

with the UN and NATO.

Yet prospects for its deployment with NATO are 

not going to be easy to resolve. Certainly, it will not go 

to Iraq or Afghanistan as the United States allegedly 
47

was hoping, according to Russian sources.172 One 

aspect of NATO expansion that alarms Russian leaders 

is the increasing possibility of NATO’s presence in and 

around the former Soviet Union due to an expansion 

of its remit to include potential peace support missions 

in the former Soviet Union. NATO already is looking 

for ways to develop means of securing the pipelines 

that bring Russian oil and gas to Europe and that could 

entail interventions in the CIS.173 Thanks to the energy 

crisis of 2006 with Ukraine, the possibility of NATO 

intervention on behalf of its members’ energy interests is 

growing. Poland has now proposed a European energy 

treaty for all members of both the EU and NATO, and 

thus excluding Russia, that would contain among other 

provisions a mutual energy security clause resembling 

NATO’s Article V where signatories would support 

each other “in the event of a threat to their energy 

security from natural or political causes.” Counties 

outside the treaty could join it later provided that they 

would assist any member states in need to build and 

develop the technical infrastructure necessary for such 

cooperation.174 Poland’s proposal would oblige the 

parties to act in concert in the face of any energy threat 

provoked by either a cut or a diminution of supply 

sources that may occur because of natural disasters, 

disruption of wide distribution and supply systems, or 

political decisions by suppliers.175 Moscow’s reaction 

to such possible missions easily is imaginable. 

Since the projection of power through peace 

support operations has become a primary means of 

acquiring spheres of influence in what Europe and 

Russia increasingly regard as key strategic peripheries, 

it is understandable that, in the event of future peace 

support operations in those countries under EU or 

NATO auspices, Russia would demand participation 
48

as an equal operator, not necessarily under NATO 

command.176 For example, Russian officials have told 

the EU that, should there be an EU peace operation 

anywhere within the CIS, Russia demands formal 

equality with it in joint operations or even Russian 

command.177

Undoubtedly should NATO try to mount a similar 

operation in the CIS, Russia will make the same demand.

As a Polish assessment of Russia’s relationship to 

NATO observes, 

The Russian standpoint on peacekeeping is quite clearcut. Moscow is no longer interested in participating in 

NATO-led peacekeeping operations, i.e., as an ordinary 

contributor (it has shown this by withdrawing its 

troops from the Balkans among other actions); instead 

it wants NRC-led operations (co-deciding on every 

stage and participation in operational planning). It is 

not clear where such an operation could potentially 

be conducted. Russia has so far been skeptical about 

the idea of potentially conducting such operations in 

the NIS (although it has not explicitly rejected such a 

possibility). On the other hand, the Russian proposals 

to support NATO-led operations in Afghanistan have 

only been accepted to a limited extent (mainly exchange 

of intelligence information and supporting efforts to 

combat drug smuggling, cooperation on border security 

is being considered).178

Western assessments also concur with this analysis. 

For example, 

Russians rightly argue that the legitimacy of unmandated 

NATO action beyond the alliance’s collective defense 

role is questionable on legal grounds. More to the point, 

situating such functions in NATO excludes not only 

Russia, but also the other non-NATO EAPC (EuropeAmerica Political Council) members. Russians believe 

they have a formal right to a say in the management 
49

of crises on their periphery and in the region between 

Russia and the West. They are concerned that Russia is 

excluded from an institution that “is gradually turning 

into the central element in the organization of the 

European political space.”179 

Ivanov’s remarks cited above suggest the accuracy 

of this proposal. While it is unclear if Russian 

opposition could prevent a CIS state from applying to 

NATO for such an operation as it would most likely 

be against Russian supported secessionist forces as 

in Georgia and Moldova, one cannot easily expect 

Russian support despite the agreements on political 

conditions governing them and anti-terror operations 

cited above.180

Such forms of peace support operations inherently 

are dubious in the CIS for other reasons as well. For 

example, Russia is a patron of at least one side in each 

of these conflicts, as well as a participant through the 

use of its forces in many of them. Allowing it to direct 

any potential peace operation in question openly 

yields to Moscow’s conflict of interests and represents 

an a priori degradation of the other party’s authority, 

standing, and sovereignty. Indeed, recent research 

suggests that the premature dispatch of troops in the 

guise of peacemakers in such conflicts, as Russia has 

done, actually makes it harder to mediate a solution to 

the conflict at hand.181 Russian stonewalling in Moldova 

and Georgia’s conflicts and its earlier support for 

Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh make its participation 

as a peace support force in a post-conflict phase 

dubious. And in any case, it is well-known that the 

formula being discussed for Nagorno-Karabakh is that 

any peacekeeping forces there would be from neither 

neighboring states nor from members of the Minsk 

group: Russia, France, and the United States.182 Thus it 
50

is difficult to see where this peacekeeping force could 

work together with NATO inside the CIS. And since 

Ivanov recently has ruled out cooperation beyond its 

borders, future prospects for its joint deployment with 

NATO are clouded at best. So in any case, yielding to 

this Russian demand for command equality benefits 

neither NATO’s or Russia’s larger interest in peace or 

democracy, nor is it practicable anytime soon.

Moreover, Russia obviously is building the forces 

needed to conduct such operations on its own or with 

its “allies” in the CIS, i.e., CSTO. Then it will have 

the forces with which to carry out peace support or 

stability operations in Eurasia either with or without 

NATO, although the currently stated intention is to 

deploy these forces on the basis of interoperability 

with NATO.183

Notwithstanding the political obstacles to joint 

deployment discussed above, other difficulties also 

beset this relationship. Should this Russian force reach 

a satisfactory level of interoperability with NATO 

regarding mastery of English, identification of friend 

or foe (IFF) signatures for aircraft, and compatible 

operating procedures and equipment—all of which are 

formidable, long-term, and expensive undertakings—

strategic political issues which have yet to be resolved 

then will make themselves felt. Thus despite the 

fact that both sides have discussed compatibility of 

antiterror military units and joint training for special 

forces in 2005, the extent of actual military cooperation 

remains to be seen.184

This does not mean that such operations cannot or 

will not be mounted. Indeed, Russian analyst Sergei 

Oznobishchev has suggested that it would be good if 

all parties concerned—NATO, Russia, and the Baltic 

states—would conduct peacekeeping exercises jointly 
51

in the Baltic states, because doing so could help reduce 

mutual suspicion among these parties.185 Similarly, 

Russian leaders have urged increased cooperation 

in counterdrug operations, which could conceivably 

employ joint antiterrorist or special forces.186 Likewise, 

Russian aircraft could provide airlift for NATO forces 

and missions.187 Meanwhile, joint exercises will continue throughout 2006 and beyond in the fields 

of theater missile defense, counterterorism, peace 

operations, and, most of all, naval operations.188

Naval Issues.

Indeed, naval operations represent the most 

promising area in joint exercises as numerous 

opportunities exist for meaningful cooperation on 

common tasks and missions. Nevertheless, strains have 

been felt in regard to naval exercises of an antiterrorist 

nature because NATO wants to exercise not only 

in the Mediterranean—an idea to which Russia has 

agreed—but also in the Black Sea. And when the issue 

becomes one of NATO exercising, not even actually 

operating in and around Russia, Russia’s militarypolitical opposition to genuine cooperation throughout 

Europe, including the areas it claims as its sphere of 

influence, reiterates itself. This opposition rises even 

though Russian and Western analysts concur about the 

tremendous field of activity open to enhanced RussoNATO naval cooperation.189

As we noted above, the General Staff opposed 

exercises with NATO well into 2003-04.190 Yet NATO 

members like Poland, the Baltic states, and Russia 

have been able to conduct exercises in the Baltic Sea.191

And the Russian military surprisingly was enthusiastic 

about participating in Operation ACTIVE ENDEAVOR 
52

in the Mediterranean.192 Nonetheless, this enthusiasm 

only appeared after Russia sought to impose special 

conditions on its participation in this exercise, which 

has been a highly successful centerpiece of NATO 

members’ antiterrorist naval cooperation since 2001.

Russia had wanted to exempt its own commercial vessels 

from mutual inspection procedures; the lynchpin of the 

operation. Then it demanded that “Active Endeavor” be 

governed by the NATO-Russia Council, even as it asked 

the alliance to pay for Russian participation. NATO 

rejected all these, but finally elaborated an awkward 

arrangement whereby the Russian Navy operates in 

conjunction with NATO, but not under its command.193

Russia also reserved the right to use weapons during 

the exercise as it will be operating jointly with, but not 

as part of, the NATO AF South forces.194

But when the other littoral states except Turkey 

proposed conducting this exercise in the Black Sea, 

Moscow flatly refused to support it.195 While these 

states’ request made sense, given the centrality of 

security issues to the Black Sea region as a whole, 

Moscow’s attitude is not surprising. When NATO 

conducted exercises with Ukraine along the Black 

Sea coast in 2003, the Russian press reported Russia’s 

opposition on the grounds that Russian military men 

could not accept “alien” NATO naval vessels in what 

they considered to be their lake. Worse, since those 

operations’ scenario postulated an antiseparatist 

operation, Russian officials saw this as an intimation of 

future NATO assistance to Georgia or Ukraine against 

Moscow-backed separatists in Abkhazia or Crimea.196

Once Operation ACTIVE ENDEAVOR raised the issue 

of the Black Sea, the same concerns came to the fore: 

the potential for internationalization of the Georgian-
53

Abkhazian conflict, in which maritime gun running, 

smuggling, and other crimes are rife, and are protected 

by the Russian forces, and tensions with Ukraine 

over the future disposition of the Black Sea Fleet and 

boundaries along the Sea of Azov.197

Consequently, we cannot doubt that alongside the 

real cooperation with NATO there exists an intensifying 

military-political rivalry with NATO and the EU for 

dominance in the CIS. Fortunately for Russia, Turkey 

also has opposed holding this exercise in the Black Sea, 

ostensibly to uphold the Montreux Convention, even 

though warships have gone through the Straits since 

1992, and Turkey is more likely to maintain the existing 

naval duopoly in the Black Sea with Russia.198

NATO in the Baltic and CIS.

If naval cooperation is the most promising venue 

for bilateral strategic cooperation with NATO, this case 

shows how limited that cooperation is and how limited 

are prospects for genuine cooperation in the future. 

Here, for example, we not only see the reluctance to 

expose Russian forces to NATO operating procedures 

and culture, but also the fact that rivalry over the CIS 

and Russia’s continuing effort to maintain an imperial 

private preserve there contradict the larger drives of 

European security. This rivalry inhibits all efforts at 

progress in effectuating genuine East-West security 

and defense cooperation and inhibits the stabilization 

of Eurasia. 

