Abstract
This chapter provides an analysis of NATO-Russia relations from 9/11 to the alliance’s announcement of its phased withdrawal from Afghanistan. While in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon NATO’s relations with Moscow appeared to experience a qualitative revitalization — which was formalized through the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) in 2002 — the events of 9/11 did not affect the fundamental dynamics of relations between the alliance and Moscow. NATO-Russia relations continue to be shaped by structural divergences that predated 9/11 and have their roots in the post-Cold War international settlement and Russia’s junior partner status within it; they stretch from missile and conventional defence to NATO enlargement and globalization and energy security. The Obama administration’s announcement of a ‘reset’ in relations with Moscow in 2009, although leading to a resumption of cooperation after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, failed to usher in a solid and long-term engagement. The chapter proceeds in four sections. It begins with a short summary of NATO-Russia relations since 9/11. It then lays out the main theoretical frameworks which have been used to explain relations between the alliance and Moscow: liberal, social-constructivist, and realist ideas about, and prescriptions for, NATO-Russia relations; the next section applies all sets of perspectives to the record of key post-9/11 NATO-Russia relations; the final section discusses the prospects for NATO-Russia relations after the financial crisis and the alliance’s forthcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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Notes
Dov Lynch, ‘“The Enemy is at the Gate”: Russia After Beslan’, International Affairs, Vol. 81 (1), January 2005, p. 141; Moscow’s international airport of Domodevo was the site of another major terrorist act on 24 January 2011, when an explosion caused by a suicide bomber killed 37 and injured 173 people.
J.A. Baker III, ‘Russia in NATO?’, Washington Quarterly, Winter 2002, p. 101.
For a comprehensive evaluation of relations between NATO and the Russian Federation since the end of the Cold War see Aurel Braun (ed.), NATO-Russia Relations in the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge, 2008).
Dmitri Trenin, ‘NATO and Russia: Partnership or Peril?’, Current History, Vol. 108 (720) (October 2009), p. 300.
Andrei Kelin, ‘Attitude to NATO Expansion: Calmly Negative’, International Affairs (Moscow), Vol.50(1), 2004, pp. 17–25.
Charles Fairbanks, ‘Georgia’s Rose Revolution’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 15 (2), April 2004, pp. 110–124.
A.R. Rachwald, ‘A‘Reset’ of NATO-Russia Relations: Real or Imaginary?’, European Security, Vol. 20 (1), 2011, p. 122.
In 2006 Moscow offered Kiev unilateral security guarantees in return for an agreement to permanently base Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian territory. Stephen Blank, ‘Russia and the Black Sea’s Frozen Conflicts in Strategic Perspective’, Mediterranean Quarterly, Vol. 19(3), Summer 2008, pp. 23–54.
The Kremlin, somehow resurrecting the abjured Brezhnev doctrine, claimed a right to intervene militarily in the territory of former Soviet republics to settle, with military force if necessary, any disputes in neighbouring states, maintain oil and gas pipelines running, and continue ‘the civilizing role of Russia on the Eurasian continent’. D. Trenin, ‘Pirouettes and Priorities: Distilling a Putin Doctrine’, The National Interest Winter (74), 2003/2004, pp. 76–83;
V. Frolov, ‘A new Post-Soviet Doctrine’, The Moscow Times, 20 May 2005.
J. Kulhanek, ‘Russia’s Uncertain Rapprochement with NATO’, The RUSI Journal, Vol. 156 (1), 2011, p. 41.
Merje Kuus, ‘“Love, Peace and NATO”: Imperial Subject-Making in Central Europe’, Antipode, Vol. 39 (2), 2007, p. 273.
Ronald D. Asmus, Richard L. Kluger, and F. Stephen Larrabee, ‘Building a New NATO’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72(4), September/October 1993, p. 23.
The US debate on of the establishment of a ‘League of democracies’ reflected the liberal belief in democracy promotion, just as the allure of inclusion in NATO among former Soviet bloc states would set the scene for a Kantian ‘perpetual peace’. See Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, ‘Democracies of the World Unite’, The American Interest, January/February 2007;
Charles A. Kupchan, ‘Minor League, Major Problems: The Case Against a League of Democracies’, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, pp. 96–109.
