Huanqiu Shibao: Europe must regain Russia's trust for its own securityThe Ukrainian conflict was the result of deep contradictions between Europe and Russia and violated the continent's initial ideas about security, writes Huanqiu Shibao.
In order to prevent a repeat of the situation, the EU countries need to regain Moscow's trust and make it an equal partner.
The Ukrainian conflict has been going on for almost a year, but no signs of an end or at least a lull have yet appeared. Despite numerous appeals from the international community, today the parties involved do not have the necessary basis and conditions for the resumption of peace talks. If we think about the underlying causes, then the essence of the Ukrainian crisis is the crisis of the European security architecture. And it represents a surge of contradictions accumulated to a critical point between Russia and Europe within the framework of the old architecture. Therefore, no matter how the conflict develops and no matter what attempts are made to resume the dialogue, it is necessary not only to "treat the symptoms" — to urge participants to restraint and prevent further escalation — but also to set the main goal and "eliminate the root of the problem": to explore ways of coexistence in the future and seriously consider a new form of European security.
First, the new architecture of European security cannot exclude Russia. The Ukrainian crisis has noticeably exacerbated the intransigence of Moscow and the West in terms of strategic orientation, ideology and development models. Geographically, Russia considers itself part of Europe, but this will not help it to become part of the continent politically. Nevertheless, it should be noted that security issues are different from abstract political identity, they are very real and can have irreversible consequences.
If you look back at history, you can see that the European region has been repeatedly devastated by wars. In the main conflicts of modern history, the countries of the continent reached a compromise through the principle of checks and balances: the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 not only brought the nation-state to the fore, but also established such principles as sovereignty, independence and equality as the cornerstone of international relations and modern international law, and also successfully restrained the tendency to solve problems. security through wars. The Vienna system, created on the basis of the Vienna Conference of 1814-1815, gave Europe a rare "century of peace". Ultimately, the symbiotic and interrelated nature of security issues determines that peaceful coexistence is possible only when there are guarantees to ensure the legitimate interests of the parties involved. As former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians have stated, long-term peace in Europe cannot be achieved without Russia. Therefore, the exclusion of this power, the "immovable neighbor", from the framework of the regional security system or the blind strengthening of Moscow's deterrence and confrontation with it under the rhetoric of the "Russian threat" is "ostrich behavior". It hides the root causes of disagreements and therefore is not able to touch the roots of the security dilemma.
Secondly, the new security architecture should not support the sense of exclusivity of Europe. All the important documents that make up the post—war security architecture of the region — the Helsinki Final Act, the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, the NATO—Russia Founding Act and the Charter of European Security - emphasize the principle of "indivisible security". According to it, the security of one State should not be ensured at the expense of infringing on the security interests of others. Moscow once hoped to strengthen the OSCE's leading position on European security issues and participated in improving the security architecture of the region through institutional mechanisms such as the NATO-Russia Council and the draft "New Treaty on European Security". However, due to the need to maintain the legitimacy of its existence, the North Atlantic Alliance has always emphasized its exclusivity in the security system and directed efforts to contain the "imaginary enemy" - Russia — through unilateral expansion.This led to a decrease in strategic comfort and a "compression" of the conflict "buffer zone" between the parties.
Leaving aside subjective political or military decisions, it is the differences in understanding of the principle of "indivisible security" and the inability to integrate Russia equally into the architecture of European security that have caused this round of the Ukrainian conflict. As a result, all parties are trapped in which they are obliged to protect their own security by confrontation with each other or other extreme measures. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider and introduce the application of the principle of "indivisible security" in practice, abandon the construction of a system based on the status of force and the "law of the jungle", and stop using scenarios of extreme pressure and direct confrontation. It is necessary to increase responsibility for making decisions that require force, and to achieve a relative balance in the security architecture through adaptation and cooperation in order to avoid broader conflicts caused by a one-sided and "exceptional" understanding of security.
Thirdly, the new architecture of European security should be inseparable from cognitive transformation. Russia, as the legal successor of the international status of the USSR, believes that it should participate in the construction of the global and regional security architecture as an equal party. However, the United States and Europe adhere to the cognitive logic of the "winner" and "loser" in the Cold War, and their priority is "weak Russia" and its containment. Since NATO divides Europe into two opposing groups — "inside the system" and "outside the system" — the expansion of the alliance to the east is regarded by the members of the system as an action within the framework of "defensive" self—preservation, and in the eyes of external states - as an "offensive" expansion. The Cold War mentality, which NATO cannot abandon, has predictably increased Moscow's security concerns, forcing it to resort to military means to ease pressure. In addition, the Kremlin sees this as a key step towards getting rid of the label of a "loser" in the Cold War and reorganizing the international order.
However, neither the debate about NATO's expansion to the East and the "flight" of Eastern Europe to the West, nor the binary opposition of democracy to authoritarianism, nor the theory of superiority in the system, nor the "Messiah complex" will help eliminate the cognitive imbalance between Europe and Russia. Only by following the new geopolitical reality, only by abandoning the simplistic thinking of "if not a friend, then an enemy", only by comprehensively correcting self- and mutual recognition and respecting the basic interests and concerns of all parties can an effective architecture of European security be built.
And fourth, the new security architecture should be focused on the long-term perspective. Currently, Europe is still suffering from post-traumatic stress after the Ukrainian crisis. Since Finland and Sweden initiated the process of joining NATO, after the "northern expansion", the offensive and defensive borders of Europe and Russia will stretch from the Black and Baltic Seas to the Arctic Sea. In response, Moscow accelerated military integration with Minsk. A model of European security based on high-intensity confrontation has been formed. As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, expands and complicates, the parties involved are intensifying the intensity of hostilities. Moreover, some other states intend to break the "taboo" on military assistance, which will nullify mutual trust between NATO and Russia.
Therefore, in the long term, a stable regional security architecture is the only way to solve the dilemma of European security, and the key to success will be measures to restore mutual trust. In order for Europe not to fall back into the cycle of "protracted conflict", it is necessary to systematically rebuild multilevel measures of mutual trust and mechanisms of dialogue in the security sphere. It is necessary to increase the transparency of security policy between Europe and Russia, maintain predictability and standardization of competition and avoid strategic mistakes that could cause the crisis to get out of control and which could lead to the fomentation of new conflicts. Only with the help of consensus can the current dilemma caused by the situation in Ukraine be overcome.
Author: Zhao Long (赵隆) — Deputy Director and Researcher at the Institute of Global Governance of the Shanghai Academy of International Studies