Although Russian commentators announce regularly that the United States or NATO is building 

a base or seeking one somewhere in the CIS, in fact 

NATO has renounced any official participation in any 

of the frozen conflicts along the Russian periphery or 
54

the pursuit of bases in that same periphery.199 What 

NATO is doing in building up local governments’ 

defense and overall security capability and through 

the PfP and similar programs is responding to the 

requests of these governments for a greater or lesser 

degree of partnership. Those governments themselves 

do not wish to depend exclusively upon Russia, even 

though they acknowledge vital Russian interest in their 

development. And some, like Ukraine and Georgia, 

clearly want to be in NATO. Moscow’s problem is that 

it cannot and will not acknowledge that its policies are 

a major cause of regional instability in these areas, or 

that these states are truly fully sovereign states who can 

fashion their defense and security policies as they see 

fit. Therefore it cannot accept that they are asking for 

NATO’s assistance against it. As a 2005 commentary 

observed, 

The goals of Russia and the North Atlantic alliance thus 

largely continue to be at odds. This applies primarily 

to the post-Soviet territory. Russia is unhappy when 

Moldova wants to see NATO observers in the Dniester 

region, Azerbaijan is expecting from the alliance military 

assistance and protection of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan 

pipeline, and Ukraine and Georgia are seeking admittance 

to NATO, and their acceptance is just a matter of time. 

The RF does not care for a possible NATO presence in the 

Black Sea and the United States’ aspiration to establish 

itself on the Caspian. From the viewpoint of the interests 

of the state, this is evidently justified. But the question 

is: why should Moscow be so actively making friends 

with NATO if there is little practical benefit from this, 

particularly on the territory of the CIS?200

Although Moscow’s preferred international posture 

condemns Eurasia to neo-colonialism as a sphere of 

Russian influence, Russia cannot police that sphere 

effectively, and even if it could do so, the conditions 
55

necessary for accepting that outcome undermine any 

hope of stabilizing Europe. Thus, in May 2005, Ivanov 

insisted that Moscow could not soon withdraw its 

forces from Georgia because it could not afford to 

build bases for them back home. Instead, Georgia had 

to bear the cost of maintaining them.201 Russia defines 

its security as requiring its neighbors’ perpetual 

insecurity and subsidies, as well as their ensuing and 

unending vulnerability to failed state symptoms. But 

this also means their ongoing vulnerability to too 

many of the pathologies associated with terrorism, 

crime, proliferation, and ethnic war. Since peace 

does not protect itself, excessive complacency about 

European security under conditions of this rivalry, 

notwithstanding the genuine cooperation with Russia, 

is unwarranted. In fact, at least some governments and 

militaries reject this complacency, even if they defend 

against their anxieties sotto voce. 

Although never voiced publicly by elected European 

officials, there is concern about Russia. It is rarely 

announced as policy, but the force structure of the 

Bundeswehr—still, all these years after the end of the 

Cold War, organized to defend the homeland against 

tanks coming from the east—makes it obvious. In a 

way that frustrates and confounds its NATO partners, 

Germany still de facto prioritizes conventional territorial 

defense even it pledges allegiance to the Petersberg tasks 

which presume force projection capabilities.202

Similarly, the Russian military not only fulminates 

against NATO’s expansion of its remit and geographical 

scope of its operations and its enlargement, its exercises 

still are focused on anti-NATO and anti-American largescale operations, even if it proclaims terrorism to be the 

main threat. As I have written elsewhere, this inability 

to distinguish between priority threats, terrorists, or 
56

the West underscores Moscow’s continuing difficulties 

in modernizing, let alone reforming its armed forces 

or subjecting them to democratic control.203 But these 

difficulties, added to the imperial thrust of its policies, 

makes Russia, as admitted by Russian analysts, an 

international risk factor.204

As both the EU and NATO inexorably, if haltingly, 

are increasing their interest in, capability to act, and 

participation in efforts to resolve these conflicts, the 

matter of operations “out of area,” and particularly 

along the perimeter of the Russian Federation, will 

become an ever more salient political and strategic 

issue.205 This issue already causes considerable mutual 

distrust between Russia and the EU or NATO.206

Should this rivalry over influence in the CIS continue 

to grow, it could cause even greater mutual distrust 

than presently exists. Russia increasingly sees the EU 

and NATO not only as partners, but also as rivals 

threatening its primary strategic objective of hegemony 

throughout the CIS and former Soviet Union.207

Russian officials particularly are alarmed at NATO’s 

territorial expansion because that could lead as well to 

an expansion of its missions and/or physical presence 

in the former Soviet Union. This anxiety has grown 

even though Russia welcomed NATO’s decision to 

participate in the war in Afghanistan in 2003, and 

leading Russian officials publicly have advocated 

NATO consultations and cooperation with CSTO, the 

Russian-sponsored defense alliance in Central Asia.208 

Here, too, we can discern the same ambivalence 

cited above. In 2005 Russia called repeatedly for 

CSTO-NATO cooperation, culminating in a December 

report saying that Moscow would insist more strongly 

on gaining such cooperation.209 However, in February 

2006, Bordyuzha stated that, “Cooperation with NATO 
57

is not a major priority or an end in itself for us. [Such 

cooperation] is desirable, but it is not so important 

to the CSTO which is a self-sufficient organization 

seeking cooperation with many international 

organizations.”210

Not surprisingly, despite the calls for such 

cooperation, Russian officials repeatedly have stated 

that they oppose all foreign bases in Central Asia and 

implicitly in the CIS as a whole.211 Echoing this view of 

the CIS members’ inability to stand as fully sovereign 

independent states, Russian diplomats still cannot 

accept former Soviet republics as genuinely sovereign 

who can stand alone or make such decisions on their 

own. If they do so, it means that they have been 

subordinated to an anti-Russian bloc and have not 

chosen to do so of their own free will. This long-standing Tsarist and notably Soviet standpoint evidently is 

ingrained deeply among Russian diplomats who, at 

an OSCE meeting, called Georgia “some province.”212

Neither was this an accidental one-time affair. Instead, 

it represents deeply-held views in the Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs.213

On September 15, 2005, Ivanov further stated that 

if Georgia and/or Ukraine join NATO, Moscow will 

reassess its relations with them “and not just in the 

defense and security realm.”214 Here Ivanov reversed 

his earlier stance; on June 10, he had reiterated 

Moscow’s position that it viewed NATO bases in the 

Baltic as a threat (another sign of its unwillingness to 

accept Baltic freedom of action in defense and foreign 

policy), and that concern for Middle Eastern security 

did not justify a new U.S. or NATO base in Georgia. 

But he then added that he accepted that some CIS 

countries might become NATO members by 2015 and 

that there is nothing Russia can do to stop Ukraine 
58

or Georgia from joining NATO “and perhaps there 

is no need for that,” because what they really want 

is to leverage membership in NATO in order to join 

the EU.215 Interestingly, Ukrainian officials stated that 

NATO membership will not be a threat to Russia, and 

Belarus’ Defense Minister concurred that Belarus views 

this calmly.216

Obviously the real issue is a Western militarypolitical presence in Russia’s borderlands which 

Russian officials now increasingly attack as a threat 

that will lead to “military-political pressure” deployed 

against Russia and Russian interests.217 However, the 

presence of Russian forces in Moldova and Georgia 

evokes no such sense that those states’ interests are 

jeopardized thereby. Meanwhile, Russian diplomats 

claim that Russia has no legal obligation to withdraw 

these troops, and attempts to prolong their presence 

there only further illustrates how Russia strives 

to remain unbound by outside forces in pursuit of 

empire.218

NATO expansion takes several forms which disturb 

Russia greatly. One is the placement of NATO forces 

in the Baltic and Poland. The apparently accidental 

recent crash of an SU-27 fighter in Lithuania illustrated 

that both NATO and Russian air and air defense forces 

are vigilantly, if unobtrusively monitoring the strained 

political situation between Russia and the Baltic states. 

On November 7, 2005, Russian sources in Kaliningrad 

charged that NATO had revised its aerial posture in 

the Baltic to include offensive strike aircraft rather than 

exclusively air defense forces. These F-16CJ aircraft 

allegedly are capable of penetrating Russia’s airspace 

and suppressing its air defenses.219 Given those 

continuing levels of high tension between Russia and 

the three Baltic states, such vigilance evidently still is 
59

needed on both sides to prevent a further deterioration 

of the tense Russo-Baltic relationship. Indeed, although 

Russia punished those responsible for the crash, i.e., 

for their negligence in letting it happen, Russia’s Air 

Force Chief, General Vladimir Mikhailov, ridiculed 

NATO’s air defense capabilities for its allegedly slow 

response to the fighter jet’s intrusion.220 Lithuania’s 

initial response showed its hostility to and suspicion 

of Russia.221

Meanwhile, in innumerable ways Russia also 

continues to wage an undeclared political and economic 

war against the Baltic states that shows its refusal to 

integrate into Europe.222 Russian politicians still refuse 

to admit that the USSR occupied the independent 

Baltic states after 1940.223 Moscow also seeks to compel 

its neighbors to institute pro-Russian cultural and 

educational policies based on its professed solicitude 

for the Russian diaspora. This concern for that diaspora 

has been invoked steadily over the last decade to 

undermine the security and legitimacy of the Baltic 

states and of European security organizations like the 

OSCE, even as it wages an economic war against those 

states.224 Thus in 2002 Putin actually compared them 

to Macedonia and demanded that Europe supervise 

their minority policies, an explicit derogation of their 

sovereignty.225 After urging partnership with NATO 

and saying that he did not oppose the Baltic states’ 

membership in NATO, Putin publicly urged Russian 

residents to agitate against Baltic governments.226

In response to Russian refusal to admit that the 

Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states, Estonian 

Parliamentarian Marko Mikhelson, Deputy Chairman 

of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee observed 

that, “If Moscow thinks that the occupation of the Baltic 

states did not exist, there is no reason to believe that 
60

Russia belongs to the cultural space.”227 Indeed, that 

observation also holds true for the European political 

space. Neither is the Baltic a unique case. In Moldova, 

Russia also has played the diaspora card and subjected 

the region to what Moldova’s Foreign and Prime 

Ministers call a military occupation and humiliation 

that violates every European treaty Moscow has signed 

since 1975.228

Likewise, Russian officials fear that East European 

countries beyond the Baltic reaching all the way to the 

Black Sea, despite the Paris agreements of 1997, may 

become bases for NATO and American military forces 

aiming at Russia. Although the U.S. Global Posture 

Review was briefed to Ivanov in 2004 and accepted as 

nonthreatening, no doubt the possibility of bases, not 

only in the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania, but also 

possibly in the Caucasus and Ukraine, alarms Russia 

greatly.229 This is despite Ivanov’s public statement 

that he understands the reasons behind America’s 

realignment of its forces and global basing structure.230

Even though NATO states regularly that it cooperates 

with Russia in the South Caucasus, does not see that 

area as one of conflict or competition with Russia, and 

U.S. officials repeatedly have made clear that they are 

not seeking bases there, Russia either chooses not to 

believe them, or worse, to fabricate stories about such 

bases to justify its own imperial activities across the CIS 

such as seeking bases in Moldova and Uzbekistan.231

Indeed, any sign of a CIS state cooperating with 

NATO triggers an immediate response that indicates 

that the Russian political elite still sees NATO as 

being at bottom an enemy of Russia. For this reason, 

it makes sense to interpret the many Russian calls 

for NATO cooperation with CSTO, such as Putin’s 

in January 2005, as an attempt to forestall NATO’s 
61

direct cooperation with Central Asian governments 

and control that interaction, thereby curtailing their 

full defense sovereignty.232 For example, in April 

2004, the Kuchma government of Ukraine signed a 

memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NATO. 

