Gry Thomasen: NATO-Russia: Forming a joint NATO position

Despite the much-celebrated European unity that emerged at the onset of the Russian war against Ukraine in February 2022, the NATO alliance remains divided or unsettled on how to manage the relationship with Russia, as well as in the future. There appears to be no plan for peace in a second-world-war style where the allies met from the very beginning of the war to discuss the peace and future of Europe. Needless to say, these war-time discussions aided the allies in bringing the war to an end. NATO’s agreement on the post-war order in Europe is not only necessary after the end of the armed conflict in Ukraine, but an important aspect of NATO’s assistance in bringing the conflict to an end. 

Alliance dichotomy
The division among the allies on key issues such as how the alliance should manage Russia is not a new phenomenon in NATO, revealing that the alliance never managed to resolve the issue internally of how the post-Cold War order in Europe should function. This lies at the core of the current disagreements between the allies and crucially stands in the way of preparing the post-war order in Europe.  

When looking closer at the developments in the 1990’s and early 2000’s when first Poland (1999) and later Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (2004) joined NATO, it became clear that the eastward expansion of NATO did not automatically mean a meeting of minds on how NATO should manage Russia. Although very different in their outlook, the North-eastern flank countries had a markedly different perception of Russia, and their intentions, which shaped their security needs differently from their western counterparts. In general terms, the North-eastern flank countries had, and still appear to have a modern or Westphalian understanding of security in contrast to a Western post-modern understanding of security. Thus, while NATO in the post-Cold War years moved NATO closer to the new Russian Federation and moved the Alliance ‘out-of-treaty-area’ in a number of humanitarian interventions, the North-eastern flank countries attempted to escape the grip of Russia by embedding their political future and security in the Western security architecture. 

From a Western perspective, having a closer relationship with Russia was necessary to rebuild Europe after the Cold War, as NATO’s 1995 Study on NATO Enlargement explained: ‘A stronger NATO-Russia relationship should form another cornerstone of a new, inclusive and comprehensive security structure in Europe. NATO-Russia cooperation can help overcome any lingering distrust from the Cold War period, and help ensure that Europe is never again divided into opposing camps.’  NATO thus followed with the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and Russia in 1997 and established the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. 

At the same time, the North-eastern flank countries, engulfed by a sense of geopolitical vulnerability, embarked upon building their national defences. Today Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all spend more than 2% GDP on defence and have announced considerable increases following the armed conflict in Ukraine. Since becoming NATO members, the North-eastern flank advocated for moving the alliance to territorial defence and increasing the deterrence and force posture along the Eastern flank. In 2014 after the Russian invasion of Crimea, the North-eastern flank succeeded when NATO committed to territorial defence at the 2014 Wales Summit. However, it was not until 2016 at the Warsaw Summit when the flank succeeded in moving NATO towards a credible territorial defence and deterrence posture when NATO adopted the Enhanced Forward Presence to strengthen its presence on the Eastern flank.  

Moving beyond alliance dichotomy
Despite the relative success of the North-eastern flank in strengthening NATO’s posture on the flank and the war against Ukraine, which has brought NATO closer, the dichotomy continues to exist in NATO. On the North-eastern flank, countries continue to believe there remains distinct Eastern and Western understandings of security and importantly a difference of opinion on how to manage Russia. In the North-eastern flank’s perception, Russia can only be managed from a position of strength and this is seen to be at odds with their Western allies. This is evident in the internal debates in the alliance around risk reduction measures, such as de-escalation, transparency and arms control, and perhaps more evident, in statements from the political leaderships in the North-eastern flank countries that they were right in their assessment of Russia. 

This means that for NATO to contribute politically (beyond weapons supply) in bringing an end to the armed conflict in Ukraine and be able to provide a meaningful plan for the eventual peace, it must revisit the immediate post-Cold War past. It is long overdue for NATO to arrive at a joint understanding of how the security architecture of a Europe at peace looks and crucially, how Russia fits into this.