Lars S. Skálnes, ‘From the Inside Out: NATO Expansion and International Relations Theory’, Security Studies, Vol. 7(4), Summer 1998, pp. 44–87.
For a reading of relations between the West and Russia along these lines see Gale. A. Mattox, ‘Resetting the US–Russian Relationship: is ‘Cooperative Engagement’ Possible’, European Security, Vol. 20 (1), 2011, pp. 103–116.
Frank Schimmelfennig, ‘NATO Enlargement: A Constructivist Explanation’, Security Studies, Vol. 8 (2/3), 1999, p. 211.
Quoted in Helene Sjursen, ‘On the Identity of NATO’, International Affairs, Vol. 80 (4), 2004, p. 689;
Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO’, in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 357–399.
On social-constructivist accounts of NATO–Russia relations see Williams and Neumann, ‘From Alliance to Security Community: NATO, Russia, and the Power of Identity’ (2000);
Jef Huysmans, ‘Shape-shifting NATO: Humanitarian Action and the Kosovo Refugee Crisis’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 28, 2002, pp. 599–618;
E. Adler, ‘The Spread of Security Communities: Communities of Practice, Self-Restraint, and NATO’s Post–Cold War Transformation’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 14 (2), 2008, pp. 195–230.
E. Adler, ‘The Spread of Security Communities: Communities of Practice, Self-Restraint, and NATO’s Post-Cold War Transformation’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 14 (2), 2008, pp. 208–220.
The concept of cognitive authority, which develops from social epistemology, was defined by Wilson as the authority to influence thoughts that human beings would consider proper. Patrick Wilson, Second-Hand Knowledge: An Inquiry into Cognitive Authority (Greenwood Press: Westport, 1983), p. 15.
R. E. Kante & M. H. A. Larivé, ‘NATO and Russia: A Perpetual New Beginning’, Perceptions, Vol.XVII(1), Spring 2012, p. 76.
See M. E. Brown, ‘The Flawed Logic of Expansion’, Survival, Vol.37(1), Spring 1995, pp. 34–52;
Michael Mandelbaum, ‘Preserving the New Peace: the Case against NATO Expansion’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.74(3), May–June 1995, pp. 9–13;
M. Mandelbaum, The Dawn of Peace in Europe (New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996);
P. Zelikow, ‘The Masque of Institutions’, Survival, Vol.38(1), Spring 1996, pp. 6–18;
D. Reiter, ‘Why NATO Enlargement does not Spread Democracy’, International Security, Vol.25(4), Spring 2001, pp. 41–67.
E. Rumer and A. Stent, ‘Russia and the West’, Survival, Vol.51(2), April–May 2009, p. 94.
Jeffrey Mankoff, ‘The Politics of US Missile Defence Cooperation with Europe and Russia’, International Affairs, Vol. 88 (2), 2012, p. 345.
N. Korchunov, ‘You Say Defense We Say Threat’, The International Herald Tribune, 6 June 2012.
Ivanka Barzashka, Timor Kadyshev, Glitz Neuneck and Ivan Oelrich, ‘Bridging the Missile Defense Gap’, International Herald Tribune, 17 May 2012.
Janusz Bugajski, ‘Russia’s Pragmatic Reimperialization’, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, Vol.(4), no. 1, 2010, p. 15.
Alexander Bratersky, ‘Pundits Stand Divided on the Success of “Reset”’, The St. Petersburg Times, 28 March 2012.
While not antagonizing Moscow, some European members of the alliance are trying to reduce dependency from Russia. Prominent among these efforts is the Nabucco pipeline project, which would take gas from Iran, Turkmenistan, Iraq and Turkey to Central and Western Europe, bypassing Russia, with first deliveries expected in 2017. F.S. Larrabee, ‘Ukraine at the Crossroads’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol.30(4), Autumn 2006, pp. 45–61.
David Morgan, ‘US asks Poland for More Time on Missile Defense’, International Herald Tribune, 19 February 2009.
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© 2013 Luca Ratti
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Ratti, L. (2013). NATO-Russia Relations after 9/11: New Challenges, Old Issues. In: Hallams, E., Ratti, L., Zyla, B. (eds) NATO beyond 9/11. New Security Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391222_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391222_13
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