This MoU mentioned the movement of alliance vessels 

through Ukrainian territorial waters, including the 

Sea of Azov and Kerch Straits. It also stated that 

Ukraine promised “To supply NATO with all required 

technical, informational, medical, and other assistance 

for the conduct of training exercises, as well as fullfledged military or peacekeeping operations under the 

Partnership for Peace program.”233

The Russian response was predictable. Russia 

charged that the accord violated the 2003 RussoUkrainian agreement on those waters stating that no 

third party vessels could navigate them without both 

parties’ specific agreement, a statement missing from 

the MoU.234 Furthermore, unnamed sources in the 

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that, 

Ukraine’s readiness to allow its territory to be used 

for unspecified NATO operations without Russian 

permission does not accord with Article 6 of [our treaty] 

. . . that stipulates, specifically, that neither side may 

allow tis territory to be used in any way that jeopardizes 

the security of the other.235 

Subsequently, Russian writers cast this issue in the 

light of a potential Russo-Ukrainian armed conflict.

The document gives NATO forces so called “rapid 

access” to the territory of Ukraine not only during 

military exercises, but also when conducting military 

operations. This means that Ukraine could become a 

beachhead for waging any NATO operations, including 

those not sanctioned by the UN Security Council. Under 
62

these circumstances rapid reaction forces of the North 

Atlantic alliance could be activated across the entire 

expanse of the European portion of Russia, and even 

blockade the RF Black Sea Fleet based in the Crimea until 

the basing term there expires [in 2017—author].236

This analysis goes on to cite Russian concerns 

about future Ukrainian pressure on the Black Sea Fleet 

and the eventual transformation of the Black Sea into 

a NATO lake, greatly enhancing NATO’s aerial and 

naval reconnaissance capabilities, undermining the 

entire concept of a strategic rear for Russia, as well as 

any meaningful Russian capability in the Sea of Azov 

or Black Sea.237 As Ukraine has now made clear that it 

wants the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of its current bases 

in Sevastopol when the Russo-Ukrainian treaty expires 

in 2017, Russo-Ukrainian tensions, already strained 

over energy and other issues, almost certainly will grow 

over the future disposition of that fleet and its assets 

and infrastructures. Thus this analysis of Russian fear 

of any NATO military presence in the Black Sea area of 

the CIS or of Ukraine’s membership in NATO clearly 

is predicated on the assumption of continuing RussoNATO military-strategic rivalry, especially for the CIS 

borderlands. Under present circumstances, it remains 

to be seen how NATO exercises in Ukraine jeopardize 

Russian security when Russia has proclaimed its 

partnership with NATO and how Ukraine could 

be a base for hostile activity against Russia, but this 

shows the ruling outlook in the Foreign and Defense 

Ministries and Russian government. Therefore, any 

sign of Ukrainian adhesion to or cooperation with 

NATO or the EU inevitably will provoke a storm in 

Moscow.

Ukraine is not an isolated case. Indeed, Moscow 

essentially contends that no state can be allies with it 
63

and with NATO. Moreover, in its sphere of influence, 

it claims that Russia alone ultimately has full authority 

over the members’ defense policies. Thus Ivanov 

openly updated the Brezhnev doctrine’s concept 

of diminished sovereignty for Central Asian states, 

specifically as regards NATO or American bases. 

The countries of the region are members of the Collective 

Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). And [if the 

countries of the region are] making a decision about 

hosting new bases on their territory, they should take 

into account the interests of Russia and coordinate this 

decision with our country.238

Ivanov also said that these states should take 

preliminary consultations with other members of 

the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This 

would give China rights of veto over these states’ 

defense policies and tie them up by obliging them to 

seek collective permission to conduct an independent 

defense policy.239 Echoing this view of the CIS members’ 

inability to stand as fully sovereign independent states, 

Russian diplomats still cannot accept former Soviet 

republics as genuine states, e.g., diplomats at an OSCE 

meeting calling Georgia “some province.”240 This was 

no accident, as this represents a deeply-held attitude in 

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.241

Recommendations.

Under the circumstances, what should NATO 

and the U.S. Government and armed forces do or not 

do? Obviously, there is no interest in provoking or 

threatening Russia and NATO’s capacity. But on the 

other hand, both NATO and its sister organizations, the 

EU and OSCE, long since have accepted that security in 
64

the CIS is of growing importance to European security. 

Clearly, the democratization of all of these states would 

be a powerful contribution to Eurasian security and to 

Russia’s return to more democratic security norms. 

Previous examples reported by this author and other 

observers show that both in the military sphere and in 

terms of overall political governance, the attraction of 

the EU and of NATO are key factors in democratizing, 

stabilizing, and pacifying volatile areas like the Balkans 

and Central Europe.242 Therefore, it is very much in the 

interests of NATO and those states themselves, as it 

is arguably in the interests of the Russian people who 

do not need more rumors of war on their doorstep or 

in their own territory, to move forward on the entire 

program of integrating CIS members with NATO. 

Obviously, this integration can proceed only 

at the pace requested by those governments. But a 

sharper focus and emphasis on encouraging Georgia 

and Ukraine, as well as any other state that wishes to 

follow in their path, to continue reforms dedicated to 

the democratizing of their defense establishments and 

overall security policies must continue. Although the 

difficulties in encouraging reform are substantial, it 

must be done, and it must be understood that when these 

and other states conform to NATO’s desiderata, they 

will be invited to join, regardless of Moscow’s protests. 

This process need not be connected to a specific timeline, 

e.g., the NATO summit of November 28-29, 2006, in 

Riga, Latvia. However, the promise of membership in 

return for compliance with those conditions spelled 

out by NATO (and no less importantly the EU); plus 

encouragement and support for those actions is the 

only way to ensure that the dream of a Europe whole 

and free does not disappear or fade. Given Moscow’s 

efforts to subvert regimes from the Baltic to the Black 
65

Sea, its meddling in Ukraine in 2004 and 2006, support 

for dictatorship in Belarus, and its efforts to impose a 

new status quo on Georgia and Moldova, it is urgent to 

overcome the lethargy that has characterized Western 

policy in the CIS as soon as possible. The stakes are 

enormous.

Tesmur Basilia, Special Assistant to former Georgian 

President Edvard Shevarnadze for economic issues, 

wrote that, for CIS governments, trade, investment, 

and security issues are intertwined. He also pointed to 

the local perception of Russia as security threat.

Nowadays there are many in the West who believe 

that Russia has changed—and, having reformed, seeks 

to interact with neighboring countries in conformity 

with international norms. Some Eurasian countries 

would disagree with this opinion, and believe instead 

that the Russian mentality has not changed much, and 

that Russia continues to deem the “near abroad” as its 

sphere of social influence. After the second war with 

Chechnya, many think that Russia regards violence as 

its major tool for resolving social and political problems, 

especially with regard to non-Russian peoples from the 

former empire. Thus integration into the international 

community should be viewed as a guarantee for security 

and further development.243

Basilia similarly observed that in many CIS states, e.g., 

Georgia and Ukraine, “the acute issue of choosing 

between alignment with Russia and the West is 

associated with the choice between two models of 

social development.”244 Alignment with the West 

is regarded as constituting a threat in itself so that 

Russia’s ambassador to Kiev, former Premier Viktor 

Chernomyrdin, publicly decried Ukraine’s policy of 

nonalignment with NATO and Russia, calling for a 

public choice on behalf of Moscow.245
66

Therefore, both Washington and Brussels must 

continue to exhort, cajole, and encourage those states 

who wish to associate with NATO to do so to the limits 

of their desire and capability. NATO also must commit 

sufficient resources in Afghanistan, which is the main 

test of its functionality today. Finally, as noted above, 

the entire range of possiblities of cooperation must 

be offered continually to Moscow, but done so in a 

way which does not impose conditions on who may 

participate in these multilateral programs or where 

they may occur. Under no circumstances can any of the 

European security organizations or Washington, not to 

mention individual capitals, concede to Moscow that 

the CIS is somehow its private preserve or that Russia 

can be exempted from the democratizing requirements 

inherent in the treaties it has pledged to adopt. This 

stricture must apply with particular force to efforts 

to rewrite the map of otherwise sovereign states 

by force, e.g., Moldova and Georgia; activities that 

directly violate the Helsinki treaty and its subsequent 

amendments in Moscow in 1991.

Essentially a policy of no annexations and incorporations is as valid now as it has been in the past. 

NATO must make clear to Moscow that its efforts to 

punish Georgia for reasons which boil down to spite, 

as Lenin realized as he was dying, “in general, play 

the very worst role in politics.” Neither Russia, nor its 

neighbors, nor its interlocutors need or can afford to 

revisit his legacy. Thus, if NATO follows the guideline 

that its democratic expansion and enlargement are 

the true foundations of Eurasian security and stability 

and that a recrudescent Russian empire constitutes a 

major threat, if not the major threat, to that stability 

and security, even as it offers Russia the benefits of 

genuine partnership, it will succeed in realizing its 
67

new vocation to be the security manager of Europe. A 

democratized and secure Russia will be able to play 

a role befitting its importance in that scheme as well. 

Indeed, only in this fashion can Russia play or even 

afford to play such a role because otherwise its actions, 

like the projected annexation of South Ossetia, can only 

entail further war and conflict along its borders.

Conclusions.

Many commentators who have analyzed the 

NATO-Russia relationship have offered suggestions 

for deepening and enrooting this relationship in a 

durable form.246 All of these suggestions have merit. 

But in the end, they all depend upon the political 

will of the parties involved. For all its achievements, 

this partnership remains limited and is in danger of 

stagnating. Western uncertainty and ambivalence about 

Russia is reciprocated by Russia’s continuing belief that 

NATO and the West is both a military-strategic enemy 

and threat, as well as a normative and ideological 

adversary. Furthermore, recent Russian suggestions 

that it is interested in somehow incorporating South 

Ossetia into Russia, or the incitment of anti-NATO 

demonstrations in Ukraine and the continuing efforts 

to undermine pro-Western regimes in Georgia and 

Ukraine, and pressures to develop its military with 

a view toward scenarios clearly aimed at NATO or 

America suggest a ratcheting up of a more overtly antiNATO policy.247

Strategic cooperation on this basis is not possible 

beyond a very limited range of shared experiences 

because interests still really cannot be defined as 

common nor can threats be seen as shared. The strategic 

issues in the Russo-NATO relationship go to the heart 
68

of the values gap and the ensuing normative rivalry 

between Russia and NATO that is seen in every study 

of the increasingly difficult Russia-EU relationship, 

for example.248 Moreover, as noted above, “It is clearly 

fundamental that NATO wants to cooperate with 

Russia across a broad front. One only has to consider 

the Alliance’s near-continuous outreach.”249 NATO 

Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said as much 

in a speech to the Institute of Europe in Moscow on 

June 24, 2005, where he stated:

NATO is Russia’s partner in security, and this partnership 

can go as far as the Russian government, and ultimately 

the Russian people, are preapred to take it. If you doubt 

this, consider the fact that NATO is currently conducting 

five ongoing missions—to maintain peace and stability 

in Kosovo and Afghanistan, to build the capabilities of 

Iraqi security forces, to promote defense reform, in Bosnia 

and Herzegovina, and to help defend, deter, and protect 

against terrorism through maritime operations in the 

Mediterranean. All five of these missions enjoy the active 

support of the Russian Federation, whether through 

votes in the UN Security Council or through the active 

contribution of military forces or logisitical support. Our 

interests coincide more than ever before. And I am sure 

that NATO’s support to the African Union in Darfur also 

will meet with active Russian approval. But in broader, 

strategic terms, NATO’s overall objective to expand 

security and stability, based upon shared democratic 

values, throughout the Euro-Atlantic region and beyond, 

is difficult without robust cooperation with Russia. 

Effective responses to Russia’s real national security 

threats are equally impossible without cooperation with 

NATO Allies, using mechanisms like the NATO-Russia 

council. The future is in your hands and the hands of 

your political leadership.250

Russia, on the other hand, clearly still cannot decide 

whether to cooperate seriously with NATO or to impose 
69

restrictions upon this cooperation that undermine its 

potential benefits for all concerned parties. 

In 2002, Russian, American, and European elites 

claimed to have agreed upon the goal of reuniting 

Russia with the West.251 They also understood that 

realizing that goal would oblige the West to make 

Russia a full partner within the Euro-Atlantic world 

and duly take its interests into account.252 Yet that 

concord has been dashed, and trends point in the other 

direction with partnership as far away as ever. This 

is not merely a matter of Russian estrangement from 

America. In fact, mutual EU-Russian skepticism and 

tension on economic, political, and military issues is 

pervasive and probably growing.253 Russia visibly has 

renounced the strategic course towards integration 

proclaimed by President Vladimir Putin and Foreign 

Minister Igor Ivanov in 2001-02. Both sides seem to be 

trapped in a spiral of mutual estrangement. As Dmitry 

Trenin recently wrote, 

Western relations with Russia can no longer be described 

in terms of integration, as it is traditionally understood, 

that is gradually drawing Russia into the Western 

institutional orbit. For that there is neither particular 

demand on the part of Russia nor sufficient supply on 

the part of the United States or NATO and the EU.254

Indeed, Trenin argues that Russia does not want to 

belong to a larger institutional grouping.255 Consequently, these are trying times for those who want 

Russia fully to reclaim what Putin called its European 

vocation and Europe’s consequent reunification. 

Ultimately this is not only a recipe for the frustration 

of partnership and for remaining stuck in the mire of 

a bifurcated Europe, it also is a recipe for the further 

erosion of Russian security. 
70

Russia can have security, prosperity, and 

democracy, or it can have insecurity, conflict, violence, 

and authoritarian poverty that insists on chasing 

after the wrecks of empire even as the country’s 

demographic and other crises gallop out of control. 

As we saw above, partnership or true cohesion with 

NATO actually benefits its key defense industrial 

sectors.256 It also certainly reduces the dangers to 

Russia from terrorism and all the other security threats 

of our time. Moreover, as De Hoop Scheffer’s speech 

indicates, NATO will not be found wanting if Russia 

seeks to expand the parameters of this partnership. 

Nevertheless, the defense industrial sectors and the 

government still seem bewitched by empire and its 

autocratic and autarchic prerequisites. Russia can have 

a partner if it wants one, but it has to return to reality, 

for it cannot afford this empire and, in fact, despite its 

rhetoric to the contrary, it needs NATO and the EU 

more than they need it. More importantly, NATO, for 

all its reservations about Russia, is prepared to go as 

far to meet Russia as Russia wants it to go.

First, Russia’s current military reforms, despite 

seven strong years of growth, clearly indicate that its 

armed forces are still too large to be supported and 

must be reconfigured even more for domestic tasks 

of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism.257 Their 

performance in Chechnya does not inspire one with 

confidence that they could perform well in an imperial 

mission.258 Second, in fact, Europe and America subsidize Russia and its empire which could not otherwise 

exist. Russia can only maintain its empire by hidden 

and overt subsidies to CIS governments in energy or 

in the sale of Russian weapons at below market prices. 

It can afford to do this only by charging its European 

energy customers full market prices even as it refuses 
71

to charge those prices at home, despite EU pressures 

to do so. Thus the EU and NATO membership now 

subsidizes the Russian empire which otherwise would 

become totally insupportable. The same may be said 

of U.S. funding for the Nunn-Lugar or Cooperative 

Threat Reduction Program. Despite its value, if Russia 

had to pay for all those programs on its own, it could 

not afford the rising outlays on its armed forces or their 

current bloated size. 

Moscow fully understands this quandary. It even 

uses its inability to fund its own internal military 

requirements fully as a justification for imperialism 

and shifting the burden of maintaining Russian forces 

onto neighboring states like Georgia, as Ivanov’s May 

2005 remarks on that subject indicate.259 Yet the Russian 

leadership refuses to learn the full lesson emerging 

from these facts.

If Russia wants what it needs and what Europe 

has, peace, prosperity, and democracy, it has no choice 

but to embrace what James Sherr called its European 

choice.260 There is no other way, no Russian Sonderweg 

or Osobyi Put’. The last such attempts died in Berlin, 

one in 1945 and the other in 1989, and Russia no longer 

has the means or the will to resurrect a new version. 

The West, however, does have such a vision; it is called 

democracy, no matter how many crimes and follies 

are committed in its name. NATO and the EU, each 

in their own way, embody that vision. Therefore, it is 

hardly surprising that Europe’s people increasingly 

want those values and policies and not those of failed 

empires. There is good reason to believe that the 

Russian people not only want peace but its blessings, 

including democracy, even if they have their own 

particular definition of the term. Ultimately only this 

partnership, if allowed to flourish, can give it to them. 
72

For that to happen, the ambivalence that now inhibits 

its realization must give way to genuine partnership. 

NATO does and must continue keep the door open to 

partnership, but it can only do so on its terms. 

Whether Russia likes it or not, it neither can nor 

should be able to dictate the terms of that partnership 

because, as we saw above, its terms at best will 

freeze existing conflicts and bring neither peace, nor 

prosperity, nor security, not to mention democracy. 

But if Moscow insists on empire and autocracy as 

the condition of its partnership with Europe, e.g., a 

free hand to annex South Ossetia, Trans-Dniester, 

or Abkhazia, it is only repaving the road to the past. 

Therefore, what Moscow’s terms might represent at 

worst is a possibility too awful to contemplate.

ENDNOTES

1. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, November 1, 2005.

2. Cited in Mark Smith, “A Russian Chronology: OctoberDecember 2005,” Camberley, Surrey: Conflict Studies Research 

Centre, 2006, p. 13.

3. “Russia Will Not Cooperate With NATO—Defense Minister,” 

www.mosnews.com, November 7, 2005. 

4. Lieutenant General A. I. Voronin, “Russia-NATO Strategic 

Partnership: Problems, Prospects,” Military Thought (English 

language version of Voyennaya Mysl’), No. 4, 2005, p. 23. 

5. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, June 9, 2005, Foreign 

Broadcast Information Service Central Eurasia (henceforth FBIS 

SOV), June 9, 2005.

6. “Russia, NATO Agree on Military Cooperation,” www.

mosnews.com, November 16, 2005; Alexander Golts, “Russia’s 

Waltz With NATO,” Moscow Times, February 14, 2006.

7. Alexander Babakin and Viktor Myasnikov, “The Creation 

of an Anti-Warsaw Bloc: The Generals Have Set Their Sights on 

yet Another Base,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 1, 2006, FBIS SOV, 

March 1, 2006.
73

8. Golts.

9. Interfax Russia & CIS Presidential Bulletin Report for January 

28, 2005; Interfax Russia & CIS Diplomatic Panorama for January 31, 

2005; Smith, p. 32; www.president.ru, February 22, 2005, FBIS SOV, 

February 22, 2005.

10. Ibid.

11. Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Global Security Newswire, 

August 4, 2004.

12. Moscow, RIA Novosti, in Russian, April 19, 2005, FBIS SOV, 

April 19, 2005.

13. Ibid.

14. Sergei Ivanov, “Maturing Partnership,” NATO Review, 

Winter, 2005, www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue4/english/special,

htm.

15. “Russia and NATO: No Longer Enemies But Not Yet 

Partners. Moscow and the Alliance Do Have Military Cooperation 

Possibilities. True. They Are Not Being Materialized Fully As Yet.” 

Moscow, Oborona i Bezopasnost’ Kolonka Analitika, in Russian, June 

14, 2005, FBIS SOV, June 19, 2005.

16. Catherine Belton, “Relations With U.S. Lowest in 20 Years,” 

Moscow Times, May 19, 2006; Michael McFaul, “The End of the 

Partnership,” Kommersant, May 11, 2006.

17. Guy Dinmore, Demetri Sevatopulo, and Hubert Wetzel, 

“Russia Confronted Rumsfeld With Threat to Quit Key Nuclear 

Treaty,” Financial Times, March 9, 2005, p. 1. 

18. Martin Sieff, “Russia Rattles Missile Treaty,” UPI, March 

2, 2006.

19. Interfax, February 27, 2006.

20. Smith, p. 13.

21. Moscow, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, in Russian, 

December 5, 2003, FBIS SOV, December 5, 2003.

22. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, October 2, 2003, FBIS 

SOV, October 3, 2003.

23. Moscow, Interfax in Russian, October 2, 2003, FBIS SOV, 

October 3, 2003.

24. Aktual’nye Zadachi Razvitie Vooruzhennykh Sil’ Rossiiskoi 

Federatsii, Moscow, 2003, www.mil.ru (henceforth Aktual’nye 

Zadachi), pp. 16, 18.
74

25. Alexander Golts, “Russia-NATO Relations: Between 

Cooperation and Confrontation,” Moscow Defense Brief, No. 2, 

2005.

26. Stephen Blank, “Potemkin’s Treadmill: Russian Military 

Modernization,” Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic 

Asia 2005-2006: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty, 

Seattle: National Bureau of Research, Asia, 2005, pp. 174-205; 

Moscow, Interfax, in English, June 22, 2003, FBIS SOV, June 22, 

2003.

27. Ibid.

28. Moscow, RBSC Daily in Russian, February 22, 2005, FBIS 

SOV, February 22, 2005; “Russia Slams U.S. 2006 Freedom 

Agenda,” www.mosnews.com, December 31, 2005; Golts, “Russia 

At Risk of Collapsing, Putin Says,” Associated Press, April 18, 

2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Interview with Chief of the 

Presidential Staff Dmitri Medvedev,” Ekspert Weekly, April 5, 

2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Vladislav Surkov’s Secret 

Speech: How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracy,” 

www.mosnews.com, July 12, 2005; “Interview with Vladislav 

Surkov,” Moscow, Ekho Moskvy, FBIS SOV, September 29, 2004. It 

should be noted that in his interview with the Dutch Newspaper, 

Handelsbad, on November 1, 2005, Putin explicitly denied that 

he is afraid of such contingencies, raising the question of who is 

telling the truth, “Interview with Dutch Newspaper Handelsbad,” 

www.president.ru, November 1, 2005.

29. Ibid.

30. A. V. Grushko, “Russia-NATO Twenty Appears To Be 

Working,” Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, July 2002; Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs, Internet, July 9, 2002, FBIS SOV, July 9, 2002.

31. Ivanov, “Maturing Relationship.”

32. Mission of the Russian Federation to the European 

Communities, Press Service, “Speech by Russian Deputy Minister 

of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Chizhov at the Conference ‘Russia 

and EU Common Foreign Policy Aims and Challenges’,” Berlin, 

February 27, 2004; Sergei Ivanov, “International Security in the 

Context of the Russia-NATO Relationship,” Speech given at the 

Munich Conference on Security Policy, February 7, 2004, www.

securityconference.de/konferenzen/reder.php?menu 2004.

33. Voronin, p. 22 (italics in the original).
75

34. “Russia To Build Ties With NATO Taking Into Account Its 

Interests,” ITAR-TASS, May 2, 2006.

35. Olga Berezintseva, “Russia and the Alliance,” Kommersant, 

April 21, 2006, p. 10, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

36. ‘Yuri Baluevsky, First Deputy Chief of the Russian General 

Staff, “NATO Expansion Will Strike a Fatal Blow to the Treaty on 

Conventional Arms in Europe,” Izvestiya, March 3, 2004, retrieved 

from Lexis-Nexis.

37. Mikhail Tuliev, “The Treaty on Conventional Arms in 

Europe and Security of European States,” Voyenno-Promyshlennyi 

Kurier, November 16-22, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

38. Ibid.

39. Viktor Yasmann and Liz Fuller, ““Russia Threatens to 

Withdraw from the CFE Treaty,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, 

Russian Political Weekly, Vol. VI, No. 2, January 26, 2006.

40. “Minister Wants Full Transparency in Russian-NATO 

Relations,” Baltic News Service, December 27, 2005, retrieved from 

Lexis-Nexis.

41. Statement of Henry A. Obering III, Director, Missile Defense 

Agency, U.S. Air Force, to Committee on Senate Appropriations, 

Subcommittee on Defense, May 10, 2006, retrieved from LexisNexis.

42. Martin Walker, “NATO Means Business To Protect 

Pipelines,” UPI, October 13, 2005.

43. Gunnar Arbman and Charles Thornton, Russia’s Tactical and 

Nuclear Weapons, Part I: Background and Policy Issues, Stockholm: 

Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2003; Part II: Technical Issues 

and Policy Recommendations, Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research 

Agency, 2005.

44. Sergei Ivanov, “Russia Must Be Strong,” Wall Street Journal, 

January 11, 2006, p. 14.

45. Vitaly Moroz, “Konstantin Sivkov of the Center of Military 

Strategic Studies of the General Staff is Worried by the Threat 

Posed by NATO,” Krasnaya Zvezda, July 13, 2005, p. 1.

46. Ibid.

47. Ivanov, “Russia Must Be Strong,” p. 14.

48. “Minister Wants Full Transparency;” Ivanov, “Maturing 

Partnership.”
76

49. Sieff; Interfax, February 27, 2006; Yasmann and Fuller.

50. Moscow, Interfax, “Diplomatic Panorama,” in Russian, June 

28, 2004, FBIS SOV, June 28, 2004; “Press Conference With Deputy 

Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov, November 28, 2003, retrieved 

from Lexis-Nexis; see also his subsequent Press Conference of 

April 12, 2004, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

51. Ivanov, “Maturing Partnership.”

52. Voronin, p. 22.

53. Vladimir Socor, “Russia Acknowledges Punishing 

Moldova’s Western Orientation,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, November 

11, 2005.

54. Conversations with U.S. diplomats in Washington, DC, 

March 1, 2006; Smith, p. 30.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Dmitry Trenin, “Russia, the EU, and the Common 

Neighborhood,” Centre for European Reform, Essays, 2005, p. 2.

58. Steven D. Roper, “Federalization and Constitution-Making 

as an Instrument of Conflict Resolution,” Demokratizatsiia, XII, No. 

4, Fall, 2004, p. 536.

59. John P. Le Donne, The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire 

1650-1831, Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2004.

60. Jamestown Daily Monitor, June 18, 2000.

61. “Moscow’s Plan To Build Military Base in Moldova 

Rejected-Voronin,” Interfax, October 30, 2005.

62. Smith, p. 41.

63. Ibid., p. 43.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid., p. 44.

66. Ibid.

67. Fedor Lukyanov, “Base Element in Pentagon’s Files: Why 

Is United States Moving Its Bases East?” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in 

Russian, December 31, 2003, FBIS SOV, December 31, 2003.

68. “Russian Foreign Minister Voices Caveats Over New 

NATO Bases,” RIA Novosti, April 28, 2006, retrieved from LexisNexis.
77

69. Alexey Lyashchenko, “The Year Is Coming to an End—The 

Conflicts Remain,” Krasnaya Zvezda, in Russian, December 30, 

2003, FBIS SOV, December 30, 2003; Aktual’nye Zadachi.

70. Smith, pp. 33, 35-36, 40, 48; “Russia Will View NATO Bases 

in Baltics as a Threat-Defense Minister,” Interfax-AVN Military 

News Agency, Moscow, June 10, 2005, FBIS SOV, June 10, 2005.

71. Council on Foreign Relations, Russia’s Wrong Direction: 

What the United States Can and Should Do, New York, 2006.

72. Shaolei Feng, “Understanding U.S. Unilateralism and Its 

Impact on East Asia,” Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. XVII, 

No. 3, October, 2005, p. 274.

73. Vladimir Putin, Annual Address to the Federal Assembly 

of the Russian Federation, May 10, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/

speeches/2006/05/10/1823_type70029type82912_105566.shtml.

74. Phillip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the 

Course of History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, pp. 634-638; 

Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and Stephen Welch, “Russia and the 

United States After 9/11,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 

XVII, No. 2, 2005, pp. 282-288; Stephen Blank, “The Code and 

Civil-Military Relations: The Russian Case,” Gert de Nooy, ed., 

Cooperative Security, the OSCE, And Its Code of Conduct, The Hague: 

Kluwer Law International, 1996, pp. 93-112.

75. Ibid; “Russia Slams U.S. 2006 Freedom Agenda.”

76. Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the U.S. Can and Should 

Do, New York: Council on Foreign Relations,, 2006, www.cfr.

org; Pavel Baev, “Moscow Counts the Pros and Cons of Selective 

Cooperation,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, March 13, 2006.

77. Timofei Bordachev, “Russia’s Europe Dilemma: Democratic 

Partner vs. Authoritarian Satellite,” Andrew Kuchins and Dmitri 

Trenin, eds., Russia: The Next Ten Years, A Collection of Essays to 

Mark Ten Years of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Moscow: Carnegie 

Center, 2004, p. 120. 

78. Steven Rosefielde, Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal 

Superpower, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Stefan 

Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence, London; Routledge, 2005; 

Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism: Washington, 

DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Praeger, 2004; 

Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime, New York: Scribner’s, 

1975.
78

79. Quoted in Boris Rumer, “Central Asia: At the End of the 

Transition,” Boris Rumer, ed., Central Asia At the End of Transition, 

Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe & Co. Inc., 2005, p. 47.

80. Dmitry Trenin, “Russia Leaves the West,” Foreign Affairs, 

Vol. LXXXV, No. 4, July-August, 2006, p. 87.

81. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 

1994, p. 152. More recently, we should take for example the agreement at the OSCE’s Istanbul conference in 1999 to remove troops 

form Moldova and Georgia or the international accords it has 

signed relating to democratic practices in its domestic governance 

and civil-military relations, e.g., Blank, pp. 93-112.

82. Interfax, November 11, 2005.

83. “Lavrov: West Needs to Acknowledge Russia’s Interests,” 

Interfax, November 11, 2005.

84. Dmitry Trenin, Reading Russia Right, Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Policy Brief, No. 42, 

October, 2005, p. 8 (italics in the original). This certainly is the line 

of nationalists like Alexei Pushkov, already in 2000, “Russia and 

the New World Order,” International Affairs, No. 6, 2000, p. 10.

85. Vladislav V. Froltsov, “The Post-Soviet Puzzle and Western 

Democracies,” Connections: The Quarterly Journal, Winter 2005, pp. 

99-101.

86. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, January 11, 2006.

87. “Interview With Sergei Yastrzhembsky,” Ekho Moskvy, May 

22, 2004, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

88. Natalia Ratiani, “The European Union Is Tired of Making 

Exceptions for Russia,” Izvestiya, February 26, 2004, p. 2, retrieved 

from Lexis-Nexis.

89. Andrei Kokoshin, Reflections on Russia’s Past, Present, and 

Future, Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, 

Harvard University, Strengthening Democratic Institutions 

Project, 1998, p. 31, is an excellent example of this pervasive 

mentality. At the time he was Deputy Defense Minister and 

soon after Secretary of the Defense Council, Moscow, Rossiyskaya 

Gazeta, November 6, 1996, FBIS SOV, 96-217, November 8, 1996; 

Address by Y. M. Primakov to the OSCE Permanent Council, 

Vienna, September 20, 1996, p. 2, transcript made available by the 

Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United States.
79

90. Rolf H. W. Theen, “Quo Vadis, Russia? The Problem of 

National Identity and State-Building,” Gordon B. Smith, ed., StateBuilding in Russia: The Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge of the Future, 

Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe & Co., Inc., 1999, pp. 41-54. 

91. Stanislav Secrieriu, “Russia’s Foreign Policy Under Putin: 

‘CIS Project’ Renewed,” UNISCI Discussion Papers, No. 10, January, 

2006, p. 291.

92. Maura Reynolds, “Moscow Has Chechnya Back—Now 

What?” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2000.

93. Kholmogorov, p. 47; Ivan Ivanov, p. 37; Trenin, “Russia 

Leaves the West,” p. 87.

94. Quoted in Michael Emerson, “From an Awkward 

Partnership to a Greater Europe: A European Perspective,” Dana 

Allin and Michael H. Emerson, eds., Readings in European Security, 

III, Brussels and London; Center for European Policy Studies and 

International Institute for Security Studies, 2005, p. 19. 

95. “Strategiia Razvittia Otnoshenii Rossiiskoi Federatsii s 

Evropeiskim Soiuzom na Srednesrochnuiu Perspektivu (2000-

2010),” Diplomaticheskii Vestnik, November 1999, www.ln.mis.ru/

website/dip_vest.nsf, items 1.1., 1.6, and 1.8.2000, cited in Hannes 

Adomeit and Heidi Reisinger, Russia’s Role in Post-Soviet Territory: 

Decline of Military Power and Political Influence, Oslo: Norwegian 

Institute for Defence Studies, Forsvarstudier No. 4, 2002, p. 5.

96. Julie Wilhelmsen and Geir Flikke, “Evidence of Russia’s 

Bush Doctrine in the CIS,” European Security, Vol. XIV, No. 3, 

September 2005, pp. 387-417.

97. Thomas Ambrosio, Challenging America’s Global Preeminence: 

Russia’s Quest for Multipolarity, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, p. 54.

98. Yuri Borko, “Rethinking Russia-EU Relations,” Russia in 

Global Affairs, Vol. II, No. 3, July-September 2004, p. 171.

99. Lieutenant General V. I. Ostankov, “Geopolitical Problems 

and Possible Solutions in the Context of RF Security,” Voyennaya 

Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 1, 2005, p. 23.

100. Pushkov, pp. 13-14.

101. Secrieriu, pp. 289-308.

102. Ivan Ivanov, The Twain Shall Meet, Washington, DC: 

Atlantic Council of the United States, 2002, p. 37.
80

103. Hannes Adomeit and Heidi Reisinger, Russia’s Role in 

Post-Soviet Territory: Decline of Military Power and Political Influence, 

Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Forsvarstudier 

No. 4. 2002, p. 5.

104. Borko, p. 171.

105. The Twain Shall Meet.

106. Dmitry Polikanov, “NATO-Russian Relations: Present and 

Future,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. XXV, No. 3, December 

2004, pp. 481-483.

107. Ibid. This was the dominant theme of Russian presentations 

at the Biennial Conference of European Security Institutions, 

January 22-24, 1996, in Moscow. See also Sergei Rogov, et al., 

Security Concerns of the New Russia, Vol. II, Alexandria VA: Center 

for Naval Analysis, 1995, p. 34, where this demand is made 

explicitly; and Lena Jonson, “In Search of a Doctrine: Russian 

Interventionism in Conflicts in Its ‘Near Abroad’,” Low Intensity 

Conflict & Law Enforcement, Vol. V, No. 3, Winter 1996, p. 447.

108. Moscow, ITAR-TASS in English, July 19, 2000, FBIS SOV, 

July 19, 2000; Dmitry Danilov, “Russia and European Security,” 

Dov Lynch, ed., What Russia Sees, Chaillot Paper, No. 74, Paris, 

Institute for European Security Studies of the European Union, 

2005, pp. 91-95; Moscow, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Transcript 

of Remarks and Replies to Media Questions by Russian Foreign 

Minister Sergei Lavrov Following the Russia-NATO Council 

Session,” Brussels, December 9, 2004, FBIS SOV, December 9, 

2004.

109. Polikanov, p. 482.

110. Ibid., pp. 483-484.

111. A. Kelin, “Attitude to NATO Expansion: Calmly Negative,” 

International Affairs (Moscow), No. 1, 2004, p. 17.

112. Ibid., p. 21.

113. Hilary D. Driscoll and S. Neil MacFarlane, “Russia and 

NATO After the End of the Cold War,” Charles Krupnick, ed., 

Almost NATO: Partners and Players in Central and Eastern European 

Security, Lanham, MD, and Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield 

Publishers, 2003, p. 253.

114. Kelin, p. 21.
81

115. Sergei Medvedev, “Power, Space, and Russian Foreign 

Policy,” Ted Hopf, ed., Understandings of Russian Foreign Policy, 

University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, 

pp. 46-47.

116. Cited in Konstantin Syroezhkin, “Russia: On the Path to 

Empire?” in Rumer, p. 123.

117. R. Craig Nation, Beyond the Cold War: Change and Continuity 

in U.S.-Russian Relations, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. 1997, pp. 

17-25. 

118. Tuomas Forsberg, “Russia’s Relationship with NATO: 

Qualitative Change or Old Wine in New Bottles,” Journal 

of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. XXI, No. 3, 

September 2005 pp. 334-339. 

119. Ibid., pp. 339-343; Alexander Vershbow, U.S. Ambassador 

to Moscow, “The Future of NATO-Russia Relations,” Remarks to 

the Participants in the NATO Operational Course at the General Staff 

Academy, Moscow, June 10, 2005, moscow.usembassy.gov/links/

statement.php? record_=143; Igor Tarasenko, Long-Term Possibilities 

for NATO-Russia Naval Security Cooperation, Partnership for 

Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies 

Institutes, Athena Papers, Series No. 3, 2005; Major General Peter 

Williams, “NATO-Russia Military Cooperation: From Dialogue 

to Interoperability?” RUSI Journal, October, 2005, pp. 44-47.

120. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, November 1, 2005; 

“Russia Will Not Cooperate With NATO—Defense Minister.” 

Beyond these statements, for Ivanov, see his speech to the 2004 

Munich Wehrkunde Conference cited in Tarasenko, p. 12, and 

Keynote Address, HE Sergei Ivanov, Minister of Defense of the Russian 

Federation, London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 

July 13, 2004; Federal News Service, Official Kremlin International 

News Broadcast, FBIS SOV, July 14, 2004; for Baluevsky, see Roger 

McDermott, “General Baluevsky Building Trust With NATO,” 

Eurasia Daily Monitor, November 16, 2004; for Putin, see “Russia: 

NATO Chief in Moscow for Talks With Putin,” Radio Free Europe, 

Radio Liberty Features, June 24, 2005.

121. Speech of President Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the 

Security Council, January 28, 2005, Moscow, Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs, Internet, January 31, 2005, FBIS SOV, January 31, 2005.
82

122. NATO’s New Role in the NIS Area, Warsaw: Centre for 

Eastern Studies, www.osw.pl, 2005 p. 39; Vershbow; Tarasenko; 

Williams, pp. 44-47; Forsberg, p. 342-343; Voronin, p. 23.

123. Polikanov, p. 486.

124. Eugene Kogan, The State of the Russian Aviation Industry 

and Export Opportunities, Camberley, Surrey: Conflict Studies 

Research Centre, 2006, p. 19; “First Slovakian MiG-29 Fighters 

Achieve NATO Compatibility,” International Defense Review, 

February, 1, 2006.

125. Sergei Smolnikov, “Russia’s Euro-Atlantic Puzzle,” Seton 

Hall Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, Winter-Spring, 

2001, p. 59.

126. Donald C. Daniel and Michael I. Yarymovych, “Russia 

and NATO: Increased Interaction in Defense Research and 

Technology,” Defense Horizons, National Defense University, Fort 

Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, No. 49, 2005, pp. 3-4.

127. Ibid., p. 5.

128. Yuri Karnakov, “The Generals Press On With CIS 

Integration,” Russkiy Telegraf, April 3, 1998, retrieved from LexisNexis; Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in Russian, June 20, 2000, FBIS SOV, 

June 21, 2000; Moscow, Interfax, in English, September 28, 2000, 

FBIS SOV, September 28, 2000. 

129. Vladimir Mukhin, “ Only in the CIS Does Free Integration 

Exist: United States Interfering in Unification Process of CIS 

Defense Departments,” Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, 

May 21, 2004, FBIS SOV, May 21, 2004.

130. www.kremlin.ru, “President Putin’s Interview With French 

Television Company France 3,” May 7, 2005; Svetlana Babaeva, 

“Defense Minister: I Don’t Feel That I’m Perceived As a Hawk,” 

Moscow, RIA Novosti, July 13, 2004, in Russian, FBIS SOV July 13, 

2005. 

131. Donald and Yarymovych, p. 4.

132. Vladimir Rubanov, “Outlook for Cooperation Between 

the Defense and Industrial Complexes of Russia and the NATO 

Countries,” Robert E. Hunter and Sergey M. Rogov, eds., Engaging 

Russia as Partner and Participant: The Next Stage of NATO-Russia 

Relations, Santa Monica, CA; Rand Corporation, 2004, p. 64.
83

133. Nikolay Poroskov, “Tell Me, Who is Your Enemy,” 

Moscow, Vremya Novostey, November 2, 2004, FBIS SOV, 

November 2, 2004.

134. General Alexei Mikhailovich Moskovskiy, “Confidence in 

Tomorrow,” Moscow Voyennyi-Promyshlennyi Kuryer, in Russian, 

March 10, 2004, FBIS SOV, March 10, 2004.

135. FBIS SOV, November 2, 2004.

136. Interfax, November 15, 2005.

137. Grushko, FBIS SOV, July 9, 2002; “NATO-Russia Relations: 

A New Quality: Declaration by Heads of State and Government of 

NATO Member States and the Russian Federation,” Rome, May 

28, 2002, www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b020528e.htm; NATO-Russia 

Council, Key Areas of NRC Cooperation, August 30, 2004, www.

nato.int/issues/nrc/cooperation; Interfax, December 2, 2003.

138. NATO’s New Role in the NIS Area, p. 39; Vershbow; 

Tarasenko; Williams, pp. 44-47; Forsberg, p. 342-343; Voronin, p. 

23.

139. Tarasenko, pp. 14, 22.

140. Judy Dempsey, “Moscow Asks NATO for Help in 

Restructuring,” Financial Times, October 26, 2001, p. 2. For the 

current situation in the Russian armed forces, see Blank, pp. 174-

205.

141. Forsberg, p. 343.

142. Peter B. Zwack, “A NATO-Russia Contingency 

Command,” Parameters, XXXIV, No. 1, Spring, 2004, pp. 89-103.

143. Barry Adams, “NATO-Russia Relations: The Evolving 

Culture of Security Cooperation,” The Monitor, Athens: University 

of Georgia Center for International Trade and Security, Vol. XI, 

No. 1, Spring, 2005, pp. 27-28.

144. Richard Weitz, Revitalizing US-Russia Security Cooperation: 

Practical Measures, Adelphi Papers No. 377, London: International 

institute for Strategic Studies and Oxford University Press, 2006,

pp. 69-70.

145. Ibid., pp. 70-71.

146. Nikolai Poroskov, “Russian-European Umbrella,” Vremya 

Novostey, March 12, 2004, Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press

(henceforth CDPP), Vol. LVI, No. 10, April 7, 2004, p. 22.
84

147. Interview with Chief of the RF Armed Forces General Staff 

Colonel-General Yuriy Baluevsky, Voyennye Znamiya, Moscow, 

March 21, 2005, FBIS SOV, March 21, 2005.

148. FBIS SOV, June 19, 2005.

149. “Agreement Among the States Parties to the North Atlantic 

Treaty and the Other States Participating in the Partnership for 

Peace Regarding the Status of Their Forces,” June 19, 2005, www.

nato.int/docu/basictxt/b95016a.htm.

150. “Russia, NATO Agree to Improve Operational 

Compatibility of Their Troops,” The Russia Journal, June 9, 

2005, www.russiajournal.ru/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=48326; 

“Statement: Meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at the Level of 

Foreign Ministers,” NATO Headquarters, Brussels, December 9, 

2004, www.nato.int/docu/pr/2004/p04120-9e.htm.

151. Ibid.; “NATO-Russia Action Plan on Terrorism,” Brussels, 

NATO HQ, December 9, 2004, www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b041209ae.htm.

152. Williams, p. 45; Tarasenko, pp. 28, 59.

153. Polikanov, pp. 482-484.

154. Ivan Yegorov, “Russian General Staff Predicts NATO 

Will Break Up,” Gazeta, No. 64, April 14, 2004, p. 4, retrieved from 

Lexis-Nexis.

155. Nikolay Pakhmonov, “NATO Has Lost the War in 

Iraq,” Moscow, www.politkom.ru, November 19, 2004, FBIS SOV, 

November 19, 2004.

156. Viktor Litovkin, “Russo-NATO Friendship Still a Long 

Way Off,” RIA Novosti, October 22, 2004.

157. Forsberg, p. 343.

158. Ibid., pp. 343-344; FBIS SOV, June 19, 2005.

159. Forsberg, p. 344; “Press Conference With Deputy Foreign 

Minister Vladimir Chizhov, November 28, 2003, retrieved from 

Lexis-Nexis; see also his subsequent Press Conference of April 12, 

2004, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

160. Polikanov, p. 487.

161. Weitz, pp. 71-72.

162. Ibid., p. 72.

163. Ibid.
85

164. Ibid.

165. Viktor Litovkin, “Everything Is Fine, My Beautiful 

Marquise,” Russia Profile, No. 4, 2006, p. 16; Aleksei Lyashshcenko, 

“The Baltic States Lost Their Independence After They Joined 

NATO,” Moscow, Krasnaya Zvezda, in Russian, January 27, 2005, 

FBIS SOV, January 27, 2005.

166. Ibid., pp. 490-491; for confirmation see also “NATO’s New 

Role in the NIS Area,” pp. 41-43.

167. Ibid.

168. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in Russian, November 17, 2004, 

FBIS SOV, November 17, 2004.

169. Vitaly Tseplyayev, “UN and NATO: Primakov Is 

Concerned About Mandates,” Moscow, Argumenty i Fakty, in 

Russian, April 19, 2004, FBIS SOV, April, 19, 2004. 

170. Sergei Ivanov, “Russia Rethinks Security: Wanted New 

Institutions, Global Partners,” Defense News, December 1, 2003, p. 

44; Ivanov, Address by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, “Russia’s 

Armed Forces and Its Geopolitical Priorities,” Moscow, www.polit.

ru, February 3, 2004, FBIS SOV, February 3, 2004.

171. Nikolai Poroskov, “3.1 Internal Affairs Army,” Vremya 

Novostei, March 17, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis. 

172. FBIS SOV, June 19, 2005; “Russia Will Not Cooperate With 

NATO—Defense Minister.”

173. “NATO Means Business to Protect Pipelines.”

174. Judy Dempsey, “EU Urges an Energy Pact With Russians: 

But Poland Objects and Offers Plan That Excludes Moscow,” 

International Herald Tribune, March 9, 2006, p. 1.

175. “Energy: NATO Considers Role in Increasing Energy 

Security,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Features, February 24, 

2006.

176. Tarasenko, p. 59; NATO’s New Role in the NIS Area, p. 38.

177. Vladimir Chizhov, “Russia-EU The Foreign Policy 

Dimension,” International Affairs, No. 5, 2005, pp. 135-137.

178. NATO’s New Role in the NIS Area, p. 38, www.osw.pl.

179. Driscoll and MacFarlane, p. 253.

180. “Agreement Among the States Parties to the North Atlantic 

Treaty and the Other States Participating in the Partnership 
86

for Peace Regarding the Status of Their Forces,” June 19, 2005; 

“NATO-Russia Action Plan on Terrorism.”

181. J. Michael Greig, Paul F. Diehl, “The PeacekeepingPeacemaking Dilemma,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 

XXXXIX, No. 4, 2005, pp. 621-645.

182. Conversations with American diplomats, Washington, 

DC, March 1, 2006.

183. Moscow, Interfax, in Russian, June 16, 2005, FBIS SOV, 

June 16, 2005.

184. Moscow, AVN, in English, March 15, 2005, FBIS SOV, 

March 15, 2005; Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, March 15, 2005, 

FBIS SOV, March 15, 2005; RIA Novosti, November 25, 2005. 

185. Sergei K. Oznobishchev, “For Decision-Makers: Russia 

and the Baltic Countries: New Relations in a New Context?” 

Mirovaya Ekonmika i Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, in Russian, 

December 2003, FBIS SOV, December 1, 2003.

186. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, March 30, 2005, FBIS 

SOV, March 30, 2005.

187. Carl Mortished, “Ex-Soviet Aircraft May Ferry NATO 

Weaponry,” London Times, March 12, 2005.

188. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, April 13, 2005, FBIS SOV, 

April 13, 2005; “Yuri Baluevsky’s Talks with NATO,” Krasnaya 

Zvezda, November 18, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

189. Tarasenko.

190. FBIS SOV, December 5, 2003.

191. Vitaly Denisov, “The Baltic Is Exporting Stability,” 

Moscow, u Krasnaya Zvezda, in Russian, July 1, 2003, FBIS SOV, 

July 1, 2003; Moscow, Agenstvo Voyennykh Novostey, Internet 

Version, in English, April 19, 2005, FBIS SOV April 19, 2005.

192. “NATO, Russia To Hold Terrorism-at-Sea War Game,” 

www.Russiajournal.com, June 10, 2004; McDermott.

193. David J. Smith, “Opinion: Turkey Needs to Let NATO 

Safeguard the Black Sea,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 12, 2005, 

p. 21.

194. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, January 11, 2005, FBIS 

SOV, January 11, 2005.
87

195. “Russia Objects to NATO Plans for Patrolling Black Sea,” 

www.mosnews.com, October 24, 2005.

196. Leonid Gankin, “Turkish Troops Landed Near Odessa 

With Support From Ukrainian Armored Vehicles,” Moscow,

Kommersant, in Russian, July 1, 2003, FBIS SOV, July 1, 2003.

197. FBIS SOV, June 19, 2005; Vladimir, Bogdanov, “Sea of 

Special Significance. The Black Sea Region Is Becoming a Zone 

of Increasing Rivalry Among the Great Powers,” Moscow, 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, January 3, 2006, FBIS SOV, January 3, 2006.

198. Smith; Umit Eginsoy, “Turks Oppose U.S. Black Sea Force 

Move,” www.defensenews.com, March 14, 2006; Igor Torbakov, 

“Turkey Sides With Moscow Against Washington on Black Sea 

Force,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, March 3, 2006.

199. “NATO Chief Says Body Not to Directly Settle Conflicts 

in Former Soviet Area,” Moscow, Agenstvo Voyennykh Novostey, 

in English, June 24, 2005, FBIS SOV, June 25, 2005; “NATO Chief 

Says No Military Bases To Be Deployed Along Russian Borders,” 

Ibid.; “Ukraine: NATO Chief Says Alliance Not to Interfere in 

Russian Black Sea Fleet Issue,” Kiev, Kanal 5 TV in Ukrainian, 

June 27, 2005, FBIS SOV, June 27, 2005.

200. Moscow, Oborona I Bezopasnost’ Kolonka Analitika, in 

Russian, June 23, 2005, FBIS SOV, June 25, 2005.

201. Rossiyskaya Gazeta,”Interview with Sergei Ivanov,” May 4, 

2005, FBIS SOV May 4, 2005.

202. Mary Elise Sarotte, “Transatlantic Tension and Threat 

Perception,” Naval War College Review, Vol. LVIII, No. 4, Autumn 

2005, p. 32.

203. Blank, “Potemkin’s Treadmill,” pp. 174-205.

204. Timofei Bordachev, “Russia’s Europe Dilemma: Democratic Partner vs. Authoritarian Satellite,” Kuchins and Trenin, 

eds., Russia: The Next Ten Years, p. 120. 

205. “Istanbul Summit Communiqué: Issued by the Heads of 

State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North 

Atlantic Council,” Istanbul, June 28-29, 2004, www.Nato.int/docu/

pr/2004/p04-096e.htm, henceforth Istanbul Initiative; “Georgia, 

Azerbaijan, and Armenia Included in the European Neighborhood 

Policy,” www.welcomeeurope.com/news, July 5, 2004; Ahto Lobjaskas, 

“Azerbaijan: EU Keen To Get Involved In Nagorno-Karabakh 

Peace Process,” Eurasia Insight, www.eurasianet.org, May 18, 2004; 
88

Nicholas Fiorenza, “EU Increases Number of Police, Military 

Missions,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, November 30, 2004, www4.janes.

com/subscribe/jdw/doc.

206. “NATO’s New Role in the NIS Area,” pp. 41-43; Driscoll 

and MacFarlane, p. 253.

207. “Ivanov Says Russia, EU Not Only Partners But Also 

Competitors,” ITAR-TASS, March 3, 2004; Nicu Popescu, The EU 

in Moldova—Settling Conflicts in the Neighborhood, Occasional Paper 

of the European Union Institute for Security Studies, No. 60, 2005, 

p. 21; Aktual’nye Zadachi Razvitie Vooruzhennykh Sil’ Rossiiskoi 

Federatsii, Moscow, 2003, www.mil.ru, henceforth Aktual’nye 

Zadachi.

208. Lena Jonson, Vladimir Putin and Central Asia: The Shaping 

of Russian Foreign Policy, London and New York, I. B. Tauris & 

Co., pp. 191-192.

209. Alexander Mineyev, “Russia Offers NATO to Cooperate 

With CSTO,” ITAR-TASS News Agency, Brussels, May 11, 2005, 

retrieved from Lexis-Nexis; “Russia’s Putin Elected Head of 

CIS Security Body, Suggests Cooperation With NATO,” www.

mosnews.com, June 23, 2005; “Moscow to Insist on NATO-CSTO 

Cooperation-Source,” Interfax, December 16, 2005, retrieved from 

Lexis-Nexis.

210. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, February 15, 

2006.

211. Interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav 

Trubnikov, Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, May 12, 

2004, FBIS SOV, May 14, 2004; “U.S. Bases Pose Threat to Russia—

Chief of Post-Soviet Security Pact,” www.mosnews.com, November 

12, 2005; “Bush Troop Redeployment Plan: A Threat to Russia?” 

CDPP, Vol. LVI, No. 33, September 15, 2004, pp. 1-5.

212. “Moscow,” NTV in Russian, July 2, 2005, FBIS SOV, July 

2, 2005.

213. Charles Clover, “Ukraine Looks East,” FT.com, January 

21, 2001, p. 2; Charles Clover, “Kiev Warned on Neutral Policy,” 

Financial Times, July 12, 2001, p. 1.

214. Anna Roze and Andrei Terekhov, “Sergei Ivanov Didn’t 

Say Anything Dramatic,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 15, 

2005, p. 5, cited in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol. LVII, 

No. 37, October 12, 2005, p. 13.
89

215. “Russia Will View NATO Bases in Baltics as a ThreatDefense Minister,” Interfax-AVN Military News Agency, Moscow, 

June 10, 2005.

216. Thom Shanker, “Ukraine-NATO Deal ‘No Threat’ to 

Russia,” New York Times, October 24, 2005, p. 3; “Belarus ‘Calm’ 

About Ukraine’s Plans to Join NATO,” Belaplan, November 2, 

2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

217. “U.S. Bases Pose Threat to Russia—Chief of Post-Soviet 

Security Pact,” www.mosnews.com, November 12, 2005.

218. Socor; Chizhov, “Press Conference.”

219. “Russian Military Accuse NATO of Deploying Strike 

Aircraft in Baltic,” Interfax-AVN, November 7, 2005.

220. “Air Force Chief Mocks NATO,” Associated Press, 

September 27, 2005; “Two Russian Generals Reprimanded 

Over Crash of SU-27 Fighter in Lithuania, “Baltic News Service, 

November 10, 2005; Alvars Ozolins,” Unprecedented Strictness,” 

Diena, November 12, 2005, retrieved from Lexis-Nexis. 

221. Vladimir Voda, “Lithuania Accuses Russia of Perfidious 

Crash,” Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol. LVII, No. 38, 

October 19, 2005, p. 11.

222. Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism,

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

2004; Keith C. Smith, Russian Energy Politics in the Baltics, Poland, 

and the Ukraine: A New Stealth Imperialism? Washington, DC: Center 

for Strategic and International Studies, 2004; Richard J. Krickus, 

Iroin Troikas: The New Threat From the East, Carlisle Barracks, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006.

223. “Russian Politician Explains Refusal to Acknowledge 

Occupation of Estonia,” Postimes website, Tallinn, November 

1, 2005, BBC Monitoring, retrieved from Johnson’s Russia list, 

November 7, 2005.

224. Bugajski; Smith.

225. Federal News Service, National Public Radio Interview and 

Listener Call-In With Russian President Vladimir Putin, National 

Public Radio, November 15, 2001, “Putin Says Russia Had a Good 

Year in National Call-In,” December 24, 2001, retrieved from 

Lexis-Nexis.

226. Ibid. 
90

227. “Russian Politician Explains Refusal.”

228. Vladimir Socor, “Moldova Decries ‘Russian Occupation.’ 

Draws Mixed Western Response,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, December 

3, 2004; and Idem., “Russia Proves OSCE’s Irrelevance on Moldova 

at Year-End meeting,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, December 14, 2004.

229. FBIS SOV, May 14, 2004; “U.S. Bases Pose Threat to 

Russia”; “Bush Troop Redeployment Plan: A Threat to Russia,” 

CDPP, Vol. LVI, No. 33, September 15, 2004, pp. 1-5.

230. Ibid.

231. “NATO Does Not View South Caucasus as Area of 

Competition With Russia,” Panarmenian Network, November 22, 

2005, www.panarmenian.net/news.

232. Interfax Russia & CIS Presidential Bulletin Report for January 

28, 2005; Interfax Russia & CIS Diplomatic Panorama for January 31, 

2005; “NATO’s New Role in the NIS Area,” p. 42.

233. “The Case of Ukraine, NATO Inches Closer,” Rosbalt, April 

22, 2004, www.rosbaltnews.com, accessed on November 25, 2005.

234. Ibid.

235. Ibid.

236. Mikhail Khodarenok, “The Military Program of Viktor 

Yushchenko,” Voyenno-Promyshlennyi Kurier, January 19, 2005, 

FBIS SOV, January 21, 2005.

237. Ibid.

238. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Newsline, from Radio 

Mayak, Moscow, October 11, 2005, www.ft.com. 

239. “Russian Minister’s Military Pact Comment Seen as 

Warning to Rice in Central Asia,” NTV, Mir, October 11, 2005, 

retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.

240. “Moscow, NTV in Russian, July 2, 2005, FBIS SOV, July 

2, 2005.

241. Charles Clover, “Ukraine Looks East,” FT.com, January 

21, 2001, p. 2; Charles Clover, “Kiev Warned on Neutral Policy,” 

Financial Times, July 12, 2001, p. 1.

242. Stephen Blank,”Security and Democracy in the Black 

Sea Basin,” Insight Turkey, Vol. VII, No. 1, January-March, 2005, 

pp. 108-117; Daniel S. Hamilton, “The Strategic Implications of 

Enlargement,” Daniel S. Hamilton, ed., The New Frontiers of Europe, 
91

Lisbon and Washington: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 

and the Nitze School of International Studies of Johns Hopkins 

University, 2005, pp. 146-150; Ozkan Duman and Dimitris 

Tsarouhas, “‘Civilianization’ in Greece Versus ‘Demilitarization’ 

in Turkey: A Comparative Study of Civil-Military Relations and 

the Impact of the European Union,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 

XXXII, No. 2, April 2006, pp. 405-423. 

243. Tesmur Basilia, “Eurasian Commentary,” Jan H, Kalicki 

and Eugene K. Lawson, eds., Russian-Eurasian Renaissance?: U.S. 

Trade and Investment in Russia and Eurasia, Stanford, CA: Stanford 

University Press, 2003, p. 163.

244. Ibid., p. 166.

245. Clover, “Ukraine Looks East”; Clover, “Kiev Warned on 

Neutral Policy,” p. 1.

246. Hunter and Rogov, eds.; Tarasenko.

247. Vladimir Socor, “Kyiv’s Political Stalemate Complicates 

Relations with NATO,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, June 5, 2006; 

Vladimir Socor, “Weak Authority Emboldens Anti-NATO 

Protests in Ukraine,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, June 2, 2006; “Russia’s 

Support for Ossetian Unification,” Jane’s Foreign Report, May 11, 

2006; Stephen Blank, “Reading Putin’s Military Tea Leaves,” 

Eurasia Daily Monitor, May 19, 2006.

248. Oksana Antonenko and Katherine Pinnick, eds., Russia 

and the European Union, London and New York, Routledge and 

the IISS, 2005; Dov Lynch, ed., What Russia Sees, Chaillot Paper, 

No. 74, Paris, Institute for European Security Studies of the 

European Union, 2005; Andrew Monaghan, “A Sea Change and 

Its Undercurrents: Russian Perspectives of European Military 

Integration,” World Defence Systems, Vol. VIII, No. 1, 2005, pp. 67-

68.

249. Donald and Yarymovych, p. 4.

250. Brussels, Press Release of “Speech Given by NATO 

Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer at the Institute of Europe 

in Moscow on 24 June,” Brussels, June 24, 2005, FBIS SOV, June 

25, 2005.

251. The Twain Shall Meet, Washington, DC, 2002, p. 2.

252. Ibid.

253. Oksana Antonenko and Katherine Pinnick, eds., Russia and 

the European Union; Dov Lynch, ed., What Russia Sees; Monaghan.
92

254. Dmitry Trenin, Reading Russia Right, Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Policy Brief, No. 

42, October, 2005, p. 2.

255. Ibid., p. 8.

256. Smolnikov, p. 59.

257. See the sources cited in Blank, “Potemkin’s Treadmill,” 

pp. 174-205.

258. Mark Kramer, “Guerilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency 

and Terrorism in the North Caucasus: The Military Dimensions 

of the Russian-Chechen Conflict,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. LVII, 

No. 2, March, 2005, pp. 209-290; Mark Kramer, “The Perils of 

Counterinsurgency: Russia’s War in Chechnya,” International 

Security, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, Winter 2004-05, pp. 5-63.

259. “Interview with Sergei Ivanov,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, May 

4, 2005, FBIS SOV, May 4, 2005.

260. James Sherr, “The Dual Enlargements and Ukraine,” 

Anatol Lieven and Dmitri V. Trenin, eds., Ambivalent Neighbors: 

The EU, NATO, and the Price of Membership, Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002, p. 120.